Continuing through April 13, 2012
Rick Araluce usually works in miniature, but his plumbing-pipe installation crisscrosses the entire gallery space, snaking along overhead support beams, and disappearing into gaps in the wood-plank floor. The pipes (ranging in diameter from thumb-thick to a nearly a foot) are black and grey and mottled with what looks like years of rust and hard use. With hundreds of elbow joints splayed in all directions, the room feels heavy.
Viewers can walk between the pipes, which mass in the gallery center in a right-angled tangle. Just don't touch the sculpture, as touch will ruin the illusion. Spoiler alert: the pipes are not heavy cast iron as they appear, but plastic painted to resemble metal. Somehow this knowledge revokes some of the charm and weight of the work. Stop and listen though, as Steve Peters' moody, ambient music emanates from the sculpture in a way that seems to slow time.
