The Finch Mob Collective

A new phenomenon is aflutter. A group of innovative artists and goofy theatrical inventors have been working together for a good while and now are focusing on group exhibitions and performances, with other artists invited as well. Will Chase, who also curated the recent Spectra Ball, and curated the Finch Mob show at a home turned into a temporary gallery, says their art falls in between commercial and noncommercial. They are calling for breaking down barriers that keep us from using our creativity to foster change in the world. Here here!

An extraordinary thing is occuring here, as they are not only thinking in terms of visual art, but guerilla art, silent movies, civic outreach, and mayhem.

I attended their gallery opening on the 29th. I was moved by the spiritual power of a large painting of a heart and its energies, painted by a circussy woman named Bonnie, or Bunnie, Reiss. I could stare at it for a long time, letting it expand my openness, feeling as if my own heart ckakra could reach the size of the painting.

The various circus performer types were doing contact improve and casually playing with difficult moves, as people cheered. I later discovered more about two Finch Mob participants through a CD of a travelling conceptual, twisted, idiotically brilliant circus by Ben Turner and Dattner that travelled through the country, performing in 20 cities in double that amount of time, making audiences into temporary circus performers, such as the Amazing Moderately Flexable Man. 

The lithe, ridiculously magnetic Ben Turner was adorable in a variety of roles such as the Self Taming Lion Man, and the Emotional Escape Artist. Dattner and Ben made use of the traditional circus obnoxious overacting and relentless flamboyant level of excitement, but their travelling circus was anything but conventional.

At the Finch Mob opening, I learned something new about fire, from the beautiful photos of Gary Wilson, capturing individual licks of fire that are intensely convuluted and striking. Who would guess flames looked like that?