Ripley’s odd art coming downtown
A new exhibit in downtown Orlando is designed to demonstrate that Ripley’s is not only odd, it’s artistic, too.
“The main goal was to show our audience that we’re not just sideshow and shrunken heads. We have a lot more to offer,” said Sabrina Sieck, creative content manager for Orlando-based Ripley Entertainment Inc.
The “Odd Is Art” show, which debuted Thursday and runs through June 15, reaches into the famed Ripley archives for unusually presented art. There will be a portrait of John F. Kennedy made of butterflies, pieces representing Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls made of broken records, and a drawing of Alfred Hitchcock on a matchbook.
There will be a big-time pop-culture current to it. “Falcon Down,” a 7-foot by 25-foot piece, portrays the Millennium Falcon – an iconic “Star Wars” spaceship -- crashing into Stonehenge. It was created with duct tape.
“We’ve never displayed it anywhere because of the sheer size of it,” Sieck said.
Nontraditional media will be at home here. “Moby Dick” is typed onto six rolls of toilet paper.
The show is based on Ripley’s new book, also titled “Odd Is Art.” Ripley’s publishing arm, as well as its worldwide attractions, is based in Orlando. The publication is a departure from the company’s traditional fact-packed, believe-it-ornot annuals. It rests squarely in the coffee-table book genre, with an emphasis on the art itself and a sprinkling of type to explain just what the reader is seeing.
The downtown Orlando show, staged at Redefine Gallery inside CityArts Factory, will feature about 20 works, most of which are in the “Odd” book.
Mauricio Murill, one of Redefine’s owners, had art in the Ripley book called “Unlock the Weird” two years ago. It was his re-creation of Darth Vader’s helmet – made entirely of Gummi Bears – that attracted Ripley’s attention. (Murill’s art is done under the name Crummy Gummy.)
“I’m a little bit of an oddball, so to me it was an honor,” Murill said. Naturally, he was in favor of oddities coming to his gallery, and he thinks it will be a hit with Ripley fans.
“When they told me the idea, it sounded like a lot of fun,” he said.
“I think that it’s kind of cool that it’s a little bit of Ripley’s and us mixed in away from the tourist crowd as well,” Murill said. “A lot of locals are going to be able to see it.”
That’s part of Ripley’s goals, Sieck said.
“I really wanted to do something local with this. We’re based in Orlando; we have an attraction here … but there’s just something more to being in our community, especially when trying to reach other audiences,” she said.
The art exhibit is expected be fun but feel “a little more elevated” than the attraction, she said.
“When you walk into this gallery, it’s not going to feel like you’re in the Orlando ‘odditorium’ … with those bright colors and splashes everywhere,” Sieck said. “You’re going to feel like you’re in a gallery environment.”
Ripley may extend the idea to other cities as a traveling show.
“The concept would work really well in Portland or Brooklyn or Austin,” Sieck said. “We’re going to use this as a test market and move forward with it, hopefully.”