Before the Ed Sullivan show the Beatles played to small audiences at the Liverpool venue The Cavern Club. In the 1960s this club served as a gig and even a catalyst for not only the Fab Four, but The Hollies, The Yardbirds, The Kinks, and The Rolling Stones.
Similar to the music scene, visual arts have their own alternative spaces, phantom galleries, and college campuses-overlooked by backers and collectors-funded by the creativity and sweat of already starving artists and graduate students. For example, the West Gallery, on the CSUF campus is a white cube, sandwiched between a life drawing class and the Dean’s office, lacking any form of signage, whose history is captured in the poorly sanded spackle establishing a new surface on the walls. Past exhibitions have featured the Cacophonius instruments of Geoffrey Schorz, and the architecture-inspired sculptures of Preston Daniels-one of only 3 grad students invited to participate in the 2010 OsCene.
This Saturday this small cube will host a singer, a saxophonist, a drummer, a bassist, and a dj-a super group of kinetic sculptures organized, and materialized by David Brokaw. Brokaw, an MFA student from CSUF, lives at Grand Central Art Center where his inventive sculptures are consistent crowd pleasers at every Santa Ana Art Walk. Like John Lennon at The Cavern Club, Brokaw is a star on the rise who can say he has worked with Tim Burton and shown at MoMA.
However, the past three years of inflatable spiders, Robot Boys and Rube Goldberg bubble machines have all been decoys to Brokaw’s master scheme. Amidst the fabricated steel, animatronic toys, and discarded electronics that complete his studio, Brokaw has been toiling like a mad scientist, combining unnatural elements to create an experience where Courtney Love, Tommy Lee, Kenny G, Yo-Yo Ma, and Flea might actually perform together, in a tiny venue in Southern California. It sounds crazy, and it looks crazy, but can it be any weirder than the train wreck that pop culture icons often succumb to?
See for yourself. -Krystal
The show begins Saturday, December 4, from 5:00-9:00pm. Bring your camera!
MAGNANIMOUS by David Brokaw, December 4-9
CSUF West Gallery, VA 198, 800 N. State College Blvd., Fullerton, CA. 92834
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