Beautiful Failures

"Valentine's Day is really the pinnacle of loserness for the beautiful loser," notes Adam Lerner, executive director of the Laboratory of Art and Ideas in Lakewood's Belmar complex. "Failure really is a critical dimension. It's critical of norms of American life, which says that there are certain norms of romance, and norms of the successful relationship and what that should look like, and Valentine's Day is a naive celebration of norms."

So the Lab's new Failure exhibit, which unites work from thirty artists from around the nation on the theme of failure, is "an attempt to be playful about it, but also to really speak to people who are a little critical of those norms," says Lerner. Failure opens tonight at 7 p.m. at 404 South Upham Street in Lakewood with a free reception that includes board games, Tetris, cheap wine, bad poetry and heartbreaking love songs played on the oboe. First dates are not encouraged to attend. Visit www.belmarlab.org/failure.php or call 303-934-1777 for information.
Starts: Feb. 14. Daily, 2008