Required Assignment 1: Thick Description (Eric Schultz at the Noyes Gallery)

Eric Schultz, MAGIC LANTERN, 2014, compressor, car ramps, lantern, pitch forks, pipe and other found objects

The Noyes Museum of Art, Galloway Township, New Jersey

Artist Eric Schultz from Trenton is featured at the Noyes Museum of Art in Galloway Township, New Jersey. This museum is situated next to Lily Lake in New Jersey’s unique Pine Barrens region. The ride to the museum took me through a world of forests, wetlands, and tall phragmites within minutes of the contrasting world of glamour and conspicuous consumption known as Atlantic City.

Eric Schultz’s work would be at home in either world. He makes brilliant art from found objects. “One man’s trash is another person’s treasure,” Schultz says. “I enjoy making art that makes people wonder why I made it. I like to evoke some kind of wonder in people, (sic) I like it when they make up their own stories.” The colorful figure of the Magic Lantern (2014) looks over the Schultz exhibit and features pitchfork feet, yellow air-tank cheeks, gauges for eyes, and braids made from blue and green electrical wire. The found objects share size, weight, and texture with the body parts for which they are intended. Red auto ramps represent the hulking figure’s shoulder blades and back. A shiny, flesh-colored retired Hoover floor polisher plays the part of the creature’s buttocks. The Magic Lantern creature is still taller than me as he sits on his haunches. He dominates the gallery as a monster would, holding his illuminated lantern. Perhaps this mysterious creature is an inhabitant of the magical, mysterious Pine Barrens where I spotted him today. The region has a rich culture of its own complete with a fantastical creature known as the Jersey Devil, and a unique environment home to a certain species of tree frog who lives nowhere else. The Magic Lantern with his gravitas would be a natural leader.

While in the presence of the hulking lantern-monster, the mismatched ambient sounds included children’s voices, footsteps on wooden floor, Eric Schultz's own voice coming from a small video screen, and the R&B/indie-pop song stylings of singer Nicolas Castillo. The music did not fit into the Magic Lantern’s implied world, but it was a perfect match for the rest of the skylit museum which featured contemporary artists in its four other galleries.