Pick Up Stix

The next stop for Jonathan Brilliant, a South Carolina-based installation artist, is Fort Lauderdale’s 18 Rabbit Gallery. For his Have Sticks Will Travel World Tour, Brilliant sets up an eight- to ten-day residency in a gallery, where he builds an on-site installation made out of nothing but a shitload of coffee sticks. The public is free to watch the process, and his final works have been colossal in size, ranging up to 100,000 sticks. Kept together through weaving and tension, the coffee sticks dictate the final form the artwork will take. “The decisions are sort of made on the fly,” says Brilliant (that’s his actual namesake) on myartspace.com, “and sometimes when a section collapses in the process, I have to remake that section and that will dictate the direction of the piece. I think of the installations as drawing my way around the room, kind of like a big systematic, dimensional, scribble.”

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Brilliant will also be at the opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. at 18 Rabbit Gallery (18 NW First St., Fort Lauderdale). At the closing reception (date to be announced), the installation will be de-installed, and those present may take home their share of coffee sticks. There’s no cover. Call 954-990-4315, or visit 18rabbitgallery.com.
Fri., March 26, 6 p.m., 2010