New Art Gallery Opens in February
Pinball Art: Fine Art
January 07, 2010
PINBALL ART: FINE ART
A CELEBRATION AND ART OPENING
At the Pacific Pinball Museum
1510 Webster St., Alameda, CA 94501
February 5, 2010 from 2pm to 12 midnight
$15 Adults, $7.50 Children
No Host Bar
Pinball Art: Fine Art is a study of pinball imagery and original artwork as shown in selected galleries from the 70’s through 2010.
Melissa Harmon, Curator, Pacific Pinball Museum, 2010
Pinball Art: Fine Art is an overview of exhibitions and artworks about pinball from 1972-2010. Pinball Art: Fine Art opens Friday, February 5, 2010, from 2 pm to 12 midnight. The cost is $15 adults, $7.50 children. Admission to the art gallery includes the museum, the art opening, machine play, flipper finger food and punch. There is a no host bar selling drinks.
Guests are invited to play our historic collection of 30’s, 40’s and 50’s woodrails, plus machines from the 60’s to the present day, a total of 80 pinball machines. All machines are on free play.
Pinball Art: Fine Art is a collection of exhibition posters and artists’ creations, with commentary about historic shows in which pinball art and fine art intersect. The show features original works by Dirty Donnie, Brian Holderman, Wade Krause, Mike Schiess, and William Wiley who have re-themed pinball machines, removing the old artwork, and replacing it with their own. There are pages from Melissa Harmon’s book in progress Fashion in Pinball.
Pinball Art: Fine Art’s earliest exhibit is Pin Ball Game Scoreboards held in 1972 at the Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. The latest show represented is the 2009-2010 exhibition Pinball: From Bagatelle to Twilight Zone held at the San Francisco International Airport Terminal, and presented by the San Francisco Airport Museum, the Pacific Pinball Museum, and the Silver Ball Ranch.
The art is available for viewing at the Pacific Pinball Museum until March 2, 2010. Hours are 2pm to 9pm on Tues., Wed., Thurs., Sun., and 2pm-12 midnight Friday and Saturday, closed Mondays.
A Short History of Pinball, Fine Art and Good Taste
Pinball, for the enthusiast, means the spirit of freedom and possibility, erotic fun without responsibility. Most pinball games in America were found in bars and arcades, which contributed to pinball’s image as lowbrow art, kitsch, and in bad taste. Because of this, pinball art has had little critical analysis. It’s ironic that the origin of pinball came in the midst of a cultural struggle to define “good taste”.
The western idea of “taste” began in France in the 1600 - 1700’s, coincidentally when the first bagatelles appeared. The French invented bagatelles which were the earliest pinball machines, made of score holes in a board. Players with cue sticks vied to push balls into the highest scoring holes. Later, pins or small nails were hammered in to the board as guides for the ball, hence the name pinball.
The French aristocrats tried to turn every aspect of their lives into art, and were in severe competition with each other as to what made good art and design. In 1777 as part of this competitive mania, the Comte d’Artois, grandson of King Louis XV, built a mansion called Chateau d’ Bagatelle dedicated to the play of bagatelle.
In Europe and America, the outcome of the struggle to define taste, and by extension what constitutes good art was temporarily settled in the 1800’s with the sweeping term “fine art”, which generally meant refined and tasteful art made by accepted artists. Forms such as advertising art, cartoons, posters and decorative art were not included.
Marcel Duchamp, the French /American surrealist shattered those fine art definitions by exhibiting a commercially produced urinal and calling it Fountain (1917).
In the sixties, led by Andy Warhol, fine art came to include many things that were once excluded. Consumer goods could become art, and a pinball machine could be seen as a cultural icon.
Recently, artists such as Budai, Dirty Donnie, Brian Holderman, Mike Schiess and William Wiley have re-themed pinball machines, making old machines into something completely new.
The Pacific Pinball Museum is dedicated to preserving the history of pinball, and encouraging cultural analysis and art about pinball.
Pinball Art: Fine Art is a study of pinball imagery and original artwork as shown in selected galleries from the 70’s through 2010.
___Melissa Harmon, Curator, Pacific Pinball Museum, 2010
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