The Center for Puppetry Arts’ Professor Pöschl puppet — from the Atlanta Opera’s ‘Tesla vs Edison’ — loomed over the crowd at ABV Gallery. (Photographs by Dustin Timbrook)
On June 21, ABV Gallery hosted opening receptions for three exhibitions: Locals Only, featuring Georgia-themed artworks by more than 80 local artists; Through the Lens, highlighting four photographers, and an unconventional but fitting partnership with the Center for Puppetry Arts. A handful of puppets on loan from the Center are displayed in the main gallery, while the building’s west annex displays an informative collection of photographs and videos documenting the history and mission of the Center.
The appending puppetry exhibit feels very much like an add-on rather than a full integration — four modest puppet displays dwarfed by four massive walls of paintings — but the impulse for these organizations to collaborate makes sense. ABV is a gallery built on subverting the norms of fine art through unusual subject matter and alternative processes. Meanwhile, the Center for Puppetry Arts proudly exhibits work widely considered to be “kid stuff” as fine art. Unpretentiousness and practical approaches to creation are the links that bind these separate Atlanta institutions: Both organizations center art made for everyone and by any means necessary.
Towering over visitors in the center of the main gallery, the most imposing puppet on display is Professor Pöschl, a larger-than-life character designed by Jason Hines for the Center’s Tesla vs Edison stage show. The scowling academic’s exposed clockwork brain and accusing skeletal digits hint at a dark tale of ingenuity and death — apt themes for Hines, an artist whose profession requires endless invention to create the illusion of life.
Hines’ work features prominently throughout the pop-up exhibit in the form of Pete the Cat puppets in the main gallery and documentary media in the west annex. It’s a well-deserved showcase for someone who has helped shape the look of puppet theater in Atlanta for more than 20 years — a resident builder at the Center since 2002, before stepping into the role of artistic director in 2024.
In addition to developing dozens of mechanically sophisticated and emotionally endearing characters for the Center over the years, Hines recently designed and oversaw construction of a massive multi-headed dragon for The Atlanta Opera’s production of Siegfried. This 10-foot-tall monster named Fafner, a photo and placard in the exhibit explains, required seven puppeteers to bring to life.
Of course, no mention of the Center — or puppetry itself — would be complete without Jim Henson. The pop-up at ABV provides just a small taste of the incredible collection of Henson creations viewable at the Center, including a sharp-toothed reptilian suitcase, Talking Luggage, that appeared on season three of The Muppet Show.
On the walls
It’s easy to imagine the link of influence from Henson to any one of the pop-culture inspired artists involved in ABV’s main exhibit, Locals Only, but perhaps none more so than painter Colin Sims whose oil titled An Orderly Transfer shows a demure, green-clad MARTA passenger accompanied by goofball Muppet-esque figures. Are these creatures toys, dormant hand puppets, or are we to understand them as living fellow riders? The narrative remains ambiguous, but Sims’s nod to the twentieth century’s most influential puppeteer is explicit.
Any direct reference to puppetry in Locals Only ends there, but a unifying creative ethos prevails between the Center and the gallery. ABV is a high-end gallery that never abandoned its street art roots, and the pieces that truly shine often employ untraditional materials and radical techniques. Aerosol? Animal bones? Cardboard? Epoxy resin? Whatever medium helps tell the artist’s story makes the cut.
Take, for example, Amberly Hui Hood who stitches together thick chewing gum-like smears of brightly colored silicone into a delicious patchwork for her piece, Dragnonfruit. More eye-catching color can be found across the room in Peter Ferrari’s Andre, a swirling jigsaw portrait pieced together with layers of spray-painted MDF.
Subject matter itself receives a similar “anything goes” treatment in Locals Only, the spare content guidelines being that the work should draw from “Georgia’s vibrant culture, layered history, and distinctive landscapes.” Painter Artetak somehow meets all of these criteria while keeping things pointedly lowbrow with Billy Bob Fritter, a cutesified homage to the animatronic country sheriff from Six Flags Over Georgia’s Monster Mansion dark ride. Based on a viewer’s history with the theme park this simple image might conjure warm nostalgia, uncanny nightmares, or a timeline of changing cultural norms. Either way, the warning on Fritter’s sign, “STAY OUTTA THA MARSH,” is uniquely relevant to the Georgia experience.
The most extreme encapsulation of ABV’s love for rule-breaking is evidenced in artist BIGTEEFF’s piece, Street Wings, which encases actual chicken bones onto a canvas painted to resemble litter-strewn asphalt. Chicken bones are a well-known sight to anyone who has stepped foot outside in Atlanta. Here, literal trash – so familiar as to be endearing and popularized by local meme culture – is enshrined in resin and elevated to collector status.
Some artworks challenge viewers’ expectations of good taste, while others seemingly mock the viewers themselves. One final, critical piece of the Center’s pop-up exhibit hides in plain sight as if playing a joke on patrons. High above the main gallery, staring down at all the gawkers below, The Muppet Show’s Statler and Waldorf puppets cackle from their balcony window. “Don’t take yourself so seriously, art snobs,” they seem to say, “because we sure don’t!”
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Dustin Timbrook is a creative generalist working in art, film and music. He volunteers on the board of directors for Avondale Arts Alliance. Timbrook loves spending time with his family, playing with dogs and gardening.
