Chris Larson

Chris Larson, a contemporary artist from St. Paul, visited the WSU Fine Arts building on February 3, to present his latest exhibition,"Pause". Chris Larson is no ordinary artist, and his collection surprised, shocked and awed viewers. Larson’s work ranges from film making, sculpture, and architecture. Among many of the extraordinary pieces in this collection, two of my favorite were his "frozen shotgun shack” and a wooden sculpture depicting a spaceship crashing into a house, both from his films. (seen in the picture to the left)

This collection was inspired by a true event of a railroad entrepreneur who crashed two trains into each other, resulting in an explosion. Chris Larson was interested in the collision of two separate entities, and based his collection on this idea. Through his work, he wanted to make art come to life, and he wanted his art to disturb and shock viewers.

After talking with Chris Larson, I was able to understand why his work is so important. Larson is not interested in making art for a specific purpose, but likes creating art that people are not used to seeing. He wants to create things that cannot happen, and produce art that is absurd and disturbing.

The exhibition was absolutely beautiful, extraordinary, and strange. Since the collection is so odd and absurd, it made me appreciate his work for being so unique and eccentric. I liked that his motivation behind his collection was not for any specific reason other than producing things that are not ordinarily experienced in every day life. It was refreshing to see art that was so different from any other collection, and which made me think about art and life in a new perspective.