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My favorite art is the kind that makes me laugh, and Arthur Ganson's work is strange, surprising, and funny. After a meeting at MIT yesterday, I met up with my friend Jon and we checked out the MIT Museum. I got confused and thought it was going to be MIT's art museum, which is actually something totally different.

The main exhibit was about artificial intelligence, of limited interest to me, except for a movie featuring Alan Alda and a robotic soccer game. But in the next room, there were at least 15 or more of these precise, delicate sculptures with foot pedals next to them. And when you step on the pedal, they spring into motion, although with some of them, you don't really notice what the motion actually is at first.

There was a tiny old fashioned chair bounding across a miniature persian rug, as if in a low-gravity environment, and occasionally bouncing off a small toy cat. There was a ball-bearing chain being extruded from a small pipe, and writhing around quite viscerally. And a small wishbone walking across a platform, seemingly pulling (but actually being pushed by) a large metal contraption of gears. As it marches slowly to the end of the platform, you wonder if you should turn it off because it looks like the whole thing is going to fall off and someone from the gallery staff is going to come yell at you. But just at the very last moment, the end of the platform that the objects are sitting on begins to rotate, very slowly, and turns the little wishbone around and sends it back the way it came.


Check out the videos and still shots on his website.

Labels: artistsiheart