Dennis and Andrew Smith take pleasure in using other people's junk.

To them, the trash is treasure, a limitless opportunity to create art, using a hodgepodge of discarded typewriters, propellers, tubes, wheels, scrap metal and just about anything else they can get their hands on.

Together, the father and son collaborated to produce the playful exhibit "Poetic Kinetics: Assemblage Art by Dennis and Andrew Smith," opening today at the BYU Museum of Art.

The MOA will host an opening reception tonight from 7 to 9. Mechanical Symphony will perform live.

"The whimsical nature of 'Poetic Kinetics' will give audiences the opportunity to delight in unfamiliar shapes and even to see what they would have never seen before," said Anastasia Rees, exhibition curator, in a news release.

Anything can be used in constructing assemblage art. The Smith's collect much of their materials from farms and junkyards. Friends and neighbors also donate some of the material, Andrew Smith said.

Assemblage art includes numerous styles. Kinetics highlights Andrew Smith's art.

"I like to incorporate moving elements into my sculptures, something that will draw people in and make them wonder how it works," Andrew Smith said in a news release.

Andrew Smith's sculptures have multiple motions. Wheels rotate, cranes lift, arms swing and balls roll, spin, jump and loop on tracks.

"It (the work) has a sense of choreography," Dennis Smith said. "There's a real sense of dance and timing."

While Andrew Smith accounts for much of the whimsical, Dennis Smith's form-conscious work focuses more on the poetry and aesthetics of the art.

"Where the parts Andrew has worked on are polished and brushed, mine are rusted and crusted," Dennis Smith said in a news release. "Where Andrew's are kinetic and impulsive, mine are frozen and steeped in philosophic overtones. Where his are whimsical, mine tumble into wistful reflection and nostalgia."

The exhibit blends the best elements of both styles in hopes of achieving the Smiths' goal of stimulating the memories and images from youth.

"It's a way of triggering the viewer to feel the way they felt as a child," Dennis Smith said.

"Portal" is the centerpiece of the exhibit, Dennis Smith said. One of the Smiths' two joint efforts, the colorful piece, has several moving parts, as well as static elements. The assemblage explores the events humans experience during their lives, Dennis Smith said.

A bucket containing several different balls moves up and down. A rotating wheel periodically triggers a hammer to hit a bell. Cranes hoist small steel balls onto tracks that circle the assemblage. The artists designed the piece to allow visitors to walk under and around the assemblage.

Dennis Smith is known for his religious sculptures at Nauvoo, Ill., but he has been working with assemblage art for more than 30 years. He discovered the style while studying art at BYU in the 1960s.

"I was really drawn to ... the shapes," he said.

Cost was also a factor.

"It was cheap to do," he said.

Andrew Smith became interested in assemblage art about three years ago. Dennis Smith said he has felt like a mentor to his son, helping him focus on the aesthetic aspects as well as his understanding of how the machines dwell in space.



Copyright Brigham Young University 4 Jun 2003