ART/EVENT: Conrad Freiburg's Slipping Glimpser @ Linda Warren Gallery

Event: Conrad Freiburg's Slipping Glimpser Opening Night
Location: Linda Warren Gallery / 1052 W. Fulton Market / Chicago, IL
Date: 09/08/2006

Review: Upon meeting Conrad Freiburg, "artist" isn't the first word that pops to mind. His dress and demeanor would seem to place him at the local dive bar with blistered hands wrapped around a pint glass. It's the disarming smile and wonder in his eyes that makes one realize that Conrad is a thinker. As a freelance woodworker, he is also a doer. His work ethic and practicality in daily life may be one of the things that makes Conrad's artistic and fantastical visions so much more accessible. Freiburg knows art is serious business, but his work doesn't aim to exclude anyone from the base enjoyment of it all.

That enjoyment and wonder that underlines all of Freiburg's past works has been uprooted and stacked atop itself in his newest work. Finding himself simultaneously fascinated with the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893 (The World's Fair made popular by the book Devil In The White City) and the philosophy and work of artist Willem DeKooning, The Slipping Glimpser was born. DeKooning often thought himself most useful and interesting when he was on the brink of meaning. If he knew exactly what he was doing, the mood would dampen into banality, but when he was working on something where the outcome was unknown, that was interesting. He was slipping.

The slipping part of it all was only half of it for Freiburg. On New Year's Eve, 2004/05, Conrad built a large wooden ramp for the stray bowling balls in his warehouse apartment (one I was lucky enough to share with him at the time). The idea was that you didn't need to turn on the television to watch a ball drop. You could watch the ball drop over and over again. On the floor in front of the ramp, Conrad painted a bright red and white bulls-eye. When the bowling balls dropped that night, they destroyed. The idea, despite all of its destruction and mess, was beautiful. Some at the New Year's party smashed bottles, some smashed old toys from their childhood. Beyond breaking our resolutions (literally), there was the minor thrill of the interaction between the people. Oh yes, and the danger.

Eventually, the temporality of whatever was put in the bowling ball's path (not to mention the temporality of the ramp itself as it wore down) clicked with Freiburg's fascination with the World's Fair. People from all walks of life worked hard and long to erect the famous White City, only to have it torn down shortly after. Yet, the 1893 World's Fair is one of the most remembered. A fleeting moment of historical beauty to be remembered long after the active creators had passed. The immortality of experience and grandeur, adhering to Daniel Burnham's maxim to "make no small plans, they have no passion to stir men's blood", was what made the World's Fair survive history. Freiburg held on to this thought and began expanding the ramp into an unknown interactive and towering structure that would both pay homage to the inspiration and set out to thrill the new audience. As he was building the namesake structure, Freiburg himself became a Slipping Glimpser in the most satisfying process.

Equally satisfying is the result, which is now on display at the Linda Warren Gallery in the Fulton Market gallery district of Chicago. While galleries are widely known for being sparse and sterile, Conrad's winding structure, constructed from ash wood, fills the space. Covering the entire length, breadth and height of the gallery, the Slipping Glimpser inspires awe from all ages even before it is put into action. At the opening reception on the evening of September 8th, people clutched their free beer, hot dogs and popcorn while carefully examining each of the Slipping Glimpsers sections and mechanisms. Many seemed to be wondering what the point was. The inspiration of the World's Fair is represented by 12 simple computer print outs, labeling the various architectural wonders and locations that once were, proving that Freiburg doesn't need to rely on other's work to "stir men's blood." Children and adults alike could be seen poking and prodding the numerous moving parts that included cranks, harnesses for the bowling balls and track shifting levers.

With a crowd larger than any I have witnessed at a gallery opening, Freiburg brought out the specially made transparent bowling ball. Encased inside of each ball are remnants of Freiburg's other sculptures that were destroyed under the original ramp at a fundraiser event held at his previous loft apartment. The ball was placed at the beginning of the structure and from there, it was up to the audience to make the Slipping Glimpser slip.

