Of Slice and Men

The story behind Philly's first pizza-centric art show.

by Drew Lazor

Brian Dwyer knew he was on to something when complete strangers started showing up at his work bearing gifts.

The Kensington-based artist, who along with Chris Powell, has organized "Give Pizza Chance" — he believes it's Philly's first pizza-based art show — recently received an e-mail from an unfamiliar guy. He'd heard about the show on the web and wanted to see if he could get a piece in; Dwyer told him to meet him at his job at Trader Joe's. The guy walked in toting a box top from a Ray's Pizza in NYC — he'd worked the crown logo into a snarling Rat Fink. He handed it over. "[I said], 'Thanks, pizza brother,'" Dwyer recalls. "He says, 'Pizza brothers for life,' and just walks out."

It's hard to imagine such a sincere anonymous interaction taking place if Dwyer were in the curatorial weeds of an exhibit focused on, say, STDs. Pizza, it turns out, has helped him connect with people, albeit "on some weird level that I don't even understand.

"I challenge you to give me a more universally celebrated food," says Dwyer. "It's the great equalizer. It's the only food I can think of that's synonymous with the word 'party.'"

His favorite food had long struck Dwyer as a realm ready to be mined for expression. And based on the enthusiastic response so far, he's not alone. Pizza, or, as Dwyer dubs it, "the official sponsor of creative people the world over," has served as muse for more than 25 artists who'll display work at the Rocket Cat Café starting Friday.

The sheer expanse of media is beefier than an extra-large Meat Lover's. Dwyer and Powell (drummer for Man Man and Need New Body) collaborated on an interactive "pizza wall" — attendees will rip laminated "toppings" (ranging from pizza-themed license plates to the severed heads of heavies like Little Caesar and the Domino's Noid) off the neon-pink tongue of a pizza chef and Velcro them to cardboard slices to create their own twisted custom snacks. Dwyer's "World History: Revised Pizza Edition" hacks the past, dropping square boxes into Washington's crossing of the Delaware and the Kent State massacre.

There are pizzafied prints, tees, afghans, line drawings, watercolors. Janet Kotz and welder Matt Shiley have teamed up to construct a giant pizza clock with toppings for numbers and slices for hands. Videographer Josh Camerote is preparing a display titled "The Sun Never Sets on the 'Za Empire," featuring sunset scenes with you-know-what replaced by you-know-what. Joshua Boyd Taylor has even created a small model pizza, dipped it in resin, coated it in amber and stuck it on the end of a bamboo cane for a work titled "Jurassic Pizza."

"It was kind of a funny joke," says Dwyer, of the show's origins, and who, with Powell, counts Gusto, Lazaro's, Rustica and Lorenzo's among his favorite spots. "Then it got way out of hand and it's now a very serious joke. I'm really impressed with all the art people are putting together. It's pretty high-concept stuff."

Rustica, in fact, is a sponsor and providing free pies. Dwyer stresses that people should come early if they want to witness a special surprise which "may or may not involve skateboards."

Both Powell and Dwyer are confident that the show will become an annual thing, even if they don't collect a lot of dough. "We're spending our own money from our own bank accounts to have a pizza party," says Dwyer, "because it needs to happen."

(drew.lazor@citypaper.net)