by Cynthia von Buhler
April 10 - May 8, 2004


Cynthia von Buhler's art studio is a small red-walled theater complete with antique seats. Her actual workspace also doubles as a velvet-curtained stage. This is fitting, since her interactive paintings and sculptures do perform, and occasionally require the viewer to perform as well. The Artist, a fortune telling machine, deals out "art fortunes." The Cynth-O-Matic vending machine sells pieces of the artist's body, such as fingernail clippings and eyelashes. An optical wheel spins the artist forward toward age and backwards toward youth. Disembodied legs offer a Viewmaster slideshow within their pubic region. A Botticelli-influenced beauty without arms or legs implores, "please don't look up my skirt." Show and Tell, at the touch of a key, reveals a hidden visual and auditory message. Other pieces house live rats and doves. As the live animals move throughout the pieces the meaning alters, in the hand, a dove symbolizes hope, at the feet, humility. The rats climb the decayed pipes which are reminiscent of human organs and beg to be fed by through a tracheotomy pipe in the neck. The viewer in turn feeds Sir Reptitious' hungry ego. The cumulative work is a socio-psychological comment on human life in the 21st century: studies of morality, death, aging, sex, celebrity worship, and other issues — the common thread being a direct emotional connection between the art and the viewer.


The exhibit at The Dollhaus Gallery will feature most of the pieces described above, as well as altered “Roomba” robotic vacuum cleaners, a ticking Alzheimer’s grandfather clock,and vending machines which dispense memory-inducing smells onto a viewer’s hand, and a few 3-D wall paintings which house snakes, taxidermy birds*, and real (and decaying) fruit.

Cynthia von Buhler raises doves. All of her taxidermy doves died of natural causes and were created for her by the renowned art taxidermist Patrick Rummans.


Visit cynthiavonbuhler.com to learn more about the artist.