Life Goes On

It's hard to imagine exactly how, but life goes on. And art goes on. And there are great people doing great, creative, inspirational stuff all around us. So heads up if you'll be anywhere near Portland, Maine between now and December 12: Marguerite Kahrl has a show up at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art. If you're interested in environmental sustainability, resource consumption and the toxic byproducts of human civilization, her work is always full of inspired and inspirational ideas. I love her drawings and sculpture, but most of all I love her junkyard vehicles.

Details posted after the fold.

Living Green: Examining Sustainability
Institute of Contemporary Art
Maine College of Art
October 30 - December 12, 2004
Marguerite Kahrl with Paul Ruff

"Marguerite Kahrl and Paul Ruff provide us with what appears at first glance to be a playful response to our country's overflowing landfills, overpopulated roadways, and noxious greenhouse gasses. Sculptural vehicles ingeniously constructed of parts salvaged from junkyards are powered both by solar energy and methane gas, a harmful pollutant given off by landfills that can be reconstituted as an efficient recycled fuel. Rather poetically, the vehicles become part of an ever-more engaged ecosystem—waste is produced, elements of that waste are re-imagined as new structures, new structures are powered with byproducts of the original waste, and inevitably new waste is produced from the resulting structures. Indeed, the deceptive simplicity of these vehicles offers a way of examining and negotiating the techno-industrial world in which we live. Works in the exhibition will include four vehicles along with Kahrl's blueprints, diagrammatic drawings and a video entitled SAVE."