Teaching at the art school! (2 of 3): Art installations!.

The other week, they opened up this big exhibit in their skyscraper gallery space, with pieces by faculty and staff and workers at the school and the museum.

The thing that got me, was that a lot of the people who work in random offices there actually are practicing artists too, and so you'd have this cool freaky photo stuff, and then underneath the artist's name would be like, "Financial Aid", or, "Advising".

They had free food and wine, and so I loaded up my plate with cheese and fruit and went strolling around through the drywalled hallways and cubicles full of sculpture and paintings and photos, and right away I saw one of the highlights of the exhibition, several giant terracotta statues of a Mexican man, lying on the floor as if physically shattered with bones sticking out, only sometimes there would be a live agave plant or something coming out of an arm socket, and not a bone.

I strolled around it and looked closer, and as I did so, a piece of blue cheese rolled off my plate and bounced off the floor, and as I bent down to get it, it rolled under a giant limb.

I pretended like I was scooting in closer to look at a detail, but then I left, quickly, before anyone could see what I had done.

A little later, my one (light-skinned black) friend from Arkansas joined me, and as we rounded a corner, this cubicle was blocked off with chicken wire, and inside in the back was a short balding hispanic man in his mid- to late 30s in a thong with a few dollar bills stuffed in it, grinding against the wall, and as he turned to the people watching him, he displayed a very hairy untrimmed chest over a muscular paunch, and would hold your gaze intensely, as if he was mentally ill, while grinding his way to the front.

As me and my friend looked, he held our eyes intensely, creeping us out to the point where we had to get out of his range of vision, but even then, he grinded forward and leaned against the chicken wire and turned his head to stare at us, moving very deliberately and somewhat slowly, and never blinking or turning his eyes to the side, and starting to stick his hand out through the chicken wire...

As we quickly left, I glanced down, and it was a durational performance entitled "Don't Feed the [hispanic male first name]" done by [that hispanic male first name] [some hispanic last name] in 'Facilities and Maintenance'.