Gizmo heaven: Interactive art offers goofy delights

	 

Bring the kids. This museum trip will entertain the whole family.

Rather than gazing at objects or edifying labels, the Minnesota Museum of American Art's current show will have you tapping out crazy tunes on odd musical instruments, racing marbles, playing with light, arranging snapshots or even sipping real tea with an absent companion half a world away.

Called "Interact/ React," this delightfully unpretentious show, which runs through May 29, features the imaginative concoctions of 11 Minnesotans whose art would be right at home in a penny arcade or a high-tech fun fair. Craftsmanship and conceptual elegance loft it into the more refined category of art, but without sacrificing the surprise that inspires wonder and awe. You're likely to emerge smiling and lighter of heart.

Dean Luckers' "Crying Pear"

Curator Theresa Downing, who joined the museum's staff late last year, organized the show in response to a little sculpture by George Rickey that she noticed in the museum's collection. Made in 1967, the sculpture is less than a foot tall and consists of a wafer of stainless steel about six inches square poised atop a little rod attached to a square base.

"Square #1" seems unremarkable until it moves. Brushed by the slightest breeze, the steel square bobs up and down like a cloud adrift. Hidden weights and a concealed armature account for its supple rhythms. Given its chunky shape and industrial material, the sculpture appears rigid and immovable, which makes its gentle, fluid motion surprising. A classic of its time, Rickey's experiment introduced motion into a traditionally stable art form, surprising the eye and mind with its incongruous and unexpected delicacy.

"Ready to Go" by Karl Raschke

Karl Raschke

"This elegant little thing is what inspired the exhibition," Downing said during a recent tour of the show. "It looks so simple, but it has a lot of engineering behind it. "

From the Weisman Art Museum, she borrowed a larger work by Rickey consisting of seven delicately balanced panels that bob and weave with equal flair. Next, from the MMA's own collection, she pulled two 1980s sculptures by Norman Anderson, who added sound to motion. His "Wailing Wall" is a funky 1983 folk-art contraption that consists of seven homemade or modified musical instruments mounted on a wall -- drums, organ pipes, a primitive three-string guitar -- and wired to a floor grid. When visitors dance on the floor panels, their motion activates hidden bellows and electric impulses that set off the instruments, eliciting rhythmic tattoos from the drums, deep hoots and tweets from the pipes and sharp twangs from the strings.

Dean Lucker's "Weeping Stump"

Another of Anderson's folksy sculptures in the show once served as the museum's interactive admission collector. Feed it small change and it hoots and spins levers; drop in a bill and bells clang, levers twirl and lights flash. If only all museum ticket-takers were so appreciative and enthusiastic about their jobs!

Dean Lucker's precious little hand-carved sculptures walk the line between folk whimsy and fairy-tale magic. Displayed under glass bell jars like Victorian relics, they are electrified, mechanical wonders crafted with watchmaker precision. Push a button on "Wobbly," and two twig-figures riding unicycles twirl about on a wedding-cake platform, one carrying a rice-paper umbrella that opens and closes. A string of tears rolls from the glittering eyes of a "Weeping Stump" while a carved pear spins on an overhead branch. His third sculpture, called "Crying Pear," includes a mechanical man who stands to catch pearly tears dropping from a tiny tree. Enchanting.

Jeffrey Zachman's "Kinetic Sculpture #301," offers an artful array of pulleys and cogs to transport marbles that cascade through a very stylish, gravity-driven race course. Other pieces involve more high-tech interactions. Bill Klaila, a computer programmer by day and artist by night, has projected computer-generated images of trees and water onto the walls and floor of an alcove. When visitors step "into" the forest or the water, the installation reacts with bird songs, ripples and simulations of other natural phenomena. Patrick Kelley's "photos" also pack a surprise because, with the click of a computer mouse, their images -- of snowy fields, little flags, geometric black-and-white designs -- subtly change. Although they appear to be traditional photos, they are video projections that respond to viewer interventions.

For the opening reception, Tim Fort installed and activated an elaborate chain-reaction project consisting of carefully arranged sticks, cards and images that rippled and fell in less than a minute, leaving a charming residue reminiscent of a playroom. Diane Willow's computer-and-motor activated leaf spinner and feather whips seem overbuilt and underperforming. Holly Streekstra's "Tea for Two" installation -- consisting of a tea-table set for one with a guest book explaining where in the world another person will be sipping tea simultaneously -- seemed excessively fey.