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2002

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Arleen Ng, Staff

In his West Oakland studio, artist Jon Brumit poses with his broken shopping cart, which he will exhibit in Saturday’s “One-Minute Art Show.”

San Francisco Chronicle – Friday, August 10, 2001

Flash craft

Don’t blink! Contemporary art in one minute flat

by Angela Hill, Staff Writer

Oakland

Blink not, lest ye miss.

Indeed, any reckless eye closures could squander valuable viewing time during an unusual art opening at an East Oakland gallery Saturday night. That’s because this is not your run-of-the-MOMA, mingle-and-muse, look-and-linger art opening.

It only takes a minute.

Yup. “The One-Minute Art Show” at Your Local Gallery on East 18th Street will be quite true to its name, consisting of one single solitary 60-second minute. It takes longer to microwave a Cup-o-Noodles. Good gawd, just reading this far you’ve probably used up a third of the time right here.

This mere meager minute will be action-packed, however. On Saturday at 9:30 p.m. – sharp – about 50 artists will get a shot at their one minute of fame. (They don’t even get the Warhol-suggested allowance, and will have to dig up the other 14 on their own.)

At the designated moment, the artists will display their work. All at once.

“It will be kind of a pick-and-choose thing as to what to look at,” said co-curator Marc Horowitz. “It might be chaotic, but it’ll be fun. So really, people better not blink much. It will be kind of like going really fast through a really small town.”

Horowitz will signal the start with some sort of sign, which he says is a secret. He may have the “Let’s get ready to rumble” guy lined up, for all we know.

Then the artists will spring into action. There will be the furious undraping of paintings, the sketching of portraits, the snapping of photos. Somebody will be doing computer art. Another will have something going on a projector. And there will be performance artists too, including an 18-member Brazilian dance group. Oh, and a trapeze artist said he might come by.

Even the customary wine and cheese has to be slurped down in 60 seconds flat.

“It will be a very heavy minute,” said co-curator Luke Dickson.

You’d think it might be kind of a rip-off for the artists, and the audience too, But Dickson says it will just make for a more intense experience.

“The show itself will be a performance in its own right,” he said. “We’re not trying to be pretentious here. It’s not meant to say, ‘Screw the art world.’ It’s about how people perceive the normal art setting. It’ll be a different kind of energy. An intense spark.

“And the average time people spend looking at a painting is, like, four seconds or something anyway,” Horowitz said. “So that plays into it too.”

One of those participating will be John Brumit, an interdisciplinary artist, who has a studio in West Oakland and also hosts the occasional Big Wheel Race down Lombard Street in San Francisco, traffic cops permitting.

The title of the piece he’ll be presenting in The One-Minute Art Show is Shining a Bright Light on a Broken Object, which is pretty explanatory.

“I’ll have a broken shopping cart as the object, and I’ll encircle the object and document it,” he said, which in non-artist terms means he’ll aim a light on the cart and videotape it. – the cart in the foreground with all the other artists doing whatever it is they do in the background.

Brumit likes the one minute idea because it turns a traditional art opening on its cut-off ear. Instead of just standing there mingling, the audience will be under all the pressure to check out this stuff in a hurry.

The show itself may end in the blink of an eye, but there will be more going on. “A surprise for everyone at the end," Horowitz said. It’s another secret, so all he would say about it is, “Think pink and everything will be OK.”

Your Local Gallery is at 1148 East 18th Street, Suite 14, Oakland. For more information, call (510) 872-7326 or visit http://www.yourlocalgallery.com.

© Alison Ulman 2004