Randy Slack’s one-night-only retrospective exhibition at the Luhrs City Center last Friday was a colorful collection of works that blended past and present, mingling reality with memory.
The exhibit, titled “Randy Slack Retrospective: From the Luhrs Basement + Beyond,” was housed inside the Luhrs Arcade at the corner of Central and Jefferson.
Pieces from Slack’s earliest days working in a basement studio at the Luhrs Building were juxtaposed with some of his more recently created works, highlighting the artist’s personal and creative journey.
Slack said the exhibition, to him, was about the personal connection he shares with the Luhrs Building. His first memories of the building come from his early childhood, when he would accompany his father, an elevator mechanic, to work.
Slack said experiences with his father fixing elevators allowed him to develop an appreciation for Phoenix’s historic buildings downtown. In the 1990s, his first painting studio was in the basement of the Luhrs Building.
“There’s just something about that intersection, Central and Jefferson,” Slack said. “It just feels like the heart of the city.”
Two decades later, the new owners of the Luhrs City Center invited Slack to come back for a solo show. Amit Bhagat, director of operations at the Hansji Corporation, which owns the center, said the owners hoped to use the building’s retail space to promote local artists in “new and innovative ways.”
“We didn’t want to bring any nationwide franchises to the block… We wanted to promote local people,” Bhagat said.
As a Phoenix native with a personal history at the Luhrs Building, Slack was the perfect candidate. The Hansji Corporation arranged for Slack to hang some of his artwork in the windows and offered to do a one-night exhibit of Slack’s work.
The exhibit included a vast range of pieces spanning Slack’s career, from “Ed, the security guard,” a painting of the security guard who worked at the building when Slack painted there, to newer pieces like “Light without light,” a painting that also incorporates physical objects and holographic elements.
“Light without light” was unique among the works presented at the exhibit, as it includes both physical furniture and a painted canvas, which together are meant to represent Slack’s grandparents’ living room. Slack said the work was meant to hit the viewer from all angles.
“I love movies that make you cry and laugh at the same time,” he said. “[Light without light] was about hitting all the senses.”
Many of Slack’s paintings are filled with bright colors and layered images, almost like sensory overload. Slack himself admitted “there’s not really a blank spot” on his canvases. He often combines images from popular culture, like cartoon characters, with representations of famous historical paintings. “7 Deadly Sins” resembles Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” with a modern, eclectic spin. Other paintings, like “Kateland,” are more realistic and subdued.
“I think they all kind of tie together in their madness,” he added.
Slack’s work is nothing if not attention-grabbing. Connor Geer, an ASU student who visited the exhibit Friday night, said the exhibit allowed him to gain a new appreciation for modern art.
“You could definitely tell that there was a distinct message in what he was creating,” Geer said.
And Bhagat also admires Slack as an artist in that way, because everything he paints has a story behind it.
“Whatever he paints is something that affected his life,” Bhagat said.
Slack paints because, simply put, he felt like he never had a choice in the matter.
“It’s just deep inside of me and it has to come out,” he said. “You get cleansed every time you do it. It’s like a purge—it’s like a release.”
Slack said the community downtown has provided a fostering spirit that made it easy for him to grow as an artist. According to Slack and Bhagat, the artist and owners of the Luhrs Building have begun discussing the possibility of their collaboration becoming a more permanent situation.
In the meantime, Slack is planning to have a solo show in Los Angeles in March. He said the exhibition at the Luhrs Building felt somewhat like a practice run.
“I feel like Phoenix has just put me on its shoulders, and keeps pushing me up,” Slack said. “I’m just hoping to get the same love worldwide.”
Contact the reporter at Faith.Anne.Miller@asu.edu.