The mechanisms that propel the bowling ball through the Slipping Glimpser's twelve sections are slow and clunky. As a little girl turned the crank to send the ball up the first incline, I first heard groans of impatience, then gasps of anticipation. Patience and effort are integral parts of the sculpture's meaning and effect. Long bouts of clicking and turning cranks are rewarded, however, with quick, slick and dangerous bursts of kinetic energy that sends the ball careening down ramps, through a complete loop and around curves. One section of the sculpture takes 400 cranks to lift the bowling ball up a minor incline. It would be just as easy to pick the ball up and place it at the top, but all of the hard work is often what makes Freiburg's work pay off. After several twists, turns, climbs and zig-zagging descents, the finale of the Slipping Glimpser cashes in with a ramp that sends the ball hurtling through the air to crash down on a wooden landing representing the "Agricultural Arena" of the World's Fair, which not only catches, but also feeds the ball back to the initial harness. The final destruction and quick wear and tear that each moving part of the sculpture experiences caused several "breakdowns" during the show, but it is these breakdowns that remind us of the destruction that goes hand in hand with the creation of art. It reminds us of the impermanence of beauty and what awaits anyone who holds on to things too tightly. When each moving part of the structure is reset, or reconstructed, by hand, the thrill and anticipation is not exhausted. Rather, the audience quickly became a team in setting the sculpture in motion again.

Part Rube Goldberg kinetic sculpture and part meditation on the very nature of creativity itself, Freiburg's Slipping Glimpser succeeds in doing what very few modern art pieces do. While most modern art comments and re-contextualizes, it leaves very little room for interpretation or engagement of the audience. The Slipping Glimpser downplays the artistic and aggrandizes the community required to sustain the art world. Though certainly one man's vision, the Slipping Glimpser becomes everyone's memory. Even if the memory is the fear of a wide-eyed child being crushed by a speeding lucite ball flying off of a rickety wooden track, the Slipping Glimpser engages and excites without sacrificing the high-art concepts that are to be found by those who wish to dig a bit. Alongside the immense joy you will experience while witnessing this structure in action, that is the Slipping Glimpser's true success.

It has been said that art has the ability to bring people together. Conrad Freiburg has succeeded in doing so with the Slipping Glimpser. Never before, has a gallery show been so full of joy and devoid of pretense. Chicago is lucky to have artists of his calibre, but with our gallery culture focusing on consumables rather than creativity, we may need to work a bit harder if we wish to keep him.

You can start by making your way over to the Linda Warren Gallery (located on 1052 W. Fulton Market) before the show closes on October 14th.

Rating: 4.5 / 5

Linda Warren Gallery: LINK
Conrad Freiburg's Analogy Shop: LINK

Douglas Rushkoff Interviewed In New Boing Boing Podcast

Writer, media theorist and friend of Consumatron.com, Douglas Rushkoff is interviewed on the new Boing Boing podcast, "Get Illuminated." It seems like Boing Boing is going crazy with the podcasts lately... and I say hurrah!

Some of the topics Rushkoff speaks about are the renewed interest in Timothy Leary and Aleister Crowley, the plot of the new comic he's writing for Vertigo comics and the book he's been waiting all his life to write. A discussion with Doug, whether it be on the weather or the future of media, is always guaranteed to push the boundaries of conventional thought and make you think, so be sure to give this one a listen!

More info is available at Boing Boing in the original post: LINK
Download the MP3 version of the podcast here: LINK

**And don't forget to read the Mediatron review of Douglas Rushkoff's phenomenal business book, "Get Back In The Box," here: LINK

COMIC: Charlie C. Chatterbee: World's 1st Educated Puppet

Title: Charlie C. Chatterbee: World's 1st Educated Puppet
Author: Peter Klockau
Publisher: Self-Published / On The Market

Review: (Note: In the spirit of full disclosure, I feel I must tell you that artist and writer Peter Klockau and I are good friends. Obviously, this creates a natural bias that most journalists would look down upon. Luckily, my editor is a real stand-up guy and has allowed this review to be published. I understand if you stop reading this review based on my friendship with the subject, but it will be your loss. With all of this knowledge out on the table, I have tried to be as objective and critical of my good friend's work as I can. Besides, if Pete can't take a few jabs from his good friend, he should think about covering the tab more often when we go out (I'm kidding... I can't be bought with beer... not with the amount bought on his salary anyway...which is why someone should publish Pete now).)

Peter Klockau's work is primarily self-published. A few of his illustrations have been used in tour ads for bands signed to Bloodshot Records as well as others. Most recently, his work was seen on windows and bulletin boards around Chicago advertising Munly and the Lee Lewis Harlots' show at the South Union Arts Center. While relatively unknown, Peter's use of mature moods contrasted with a cartoon style is unmistakable and is sure to become a part of the visual lexicon of band-flyer scholars and comics aficionados everywhere.

Though not his first self-published comic, Charlie Chatterbee has taken Klockau's storytelling to a level higher than most widely published comic writers achieve in their first major work. His previous work can be seen on the daily comics blog over at peteklockau.blogspot.com. Though his style and ability to portray accurate facial expressions via anthropomorphic bears and hairballs is apparent from this early work, the story telling is jagged and rushed.

