Art in Motion : ‘New Visions’ Drawing Gapes at County Fair

Wildlife exhibits are indigenous to county fairs.

But plastic cows hanging by their noses amid the melodious strains of “Lullaby of Broadway”?

Motorized steers made out of old television sets?

Orbiting rubber chickens that warn extraterrestrials, “The white zone is for the immediate loading and unloading of passengers only”?

These unlikely creatures are all part of the “New Visions” exhibit at the Los Angeles County Fair, a collection of bucking, whirring, clanking pieces of art in motion. The crowds streaming through the Fine Arts Building to stare (and stare) at the curiosities seem to find them diverting, at the very least.

Aiming for Young

“We wanted to put on a more contemporary type show this year,” said curator Kim Svenson, “something that would appeal especially to young people. People either love it or hate it, but most of the feedback has been positive. We think some of the pieces are very funny.”

Contemporary is also the word for the rest of the exhibit, which offers neon sculptures, computer graphics, laser holography, and photography in other rooms.

But it’s the art-in-motion section that catches the ears of passers-by.

“Homage to Busby Berkeley,” for instance, features (1) a television screen playing the kaleidoscopic Berkeley musicals and (2) 12 nearby cows suspended by their snouts from neon racks. The bovines turn slowly at intervals, their legs providing an odd counterpoint to the legs of the Berkeley dancers.

“I also call it ‘Vienna Bulls’ Choir,’ ” said creator Dave Quick, a Brentwood artist whose pieces have been shown in several galleries. “It’s kind of a statement of the bitterness and technology of our era compared to the pre-World War II period of innocence.”

Bad Review

“A waste of space,” declared one woman the other day.

But Suzanne Demorest of Corona found something in it to admire. “I’ve always liked meat--you know, red meat,” she said, laughing.

Nearby, a recording attached to a rubber fowl kept repeating, “I am a rubber chicken satellite from planet Earth. Earth wants to be your friend. . . .”

The work, “Pullus Galactus,” also by Quick, grew out of his campaign to have NASA shoot a rubber chicken into orbit so it would become “the first art accessible to all 4.2 billion human residents of Earth on the same day.” (NASA replied that it was interested only in “purely technical and scientific projects.”)

Elsewhere, keeping time with the dancing cows and talking poultry in a crazy kind of way, was a work entitled “Sa Sa Cha Cha,” consisting of six hula-skirted bamboo figures rhythmically hammering sticks on the floor.

“They used to be genderless,” said creator Jim Jenkins, 30, an art professor at California State University, Fullerton. “Then the Museum of Neon Art had an exhibition called ‘Ladies of the Night.’ So I went out and bought some coconuts and grass skirts. I’ve sold 10 of them. I guess people use them for doorbells or something.”

Television Drama

While the bamboo-stompers worked steadily the other day, the same couldn’t be said of the bull-shaped, bucking television sets (“Video Rodeo,” by Jenkins).

At one point, the rodeo came to a standstill while technician Dan Wang tinkered with it. “Sometimes it gets a little stubborn and slows down,” he explained.

However, after a few adjustments, the three-set body was moving back and forth on wheels, its antenna-horns twirling, its tail of frayed wires and cords swishing. Its aging television-set body parts were each playing a soap opera (though viewers were spared the sounds of the dialogue).

“One of the TVs went out at one point,” Jenkins recalled, “and we had to call a TV repairman. When he got here he said he’d never seen anything like it in 20 years. You know, I paid $5 for each set and I think the repair bill for one was $150.”

One spectator, Beverly Mathias of Laguna Beach, studied the bucking figure (ignoring the soap operas). “I wasn’t that impressed until the tail started swishing,” she said. “I love it.”

About the only static pieces in the art-in-motion display were “Goodyear Rolling Pin” and “Pig Descending Staircase,” both by Quick. “Goodyear Rolling Pin” is a fantasy of a dough-smoothing blimp.

“I called it ‘Goodyear’ because I hoped that they (the company) would buy it and get it off the street,” joked Quick, who is currently working on a piece that will dramatize how St. Louis Cardinal baseball player Vince Coleman was accidentally run over by a motorized field tarp.

Meanwhile, “Pig Descending Staircase”--which is just that--carried an “Out of Order” sign.

Curator Svenson said: “It’s broken. The (motorized) pig got squished in the doorway leading to the staircase.”