CRASHCOURSE III
Olson Gallery
Bethel University
February 2 – March 11, 2012
The third installment of John Silvis’ Crashcourse series was shown at the Olson Gallery at Bethel University in St. Paul, MN from February 2nd to March 11th, 2012.
The multi-media installation includes photography, posters, hand stitched images on felt, custom designed wallpaper, and sculptures to explore crashed car imagery in art as existential metaphor.
Referencing Andy Warhol’s crash photo silk-screens and John Chamberlain’s large twisted car sculptures, Crashcourse includes life size assemblage sculptures that hint a the potential of calamity. Recent experiments with disparate materials led to maquettes for the “Crashassemblages”, which are made of custom wallpaper, designer tape, industrial felt, and Plexiglas car silhouettes, combined on a life size MDF board structure. The skeletal MDF board shapes are made of two perpendicular triangles or two trapezoids joined at the center.
A vital component of the Crashcourse series are the “Crashobjects” which introduce an actual yet altered remnant of the automobile to the visual vocabulary. Silvis spray paints on the surfaces of car replacement parts with bright, warm colors and the individual car parts form contrived relationships completely foreign to their original purpose. Although completely futile in function, their presence communicates a bizarre primal energy and indicates the potential of renewal.