Chatterbee is the story of what Klockau calls an "educated puppet." The protagonist is an out of work and out of place ventriloquist doll named Charlie who once was a popular stage attraction shortly after the end of the first world war. After a national depression, another world war and the advent of America's favorite pastime (television), the public didn't have much enthusiasm for Charlie and his ilk anymore. Unfortunately for Charlie C. Chatterbee, World's First Educated Puppet, live theater is all he and his handler, Mickey, knew. The two of them kept up the act for rapidly shrinking crowds until Mickey finally passed away and Charlie fell into a great depression of his own. Along with a few other vaudeville sidekicks (A magician's rabbit named Lester and a boa constrictor named Humphrey), Charlie spends his days lounging around an old boarded up theater that is all but forgotten to the rapidly evolving world outside. It is unusual for a comic only twenty pages in length to serve as an exposition, a comment on society and an entertaining story all in one go. Klockau, however, manages to find an adequate pace for all of these ideas without anything feeling rushed.

Chatterbee, with all of its cuteness and anthropomorphism, could easily be dismissed as a children's story upon first glance, but Chatterbee's mannerisms and habits don't allow for this pigeonholing. Not only does a smoking ventriloquist doll send a negative message to children, but one stray spark could be the end for the wooden protagonist. Beyond these superficial, yet integral, aspects of the character's personality lay far more complex themes that could each be examined at length in future issues. From the anxieties of a changing world and the unstoppable acceleration of the mediascape to the theme of taking control of one's own destiny, Chatterbee could turn out to be an engaging and imaginative morality tale told through the comics medium. The most satisfying issue dealt with in this book, however, is how someone goes about finding their own voice. Bereft of the old showman, Mickey, Chatterbee must speak for himself. The ventriloquist doll must speak for himself. This is a dangerous setup that Klockau has penned for himself and his characters, but it is one that the reader cannot help but want to explore. This story could easily drift into heavy-handed and shallow allegory, but if Chatterbee is meant to appeal to adults and educated poppets alike, the fine line it so deftly balances atop needs to be maintained.

Character exposition is quick and heavy during the latter part of the book. While Chatterbee's character is only exposed through his own inner monologue, Lester and Humphrey give away much of themselves through snappy dialogue. I was left, appropriately, wanting to learn more about Chatterbee, but almost bored with the comic relief of his two sidekicks. Though they are well placed to serve as a counterpoint to Chatterbee's silent brooding, I found myself hoping that future antics are more subdued. Perhaps I felt this way because of the comic's abrupt ending. Though the cliffhanger ending is appropriate and the second-to-last page is a masterpiece in itself, I felt that as a first issue, the book ended with a cliffhanger feeling that belongs closer to the "third act."

Told primarily through era-appropriate first-person colloquial voiceover through Charlie, none of the panels or pages are cluttered with text. Instead, Klockau knows exactly when to let his heavy-lined drawings do the talking. with stark black and white depictions of each character and setting, just as much of the story is intimated through images as it is through words. Despite the use of voiceover, Klockau knows that comics are not simply novels with pictures or films with print. It is rare that such an early work is aware of its place in the media landscape. From this foundation, Klockau's future work is more than likely going to push boundaries rather than bounce around aimlessly inside of them as most modern independent comics do.

Anyone with a taste for intelligent, yet fun, comic book literature should keep an eye on the shelves for Klockau's work. In the meantime, you can check out his daily comics blog or other illustration work through the links below.

Rating: 4 / 5

Peter Klockau's Daily Comic Blog: LINK
Klockau Illustration: LINK

ROADSIDE ATTRACTION: The House On The Rock

Attraction: The House On The Rock
Location: Highway 23 (Between Spring Green & Dodgeville) / Spring Green, WI
Date Of Visit: 09/07/06

Review: How far would you go to defend your father's honor against an off-handed comment made by an egotistical architect whose structures may look pretty but all leak? Alex Jordan Jr. went the distance. When Frank Lloyd Wright dismissed Jordan's father from the Taliesin home by telling him, "I wouldn't hire you to design a cheese crate or a chicken coop," Jordan Jr's craw got royally clogged and the Drano still hasn't gotten through after his death. Begun in the 1940's, the House on the Rock was built as a parody of Wright's architectural style on one of the highest points surrounding the famed studio home of Wright. At first, the house was only an oddity due to its epileptic Japanese style and death-defying way it wrapped itself in and around the very rock cliff it was built upon. As time marched on and Jordan Jr. became ever more the obsessed builder and collector, the House expanded into what is widely opined to be the world's Mecca of roadside attractions. The writer Neil Gaiman even went so far as to use the House On The Rock as a location in his great novel, American Gods, where he suggests that it is the spiritual center of America. After visiting this strange and wonderful complex twice now, I have a very strong feeling that Gaiman could be right.

