The Beatnik Art Show-by Ula, the Pain-Proof Rubber Girl BEATNIKS Curated by Les Barany and Jonathan LeVine CBGBs 313 Gallery * August 17-September 8, 2000 On a steamy Thursday evening around 6pm, downtown Manhattan was assaulted by a line of loud, flamed, chopped, pinstriped and otherwise customized 50's styled cars and Hot-Rods cruising up the Bowery. After much honking of ahoogah horns and shooting flames out of tailpipes barely clearing the pavement, the cars came to a halt on the corner of Bleeker and Bowery. There, in front of the legendary club CBGBs, the heavily tattooed drivers sporting purple shirts and goatees made their way through the gaping crowd and into the Gallery to celebrate the opening of the first Beatnik ArtShow. The Beatniks car club was founded in 1992 by Jack Rudy, Brian Everett and Steve Bonge. Membership requirements are tight-50's styled rods and customs only, lots of ink, and says member Von Franco; ya gotta have that coolness, and of course the ibbity bibbity." (For all you squares-that means a little something extra on your chin). The exhibit was presented by Steve Bonge as a preview to the Hot Rod Tattoo Convention that weekend in Long Island. There was no shortage of eye candy for the walls: Pizz, McPhail and Jack Rudy provided crazy hot rod inspired paintings, There were oil paintings from Von Franco, airbrushed and pinstriped wood sculptures from Way out Willie Fisher, Pen and ink drawings from Baby Ray, Fip Buchanan and Shoe, as well as photographs from Bonge and Rob Fortier. With a club roster full of well known artists, of course some of the not so artistically inclined members were a little intimidated, but everyone was required to contribute something or suffer the brutal taunting of Rudy and Bonge. Rockabilly Woody created his first sculpture from a bowling pin, a hubcap and some dice. To prove to Stinky that anybody could create a masterpiece, Bonge and Big Daddy Blazer made a hubcap spin art contraption out of an old clothes drier, a grinder motor, a Harley pulley and some old exhaust pipes. All he had to do was load on a hubcap, start the engine, squirt a little pinstriping enamel onto the rotating cap in strategic patterns, and he had a freaky multicolored spiral disk. Additional hubcap art and paintings came from Mark Madigan, Dano, Dirty Doug, Shawn Warcot and Slick. The art wasn't only confined to the walls; Rick Dore made a sculptural piece out of a '56 Cadillac Aircleaner onto which he mounted chrome dice and flames. Way out Willie and Von Franco painted the Beatniks logo onto a '39 Ford car door. Films of past Beatnik events were shown on video monitors, and gracing the stage was a 1957 T-bird junior - a miniature T-bird built in '56 as a sales promotion for the full-size model. It was fully restored, customized and painted candy-apple purple by Bonge. (As the only person that could contort their way into it, I happened to be lucky enough to drive it out of the gallery and back to the truck outside at the end of the evening). Not something you see downtown every day -for one night at least, the spiked hair and beat-up vans customarily seen outside CBs were replaced by pompadors and lead sleds. New York City, meet Koolsville.

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