On the Town: This art exhibit will make you laugh, then think
While the presentation of art is meant to be thought-provoking, rarely does it also conjure up laughter, an eye-roll and the wonderment of what would inspire someone to create such a thing. Those elements, however, all blend together in an eclectic hodgepodge in the works of artist Bill Czappa, whose one-man show opened at the Burbank Creative Art Center Gallery on Friday.
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The “Assembled in America” show presents a retrospective of 60 pieces created over the past 50 years by Czappa, who is best known around Burbank as the owner of a local repair shop. While most shows at the gallery feature work created with the traditional tools of the artist, Czappa’s art incorporates the most untraditional items imaginable. They include rubber chickens, tools, cameras, salvaged automobile parts and old discarded toys, books, clocks, kitchen gadgets, pantyhose and bedroom slippers, the latter displayed in a group of 12 around a table entitled “The Last Slipper.”
“My goal is to make people feel ‘up-toned,’ which is a word I have kind of created and like to use,” said Czappa during Friday’s opening. “I want people to smile and feel good and happy while also realizing [there] is an underlying message to be pondered.”
While many of his creations are whimsical and funny — like a duck looking through a knothole entitled “Peekin’ Duck” — others take on the subjects of religion, race relations, politics, healthcare and the frenzy-obsessed media with generous doses of humor, irony, disgust and questioning bewilderment.
“I’m currently working on a piece that wasn’t completed in time for this show,” said Czappa. “It’s entitled ‘Anti-Pasta’ and it has this group of angry fruit with pitch forks pitted against different kinds of pasta. It’s funny and crazy but, it also has a message about race relations — how it’s difficult for some to accept things that are different from themselves. So, as with all my work, people will look at that and laugh at the pun, but it will also make them think.”
Among the full-house of the artist’s family members, friends and supporters who gathered for Friday’s opening night reception were: Kim Zitnitsky, Matthew Sciore, Kacey Morgan, Doug and Kylie Smith, Claude Hulce, Barbara Rog, Cora Lanzisero, Johnathon Gallagher, Rod Rogers, Susan Spohr and David Orr.
Also in attendance were artist Deborah Phipps and UFO expert and writer Delleon Weins, who have teamed up as the creative collaborators behind what will eventually be a sci-fi trilogy that begins with the novel “The Enlightenment of Hanna Krusher.”
“Assembled in America” will run at the Burbank Creative Art Center Gallery, 1100 W. Clark Ave., through Feb. 25. For more information and gallery times, call (818) 238-5397.
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DAVID LAURELL may be reached by email at dlaurell@aol.com or (818) 563-1007.
