UPDATED: Artists and Models

So clearly this is blog entry is disastrously belated, but I can't pass up the opportunity to write little bit about Saturday night's wild and way cool Artists and Models party at the Central Terminal. I'd missed the event last year and had been kicking myself ever since. And if this year's party was any indication, it's going to become a permanent occasion on my calendar. Like, say, Christmas. Or Dyngus Day.

Much of the one-night art party's appeal comes, naturally enough, from its fabled location in the immense art deco train station on the city's East Side. Aside from the occasional event (an art exhibition here, a beer tasting there), the huge and imposing structure houses nothing but big memories of a glorious city that's now as cracked, faded and beautiful as the paint on the terminal's vaulted brick ceiling. Just walking into the space is a moving experience akin to physically stepping into your favorite painting.

So imagine what it's like packed with upwards of 30 art installations, each one slightly more ambitious than the last, a crowd of a few thousand including everyone from the frenetically hipsteresque to the bona fide yuppie, several kinds of micro brews and -- for the oh-so-sophisticated among us -- cheap wine in little plastic cups.

The art itself could be really wonderful. It could also be embarrassingly dismal (though that was rare). A couple of the highlights (coming from a walk-through of the event that was in no way exhaustive) for me were Dyan O'Connell's cool projection room (pictured above) that incorporated smoke and mirrors in the best possible way: literally. David Pape's enormous projection of an arcade-style video game on the ceiling was certainly visually and technically impressive, though at least one person who attempted to play said it was difficult to see which ship you were controlling from the base station down on the terminal's boring old floor.

There was also Stephanie Koenig's large-scale pirate ship, a great place to to camp out and get away from the terminal madness for a bit, and watch an episode of "Three's Company" while you were at it.

The most elegant addition was undoubtedly by Jody Hanson and Mark McLoughlin -- a perfectly understated and nicely executed commentary on the soldiers who have lost their lives in the current war in Iraq. About 1,200 red, white and blue balloons were filled up with helium and released the day before the event. They congregated in two separate spaces on the high ceiling and, as the event started and the evening wore on, they unspectacularly floated down to the ground in random peregrinations. Each one had the name of a soldier who died in Iraq printed on an attached card. Flip the card over, and you could read one of several similarly understated messages about peace from a cultural figure. The whole idea was so elegant and served as the perfect reminder -- amid all the revelry and escapism that was Artists and Models 2008 -- of the complex world that was still swirling around outside.

--Colin Dabkowski

(Photos by Mark Mulville)

Comments

[Mike Miller]

Colin, thanks for the nice write up on A&M. It was a great event! We figure about 3,000 or more attended this year.

As far as "occasional events", we are in our 6th season of well attended events. You can check out our 2008 calendar on our website.