The Wake

It all started with a bang. The city of Crush, Texas staged a monumental crash between two 32-ton locomotives on Sept. 15, 1896. The collision caused these two metal monsters to explode and burst into flames, intermingling smoke, metal and fire. This historic collision was the pet project of George William Crush, a charismatic agent of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway. Before the collision, Crush appeared on the tracks atop a white horse. He threw down his hat and the trains set off on their one-way journey. Shrapnel and fire bellowed from the engines after the collision, injuring and killing some of the spectators. When it was finished, Crush had set into motion a symbolic metaphor that would inspire many. The collision became symbolic of the clash between the North and South in post Civil War America.

This monumental collision is the inspiration for local artist Chris Larson’s latest installment, “Crush Collision,” an imaginative mixed-media exhibition being held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA).

“For the last two years I have been staging collisions and clashes between two different or similar worlds,” Larson says on Creative Electric’s MySpace page. By creating and colliding objects centered on American culture, Larson interprets the intricate conversation of a changing society.

“I grew up and live in a world where people, ideals, thoughts, race and politics are constantly colliding” Larson continues. “I am interested in the conversation that comes out of these collisions.”

Larson describes his sculptures as constructed destruction. This concept is exquisitely represented in his 16-by-14-foot, two-story house, which will be shown starting November 17 at the MIA. Filling most of the gallery, the home spent last winter frozen on a small lake in Wisconsin. Weathered and worn, it still preserves the memory of the life it once had. Beside the house is a decrepit piano that has been gutted out and painted silver. . The piano has a perplexing presence, allowing the viewer to give it purpose after it has been stripped of its former identity. Both the house and the piano are recurring symbols in Larson’s latest film.

Larson’s fourth film, “Crush Collision,” will be at the center of the exhibition at the MIA. It is named after ragtime music composer Scott Joplin’s “The Great Crush Collision March.” This twelve-minute film is, in Larson’s words, “a complex examination of the dualities of the human existence.” The film features musician Grant Hart (formally of Husker Du), performance artist Britta Hallin, local percussionist Michael Bland (formerly with Prince and Soul Asylum) and the Minneapolis gospel quartet, The Spiritual Knights.

The film traces two story lines from different times running parallel in the same location. It begins with Hart and Hallin working feverishly over a large machine rotating an endless circle of clay. The artists are working on two levels of a giant house that is floating on water. Hart continues to work as a reverie transports him to another life, with Bland playing percussion to set the mood. Hart comes upon a serene setting as the Knight family begins to say grace. Enlightened by this beautiful sound, Hart soars to the house’s upper level and begins playing a silver piano, not by tapping the keys but by rhythmically rocking it back and forth. The film is a meditative study of both dark and light, and of the physical and the spiritual.

“His crashes, expressed in art installations, are collisions between cultures, beliefs, religions and the art of people from disparate worlds,” says Tammy Sopinski Perlman, a Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program associate at the MIA. Larson is an exceptional storyteller and uses his collisions to reflect on early American traditions. His works have permanent residences in many of the greatest museums around the world including Magnus Miller in Berlin and our own Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

“Conceptually it’s there,” Perlman says. “People will be blown away by it.” She described the exhibit as an open stage waiting for a story to be told. It has a surrealist sort of edge with no particular set of rules. “He likes to put the dots out there and let others connect them,” she continues. In Perlman’s eyes, the exhibit has a certain southern-gospel feeling surrounding it, with hidden irresistible folklore. The MIA will also play host to a performance by the Spiritual Knights on opening night.

“Larson creates fantastical worlds with intricate engineering, but no clear design,” says David Salmela, co-founder of the Creative Electric Studios. Salmela notes that Larson’s current works and films “explore the collision of different worlds—destruction and invasion.” Larson even demonstrated a live “great American collision” within Creative Electric on opening night, Nov.11, in collaboration with Grant Hart and Britta Hallin.

Larson was born in 1966 and lived in rural Minnesota near Lake Elmo. He graduated from Yale University and exhibited in Berlin. While in Germany, Larson did numerous drawings of a variety of tools and machines. Perlman tells of how for Larson’s first sculpture he used diagrams as a point of reference, allowing him the freedom to create his own. “He would just go with the flow,” Perlman says. Soon Larson had many elaborate drawings of machines similar to da Vinci’s masterful studies of the catapult and his flying contraptions.

“Through film and sculpture, Larson tells strange and fantastic stories,” states a MIA spotlight article on Larson, who is exhibiting at there for the second time. “He creates the essence of time and place within these stories by incorporating sight, sound and smell. From the earthy smell of the wood used in his sculptures to the sharp, sometimes dangerous-looking parts of the machines, to the dark, moody soundtracks of his films, his installations are an assault on the viewer’s senses.”

Crush Collision will be on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts from now until January 7, featuring an artist-led tour and discussion on Nov. 30