Art Dump

Although exhibits for Artists in Residence at the dump last only two days, the work has a habit of popping up long after. Andrew Junge's Styrofoam Hummer made tracks around the city for months, as did Nathaniel Stookey's junk symphony "Junkestra." And selections from September's exhibit of junkyard sculptures by Nemo Gould currently reside at Embarcadero Center until Jan. 31. (Check the ground-floor escalators at Embarcadero One.) Still, heading down to the dump's HQ on Tunnel Road is one art crawl you shouldn't miss.

For this weekend's reception, video artist Philip "Bulk Foodveyor" Bonner loaded up on trash to make his bizarre props, costumes, and sets; then he superimposed his actors using a technique called chroma key. Sculptor Scott Oliver, meanwhile, reassembled trash into new forms. In Core Column, he layered pallets, cinder blocks, sod, insulation, foam, and doors in a tower, like a core sample of a dead civilization, referencing the similar samples scientists dig out of landfills. For Bench Curl, he built a wooden table that warps beautifully on one end, like a wave breaking on the sand or a hand curling into a fist. "Ultimately my aim is to articulate a more holistic view of the material world — one that is shaping us as we shape it," he says. There's no better place than the dump for that.
Jan. 25-26, 2008