Earlier this summer Trunk Show was awarded an award for stick-to-it-ive-ness. You see, for more than three years the gallery’s passenger side mirror has needed tape to keep connected to the car. In preparation for our big trip to the Baltimore Alternative Art Fair this July, we finally had the mirror replaced. It wasn’t the exact right color, but neither was the green duct tape we’d been using for those last three years. It still felt worthy of bragging about constantly. Almost immediately upon our prideful return to Chicago, someone (we assume a ding-a-ling, but it may well have been a schmegegge or just a regular jerk) broke our new mirror. We graduated to gaffer tape and learned to keep our chicken blessings uncounted.

Michael Milano can’t drive. He even seems a little nervous about riding. He’s a very smart guy and a really excellent artist and shares our belief that sometimes the artist’s greatest trait is their willful under-understanding. Not misunderstanding (though not unrelated). Milano knows our car is heavy. He knows the mirror is broken and the tape player is too. He knows that to get a new tape player we need to make some money. He knows that cars go in garages and garage sales are a good source for money. He knows that “Black Friday” is a day that people will line up to buy things. He knows this and we know this and you know this. That’s why this month’s opening is happening at an unathletic friend’s garage. This same policy of under-understanding bring us to our BIG SALE—in addition to selling our stickers for six dollars instead of five, we’ve sourced a wide range of artist-owned bric-a-brac for your purchase! No ding-a-lings allowed.

Year-long subscriptions are still available for the low, low price of $60 (only $50 if you opt to pick them up at openings instead of relying on the USPS). Please email us at trunkshowtrunkshow@gmail.com to arrange a subscription.

ABOUT MICHAEL MILANO
Michael Milano is an artist and writer, living and working in Chicago. Last month he had a solo show at the Franklin. This month his solo show is with us; next month it’s at Devening Projects + Editions. He received a MFA from the Fiber and Material Studies department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in Humanities from Shimer College. His work has exhibited at Roots & Culture, Threewalls, Peregrine Program, ADDS DONNA and the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. His writing has appeared in Bad at Sports. Surface Design and Textile: Journal of Cloth and Culture. He is also a member of the artist collective/study/exhibition space ADDS DONNA. Damien Richard Fahey is a television host, former MTV VJ, comedian and drummer who provided the voice of Michael Milano in “Peter’s Daughter,” an episode of the American animated situational comedy The Family Guy.

ABOUT TRUNK SHOW
TRUNK SHOW is a mobile exhibition space usually located in Chicago. Following in the rich tradition of Chicago’s apartment, alternative and creative exhibition spaces, TRUNK SHOW is committed to challenging exhibition forms through its unique program. We feature monthly solo shows for which artists are commissioned to design a limited edition bumper sticker. The sticker lives, rides along with, and helps propel the medium beat up 1999 forest green Ford Taurus owned by Raven Falquez Munsell and Jesse Malmed. In addition to the month-long exhibitions, the editioned bumper stickers are sold (from the trunk) for a collector-friendly price and by annual subscription (we’re now taking subscribers for our second season of programming September 2014 to August 2015—trunkshowtrunkshow@gmail.com). Openings follow a nomadic, symbiotic logic and include a public affixing, radio jams, and road snacks. Newcity named it The Best New Gallery on a Car Bumper.

Upcoming artists include Michael Rae, Philip von Zweck and Lilli Carré.

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Tags: bumper sticker, Michael Milano, trunk show