Since my initial post on art in vending machines, I’ve been looking into how the phenomena manifests itself in Canada. While there seems to be no overarching or nationally cohesive counterpart to the Art-O-Mat I encountered in Las Vegas, there are a myriad of interesting projects abound. Today, I’m going to share some of them with you (aren’t you lucky!).
A couple of weeks ago I took a trip to Death Valley and Las Vegas, full of expectation. I’d been training for months in preparation to run what was to be my first big race: The Death Valley Marathon. Sadly, the race was cancelled at 3 am, only four hours before the start, due to dangerously high winds (50km/hr, gusting to 90km/hr!!). I had travelled all that way and like hell I wasn’t going to see Titus Canyon, so I ran part of the back half without support. It was amazing and I can only imagine how spectacular running the full course would have been. The rest of the day, and the one following, I spent time in and around Death Valley before heading to Las Vegas.
I’ll spare the details of the trip, since they’re not really the purpose of this blog, but will say that the two highlights of my trip were seeing Jubilee! – which was UNBELIEVEABLE (if you ever go to Vegas, this show is a MUST see!!!) – and the Art-O-Mat. On the second floor of our hotel, the Cosmopolitan, was about half a dozen boutiques and these unanticipated gems.
The Art-O-Mat
Tucked away, at the entrance to a pedway, two refurbished cigarette vending machines stood side-by-side. Instead of advertizing particular brands of cigarettes, backlit images professed the names of artists while the channels that had formerly held packs of cigarettes, now contained small boxes, whose contents could be yours for only $5.
Choices, choices…
Of course, I had to have one. I fed the machine my $5, pulled on the knob, and received a small white package, roughly 2”x3”. Wrapped around the outside was a glassine sleeve on which was printed little image and the text: Collage by Jordäo. Inside was some packaging material, an editioned collage, and a brief description of the artist and his practice.
The work I received!
As it turns out, this is the only Art-O-Mat in the state of Nevada, but there are 90 others like it across the United States (and one in Montreal). The first the Art-O-Mat appeared in 1997 when artist Clark Whittington was having a solo show at a local cafe in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Alongside 12 paintings, Whittington used a cigarette vending machine to sell some of his black and white photographs. Shortly thereafter, “Artists in Cellophane” was formed as an organization motivated by “taking art and ‘repackaging’ it to make it part of our daily lives…the AIC believes that art should be progressive, yet personal and approachable.”
In addition, for those people who don’t have access to buying individual works through a vending machine as I did, online orders can also be placed for Art-O-Carton. Playing off of the cigarette theme, AIC has made these individual works available in a “carton” format, containing 10 works by 10 different artists.
Just like smoking, these little works are highly addictive!
This whole project really appeals to me and reminds me of other, similar, art “vending” machine type initiatives. As a result, over the course of the next week, I’m going to be blogging about Canadian incarnations of these including The Teenie Weenie Zine Machine, distroboto, and trap/door’s Ashland Institute of Button Technology!
