Blink Again! documentary highlights temporary public art Thursday at Just Coffee warehouse

Those miniature oil derricks and dancing Grateful Dead-style bears that popped up on an ice-covered Lake Monona this winter were not just further signs that Madison retains some of its lefty quirkiness: They were part of BLINK, a City of Madison grant program that funds abruptly appearing, quickly vanishing public-art installations. "Since the BLINK grant specializes in temporary art that disappears, it might be interesting to create a record that it actually happened," says documentary filmmaker Brian Standing, of Madison's Prolefeed Studios. Standing followed around 15 BLINK grant recipients for a year, and captures the results—and their artistic and bureaucratic struggles—in the 98-minute Blink Again! A Year In The Life Of Madison Temporary Art, which he will screen Thursday at the Just Coffee Warehouse on East Wilson Street. He first became interested in the program in 2008, when he filmed Madison klezmer band Yid Vicious' BLINK project: "They were basically rewarding people who were using alternate modes of transportation. They were playing on the bike path, they were playing on buses, they got a Community Car and drove around the Square."

The doc isn't all fun and arty-pranky games, either. One subject, Milwaukee artist Nicolas Lampert, had to give up his plan to put up a bunch of alternate street signs along State Street after the city raised issues about right-of-way (but he was convinced the reasons were more political in nature). The Killdozer-referencing one above? "He was gonna put that up right in front of the Overture Center, but it didn't happen," Standing says. Read more about the film and the projects it covers here.