Lighten up with Polasek Museum’s humorous sculptures

The Polasek Museum is tired of being serious.

“With so much recent media focus on heavy and polarizing issues, we invite you to venture into the surreal, fantastic, ironic and satirical facets of contemporary art,” reads the introduction to the Winter Park museum’s latest exhibit: “Tongue in Cheek: Humorous Sculpture.”

“Humor is a great social unifier,” writes museum curator Rachel Frisby in the intro. “We are happy to show something completely different that everyone can smile about.”

And smile you will. Was that a banana on roller skates? A turtle taking a photo of a butterfly?

Thirty-three artists of the Florida Sculptors Guild have come up with nearly 50 whimsical works for the exhibition, which runs through Dec. 1.

Most are purely for fun. That banana on roller skates, made of bronze, is by artist Jack Hill.

“Bananas are thought of as ‘funny fruit,’” he says. “People slip on them, generating great laughter. … To give them more personality, I gave them feet. Once they can move around, the mischief they can create is way more fun.”

A few provide social commentary along with the silliness.

In Denisse Berlingeri’s mixed-media “Privacy,” a person kneels at a confessional — that is attached to an oversized logo for Facebook. The artist’s point: Social-media users might think what they are posting is private, or secret, when in fact it is not.

Lovers of visual puns, and I know such people are out there, will chuckle — that turtle taking a photo, a work in metal by John Baker, is titled “Snapping Turtle,” of course. Byron Walker’s mixedmedia “Florida Keys” depicts our Sunshine State as a mass of common housekeys.

Baker enjoys using common or recycled items in his art, often for serious, thought-provoking pieces — and in this case for a giggle.

“Sometimes the works are as deep as the depths of the mind’s eye,” he writes, “and sometimes they are as simple as the Florida Keys.”

‘Tongue in Cheek’

Where: Albin Polasek Musuem & Sculpture Gardens, 633 Osceola Ave. in Winter Park

When: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 1-4 p.m. Sunday; through Dec. 1 Cost: $3-$10

Info: polasek.org is both humorous and

“Privacy,” a mixed-media work by Denisse Berlingeri, a commentary on society.

MATTHEW J. PALM PHOTOS/ORLANDO SENTINEL “On a Roll” is a work in bronze by Jack Hill. The skating banana is on view at the Polasek Museum in Winter Park.

The rabbit and his carrot racer in “‘Root’ 66” are made of stoneware clay. “I get ideas from puns usually before the clay sculpture happens,” says artist Vince Sansone.