Car Crashes Into Sheldon Window: Exhibit Opens To Rave Reviews

Story by Egon Sinclair 

| Published Oct 28, 2008

A ‘97 Buick careened out of control Wednesday, crashing through the front window of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery.

The driver and two passengers were killed on impact.

Attempts to remove the cadavers and surviving passenger were waylaid by a gaggle of tourists descending up the gallery.

Members of the group proclaimed the Sheldon’s new exhibit to be “a poignant commentary the frailty of life” and “even edgier than ‘Saw V’.”

The rave reviews from that initial crowd have been a boon to the gallery.

The number of people who visit the Sheldon without being forced to go for a UNL class hit double digits for the first time in nearly two decades.

“I loved that the original artists allowed other people to alter their creation,” said local sculptor Serena Taylor, referring to the EMTs frantically flitting about the crash site in an attempt to save the third passenger.

“I think their movements were trying to convey a sense of desperation and urgency, but it may have been a comment on the American oppression of female sexuality. I’m not exactly sure,” Taylor said.

After the fires died down, patrons were treated to a meet-and-greet with the surviving passenger, Victor Wallace, who fielded questions and discussed what inspired him to such artistic heights.

“Oh, God! I can’t move my legs,” shouted an impassioned Wallace.

When asked whether the pine air freshener dangling from his rearview mirror was intended to make some sort of ironic environmental statement he responded, “What the fuck is wrong with you people?”

As the dialogue entered its second hour, Wallace was called away on urgent business, namely not dying. EMTs removed the back door and escorted Wallace out on a stretcher.

“The whole thing was a metaphor for birth, obviously,” said Mitch Graham, a freshmen art student at UNL.

“I mean, those things were called ‘the jaws of life,’ for Duchamp’s sake! And if the seat belt seared into Wallace’s skin didn’t symbolize our intrinsic reluctance to leave the womb, well, maybe I’m in the wrong major.”

The throng of art lovers continued to meander around the Sheldon lobby, dissecting the layers of meaning held by the flames consuming the right side of the vehicle while leaving corpse-laden left half mostly intact.

Timothy McNeal, 31-year-old art blogger, was moved to tears by a combination of the piece’s powerful message and the smoke wafting from the smoldering corpses.

He called the work of art “sublime, transcendental and profoundly powerful.”

I've seen a chimpanzee dressed as Condoleezza Rice poop on a Xeroxed copy of the Declaration of Independence and an igloo composed of McDonald’s double cheeseburgers and semen, but this,” he said, too choked up to continue.

“This is beautiful.”