Peter Schumann's "Bedsheet Mitigations": paintings by the founder of Bread & Puppet Theater.

During this covid-era “pause”, the Vermont-based Bread & Puppet Theater was gifted a large pile of king-sized bedsheets, discarded by a hotel. Renowned visual and performing artist Peter Schumann, the political puppet theater’s founder and artistic director, immediately seized upon this as an opportunity. Not only to paint a scene per day, on a dumped clean slate canvas. But also to take this on as a daily exercise, of freely slapping paint around while grappling with all the issues that have made the world a sh*tty mess.

The selections from Schumann’s “Bedsheet Mitigations” series, specifically chosen for this exhibit at the Midway Gallery, which is co-presented by the ARTSPEECH artists’ collective, were first revealed at Bread & Puppet’s “Insurrection – Lamentation — Resurrection Service” performances, held up in VT during their socially distant contact-traced 2020-2021 season. Combined with these “mitigation” images will be several other bedsheet pieces on display at Midway, gleaned from Schumann’s new “Crucifixion” series, which he started generating in earnest this past February-March.