Ubu you From locksmith to artsmith assemblers BY IAN PAIGE
	assembly required Ubu Studio, 316 Congress St, Portland | through Sept 24 | 207.699.2550

It’s that building located on the corner of Congress Street and the Franklin Arterial. You know the one? Used to be a locksmith’s? Picture of a key on the wall? A few of these prompts usually elicits a response among Portlander along the lines of "Oh, THAT building. I love that little building." Self-proclaimed dadasoph and clown-school dropout Frank Turek loved the building enough to make it the home of Ubu Studio and Art Gallery. Since December, the locksmith’s has been transmuted into a new haven for the bizarre.

"We’ll touch things other galleries won’t go near," says Turek, "like assemblage work — you may see token pieces elsewhere but not a concentration." The image of a key on the wall of 316a Congress Street may be gone, but the gallery holds many keys for unlocking the perceptions of the art-going public.

The current exhibition at Ubu gallery is full of such keys to other worlds. "Assembly Required" features Maine assemblage artists James Fangbone, Nancy Kureth, Margot McCain, and pieces by Frank Turek, himself. The four artists integrate their dioramas and shrines to allow the viewer an engaging walk through the space. Altogether, the pieces conjure a sense of the antiquated mad scientist.

Frank Turek’s featured work focuses on relations within a literary microcosm. A hollowed book contains its own universe. Open the aging cover and you find a mash-up of hypertextual signs. Turek’s tendencies towards Dada and the nonsensical require you to do the dot-connecting. The experience of the viewer approaching "Desultory Imaginings" begins with openings of a frayed copy of The Tale of Genji, whereupon you are confronted with a labyrinth of floral and biological elements. Starfish limbs form a stalagmite forest in which a china kitty cat roams. A lithograph of the quintessential American family unit looks proudly out into the sunset. Opposite is a man in traditional Arab dress praying to Mecca, or is he trying to get your attention and making a face at you? Like any good microcosm, Turek’s miniature universes fold in on themselves, intentionally or not, with self-reference.

Nancy Kureth creates her most effective work when she fills the dimensional space. Her assemblies are three-dimensional as well, but feel more pictorial than the other featured artists. Her work shines when she abandons large patterned surface in exchange for tactile and dimensional complexity. "Ice Princess" immediately brings you into a dream world. An old-fashioned doll, decked out in ice-skates, seems to rise from a wrought-iron bed frame, curly-cueing it’s way out of reality. The princess skates in a beautifully rendered starry sky, made tactile with layers of fibrous paper daintily glued together with pearls and luminescent snowflakes. A Melies-esque man in the moon watches over with a bemused, fatherly smile. Embedded in her chest is a tiny iconographical painting of a goddess figure holding a globe and surrounded by birds. Connections between these elements are left to the imagination and subconscious.

Similarly to Kureth, Margot McCain’s pieces are most effective when she moves away from the patterned and pictorial in favor of solid-object constructions. "Sperm Bank" is a beautiful mousetrap-like construction, juxtaposing smooth chrome edifices with a rusted iron frame. There’s no sense of the junkyard here though, this machine does something — just what exactly it does is up in the air. A baby’s head, a phallic wind-up key, a reflective burnt-out fuse all stand ready to process the suggestive pearls, resting at the bottom of the frame, waiting their turn.

James Fangbone puts a lot of eggs into one basket with an untitled shrine installation. The piece confronts the viewer immediately upon entering the gallery. South American, Asian, and African icons share the many levels with natural objects like feathers, seashells, and animal skulls. There’s even evidence of American capitalist lifestyle in a kitschy ’50s package of golf tees. The box, presented upside down, implores the player to "HAVE FAITH." The viewer’s own reflection is thrown into this mix by a bunch of hanging Christmas tree ornaments, a large background mirror, as well as myriad glass beads strewn over the various shelves. The construction is somewhat shabby, as though this shrine was in the corner of someone’s house for practicing Santeria. As with more traditional iconographic shrines, the message may be less in the execution itself and more in the process of unraveling the mysteries it proposes as your attention turns to its various elements.

Dada assemblages are like a Zen master proposing a paradox to a student. The whole point is in not being able to quite wrap your head around it. Ubu Gallery understands that providing a platform for this kind of work is an important function in the Portland arts community. "Assembly Required" is a show worth a visit because your experience of the artists’ paradoxical worlds may just be the key to understanding something greater about your own universe.

Ian Paige takes over Maggie Knowles’s spot in the arts column rotation. He can be reached at ianpaige@gmail.com