SuperFreaks

Professional sideshow performers add carnival atmosphere to next CAC opening-night party

BY ERIC HUNTER

Hurry, hurry, step right up! The show is about to begin. See the Sword Swallower! The Human Blockhead! The Bearded Lady! And Ula the Pain-Proof Rubber Girl!

That's right, folks. Cincinnati is in for another of the now infamous Contemporary Arts Center members-only opening parties with Friday's assortment of oddities known as "The Greatest Party on Earth: Absolut Midway & Sideshow Party." The evening celebrates the CAC's latest show, The Human Hammer Meets the Two-Headed Woman: Banner Painting from the Great Midway.

In addition to the 38 large-scale, vividly colored circus sideshow banners that comprise this first-ever museum show, look for an artist-run midway, an amateur sideshow performance contest featuring local performers and four live sideshow performers whose acts will fascinate and possibly repulse. One thing is certain -- this won't be your usual night out.

I don't know about you, but I can't remember the last time I went to the circus. And, unfortunately, I have never seen a sideshow. On the other hand, Johnny Meah, the evening's guest of honor, has been fascinated by the circus life since he first traveled the fair and exposition circuit with his father billed as the "World's Youngest Portrait Artist." Within the rapidly fraying subculture of circus showmen and banner painters, Meah, born in 1937, is the last living link to a vast storehouse of tradition.

"The things that fascinated kids when I was growing up don't fascinate kids anymore," Meah says when asked why he thought the public's interest in circuses and sideshows dwindled. "The circus coming to town used to be a big deal. Things change. Kids' heroes change."

Fortunately for Meah and the three other professional performers who will be on hand at the CAC Friday, sideshow is enjoying a limited renaissance. Jennifer Miller, a knife-juggling bearded lady, attributes the renewed interest in her art to the work of sideshow promoters like Dick Zigun of Coney Island (New York) and Jim Rose of the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow, which has toured with musical act Nine Inch Nails and performed on the Lollapalooza tour. Miller believes that sideshow "became an artifact that needs to be recorded and regrouped." She also believes the neo-primitive movement -- tattooing, piercing and body modification -- has helped as well.

Meah -- who says he now spends as much time giving "nostalgia lectures" about sideshow art and the circus life as he does swallowing swords, eating fire, driving nails into his skull and clowning -- performed 17 different acts at the height of his sideshow career. And he's no stranger to the public's fascination with his talents. Life Magazine featured Meah in its June 1983 issue. He also performed in and emceed the Smithsonian Institute's "Spring Celebration of the Outdoor Amusement Industry" in 1981 and 1984.

But what's it like to make your living as a sideshow performer? While many people are interested enough to come see the acts, does the average person accept them as "normal"?

Meah says the performers are not "beset upon."

"The thing you have to look at with any act is the entertainment value of the act," he says. "My objective, as should be anyone's who calls himself an entertainer, is to entertain."

Although Meah is not specifically training anyone to take over for him, he does admit to being a free giver of information. But there's really no way to train someone to do something like swallow swords, he says.

"You can teach the rudimentary moves and caution them about hurting themselves," Meah says. "And once you've thrown up on your shoes a few times, you know if this is something you want to do."

But the question he says that's most important is: Are you a professional entertainer?

A third generation artist, Meah is best known for his huge, vivid canvases portraying the bizarre and flamboyant world of sideshow curiosities. Of the small group of eight well-known banner artists, he and Mark Frierson are the only two still producing new work.

Unfortunately, very few of the banners, including the more than 2,000 Meah himself produced, have survived the indifference of time.

"They were generally regarded as disposable advertising in the 1940s and '50s," he says, explaining that it was not uncommon to see the old banners used to catch oil leaks from trucks or to cover equipment deemed far more important than the banner itself. "We'll buy more" seemed to be the attitude toward the work, he says.

These days, the banner work produced by Meah and his colleagues is seen more frequently in the context of art galleries than of the Big Top. A 1988 gallery show in Chicago marked the beginning of a renaissance of banner painting for Meah, and a whole new generation of fans for his painted fantasies began to emerge.

"My ace is having a fertile imagination," he says. "The trick is taking stock acts and putting them in interesting situations."

CAC Curator David Brown says this show grew out of his fascination with the boundary between high art and low art.

"Would we consider this art itself?," Brown says he and others at the CAC asked when first discussing the sideshow banners. The answer was yes. "The banners bring up ideas and challenge what is politically correct today. They are funky, funny, fun and accessible to everyone."

CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTER presents "The Greatest Party on Earth: Absolut Midway & Sideshow Party" Friday at 8 p.m. Tickets for CAC members are $10 in advance and $15 at the door. New members can join at the door and receive a free ticket to the party. Entertainment includes professional sideshow performers Johnny Meah and Jennifer Miller, an amateur sideshow contest featuring local performers and dancing to DJ Bob-a-Dob.

CityBeat, Vol. 4, Issue 9; January 22-28, 1998