SELECTIONS FROM THE DADA MOTEL: Art outside the frame

Exhibit celebrates unusual works at UNLV's Barrick Museum

Top, Amy Sorg, left, helps set up pieces for the Selections from the Dada Motel exhibit at the Marjorie Barrick Museum at UNLV, 4500 S. Maryland Parkway, Jan. 25. The tall piece on the right, the largest in the show, was created by Reno artist Kai Prescher using wheels, an aviation tire block, steel tubing and a piece of playground equipment. Right, artist Kris Vagner places a disc into her piece, titled "Physical Manifestation of Indeterminate Certainty."Photos by Dale Dombrowski/View Top, Chad Sorg, curator of Selections from the Dada Motel, an exhibit of works by Reno artists at the Marjorie Barrick Museum on the campus of UNLV, stands next to a mixed media work titled "B51 53 83" by Candace Nicol. Left, Elaine Parks pieces together her work "Tree," in preparation for the opening of the exhibit, which runs through March 28. photos by Dale Dombrowski/View Top, Chad Sorg, curator of Selections from the Dada Motel, an exhibit of works by Reno artists at the Marjorie Barrick Museum on the campus of UNLV, stands next to a mixed media work titled "B51 53 83" by Candace Nicol. Left, Elaine Parks pieces together her work "Tree," in preparation for the opening of the exhibit, which runs through March 28. photos by Dale Dombrowski/View Top, Amy Sorg, left, helps set up pieces for the Selections from the Dada Motel exhibit at the Marjorie Barrick Museum at UNLV, 4500 S. Maryland Parkway, Jan. 25. The tall piece on the right, the largest in the show, was created by Reno artist Kai Prescher using wheels, an aviation tire block, steel tubing and a piece of playground equipment. Right, artist Kris Vagner places a disc into her piece, titled "Physical Manifestation of Indeterminate Certainty."Photos by Dale Dombrowski/View Advertisement

Chad Sorg, curator of Selections from the Dada Motel, a new show on exhibit at UNLV's Marjorie Barrick Museum, stood in front of a canvas covered with brightly colored, blob-like dots in a grid as the show was being installed on Jan. 25.

He pointed out a work by Reno artist Dusty Hartman. "He's got an interesting story." Sorg said. "He goes to museums, and he's got a jacket. He customized it; it's got a flap in the front that conceals a camera. He wears his coat in and gets close to (an Andy) Warhol or a (Roy) Liechtenstein; that's what this is. He takes photos of it and blows them up."

Sorg said the Hartman piece on display was taken from one of Liechtenstein's Rouen Cathedral pieces, which he did after Impressionist painter Claude Monet. The distinctive arches and towers of the cathedral were immortalized by Monet over a century ago. Several of Monet's Rouen Cathedral paintings were recently on display at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art.

"So we're three steps removed," Sorg explained. "(Hartman) kept the same size; they're the same exact dimensions, and on canvas, so he's got a whole conceptual part to it."

The show originally was conceived by Reno artist Jeff Johnson. Sorg helped put together a committee of six artists and they planned to put the show in a local motel, but settled for a hotel when no suitable motel could be obtained. Dada art or Dadaism was a movement that started around World War I in Europe and rejected the established art conventions.

"The original idea was to get the art out of galleries, do it in motels," Sorg said. "Some people thought that doing it here, at a museum, was against what we were trying to do, but I said, 'screw it; I like it; I wanna do it here.' "

"It's a great show," said Aurora Giguet, division director of the Marjorie Barrick Museum and the UNLV Arboretum.

The exhibit originally showed the work of 60 artists in Reno last summer. The exhibit at the Barrick Museum has work from 37 artists who participated in the original exhibit. It includes work from the original show, new pieces and some work inspired by referencing the original show.

Sorg pointed to a piece by filmmaker Asa Gilmore that included a series of photos of a stack of TVs disappearing by steps in a flash of brilliant orange. The TVs had been part of the Reno show. Gilmore decided he wanted to blow them up, so he got together with the demolition crew from the small town of Minden, Nev., and they blew them up.

The detonation is part of a video on display in the current show. "His film work is insane, really weird and trippy," Sorg said.

Weird and trippy could easily describe many of the pieces in the show, but the wide range of style, technique and media defy easy categorization.

