Black and white collage #5 (2007, collaged paper and paint, 14 x 11”) by Budd Hopkins (1931-2011)
Review by Rebecca M. Alvin
The night of May 1st saw the opening of several exhibitions connected to the 2nd annual Outsider Festival in Provincetown. Three shows opened at Berta Walker Gallery and one large group show opened at the Commons, with a pair of installations there as well. The vibe at both galleries was wonderful, with an array of artists more diverse than usual. When artists like Joey Mars sit and chat about abstract expressionism with gallerist Berta Walker, there is a breaking down of the walls between the old guard artists of Provincetown and the more recent.
The most visible connection between these shows is in the work of Budd Hopkins, whose work as an artist and as a UFO researcher inspired this year’s Outsider Festival. To that end, both the Berta Walker Gallery and the Commons have his work on display—collages in color at the former and in black-and-white at the latter. The works feature his iconic circles that still resonate in their allusions to circular time, cycles of life, and their contradiction to the hard lines around them.
But the show at the Commons also offers a huge collection of collages in various mediums, including a black and yellow photographic collage by Hopkins’ daughter Grace Hopkins, called Plane; a beautiful piece by Liz Carney of Four Eleven Gallery called What Could Be Spoken; and Joe Trepiccione’s mysterious Houdini: A Master of Perception.
While one of the installations, Jay Critchley’s Lost: The National Garden of American Zeros was a one-night-only experience, Joey Mars’ The Portals remains on view in front of the Commons until May 13. It consists of a phone booth, heavily graffitied by Mars and electrified to light up when you go inside it. Once inside there is a QR code you can scan to leave a video message which will later be incorporated into an additional work. The piece evokes the alien abductions that reportedly took place in a phone booth at Dutra’s Market in North Truro decades ago.
Missing Time: A Collage Showis at the Commons, 46 Bradford St., Provincetown, through May 10. For more information visit provincetowncommons.org. Additional art exhibitions connected to the Outsider Festival continue at Berta Walker Gallery, 208 Bradford St., through May 31. Visit bertawalkergallery.com for more on those.
