The "2008 Biennial" runs through Aug. 24, but a delightfully zany piece of it will be up only through Monday at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. Matthew Barton's mixed-media installation "The Affects of the Effects of Gravity" is part science-fiction B movie, part apocalypse, totally over the top, and utterly fascinating.
At the gallery entrance the wind rustles through a projected forest fronted by artificial turf upon which rest real log segments that serve as seats. An oversized cutout mushroom delivers an ambivalent message: It's a poisonous amanita but also the white speckled red toadstool of fairy tales.
The visitor passes through an arch of (photographs of) deer antlers that's studded with an eclectic mix of gem-bright flowers -- morning glories, petunias, water lilies, cacti -- that could be from a garden catalog.
To the right, a forest smoulders ominously in another projection.
And beyond, a vision engulfs the senses. Pushing out from the far wall are the hoodoos and other eroded earthen towers of Southwestern landscapes, backed by snow-covered mountains and, behind them, a floor to ceiling night sky of drifting planets, multitudinous stars and colorful nebulae.
An occasional orb floating past seems to have a face -- a man in the moon extension of one's imagination, it would seem, until one notices the grimace on a sandstone pillar or figural forms farther off.
And then something -- meteorite or missile -- streaks across space, strikes land and erupts in fire and smoke. More follow. Silver slivers of lightening flash and dart into the ground. The sounds of explosions replace those of crickets. Armageddon, or just dinosaur bad luck?
Absolute kitsch and absolute cool.
And especially appropriate in this filmmaking and screening venue.
With all of that in place, does "Affects" really need the cave of skulls, the weathered wood frontier shack embellished with bleached bones?
Not really. Unless Barton wanted to add to his spoof of the sci-fi genre takes on Westerns, horror and Indiana Jones-style adventure films in this funny and clever, site-suited extravaganza.
One wonders what he's capable of pulling off next.
Barton is also represented in a program of works screened throughout the day at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, where most of the Biennial is installed.
Three other Biennial artists exhibit at Filmmakers: Jenifer Cooney, Greg Karkowsky and Robert Raczka.
Karkowsky's "Adventure Awaits" is a futuristic one-person, open-sided aluminum craft with metallic red upholstery and seat belt that might have more presence suspended from a ceiling rather than tucked along a wall.
Raczka's "Pittsburgh, November, 2007" is one of a very effective series of digital photographic sequences he's been developing of late. (Another is at the Center and readers may have seen his work for "Contained" at the Three Rivers Arts Festival.)
Again suited to the venue, the 33 images pull the viewer along somewhat as the spinning frames of a movie do, inviting a real/reel time walk with the artist. This moody night trip glows with saturated warm color. Raczka's given the city an inviting feel by removing the usual dark-light contrasts that encourage shadows and what may hide in them.
Cooney is worth seeking out on the far side of the building, where she's collaged a fanciful "Mountain" onto the window over a stairway, and drawn 19 works onto the wall at the stair top gathered under the title "[Expletive] you! I'm not a landscape artist."
No matter that two pieces are titled "Meditative Landscape" or that others flow with hills and valleys. It's apparent that Cooney enjoys drawing and paint, her vibrant detailed compositions calling to mind the free willed and obsessive fantastical expression of folk artists, the patterning similarly repetitious and colorful.
She also seems to like stairways, wherein more of her paintings dwell at the Center.
"Affects" (and others) may be seen from noon to 9 p.m. today, tomorrow and Monday (closed over the weekend) at 477 Melwood Ave., Oakland. Admission is free. Other Biennial works will remain through Aug. 24, from noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. For information, call 412-681-5449 or visit www.pittsburghbiennial.org.
19th-century gardens
At 7 tonight a talk on Pittsburgh's 19th-century gardens using historical photography from the days of magic lantern presentations will be given by Jamie Shriver, assistant archivist at Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, at Silver Eye Center for Photography, 1015 E. Carson St., South Side ($15, $10 members and students). 412-431-1810 or www.silvereye.org.
First Published: July 2, 2008, 8:00 a.m.
