Madness.
  • Madness.
When you come upon Mad Homes, it looks like the neighborhood has gone haywire. When I was a kid, I wished something like this would happen on my street—Christopher, a toddler who still lives in one of these houses, sees live lasers shooting when he looks up at the web of 12,000 feet of red straps that is currently wrapping his house.

That piece—with the red straps—is a giant "drawing" by Stranger Genius winners SuttonBeresCuller. It extends around one house and runs all the way through another, where a nude descends the staircase (by Jason Puccinelli). The house next door has been wrapped entirely in plastic and given a barcode (Troy Gua). The third house has been painted with layers of latex, which were peeled away, forming a skin that's been stitched back together into a twin of the house that now stands on the front lawn—what artist Laura Ward calls, because of the way she took the impressions, a "perfect memory" of the house that's about to be gone.

When I saw the installations yesterday, they weren't yet finished, but still I can say: GO. You won't want to miss these pieces, which range in tone and type, like one last gasp of wild heterogeneity before the houses come down to make way for condos. There are wolves that ride from one floor to another; there are flood gauges made of hand-burned wood and tacked to a mutilated tree that is about to be destroyed in the construction; there is an entire series of rooms wallpapered in a thousand pounds of clothing from Goodwill (including an underwear wall).

The opening is Saturday (July 16), and the show runs through August 7—the day after which the bulldozers will come. Details, pictures, and videos, are here. (More of my pictures on the jump.)

(If you want even more of these: FB.)

Ryan Molenkamps installation, in a living room overlooking Lake Union.
  • Ryan Molenkamp's installation, in a living room overlooking Lake Union.

Luke Haynes with some of his 1,000 pounds of clothing from Goodwill.
  • Luke Haynes with some of his 1,000 pounds of clothing from Goodwill.

Jason Puccinellis interpretation of Manets Olympia (a detail).
  • Jason Puccinelli's interpretation of Manet's "Olympia" (a detail).

Troy Guas shrinkwrapped house, porch detail.
  • Troy Gua's shrinkwrapped house, porch detail.

SuttonBeresCuller
  • SuttonBeresCuller

SuttonBeresCuller
  • SuttonBeresCuller

SuttonBeresCuller
  • SuttonBeresCuller