In the Galleries - Good Summer CLOSES June 28 at BANK Projects

Jun 13, 2013 at 4:00 am
Michael Senise and Cody Frei, Marty Mc’Fly Shit, skateboard hardware, acrylic, wood,
    chrome, 8” x 31” x 4”, 2013.
Michael Senise and Cody Frei, Marty Mc’Fly Shit, skateboard hardware, acrylic, wood, chrome, 8” x 31” x 4”, 2013.

In this two-person show, Milwaukee-based artists Michael Senise and Cody Frei juxtapose everyday objects to create visual puns that tend to riff on consumer and pop culture. A canvas photographic print of Stone Cold Steve Austin features the pro wrestler in a self-referential tank top, bulging arms heroically raised, a cluster of white nails driven through his skull. The work's title, Stone Cold Hell Raiser, nods to both Clive Barker's horror franchise and the WWE star's signature boast. Blowin' Up Like a Ceiling Fan is a white fan inversely mounted and spinning on a low, white pedestal; Welcome to the West is a tiny arch made of intertwined strands of red, white and blue Twizzlers bound at each end by glow-stick handles. Mercedes-Benz, Trojan Magnum condoms, Garcia y Vega blunts and other brand-name signifiers all undergo assorted twists. In the center of it all stands a wonderfully crude sculpture of SpongeBob. Poor wide-eyed, glitter-shoed SpongeBob, square-pantsed on a sea of ironic slogans, boasts and other slick capitalist riddles: We empathize, as the joke's on us, too. Through June 28 at BANK Projects, 3420 Iowa Avenue; 314-799-0881 or http:// an-bank.tumblr.com. Hours: by appointment.