A piece by Kris Vagner consists of a collection of identical discs mounted directly to an orange wall. Sorg explained that Vagner takes Styrofoam packing and pours plaster into it to create large numbers of forms, which she then hangs in patterns.

There also are etchings by Hungarian-born Zoltan Janvery on display. The etchings are of friends who model for him and are decorated by indecipherable cursive text.

"The writing is actually Hungarian, and it's backwards," Sorg said. "It's really messy. I don't read Hungarian, but even Zoltan tells me that he can't read it. He just kind of scribbles it down very quickly, and when it's done, he can't make it out sometimes."

Sorg's wife Amy's job brought them out to Reno from Indiana eight years ago. Like many artists, he has a day job to support his passion.

Sorg works for the Nevada Arts Council's Carson City office installing shows across the state.

"I bring shows down here. I asked Aurora (Giguet) if she'd be into bringing it down, and here it is," Sorg said.

Two of Sorg's own prominent pieces are colorful and abstract. "I collaborated on these with one of the other artists, Jim Zlokovich," he said. "I do a lot of spray paint stuff. He does rust. So, I asked him to rust out some of my paintings. These are the first two of a series we're going to do."

Over in a corner, Elaine Parks was installing one of her works, a tree constructed by mounting ceramic rods to the wall. "This is sort of a different-every-time kind of thing," she explained.

All of the artists participating in the show live in Reno or have some sort of Reno connection. Parks visits Reno and participates in the art scene there despite living five hours away in Tuscarora, Nev., about an hour north of Elko.

"It's an old mining town," she said. "Just 14 people; it's tiny and in the middle of nowhere."

Parks had been teaching at a junior college in Elko until family concerns caused her to leave that job. Now, she's a full-time artist, between frequent trips to Los Angeles to care for her elderly parents.

"I grew up in LA, and I wanted to do something really different, and it's really different," she said of her artwork. Of the other 13 Tuscarora residents, she said, "many are artists; some are retired people who maybe drink a lot; some of those overlap. Retired people drinking a lot, a fine Nevada pastime. There's actually a pottery school up there; it's a town known for ceramics. There are several other ceramic artists there, a couple painters and a jeweler."

Back on the other side of the museum, Sorg, participating Reno artist Kai Prescher and his friend Jill Jacobs, who was visiting from Chicago, were trying to hang a particularly uncooperative piece. Sorg stepped away to point out one of Prescher's pieces, which included a block of wood, a fluted piece of chrome from some instrument and a mouthpiece.

"I'm afraid to blow into this thing. Kai, I don't know how to do a trumpet," he said.

Prescher strolled over and hoisted the piece up with practiced ease, blowing into the mouthpiece and eliciting a clear, crisp two-note tone.

"You get that nice taste of lemon wood," Prescher said. "This is lemon wood, feel free to rub it, kind of scratch it and smell your hand."

Prescher's work employs a lot of unusual wood and scavenged materials. He contributed the largest piece in the show, a sculpture that comes dangerously close to the ceiling and includes working wheels, an aviation tire block, steel tubing and a salvaged piece of playground equipment. He indicated another of his nearby works, cataloging the materials.

"The table legs, those you can buy," he said. "This is a piece of wenge wood; this is a really neat piece of wood. A lot of times, they seal the ends with various things. I like the red of the sealer, so I left it on there. I sanded and kind of cleaned it all up. This is a funnel from an old ammunition dump."

Prescher is originally from Minnesota. His parents taught overseas for over 20 years. That, and having friends who worked for airlines, allowed him to do quite a bit of world traveling, which he feels often is reflected in his art. He taught for three years in Kiev, Ukraine.

"I've been told I was the first American to do an art show in the Ukraine," he said. "I lived there for three years, then I taught in the Caribbean for one. I was doing artwork over there, but I wasn't doing what I wanted to, so I came back to the states."

Prescher now lives in Reno, where he works as an elementary school teacher. "Lord knows, if I could do art full time, I would," Prescher said. "These materials cost some money; it's the same thing with a lot of artists. I envy those artists who can buckle down and find the cash to do what they need to do."

This isn't the first, and it's unlikely to be the last, time Sorg has connected Northern Nevada artists to Southern Nevada ones.

"The art scene in Reno is pretty vibrant," Sorg said. "We want to get some connections, bring some people up there and come down here."

The show runs through March 28. The museum is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. and on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission is free, although there is a suggested contribution of $5.

For more information, call 895-3381.