Five Ton Crane Heads to the Smithsonian

You read that right. As part of the upcoming exhibition at the Renwick Gallery, No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man, Five Ton Crane has been commissioned to create a mutant vehicle–an art car. In the great tradition of the event and of our creative collaboration, we are proud to present the Capitol Theater, a vehicle designed to convey one not only through space but through time. It is a mobile movie palace from another era.  Grand and curvacious, the open air Art Deco inspired theater bus seats 12 and is filled with lush detail (including films) from a crew of hard working artists that produced this new old wonder about in three months.

If you are in the Washington D.C. area, be sure to check it out. If you aren’t, maybe you should get there. You’ll find the Renwick Gallery just across the street from the White House. The show will be up from March 30th 2018 until Jan 21st, 2019. The first floor, including the Capitol Theater, closes September 16th, 2018, so be sure to make it before then if you can.

Michael Garlington and Natalia Bertotti, Totem of Confessions, 2015, Photo by Daniel L. Hayes.

According to the Smithsonian,

Large-scale installations—the artistic hallmark of Burning Man—form the core of the exhibition. Individual artists and collectives featured in No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man include David Best, Candy Chang, Marco Cochrane, Duane Flatmo, Michael Garlington and Natalia Bertotti, Five Ton Crane Arts Collective, FoldHaus Art Collective, Scott Froschauer, HYBYCOZO (Yelena Filipchuk and Serge Beaulieu), Android Jones, Aaron Taylor Kuffner, Christopher Schardt, Richard Wilks, and Leo Villareal. Multiple installation sites have been selected throughout the neighborhood surrounding the museum for No Spectators: Beyond the Renwick, which will include works by Jack Champion, Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson, HYBYCOZO, Laura Kimpton, Mischell Riley, and Kate Raudenbush.

Here’s a look at some of the local art heading to the Renwick, including a peek at the Capitol Theater. I feel honored to have been able to design the theater seat end-caps, which I prototyped in plywood using a laser cutter, and which were cut in steel using another laser cutter, and then cleaned up, welded and painted by a crew of amazing people while I was busy crawling around laying tile on the theater floor. I’ll be sure to post photos of my handywork as well as the rest of this outpouring of creativity–after the show opens, March 30th.