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OPENS SEPT. 10
A priest, a drunk, and an artist aboard a plummeting airplane discover they’ve got only one parachute among them. Who survives? Well, none of them if the artist is Kendall Buster. She’s likely used the nylon to create a giant piece of modern art. Fusebox houses Buster’s latest billowy construction, Model City. The installation, built specifically for the space, covers the gallery ceiling in a lopsided swath of aqua fabric supported by a matrix of flexible tent poles and cable. The result wavers somewhere between an alien-spaceship walkway and an upside-down moon bounce. The sci-fi elements of Buster’s work likely stem from her background in microbiology: She’s a scientist-artist hybrid. Studying cell structure for prolonged periods as a lab technician post-college, Buster came to understand the matter under her microscope as a tiny geometrical landscape; as an artist, she culls inspiration from the lab and supersizes it for the gallery. The flexible materials she favors lend an organic feel to her work, which she describes as “breathing.” It’s eerie enough when the eyes of that portrait of Jesus above your neighbor’s mantel follow you across the room; try traipsing through a gallery draped in ethereal textiles that may or may not be respiring. Enjoy some art that’s over your head from noon to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and from noon to 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays from Saturday, Sept. 10, through Saturday, Oct. 22, at Fusebox, 1412 14th St. NW. Free. (202) 299-9220. (Kara McPhillips)