To do the House on The Rock justice, one would have to write volumes. I suggest you read my brief overview, then plan a trip there yourself. No words can do this peculiarity justice.

The House On The Rock complex consists of the original house and several intertwined buildings containing some of the rarest and most awe inspiring pieces of worldly ephemera Wisconsin has to offer. There are three tours available for visitors to take. All are self guided. My group of oddity addicts decided to go for all three. Even before entering, we found ourselves commenting on the cement lizard sculptures in the parking lot, the wizard statue near the entrance and the large cement marking that is labeled as a dinosaur foot print from the "dinosaur age." Obviously research and specifics took a backseat to Jordan Jr's hoarding.

The first tour consists of the house itself. With warping rooms, walls that alternate between wood and jagged edges of the rock itself and ceilings far too low for the 6'4" Jordan, there is a claustrophobic and displaced feeling one feels while walking through the house. Within the first five minutes of your journey, you pass indoor fountains, antique and exotic furniture, sculptures of saints and demons and animatronic music machines which contain actual instruments that are outfitted with mechanical contraptions that cause the music to play itself. Most of these machines cost tokens, which you can purchase from change machines along the way, but if you tour the HOTR on a busy day, you will probably be able to witness the bizarre ingenuity free of charge. All three tours contain pieces of foreshadowing as to what will come next along your path, but the House, with all of its priceless and juxtaposed knickknacks, seems to be the cluttered closet from which everything you are about to see came.

The most impressive and precarious section of the house is the famed Infinity Room, which is a long and diminishing corridor that hangs out from the house over 218 feet with no support. As you walk to the end of the Infinity room, you come to a window in the floor which allows you to look down over the tops of the trees below you. 150 feet below is the ground. As the Infinity Room creaks and sways in the wind, I couldn't help but wonder when it might fall.

Once you exit the house, enter the house, then exit the house again, you soon find yourself on a recreation of a dark cobblestone alleyway. Known as The Streets Of Yesterday, this section is where the reality of Jordan's hoarding obsession sets in. By peering through windows of shop recreations, you will witness blacksmithing tools, typewriters, dentistry instruments that could be used as torture devices, puppets and more. One of the stand out shop window displays is that of an old apothecary. Through the windows, you are able to see actual medicine bottles and ads from the early days of chemical healing. Two of my favorites were "Dr. Kilmer's Female Remedy" and the ingenious weight loss solution, sanitized tape worms. Just swallow a couple of tape worms and eat as much as you want. You'll always stay thin!

Though the buildings that house these odd collections are not a thing of beauty, the transition from one to the other is overshadowed by your open-mouthed awe at the unbelievable amounts of stuff surrounding you. Somehow, we soon found ourselves in a towering room with a ramp that wrapped around the outside, climbing four stories. In the middle, sits a two hundred foot high sculpture of a whale-like sea monster simultaneously battling a squid and enjoying a meal of unfortunate sailors. Along the journey upwards you see various maritime artifacts and model ships.

Somewhere between the Heritage of the sea (as the maritime exhibit is dubbed) and the House's famed Carousel Room sits an exhibit of armor, weaponry and Asian artifacts. These rooms are also loaded with music machines such as an accordion symphony and a giant diorama of Chinese instruments, figures and decor known as the Mikado. The Mikado is one of the most complex music machines throughout the HOTR's three tours. With countless moving parts including lutes, drums and even Chinese fans, the haunting tune that plays after you drop two tokens in is as mesmerizing as the physicality of the Mikado itself.


My personal favorite piece of musical equipment, however, is one that cannot be played, token or not. In a small Victorian display sits an odd machine known as a phonoliszt violina, which is a piano that contains three violins inside which can be controlled by the keys and foot pedals. This is the only phonoliszt violina on display in America (someone correct me if I am wrong). Anyone know where I can take lessons to learn how to play this bizarre instrument?

Next came the Carousel Room. There are actually three carousels in the House on the Rock complex, but the centerpiece of all of the revolving madness is the world's largest carousel which consists of over 239 unique carousel creatures from around the world. None of the carousel statues, by the way, are horses. Instead, the figures on the carousel range from humanoid to lizard to monster. More automated instruments blare and sputter around you as a theme song that sounds as if it were from a circus in a David Lynch film blares you through the exit which is shaped like a gargoyle's mouth.

