Project Description

The second Art Attack hit on the Olshonsky was a bit more organized and had more "blue chip" artists than round one. [The first, undocumented, was in 1982.] Bill Dunlap, who had a couple of museum shows on his resume, did a big landscape with trees and pastures, then took wild colors in latex house paint and spattered his piece with a stick. The late Kevin MacDonald created a whole tableau with heavy lawn furniture and turquoise paint that could be viewed through a hole in a wall. The Art Attack regulars weighed in with a burned furniture installation that gave a new meaning to the term "fire sale"—with cooked overstuffed chairs and some great black on grey airless spray. [Mark Clark] installed a half dozen or so copies of Caravaggio's "Basket of Fruit" that kicked the painting around every which way, shifting scale, anamorphic views, even a trompe l'oeil of a print of Basket of Fruit being attacked by hungry insects. Round two drew some critical attention and a lot of raves, but as usual, nobody got rich. Dunlap cast everybody's heads in plaster during the installation, and they turned up in later projects. However, Bill didn't show up for the exhibition's takedown, when [the artists] had to scrape off all that thrown latex with razor blades before painting the gallery white again. —Mark Clark

Participating Artists

• Billy Burns
• Bill Dunlap
• Jared Louche (nee Hendrickson)
• Lynn McCary
• Kevin McDonald