Jim Public’s Truck will participate in the DADA Fall Gallery Walk on September 22

Jim Public's Truck, Dallas Design District, A Dry Heat

Jim Public’s Truck has been invited to participate in tomorrow’s Dallas Art Dealers Association Gallery Walk. I will be parked at 960 Dragon Street from 2 till 8 pm on Saturday, September 22, with A Dry Heat, the ongoing exhibition of paintings made by evaporation in the Mojave desert. I’m looking forward to a beautiful day and I hope to see you there.

Jim Public’s Truck, my mobile gallery, is in gear

Thank you to everyone who stopped to look, ask questions, and say encouraging things during the gallery’s first event this past Saturday. The debut of Jim Public’s Truck was a lot of fun for me, a great experience. I am proud of the gallery and excited to experiment with its possibilities.

I love when art is serious yet informal, straightforward but not simple, fun without being obsequious. These are the qualities I’m after when I make stuff and do stuff.

I look forward to the next event!

Jim Public's Truck, Dallas Design District, July 28, 2012, sign Jim Public's Truck, Dallas Design District, July 28, 2012, ready for first event Jim Public's Truck, Dallas Design District, July 28, 2012, installed Jim Public's Truck, Dallas Design District, July 28, 2012, talking to some art fans Jim Public's Truck, Dallas Design District, July 28, 2012, from behind

Announcing Jim Public’s Truck

Jim Public's Truck, sign in progress, July 23, 2012

July 23, 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEW MOBILE ART GALLERY DEBUTS IN DALLAS
Jim Public’s Truck will present exhibitions from the bed of a pickup truck
Opening reception: Saturday, July 28, 5–9pm, somewhere on Dragon St.

DALLAS, TX – A new contemporary art venue, Jim Public’s Truck, will open on Dragon Street at 5pm on Saturday, July 28, in conjunction with Design District Gallery Day. The exhibition space consists of a white, modular 8’ x 7’ wall and a blue 2001 Chevy Silverado. The proprietor is Dallas-based artist James Hough, who works under the name Jim Public, and who has designed the gallery to fit comfortably within a parking space, making the operation both compact and flexible.

“Any place where I can legally park can now be the site of an art exhibition,” says Mr. Public. “Like most galleries and museums, Jim Public’s Truck follows the convention of using white walls and pedestals for displaying fine art, it just does so on the back of a motor vehicle. I am not reinventing the wheel, just putting a gallery on it.”

Building a truck-mounted, artist-run gallery space is part of Public’s broader effort to conduct a grassroots art career, one in which he can cultivate a closer relationship with his audience.

“I admire how comedians and musicians can tour and gig if they’re willing to put in the work. They create an experience and build an audience all while practicing their craft. And there are bands like the Flaming Lips who strive to connect with their fans in unpredictable and intimate ways, like creating music using fans’ car stereos or cell phones, taking their art out of the studio and off the stage. They are writing their own rulebook—sometimes tearing out the pages—as they go. This is what an artist does, and this is what I am doing with my gallery.”

Jim Public’s Truck will debut with the exhibition Jormungand Releases His Tail, featuring Public’s painting by the same name. Public’s recent work is rooted in the pictorial tradition of second-generation abstract expressionists such as Joan Mitchell whose paintings straddle the border between gesture and chaos. Using abrasives to cut through built-up layers of acrylic, Public adds and removes paint over weeks and sometimes months until the painting reaches a point of what he calls, quoting Richard Diebenkorn, “rightness.”

Jim Public’s Truck is a contemporary art gallery committed to presenting artwork in unusual, spontaneous, and neighborly ways.