Since May, nearly 1,000 visitors to the Chicago Cultural Center have plunked down $5 to use a rehabbed cigarette vending machine in a corner near the gift shop. Patrons of the squat, faux-wood-paneled machine drop a brass token into the coin slot and pull one of its 22 Lucite knobs. Above each knob, where there would traditionally be a placard for Camel or Parliament, is a small square with an artist’s name, a title or description, and an image. What plops to the opening at the bottom is a one-of-a-kind piece of art in a box the size of a pack of smokes.
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Art-o-Mat is the creation of North Carolina artist Clark Whittington, who has placed 39 of the machines in museums and cultural venues across the country. Whittington made the first Art-o-Mat for a 1997 exhibit at a Winston-Salem coffee shop, cleaning up an old machine–shop owners were dumping them in large numbers because they’d been outlawed in places where minors shopped–and stocking it with pieces of his own.
Mason keeps the machine stocked by staying in touch with Whittington, who makes the ultimate decision about what goes into each one. The Art-o-Mat network includes more than 200 artists from eight countries. But Mason receives several requests a week from local artists; the main challenge, he says, is finding works that adhere to the size and weight requirements of the machine. It doesn’t hurt if they have commercial appeal: “If there’s an artist who sells really well, we’ll have more sent to us.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photos/Jon Randolph.
