Reed Gallery | 2.0 Kinds of Funny

Entry

Sign display

Clay Brown and Ryan Kmieske, "3626c Hollow Stud Tray".

Tyler Hamilton, "Drum Solo".

Brown and Kmieske, Hamilton

Text

Found socks, polyester fill, thread, and chain.

Natalie Baxter, "Disco Socks".

Baxter

Indiana limestone and milkcrate pedestal.

Joe Girandola, "Jeff Koons Can't Shoot the Rock".

Girandola

Matt Lynch, "Full Container Load (FCL)".

Lynch

Section A

Bronze, sling shot parts, corn, box and duct tape.

Buster Graybill, "Turkey Leg Sling Shot".

Graybill

Section B

3D printed PLA resin, acrylic paint, and pine.

Chris Vorhees, "Cartoon Bent Nail".

Chris Vorhees, "Warped Perspective".

Vorhees

Jack A. Massing, "The Final Stage of a Cycle of Immobility".

Keith Benjamin, "Carton Accordion".

Massing, Benjamin

Benjamin

Academy Records, "Something in the Air".

Academy Records

Zack Bent, "Pass Me the Rock".

Bent

John Barron, "Arnold Palmer's Package".

Barron

Margaret Kammerer, "Croc Crock Pot Pot".

Kammerer

Paper mâché, aluminum flashing and tissue paper.

Dustin Boise, "SHAM".

Boise

Tracy Featherstone, "All The Things I Think About When I Should Be Sleeping".

Featherstone

Holli Friley, "Birkin 25".

Friley

Rajiv Satyal, "Phoning It In".

Delta Airlines announced it’ll be 95% ready for Y2K, the year 2000 bug.  That’s not reassuring:  I don’t know if that means that 95% of their flights will be safe or that all of their flights will make it 95% of the way.

Nokia — 1998:

Did we ever figure out what we’re calling this decade?  I’m going with “today.”  Because mix stations keep saying, “Playing the biggest hits of the ’80s, ’90s, and today.” 

Nokia — 2000:

They finally completed the Human Genome Project.  How’s that relevant to us?  Well, has this ever happened to you?  I’m dating a beautiful woman and then I meet her parents and they’re the two ugliest people I’ve ever seen.  And I’m thinking, “What Punnett Square permutation yielded this biological miracle?”  

Panasonic — 2002:

Massachusetts legalized gay marriage.  I actually have a gay brother.  It was a big moment when he came out of the closet.  Well, we’re Indian, so he came out of the cupboard.

Nokia — 2004:

LA is a special kind of dating hell.  I've never lived in a place where it felt like the entire town was out of my league.  If you’re gonna overcome that, you better have a killer line.  And one night, I did.   I was chatting this woman up at a bar and she said, indignantly, “I have a serious boyfriend.”  I replied, “Well, you need a funny one.”  Boom.

Blackberry — 2006:

We did it.  We elected a Black President.  Now everybody’s saying, “Isn’t this great?  This proves anybody can be President.”  Nah, George Bush proved ANYBODY could be President. 

iPhone — 2009:

Barack Obama would often say, “Let me be clear.”  After all these years, I finally figured out what he meant.  He was just tired of being a color.  “I don’t want to be Black.  I don’t want to be White.  Dear Lord, let me be clear.”

iPhone — 2020:

My wife and I had a son.  We named him Naveen.  In Hindi, Naveen means new.  So, I guess we should rename him every year… He was born in LA.  Well, he’s Hindu, so he was reborn in LA.  He was also born in 2021, so he’s a covid baby.  The good thing about having a covid baby is you know it’s yours.

iPhone — 2025:

I miss college.  I even miss studying.  Those late nights with all of my friends.  It’s 3 AM.  The test is at 7 AM.  We’d all sit around and argue over a concept for like an hour.  And whenever we couldn’t figure it out, all those discussions would end the exact same way:  “Dude, he’s not gonna put that on there.”

iPhone — 2016:

Satyal

Silk boxing shorts and embroidery thread.

