Check your pretension at the door. Thunder-Sky, Inc.’s latest batch of exhibitions, all three of which opened Aug. 10, examine pop culture in a strikingly sincere light, rendering its comforts and pitfalls through the lens of folk art.
In the Northside gallery’s main space, Fronkenstein takes a retrospective look at the career of Camp Washington painter and polymath Robert Fronk, whose body of work spans nearly four decades and includes a vast array of media. Most noticeable from the street are his assemblages: imposing, primary-colored sculptures that resemble large, metallic Tinker Toy creations.
Constructed from foundry materials in the late-aughts, Fronk’s structures feel like the product of a scrambled timeline. A horizontally-arranged piece, for instance, resembles the fossilized remains of an aquatic dinosaur despite its industrial aesthetic. A winged robot that could be mistaken for the Mothman is a glimpse at the future as seen from the past.
Though he wasn’t aware of the connection until completing them, Fronk — who showed up to the opening in a cowboy hat and plastic doll hand necklace — says that the readymade sculptures took some inspiration from the forward-thinking work of the early 20th century.
“I didn’t intend on it, but when I put that piece on top of that head, I was like, ‘If this is not the Italian Futurists, Duchamp, Batman, then I don’t know what,’ ” he says.
Fronk sees completing a project as akin to placing the last piece in a puzzle — he’s opposed to working with a particular concept in mind; instead he lets ideas form organically as he progresses. Nowhere is this process more evident than in his stained glass window, produced in collaboration with local artist Gillian Thompson.
“It’s an amalgamation of several salvaged stained glass windows,” says Thunder-Sky co-founder Keith Banner. “There are glass boulders that come into the frame here and there.”
There’s an ominous quality to Fronk’s seraphic scene. Though its glass puzzle pieces fit together perfectly, the window’s wonky breaks in shape and color create a disorienting, yet entrancing effect. A winged angel in the center of the piece occupies the foreground and background at the same time, phasing through a lattice of red halos and cathedral walls as its hands reach out in impossible contortions. A yellow skull peeks out knowingly from below.
Ghosts in the Machine
Thunder-Sky’s basement appeared to be the site of a surrealist costume party on Aug. 10. A cardboard model of the USS Enterprise dangled from the ceiling, surrounded by tissue paper meteors, as a painted standee of Charlie Brown in his bedsheet ghost costume stood watch below. Disco ball lights darted about the floor.
“This is like our Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” said Banner, which is as apt a description as any.
Curated by Cincinnati street artist Technique2012, See Ghosts Clearly melds the paranormal with the everyday, collecting the work of nearly 20 artists. The exhibition’s most eye-catching tends to revolve around the allure of television. On the right side of the basement gallery, you’ll likely be drawn to “And They Would Have Gotten Away with It Too…,” a deep purple painting in which Scooby Doo and the gang stumble upon a hanged Klan member in the woods. Installed directly beneath it is “We Are Innocent, We Are Kids,” in which the painted bars of a cage and an imprisoned child are superimposed over a television’s static.
Humor and horror intersect often in See Ghosts, which also features visual references to Bird Box, The Wizard of Oz, Aleister Crowley and the Grateful Dead. To step into Thunder-Sky’s basement is to dive into the collective consciousness: obsessed with its pop-cultural icons, but made murky by its wavering trust in institutions.
Next door at the Comet, Matthew Waldeck’s Superhero Mashup reimagines members of the Looney Tunes cast as comic book heroes.
Ever thought Daffy Duck would make a better Hawkeye than Jeremy Renner? Can’t shake the thought of Wile E. Coyote wielding the Green Lantern’s power? Well, speculate no further — Waldeck has all your crossover needs covered.
Fronkenstein; See Ghosts Clearly and Superhero Mashup run through Oct. 4. For more info, visit raymondthundersky.org.
