Stick it!

Arts | February 3rd, 2016

Albino Buffalo artists to exhibit at The Rourke Art Museum

Part of the thrill of the thrill of inserting your quarters into a sticker vending machine at the arcade or roller rink is the thrill of the unknown. Put your quarters in, receive a small nondescript cardboard slip, open said slip and your sticker is revealed. What you do with it at that point is entirely up to you.

Fargo Native, educator, and graphic designer Jeff Knight is bringing back that sensation.

The Albino Buffalo project started out with quarter sticker machines Knight purchased online. Thanks to a grant from The Arts Partnership and a few handy locals who aided in refurbishing the machines to a nearly new pallor,and a handful of regional artists willing to collaborate for the sake of art for art’s sake...Albino Buffalo was born.

On Sunday February 7th, The Rourke Art Gallery in Moorhead will be hosting a public reception for an exhibition curated by Knight, featuring original artwork from between 15-20 participating Albino Buffalo artists in a variety of media called “Peel & Stick”, the group exhibition consists of work from graphic designers, painters, illustrators, or mixed media artists. One participant is even a writer.

“The vending machine stickers were interesting because there was such a limited amount of space to tell a story, in literally a few inches. I had five different stickers to create so I wrote a story to be read in five parts,” says NDSU writing instructor and participating artist Brady Bergeson, “You'd have to collect all five stickers to get the whole story so I also tried to make the text on each sticker something that could stand on its own as well. It's always fun to see how constraints, like space, can push you creatively.”

Bergeson doesn’t claim to be a visual artist, but for his piece at The Peel and Stick opening, he created a found poem. Found poems often have a visual element and seemed like the perfect fit for the exhibit. ‘“One found poetry technique is to erase or black-out the majority of a source text, and then the words left visible form a poem.” Bergeson explains,” I wanted to make a poem that was very different from the source text, so I created a poem that was full of hope from a transcript of the CNN Republican Presidential Debate, which, of course, consisted of a lot of aggressive language and fear”.

The machines gained the moniker of Albino Buffalo, due to the beauty and rarity of the beast. Not only does each machine contain an edition of five highly collectible stickers from six participating artists (one of which is a secret), but it features a rare Albino Buffalo sticker--which is essentially the “golden ticket” and can be redeemed for Albino Buffalo SWAG ie. notebooks, pins, t shirts etc.

Knight initially purchased five vending machines. One is located at Unglued in Fargo and a shop called 218 in Bemidji. Three machines are currently in storage and are awaiting a future in Duluth, Bismarck and Sioux Falls within the next two years.

“I have this weird vending machine interest..or fetish? I don’t know what you would call it. I think it just brings me back to when I was a kid”, Knight says,”Vending machines were huge. There’s something about the instant gratification of sticking money into something and instantly getting a prize”.

Another part of the inspiration behind Albino Buffalo was Knight and fellow artist and educator Su Legatt’s involvement in bringing an Art-o-mat to Fargo. Art-o-mats are the brainchild of North Carolina based artist Clark Whittington. They are refurbished cigarette machines that dispense cigarette pack sized pieces of original art from artists around the world all over the country. According to the Art-o-mat website there are 100 active machines in the country, one of which is housed at the West Acres Mall in Fargo.

Nostalgia wasn’t the only motivating factor in the creation of Albino Buffalo. It’s also about art accessibility, “Using that as mechanism for dispensing art is an interesting concept.” Knight says. Not only does it hearken the punk Rock DIY aesthetic of making your mark on the world one sticker at a time, it takes the art off of the gallery walls and makes it accessible to all for just fifty cents a pop.

IF YOU GO:

Peel & Stick Public Reception

Sunday Feb. 7 1-5 p.m. artist talk at 1:30

exhibition will be up Feb. 5 - Feb 28

Rourke Art Museum 521 Main Ave. Moorhead

http://www.albino-buffalo.com/