by Bud Brenner (a senior at Stillman college; Yale University)
THE NEW JOURNAL VOL. 14 #2 10/24/81 Yale Univ. Publication
The harvest moon shines brightly above the massive hulk of industrial silhouettes in New Haven's warehouse district. Hamilton Street is silent, lit by persistently pink mercury street lights. Romance pervades every darkened corner of the Bethany Shift Works building. A man in a tuxedo and battered sneakers makes his way up five flights of creaky stairs; a woman's rhinestone tiara glistens in the factory's greasy parking lot. A small crowd gradually congregates upstairs in the studio headquarters of the Paper Mache Video Institute. Tonight a time-honored American tradition finds new meaning, new vitality, in the Institutes's long awaited, sixth annual Miss America Spectacular.
A battery of television sets lined up against one wall of a darkened room assail the viewer. Most are tuned to the Miss America Pageant, and the plastic glory of Atlantic City, New Jersey, is reproduced in Technicolor throughout the room. Many of the sets are wildly mis-tuned, with nearly fluorescent orange and green tones, sound blares loudly across the room in a distorted chorus.
A young boy plays with a video tennis game, oblivious to a Brooke Sheilds commercial echoed some twenty times in front of him. Grown men manipulate toy tanks with remote-controlled radios. From behind a large wooden cut-out tank, people help themselves to wine and cucumber dip.
PMVI is no by any means a typical art gallery. Indeed, there are those who would insist that the Institute has absolutely nothing to do with art.
"I'm dedicated to avoiding art, " muses Paul Rutkovsky, the patron saint of PMVI. Rutkovsky, who founded the Institute teaches at New Haven's Pair School of Art. He keeps a low profile, focusing attention on his work. "We live in a time where museums are cathedrals; they've served their purpose for holding icons of the past. This is why I have a passion for reaching out to a different audience, one that has nothing to do the A.R,T. world. What is vital to our culture is off the picture plane, out of the proscenium and into the department stores and onto the highways." A large sign at the entrance to the Institute (which actually is located on the top floor of an old shirt factory) reads "Dedicated to the Promotion of Transient Culture." The medium? Xerox, of course.
Rutkovsky choose to construct most of his sculptural installations out of transient materials; video tape and papier mache figure prominently. Both decay in a comparatively short time span. Huge houses, built of papier mache and reaching anywhere from floor level to nearly ten feet high, haunt one area of the studio of the Institute. Contained within each one is a flickering video display. As the view peers into the windows of each house, he or she enters into a smaller world. In one house, the video display consists of a child's head, the figure composed of papier mache relief, the video screen comprising a face, which changes from a smile to tears over time.
In a taller house, a man sits in front of a silent TV screen, and the viewer gazes past him through another window to an alleyway and into a video display of a street beyond it. Rutkovsky says the houses represent the forced containment of people in their individual boxes, houses, cars and institutions are rigid enclosures of isolation. The inclusion of video screens serves as a reminder of television's omnipresent impact on our lives. People learn to relate to an inanimate box instead of each other.
There is stark sense of irony in Paul Rutkovsky's work, Confronting the culture's obsession with death machines with a childlike innocence, he combines some rather ugly images with happy colors and buoyant gesture. A recent exhibit, entitled "Paintings for the Future," consisted of sixty or seventy small paintings lined up on white walls. Rutkovsky remarks that they are representatives of military war machines in very slick fashion, I just wanted to present them in a highly designed mode. It was actually a very cynical presentation. because, because they were so pretty-graduated colors, muted greys. My cynicism hides occasionally, but it was out this month. "Subject matter included airborne missiles gliding past the upturned tails of happily leaping whales, studies of tanks and a detailed mini-series called "Marty Watching TV,"which depicted a young man with vacant face in front of various colored television sets.
Television is a recurring theme in Paul Rutkovsky's work. As a video artist he has created a number of unusual tapes, including one which was presented at a Stillman Sheep's Clothing concert a few years back, a piece entitled "How to Draw" In the videotape, Rutkovsky appears and shows the viewer how to draw various objects (such as a sink, cat, etc.,) and objects and finally shows a filmed demonstration of each object in use. The last lesson demonstrates the drawing of a gun, and the video protagonist is assassinated at the end of the lesson. One reason why Rutkovsky's work is so accessible to those "untrained" in art, and appreciated by those who might normally reject it out-of-hand, is that no abstraction is carried beyond everyday life. If it can be translated into television terms, it can be understood by any modern person.
Needless to say, there are strong political overtones to Rutkovsky's art. However, there is no ideology involved in its presentation, no preaching. He says his creations simply reflect militaristic attitudes rampant in today's world. A show upcoming in Los Angeles, opening on November 14 at Contemporary Exhibitions, is called "Airplane Remnants" and consists of a Korean War bomber control panel, whose switches are operated by Rutkovsky. Portable tape players and hanging lights are placed at different points in the gallery,, scattered among wings, stewardesses cockpits, pilots, wheels, bullets, tail fins, and missiles. Rutkovsky operates the lighting and sound selections at whim: sounds include recordings of an atomic bomb explosion, bullets, and machine guns. The audience wanders about the gallery viewing the changes through plastic opera glasses and filling out order forms for their favorite airplane remnants. the message behind the art, in this case, is gleaned through direct participation.
Participation is what an evening at a Papier Mache Video Institute opening is all about. At any given moment, you, the viewer, might be drafted to zerox [sic] your face in slow motion or assist in the photography of a seltzer bottle being shot at a live electrical wire. Artists are are always willing to discuss their work, and the physical layout of the Institute is intriguing. at times a bit confusing, because the walls are moved periodically. the surrealistic surroundings of a totally industrialized neighborhood offer a vista refreshingly unlike Yale's ivory towers.
Although the Papier Mache Video Institute is held together largely by Paul Rutkovsky's imagination and a little rubber cement, it is the home of numerous exhibits and performances created by other artists whose interest range from the mildly avant-garde to the wildly incomprehensible. Sound sculptures, painting displays, video and film projection and performance pieces are all part of the Institutes's calendar. New York's Carmen Beuchat performed two evenings of modern dance on October 16 and 17. Her performances, according to Paul Rutkovsky, "include works that combine pure dance with mixed media modes that are both mysterious and exhilarating."
Another opening, entitled "Visual Events in Various Rooms" premiered on October 23. A number of artists have collaborated on this one, the Animal Room features a group exhibition containing "The Farm Installation" by Anna Bresnick and Fran Real, paintings by Joan Gardner called "Random Roads to Extinction." In addition Jack Harriett displays imitation backyard (complete with birds and birdbaths). Beverly Richey's graphite and paper works and Ben Westbrock's "Abstract Environmental Sculpture" fill a room each. Rutkovsky's ever-popular Artificial Store is also open, offering "cultural refreshments at discount prices."
One attraction tentatively being planned is the creation of the Hamilton Street Country Club, which will feature a 9-hole miniature golf course, papier mache landscapes, souvenir T-shirts and golf caps and assorted toys. Rutkovsky terms the work "a recreational art piece," viewers will be encouraged to play on the course.
"The Papier Mache Video Institute is located at 133 Hamilton Street, in New Haven. The studio phone number is 777-0906. Paul Rukovsky welcomes inquires about exhibits and is always open to presenting new works at the Institute. Whether you're dedicated to art, dedicated to avoiding art or simply into watching television PMVI is an adventure for the senses.
