Lukas Geronimas at David Petersen Gallery

Artist: Lukas Geronimas

Exhibition title: Geatest Show on Rearth

Venue: David Petersen Gallery, Minneapolis, US

Date: June 27 – August 15, 2015

Photography: images courtesy of the artist and David Petersen Gallery, Minneapolis

Being a Rearthling is Geat.

I left New York with my car full of art around noon on Monday June the 22nd, just 15 hours after returning home from a three week install of the artist David Altmejd’s survey at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal. I decided to take three days to travel from New York to Minneapolis; the frst night I’d camp, the next night I’d stay at my Godfather’s in Chicago. And then I’d be in Minneapolis.

My Car: My car is a Honda Element. It ft the whole show as well as camping gear and my surfboard, cause what I did was go for a surf in Asbury Park, New Jersey en route to my frst night’s stop at Laurel Hill Sate Park Campground in Western Pennsylvania. My car has a new driver side airbag thanks to the Takeda shrapnel recall, and this airbag was installed the morning of my departure. Brand new airbag, almost brand new tires, brand new battery and alternator, fairly new transmission, the car’s rear seats have been pulled out and left in my storage unit in Brooklyn to make room for all the art. The car’s been checked a number of times for issues and there are none, but it still pulls left. There was some very sever weather making its way across the country during my three- day drive, and I was caught in it for about ten minutes. Ten minutes of very heavy rain. My tires, despite some criticism online con- cerning their performance in the rain, felt great. Before this set of tires I had a set of Low Rolling Resistance (fuel-saver) tires and they were bad – I’d never buy those kinds of tires again. Buying Fuel Saver tires is a bad idea. I didn’t get caught in the rain while camping, but it seemed to have rained heavily earlier that day, and so the ground at the campsite was covered in mud. The ground had become muddy. I’ve never driven my car through mud, because it’s really not made to go of-road. The Honda Element is an on-road car.

Buying Beer in Pennsylvania: Beer can only be sold at licensed distributors in Pennsylvania. Most of these distributors close at 9pm, but bars can be distributors so I was able to get a six-pack at the sports bar just up the road from the campground. I also got myself a bufalo chicken pizza to go, and I also saw the US women’s soccer team score a goal against the Columbians on TV. I got through half my Pizza at the campsite and decided to save the rest for the morning, but forgot to pop it in the car before heading the 30 yards to the restroom to wash up. I heard a noise like something hitting the ground as I left the restroom, and it turned out to be the sound of my pizza box having fallen from the picnic table and hitting the ground. Animals got the pizza. At frst I thought uh oh, it’s a bear? But when I stared into the brush with my headlamp I saw the glare of some beady little eyes staring back at me, ten yards away or so. It was a raccoon. Two of them actually, and then they fought over the pizza (it sounded like a fght). And then they left. By the time I got tired I had only drank two of the six beers I had bought. But without those two beers camping would have been much less fun.

The Police: I have a top-grade radar detector that I mount to the inside of the windshield of my car for long drives. I don’t speed like crazy, my car doesn’t go that fast, but I like to keep between 10 and 20 miles over the limit, and the radar saves me from being in the upper part of that range when cops are on the hunt.

State Troopers in Pennsylvania use the lowest-grade radar (K-band radar) and they hide behind bridges or curves in the road. They are sneaky. State Troopers in Ohio have sleek silver vehicles and use laser speed detection, which doesn’t show up on my radar. They need to be out in the open to use laser, but they can nab you from afar. The WAZE app, rather than the fuzz buster, helped me identify these threats. State Troopers in Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota seem to use standard police radar (KA-band) and didn’t seem to be as eager to nab speeders from what I could tell.

Driving: The speed limit from Ohio on to Minneapolis is 70 mph when there isn’t construction. That’s pretty fast! Big Rigs have dif- culty passing other rigs at this speed, but they do so regularly, and this leads to long waits going the limit or under while one Truck spends a minute or often more than a minute in the passing lane overtaking another truck. There were a few occasions when one truck would try and pass another just before an uphill section, and would fail at doing so, leading to a 60 mph trafc jam, and no one better-of than before. The whole trip out I didn’t encounter anybody overtaking me at top speeds, which was surprising con- sidering how many people own fast cars. Most ‘performance’ cars will never be asked to perform at a ‘performance’ level. 🙁

Red Tape: I spent a night in Chicago with my godfather and we ate some very good steak. You need a sticker on your car to park overnight in Chicago as a stranger. As a resident I guess you either pay for the stickers or are given some by the city. During dinner my godfather reminded me that you can legally refuse to take a breathalyzer test. He said the cops can still take away your license for three months if they want to, but you don’t have to blow in the tube. I don’t drink and drive, but it’s good to be reminded that you don’t have to listen to what the cops tell you to do. I’ve tried this before and it didn’t work out, I got arrested.

The Dells: The Wisconsin Dells are a shit show – they are beautiful. The actual Dell parts are beautiful, and all the kitschy tourist stuf is beautiful. The custom T-shirt stores are worth visiting, what a scene! I scored a shirt with Ariel (The Little Mermaid) As a Suicide(ish)-Girl. I was going to give the attraction ‘Wizard Quest’ a whirl but it turns out its an interactive game that takes an hour and a half to play. There’s a brochure describing a downloadable phone app that will make Wizard Quest even more interactive and awesome, but the lady at the ticket counter said it wouldn’t be ready till the fall. I would spend a day in the Dells. I’d go see the Tommy Bartlett Water Ski and Sky Dive show at either 4:30 or 8pm. I would’ve gone to Tommy Bartlett’s ‘Robot World’ back when it was called ‘Robot World’, but now it’s called the ‘Exploratorium’ and it looks less good, or not good. There is also a Lumberjack Show at one place at 2pm every day. Plus waterslides everywhere. And a Bar called ‘Nigs’? Other than ‘Nigs,’ it all looks pretty fun.

I arrived at David Petersen Gallery after 4pm on Wednesday June the 24th, just in time to meet up with David and drive to the YMCA to pick up his kid from Camp.

Enjoy the Show.

David Petersen Gallery is quite pleased to present Geatest Show on Rearth, an absurdly yet aptly titled exhibition of sculpture and drawing by Lukas Geronimas. A collection of sturdy, static objects that speaks to support, are comprised of supports and them- selves are supports, the eight works installed bring together elements of invention, DIY design, reuse, repurpose, and rejuvenation, all building to a minor spectacle. A viable sensory experience, Geronimas employs canny and sophisticated skills with a mod- est set of recognizable, even mundane, sculptural materials that carry the capacity to speak to a particular form of the well-crafted. In Geatest Show on Rearth, craft is still signifcant, vital, despite, seemingly, ample imperfections. This isn’t to say that these objects are perfect – they are not. There certainly are no exclamation points. But they are present, in the here and now, etc. and taking up space in the giving way that glass catches light, the way a window shares what is on the other side but without letting you touch. Generous but maybe not nice. Geatest Show on Rearth.