The World is Burning, Time to Play Mario Kart: Be Kind, Rewind at E11even2 Gallery
Nostalgia drenches us with the exalted and sanitized familiar, usually rooted in childhood or in shape-shifting adolescence. It’s comfort food for the weary soul, it tiptoes at the edge of cliché, and it provides great fodder for advertisers and semioticians alike.
It’s now on view in a blast of color, readymades, and delight in Be Kind…Rewind: A Nostalgia Show, through June 20, 2025, at E11Even2 Gallery at 78th Street Studios.
Works by over 20 artists—from gauzy rainbow curtains dappled with glitter and a wall-sized explosion of neon and typography to pocket-sized ceramic turtles escaped from Mario Kart and Monopoly game pieces reassembled as a mobile—pack the gallery, transforming it into an interior dip in a collective “Back to the Future.”
R!ch Cihlar’s triptych of Pez candy dispensers sporting the head of the Creature from the Black Lagoon stands as stalwart guardians in front of faded fragments of recognizable advertising logos: here’s Coca-Cola, here’s Starbucks; MTV nudges Space Invaders. Resting on a nearby pillar, Bob Peck’s “Playing with Power” is an embellished Nintendo revolving slowly, as it hovers over its mirrored base like a showroom delight in the mall dream of an Abstract Expressionist.
Interpretations and iterations of Frankenstein’s monster, Madonna, Prince, and characters from Star Wars are joined by lesser but just as redolent characters. Emma Anderson’s “When She’s Got All Her Marbles” combines anonymously eternal baby portraits with brain scans and comic-book-style illustrations in a collage that feels both familiar and unsettling. The pink hand of Quill Kolat’s “Peachy Queen Bee” floats on the gallery wall, grabbing money, gummy peach rings, a VHS tape of “The Wasp Woman,” and viewers’ attention with its screaming DayGlo (born in Cleveland) hues.
There are homages to Garbage Pail Kids, 45 singles, the Euclid Beach Rocket Car, dodge ‘em cars, board games, Smurfs, zombies, candies that sing in a child’s mind—a wild, roller coaster ride of signifiers of delight from the collective unconscious of artists ranging in age from 20s to north of 60: Emma Anderson, Sergio Andujar, Billy the Robot, R!ch Cihlar, Katy Clark, Thomas Conger, Mary Crotty, Amber Esner, Bill Fiest, Jared Gepperth, Jim Giar, Josh Haplea, Ryan Kacsandy, George Kocar, Quill Kolat, Amy Krieger, Hannah Mannochio, Scott Marion, Grace McConnell, Bob Peck, Allie Primisch, Rick Sans, Jon Sedor, and Celeste Stauber.
Be Kind was guest-curated by Allie Primisch, who spent the past few years considering the theme of nostalgia and its potential for joy as she, like all of us, came through the COVID-19 pandemic and found herself in the fresh uncertainty of our current world. “We all have had a deep nostalgia for a serotonin boost,” says Primish. “Life can be hard; what could it be like to create an environment where, for a few hours, we can all fall back into what comforts us?”
Primish, with gallery owners Christina Sadowski, Billy Nainiger, and R!ch Cihlar, invited artists to explore their personal understanding of nostalgia. The result—a year in the planning and making—is a cross-pollination of pop culture and individual meaning. Our shared language of nostalgia, whether signified by a swamp monster or a dripping Butterfinger bar, resonates among us, holding us in a little nest of solace as the mean old outside world burns on.
Be Kind: Rewind
May 16 – June 20, 2025
E11Even2 Gallery
78th Street Studios Suite 112
1305 W. 80th Street
Cleveland, Ohio 44102.
Open the Third Friday of each month, and by appointment
440.724.9261.
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