It’s a blustery day, and a group of people have taken shelter in Nancy Bromberg’s Gallery a Go Go art bus. With its festive animal-print seat covers, fur pelts, stuffed rodents, and mounted animal heads, the interior brings to mind an over-the-top version of Elvis’s Graceland Jungle Room. Outside, the vehicle is a glorious collage of plastic animals, buttons, pictures, mirrors, and other objects. A team of swans perch on the roof, just above the bus’s destination sign, which reads: “Home.”
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The bus is being videotaped by a TV crew for a story about this Saturday’s Art Car and Anything That Rolls Parade. A small but impressive group of brightly decorated vehicles have also shown up for the taping, including a sedan topped by a Velcro miniature golf course, a Nissan Sentra painted like a Rene Magritte sky with the words “Ceci n’est pas une voiture” on the door, and a van covered with images of Alfred E. Neuman, Beavis and Butt-head, and Daffy Duck. A trio of pedicabs pull a band of musicians playing a sad, slow dirge; one of the drivers wears a huge carrot-head mask. Local artist Ken Indermark pushes an orange shopping cart that he’s turned into a shrine overflowing with flags, signs, and a mannequin torso.
The trio, who call themselves the Coalition on Wheelz, spent most of the summer planning this weekend’s event with the Wicker Park Chamber of Commerce. Highlights include an art-car contest judged by Miss Illinois Tracy Hayes, an appearance by the colorful Saint Louis Banana Bicycle Brigade, and a showing of Harrod Blank’s film Wild Wheels.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Yael Routtenberg.
