The fourth exhibit of work about and from the Pillsbury Plant was exhibited at the M.G. Nelson Gallery at the Springfield Art Association in September 2024. “Pillsburied: Multiple Resurrections” featured the work of 17 regional artists and included a range of media. Two and three-dimensional works composed of found materials dominate much of the exhibit. Also included in the show are several pieces rescued from the downtown Adams Street fire.

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The large exhibit was divided into two visual and conceptual spaces. As one entered, the first space was arranged and lit as a traditional “white-cube“ show. Over the title of the exhibit hangs the torn and smoke-damaged relic of a “d0-Zombi” flag, displayed in all previous event and exhibits and now showing its age. The “d0-Zombi” imagery (a take on the Doughboy brand icon and also the moniker of one of the artists) has served both as a mascot and a reoccurring theme in each of the Pillsburied projects.

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Works in the front of the exhibit area began with more representational and traditional imagery, and as one passed through, the work splintered into more conceptual forms. For the second half of the exhibit, the visitor wass forced through a narrow opening, which was partially blocked by a towering, bent, totem-like sculpture fashioned from industrial aluminum flour tubing (or “spouts” as they were known in the factory). Beneath this was a vitrine containing “three items recovered from the downtown fire“. These included glass jars containing Pillsbury frosting, lithium grease found in the factory, and remarkably, two partially mummified, shrunken and moldy Pillsbury cupcakes that had been baked six months earlier for the downtown show and which somehow survived the fire.



 

This rear section of the exhibit was intended to mimic the factory experience more closely. Track lighting was kept low, and improvised lights fashioned from salvaged steel conduit, clamp lamps, and extension cords were propped against the walls between works, suggesting a make-shift exhibit of relics pulled from (but cognizant of) their original context. The work of the well-known graffiti artist “Shock” was prominent, as was the found-object and mixed media-based studies by “d0-Zombi”. Both artists share a love of damaged found materials as canvases, and work in an immediacy suggestive of illegal nighttime tagging.