Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Party Crasher - The Stranger & iNVASiON Party

Just came across this today:

www.thestranger.com/seattle/party-crasher

"Party Crasher
A Very Small Man Attacks an Art Installation with a Mace
by RACHAEL PULLIN

This Guerrilla Art Party asked more of its attendees than to simply look at art. We were to dismantle and then "remantle" a piece by local artist and T-shirt designer Karl Addison in Cal Anderson Park. As I walked through the apartment door, there it was: Invasion! The large wall of five heavy wood doors was covered with white paper and 99 paper bags, each plastered with a different expression. Anna, our charming hostess, offered to keep the piece in her living room when it did not sell at the artist's show in May. Addison—who was a no-show—agreed, as long as it was eventually relocated to a public space.

The party was slow to start, but that was remedied by Anna's penchant for filling everyone's glasses with whiskey. As we sat talking by the baba ghanoush and spinach dip, I realized that virtually all of the attendees had at some point worked in grocery stores, which inspired a partyer to observe that "it's a grocer's world."

After getting sufficiently drunk, the grocers and I were out the door, carrying the disassembled work to the park. The scene was priceless: heavily inebriated guests wielding power tools and a friendly dwarf named Sammy who was wielding his mace—not the Mace you spray, but the spiked-ball-and-chain-on-a-handle preferred by Visigoths. This guy had something to prove. Later, after we reassembled the installation, Anna scolded Sammy for attacking the art with his weapon."

No comments: