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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Franklin Art Works
Friday 28 April @ 14:24:16 |
 by Christopher Koza
What is now an inspiring gallery space was at various times a party venue, a bike shop, a house of risqué cinema, and initially a silent movie theater. But for the last four years this building on East Franklin Avenue is home of Franklin Art Works, a space that exhibits local and national visual and performance artists. While aspects of the building’s history are intriguing, the real appeal comes from the gems housed within.
Currently on exhibition are three national artists whose distinctive styles combine to create an underlying narrative. Collectively their work is rich in humor, dabbles in irony and seems both quaint and looming.
 Franklin
Art Works is divided into several rooms. The main lobby doubles as a small gallery
space, and here New York artist Justin Craun serves up a series of ink drawings
on paper titled Constantly Terrified. Each of his six drawings features
a bizarre antagonist who seems both approachable and horrific. From afar, the
subjects appear to be posing for a portrait, or lost in a moment. “The
Jazz Man” shows an old player dressed in his gigging clothes holding a
guitar and taking a call on a rotary phone. Nothing seems out of sorts until
a closer examination reveals careful lines, jagged geometry and facial features
twisted into an altogether aghast expression. In each portrait, the subject
looks out of touch and separated from a society that objectifies them.
Hiraki Sawa, a Japanese born filmmaker who lives and works in London offers
the imaginative “Dwelling,” a short film in which toy airplanes
take off from various platforms in the confines of a small apartment. Pillows,
floors, countertops and more are transformed into hangars and runways for a
crescendo army of little planes zigzagging and whooshing through the air. It’s
a hypnotic and satisfying film, one that is both chaotic and nostalgic. Certainly
many children have willed their matchbox cars to suddenly animate, and many
bureaucrats have wished to infest every dusty corner with burgeoning industry.
The third artist on exhibition is Lamar Peterson, a painter based in New York
City who has shown there extensively. Peterson's work is mainly pop art and
some of it comes with a cast of recognizable characters. Michael Jackson shows
up in a couple of very creepy paintings, and Peterson pays homage to Basquiat
in a portrait of the artist with some of the late icon’s imagery. The
thought provoking “Holes” depicts a group of young island children
investigating a series of dark holes on a beach near the ocean. A white businessman
figure floats above the sand like a car dealership balloon harnessed by tropical
vines. From the holes pour hearts and other Beetlejuice-type oddities. Peterson
is known for confronting racial issues in his artwork, and “Holes”
exemplifies this.
Franklin Art Works is a welcomed and noteworthy place in the arts community,
and a success story for the East Franklin/Phillips Neighborhood. ||
The exhibition runs through April 29 at Franklin Art Works, 1021 E.
Franklin Ave., Mpls., 612-872-7494. Gallery hours are Wed.–Sat. noon–5
p.m.
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