Art rarely has a practical use, but at 5 Traverse, a gallery just off Wickenden Street, a new show exhibits works that are both useful and decorative.
In the gallery's "Transportation" show, which runs until Oct. 20, bikes turn into sculpture, skateboards become canvasses and most of what's for sale is comparatively cheap.
The "Transportation" show represents a break from the gallery's previous exhibitions, which have showcased works in more formal genres - such as sculpture and painting - since 5 Traverse opened in May. But despite the non-traditional media, a sense of high art persists.
Bikes hang from the ceiling in both of the gallery's two rooms. Suspended on thin wires, they seem to float in midair. Their placement invites the viewer to inspect them from all angles, like pieces of unintended sculpture. Their contours, their geometry, the empty spaces in their frames: all of these resolve into a balanced, classical beauty.
But the skateboards are some of the most interesting pieces. Most of them are longboards, and they're hung vertically on the wall, with their undersides facing the viewer.
Mara Cowan '07.5, assistant gallery director, said she and the owner, Jesse Smith, bought the boards and "handed them out" to a group of artists - most of whom are members of the Dirt Palace, a local feminist art collective. The artists were then free to work with the boards in whatever way they wished.
The results were wildly divergent. One piece, executed on a longboard in pen and ink, features faces - mostly in anime style - looking strangely at the viewer. Dirt Palace member Xander Marro adorned her board with a playful mix of curvy abstract forms and human elements - a high-heeled foot, a human eye, a fleet of Valentine's hearts. On Samantha Pierce's board, three stylized breasts float in the air, framed above and below by matching fronds.
Arley Rose Torsone's board depicts a woman's lower body, in profile, clothed in nothing but a thong. A Post-It note stuck to the wall beside the board explains, "So when big tough guys flip the board to hold it, it will make them look like this."
Another board, the only standard-length board in the show, was screen-printed in black and white with the image of a snarling wolf. According to the Dirt Palace Web site, the artist, Pippi Zornoza, is a "jack of all trades," whose accomplishments include starring in the "the cult movie classic, 'Die You Zombie Bastards.' "
With the exception of Zornoza's, all the skateboards are for sale - and at surprisingly low prices. Cowan said that the gallery bought each board for $195 and plans to sell them for $210. "So it's, like, $15 for the artwork," she said. "Which is a pretty good deal."
"We hoped to access a different group of artists and a different group of consumers," Cowan said of the "Transportation" show. And by her account, the gallery succeeded. At the opening, she said, there were "maybe thirty bikes" chained up outside the gallery and people "drinking well into the street."
"I'm really impressed that the cops didn't come," she said.
If the gallery's guestbook is any evidence, 5 Traverse has catered successfully to varied audiences. The director of the Newport Art Museum wrote his name on one page - and on another, there's an entry by "Willa Truelove, no address."
But there's one population that 5 Traverse hasn't reached. "We really want more students to come down," Cowan said. Perhaps the useful, affordable art on display there will serve as some incentive.