The beginning of the third and final tour starts with the Organ room, which not only contains several old organs and whiskey stills (don't ask, because I don't know), but also serves as an organ yourself. As you wrap and wind up and around the dim red-lit building, you begin to notice stray pipes and sounds coming from behind walls and through openings. Never quite sure where the keys were or where the mechanics start or stop, there is nothing to do at this point but wander, point and click away if your batteries have held up.

At this point, our visit had taken us over three hours. It would have been a lot longer had we come on a day where there were more visitors. We lucked out. The next room which featured an enormous cannon that must have needed an elephant to operate it, another carousel with nothing but dolls on it and various other weaponry and artifacts of innocence, took us no less than a half hour to wander around. Through the next doorway, we heard what sounded suspiciously like alpha male whining. This was verified when we realized that the next room was the doll room. Dolls and their houses of all sizes are collected and set up behind glass windows. The male whining ahead of us came in the form of a curt and fragile voice loudly proclaiming that the owner wasn't "gonna look at any stupid dollhouses." There is a lot of the old world captured and collected in the various exhibits of The House on The Rock and, apparently, this also applies to some of the people who visit. Though I am not a dollhouse enthusiast either, I found myself stopping every so often to admire the precision and attention to detail that some of the antique toys and models contained.


As a fitting extension to the Doll room, the next and final section of the tour was a collection of miniature scale circus dioramas. This was basically a stylistic repeat of the Doll Room with tents instead of houses and freaks instead of young girls in dresses. The amount of detail in some of these miniatures was, again, phenomenal. Some of the pieces, I realized, had been featured on an episode of the PBS show, Antiques Roadshow that I saw a few weeks back and, if memory serves, are quite valuable.

After gazing in awe for just a few moments more, my friends and I finally saw the light of the world's worst gift shop. Perhaps it was due to the overwhelming amount of rare and unique ephemera we had just wandered through, but I just don't think a wooden door knocker captures the essence of the House on the Rock. With even more unrelated gift shops on the way out of The House On The Rock (Oh my god! That sweatshirt with a kitten face on it and the HOTR logo is so cute! I have to buy twelve for my nephews!) we made a hobbled sprint-walk to the car. The look but don't buy rule could not be more appropriate here.

The House on the Rock is a place of wonder and ultimate commitment of someone who didn't know when to stop at anything. If Alex Jordan Jr. were still alive today, there is no doubt in my mind that he would still be pinching every penny in order to buy the world's oldest totem pole or some such other item. The purpose would be unknown to us as Jordan was quite the hermit and unpleasant human being who was obsessed with lonely grandeur, but the result would have been to provide yet another room or collection that made people pause along the way with mouths hanging open, oohing, aahing or asking what it was all about. Now that the state of Wisconsin owns the attraction, there are additions that are made every so often. Some of the restorations and forthcoming additions have been in the works for nearly twenty years which leads me to believe that we will never see a completion to this bizarre world of obsession and oddball history.

No single visit to the House on the Rock can explain what is contained on that rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin. I've had trouble doing justice to the parts that remain in my memory. The House on the Rock will appeal to those interested in architecture, museums and thrift stores, but the people who absolutely need to make the trip to this funhouse of frivolity are the ones like me, who find attractions like the world's largest ball of twine far more interesting than the Four Seasons hotel.

The House On The Rock is the ultimate in roadside attractions. Every smashed penny museum, oversized plaster animal statue and wonder spot in the country dreams about becoming this fantastic. There are most assuredly ghosts living here... Ghosts that have been made gods by virtue of the time and attention given to them.

Rating: 4.75 / 5

Bonus: I was able to find an mp3 of what a phonoliszt violina sounds like when played: Listen.

Chicago Events To Check In September!

Things I want to do in September. If you see me, say hi. If you don't, say hi to someone else you don't personally know.

• Sept. 1-3 [ Chicago Jazz Festival @ Grant Park (12 - 11PM, Free) ]
• Sept. 8 [ Conrad Freiburg's Slipping Glimpser @ Linda Warren Gallery (6 - 9PM, Free) ]
• Sept. 9 [ Handmade Market @ Empty Bottle (Noon - 4:30PM, Free) ]
• Sept. 16-17 [ Renegade Craft Fair @ 1425 N. Damen (11AM - 6PM, Free) ]
• Sept. 20-24 [ The Wire's 4th Annual Adventures In Modern Music @ The Empty Bottle (9PM, $15/day) ]
• Sept. 28 [ Alpana Singh @ Women & Children First (7:30 PM, Free) ]
• Sept. 29 [ Chicago Critical Mass @ Daley Plaza (5:30 PM, Free) ]
  
• Sept. 29 [ Tortoise @ Empty Bottle (7PM & 10PM, $18/ea.) ]