Art-O-Mat dispenses affordable collectibles at Polk Museum of Art

Image courtesy Polk Museum of Art

This weekend, the Polk Museum of Art celebrates the debut of its recently acquired Art-O-Mat with an interactive talk by Art-O-Mat founder and creator Clark Whittington.

Whittington, a conceptual artist based in Winston-Salem, NC, first hatched the Art-O-Mat idea for an exhibition in 1997, when he transformed a dilapidated cigarette machine into a retro-fabulous contraption to dispense his own small-scale works of art. When the show was over, the hosting venue—Mary’s Of Course Café in Winston-Salem—requested that the machine stick around. Whittington obliged, inviting other artists to refill it with cigarette pack-sized works.

This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2009.