Alter-education at the Mat Bevel Institute

530 N. Stone has, for quite some time now, been the feeding grounds for some sort of artistic witchcraft. It's so soaked with art that even the concrete and surrounding dirt is pretty. There must be something in the soil that makes all this creative energy take root and work its way toward fruition.

How else can you possibly explain the Mat Bevel Institute?

"I rarely do anything where I don't somehow either do something or turn stuff on," said Ned Schaper, aka Mat Bevel, the man behind the masks and chairs and carts and things that cover the floor and line the walls of the Mat Bevel Institute, as he explained the entourage of interesting shows that have been unfurling at the venue-turned-studio-turned-venue over the past few months.

Revival shows, with the likes of characters such as "Brother James," seek to create a old-timey spectacle - "religotainment," said Schaper. Professor Hall's Silent Movies, featuring local old movie collector Professor Hall, are a showcase for the primitive media, with Professor Hall himself playing piano and commercial interruptions by Mat Bevel. Each show has individual parts; you're not just watching movies or a concert or a poetry reading. It's a little of everything, not just thrown together, but arranged to create a true show; a new media format entirely: "Surrealistic Pop Science Theater," Schaper calls it.

"You're doing this thing, it's a set-up, like a dinner: (there's) an appetizer, then you say something, and then they give you a little quick thing to think about it," said Schaper. It's a well-thought out meal for the brain. You'll have Mat Bevel himself put on a mask, maybe, and read a poem. You'll have a musical group perform. Then a film. After that, maybe a comedy routine. And then maybe another poem.

Schaper has plans to makes the Institute's repertoire into a set schedule of themed evenings starting this fall, with each show having a special night each month. This summer, he explained, has been a sort of testing time, to see how each idea works and who it works with.

"I want to engineer it for the future ... I wanna make a statement with this place so when I really get going it'll be obvious that I'm doing a certain niche of things," explained Schaper. "There's certain things that most people really wanna see and that people are starved for," he said, "but they're just not happening."

Except within the warehouse walls of the Mat Bevel Institute.

"It's not a rental space, it's a philosophy I have about how to get certain kinds of art out," Schaper said. "Everyone wants to use (the Mat Bevel Institute), like the DPC, and do rock 'n' roll shows. Well, you know, you can do rock 'n' roll shows anywhere."

And the Mat Bevel Institute is far from just anywhere. So the shows follow suit.

"It's my gallery, that's the point - to get people to see your work. The idea of an artist is to get people to see your work and then to make a living so you don't starve."

Schaper's art consists of everything you could imagine - but nothing you'd imagine in sculpture. One large piece that takes up nearly the whole west side of the building consists of a bicycle that belonged to a friend, attached to a shopping cart, the wheels of which fit perfectly into the inner rim of a truck wheel. Numerous other things are suspended or intertwined into it; lights cast colorful glows to the metal which change from every angle; since the wheels of the cart fit right into that tire rim, Schaper can actually turn the entire sculpture around.

The various concerts and shows the Institute holds are in a way just like his art; amalgamations of every genre and form of media into one big completely different thing in itself: "I'm trying to create these shows, I'm trying to create these sort of spectacles in the space like I would my art, " Schaper said. "And I'm really making art - It's really an art form to use this venue."

This Friday, The Mat Bevel Institute presents "The Underdogs of Blues Night," with three of Tucson's least-known blues acts: the Nervous Duane Orkestra, The Blue Banditos, and Rex Tester, for $3 at 9 p.m. While it may look like a normal concert from just the sparse listing, rest assured that it won't be.