'Game on Tilt'
This exhibit by Berlin-based Australian artist Gerry Bibby is clever but terribly dry at times, yet its title is rather colorful, reminiscent of a casino, a rigged game, a tilted blackjack table full of cards. The exhibition at Midway Contemporary Art is laid out in two parts: In the library, Bibby has hung screen prints on paper, aluminum and wood from shelves, each with letters for the face cards (Jack, King and Queen) and Ace. There is no 10 for a royal flush. Instead, "Maid I," two connected steel tubes with a fan inside them, leans against the wall. A similar pattern is echoed in the gallery, where long sentences without punctuation are screen printed onto paper and hung on walls, eliciting random images like "Canaries in the coal mine," giving them a computer-generated feel. Another steel piece hangs on the wall, a fan inside. The show seems to come together most clearly in a third part: Visitors are invited to go to a kiosk and enter the names of his artworks into search. But no more is revealed about the pieces themselves. Instead, there's just another rabbit hole to wander down, a play on the impossibility of winning such a tilted game. (11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. through Aug. 25. 527 2nd Av. SE., Mpls. midwayart.org)
Alicia Eler
