Holiday Springs and Sprockets

When I first saw the work of Steve Gerberich a couple of years ago, I was delighted by his inventiveness. So when I saw that the Muscatine Art Center would have his Holiday Springs and Sprockets on display, I was eager to go see it. Then I got sick, and put off going to the art center.

This is the last weekend of the exhibit, so I made a point of going today. (It is traditional to keep Christmas decorations up until Epiphany, which is tomorrow. I wonder if that played any part in determining the exhibit’s schedule.)

I really like the Flying Reindeer. Mounting reindeer on exercise bikes, and then using bicycle handlebars for antlers – that is inspired. And the collection of different light bulbs for Rudolph to use, depending on the weather – that is a special touch, especially the collection of clear lights for Hanukkah!

I have to admit that the rest of the exhibit left me somewhat disappointed. Perhaps my expectations were too high, because I had enjoyed the previous exhibit so much. Perhaps it was because this time the idea of how Gerberich puts together apparent “junk” to make mechanized art was no longer fresh and new.

Maybe it was the wooden elves – I just don’t like their looks. I wondered if maybe it was partly because more of the objects appeared to have been made specially for a Christmas exhibit, if not necessarily this one, rather than being odds and ends that had been pressed into service in an entirely new way.

I wondered if Gerberich had been under some pressure to get a holiday exhibit put together and had less time to create it than some of his other works. I discovered later, reading about the exhibit in the Quad City Times (check out the story to see more pictures), that he created this exhibit in 1991 for Bloomingdale’s in New York. So maybe his other creations are better because he has had a couple of decades to improve his work.

This exhibit still delights many people, especially the children who visit. The art center was far from crowded on this January afternoon, but there was rarely a moment that one display or another was not in motion. And it wasn’t just children pushing the buttons that set the gears – and rollers, pulleys, chains, and more – in motion.