Gary Vlasic: We Shall See the Sky Sparkling With Diamonds
Through April 10
By Brian Staker @stakerized
There are artists who cross genre boundaries into multimedia, but the art of Gary Vlasic takes genre-bending to ridiculous levels. Active in local performance art groups since 1985—most notably in A Company of Four—Vlasic combines elements of theater, visual arts, music and dance.
Even just working within a visual-art framework for this show, he creates mixed-media collages with techniques of assemblage and images taken from odd anatomical juxtapositions, pop culture and futuristic design elements, alternately disturbing and awe-inspiring.
A collage like “If I Can Dream” (pictured) is a combination of vivisection, scientific diagram, remains of a car-crash victim and maybe even an astronaut floating in space. Just when you thought the art form of collage had run out of things to say with its vocabulary of combining seemingly random, political, sarcastic and psychosexual images in its arsenal, Vlasic’s work can convince you that collage still can communicate something essential and original. “If I Can Dream” and others in the show aren’t just visions of humanity colliding with technology, but also the alarming possibilities of their cross-pollination with each other.
Concurrently, Vlasic is also in residence with Trasa Urban Arts Organization to create a new full evening of performance-installation titled My Life in the Bush of Ghosts based on the musical score by David Byrne and Brian Eno and the novel of the same name by Amos Tutuola.
We Shall See the Sky Sparkling With Diamonds: Mixed Media Collage by Gary Vlasic @ Phillips Gallery, 444 E. 200 South, 801-364-8284, through April 10.
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