June 3 – September 6, 2008

Reception: June 7, 2008, 5:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

“Skullphone” is an artist who works anonymously in city streets and deserted highways, incorporating his artwork into the detritus of the urban environment. While ten foot tall posters loom high above building walls, small supporting incarnations of his image blend into utilitarian spaces. In these, Skullphone’s image immediately cuts through the typically mundane environment of gas stations, public bathrooms, parking meters, roll-up gates, and trash dumpsters, the unique platforms and non-blank canvases from which Skullphone “speaks”.
 
For Skullphone’s installation at RAM, the artist has recreated his past street level environments within Anytown, USA while referencing new frontiers in outdoor digital media. Using the museum’s alcoves as a starting point, Skullphone History Museum creates an environment reminiscent of a natural history museum’s dioramas. Replacing nature with entirely man-made objects, this unnatural exhibit monumentalizes the quotidian objects of our world (our bathrooms, our hallways) built around and serving as the starting point for the artist’s embedded meme.
 
“Rather than simply bringing a street artist into a sterile museum space, the museum has worked with the artist to use nontraditional and unexpected spaces to showcase his work,” says Adult Education Curator Lee Tusman. “Like his work outside, Skullphone has placed his work in high profile spots as well as places where you may least expect it but where your eye is sure to go.”