Matthew Flores, "Hammerspace".

Flores

Section C

Animatronics and mixed recycled materials.

Deep in the Alabama woods, PlantBot Genetics---run by two overworked geneticists, Wendy DesChene and Jeff Schmuki---accidentally created their most chaotic invention yet: Flora-5, a bushy, wing-flapping, tail-wagging plant with Queen Anne’s Lace blossoms and dance moves that could only be described as “enthusiastically jerky.” Wendy, the funnier one of the pair (because Jeff was too busy losing his last nerve over funding paperwork), dubbed it Daucus roboticus comptonii, explaining, “It’s Latin for ‘Flora-5, stop jerking around!’” 

Flora-5's awkward, twitchy dance didn’t just look like a malfunction---it was a solution to a significant environmental problem, ‘Soil Degradation.’ With every wildly erratic jerk and wiggle, Flora-5 distributed bioengineered pollen packed with soil-healing microbes, scattering them like confetti. While the dance moves could use some work, the plant was tirelessly regenerating degraded soils where over-farming, deforestation, and pollution had left their mark. Flora-5 jerks and flails, solving environmental damage while inadvertently putting on a show that could only be described as “eco-friendly slapstick.” 

PlantBot Genetics (Wendy DesChene and Jeff Schmuki), "Flora-5 (Daucus roboticus comptonii)".

PlantBot Genetics

Walnut shell, copper, 14K gold, plexiglass vitrine and wood.

Josh Reiman, "IT".

Reiman

Jo Hormuth and Joel Score, "Laugh. Riot."

Hormuth and Score

Prismacolor on paper, glass cloche and rotating platform.

Jenny Roesel Ustick, "Who Is It For ?"

Ustick

Baggs McKelvey, "Oooohh".

McKelvey

Ink on Arches 300# cold press 10" cube.

Late last year I had a tumor removed from my brain. The bladder cancer had metastasized. 

(Haha) 

Researching my fate, I discovered Internet images of partial anesthesia twilight brain surgeries during which patients played their musical instruments. In a Monty Python sort of way, THAT is funny. Always Look(ing) on the Bright Side of Life and embracing the offensive which, contrary to popular opinion, are not always separate, I created a surgical sextet for 2.0. 

I have never been good at self-censorship. 

(Haha) 

Cu.Go. 

Curtis Goldstein, "Craniotomy Concerto".

Goldstein

Danielle Krysa, "Hottest Flashes".

Krysa

Wood, plastic, duct tape, banana peels, acrylic paint and polyurethane.

Brett Volpp, "Stand-up".

Volpp

Xerox printed booklet, found fabrics and thread.

Neil Daigle Orians, "Existential Dread Coloring and Activity Book".

Orians

Grandmother's metal tissue box, buttons and fabric.

Rae Goodwin, "Domestic Necessities".

Goodwin

Karen Gergely, Kristy Cherry, Adam Booth = Collabattack, "Watch Party".

Collabattack

Poplar, plywood, synthetic fabric and metal letterpress blocks.

Jed Knight, "Would you like some...cake?"

Knight

John Kilduff, "Paint Till You Die".

Kilduff

Dyed and bleached fabric, tread and dowel rod.

Aaron Walker, "Not Not Not Not Unfunny".

Walker

Greg Clem, "(All We Are) Dust in the Wind".

Clem

Bondo, foam, epoxy, paint, gold leaf, vintage award, chain and resin.

Rachel Linnemann, "Corn".

Linnemann

Herb Rieth, "American Gothic (Wagon Wheel)".

Rieth

Cast iron, steel, wood, artificial turf and fingernail polish.

Leticia Bajuyo, "Little Engines: Roller Coaster".

Bajuyo

Bret Price, "Bowling for Dollars".

Price

Slapface, "The American Dream".

Slapface

Sara Mulhauser, "Pie in the Sky".

Mulhauser

Collected scrap materials and pink bubble wrap.