7 May 28 - June 3, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents one type of audience, one type of event, or one type of night out. Then there is the film side of the equa- tion, which carries real significance be- yond Denton. The Fine Arts is expected to include 70mm projection, a format that still inspires devotion because it makes movies feel physical, luminous and large in a way digital often does not. It’s not just a flashy technical feature, either. It’s a state- ment of intent. The theater is being rebuilt for people who still want cinema to feel like an experience. Why This Project Matters The Fine Arts revival lands at a moment when North Texas is still sorting out what preservation should look like in fast-chang- ing cities. It’s easy to praise history in theory, but it’s harder to invest in old buildings that need expensive work, patient planning and a clear use case. This project offers a persuasive answer, as it preserves a landmark without freezing it in amber. It respects Denton’s past while mak- ing room for how audiences gather now — for repertory films, 70mm screenings, concerts, comedy sets, special events and whatever hy- brid cultural life downtowns increasingly de- mand. That is why the May 15 presentation felt larger than a simple update. It was a re- minder that historic preservation is not just about facades or sentiment, it’s also about continuity in a city that keeps its character not by resisting change, but by guiding it through places that still carry civic meaning. For Denton, the Fine Arts could become one of those places again. Not merely a the- ater people point at and talk about in the past tense, but a working part of downtown life. For North Texas, it stands as another ex- ample that old movie houses can do more than survive; they can lead. If the Fine Arts opens in September as planned, it will not just mark the return of a building. It will mark the return of a habit: gathering in the dark with strangers, in a room full of history, to watch something larger than ourselves. And in a region growing as fast as this one, that kind of continuity is worth fighting for. We’ll see you in September. ▼ VISUAL ART ARTSY FARTSY DALLAS’ JOANNA “SOFT SURPRISE” LIN IS TURNING TOILET HUMOR INTO LARGER-THAN-LIFE WORKS OF (F)ART WITH HER DEBUT SOLO EXHIBITION. BY KENDALL MORGAN P otty humor plus a healthy suspicion of free-market enterprise fuel multi-disciplinary artist Joanna Lin. Working under the name “Soft Surprise,” she recently expanded her world of afford- able objets d’(f)arts with her first solo show at Zeke’s Projects in Oak Cliff, open now through May 30. Don’t expect a traditional gallery experi- ence, though. Instead of colorful canvases or classical sculpture, Lin’s “Stupidity is Time- less” exhibition features a manosphere-in- spired light-up mirror, a sputnik lamp studded with hot-dog bulbs and an alumi- num “live, laugh, love” sign crafted in a heavy-metal font. When Lin bills her designs as “the finest stupidity money can buy,” she’s only em- phasizing the most bizarre aspects of late- stage capitalism. However, she doesn’t take her work terribly seriously, and neither should you. “I love word art and word play,” she tells us. “My sense of humor stopped developing in middle school. If I want to connect with someone, there are only so many shortcuts, and humor is a shortcut for connec- tion. Some people may not be into it, but I’ve found toilet humor to be universal.” Lin, who never met a tagline she didn’t like, came by her quirky mix of art and com- merce in a roundabout way. Growing up in Colorado, her Chinese immigrant parents wanted her to take the traditional STEM path until she received Ds in calculus. Al- ready an “eccentric” dresser at a young age, her father realized art school was a better path, so off she went to the Rhode Island School of Design. Initially a textile major before switching to film and animation, Lin developed an ir- regular CV. She launched her career as a graphic designer (a job she hated), designed tampons for the Chinese market, did a stint at a post-production house in New York and assisted sculptor Sean O’Meallie in creating an array of colorful wooden anuses. After relocating to Dallas, she worked as a designer for MSCHF Product Studios (best known for the viral Big Red Boots) and novelty home fragrance brand Poo-Pourri. The latter gig helped her realize the power of good marketing. “I think [that time] coagulated my al- ready existent product tendencies, because I got exposed to that on a real company scale,” Lin recalls. “It did a lot for my brain chemis- try and let it go through a puberty of sorts. At Poo-Pourri, I was exposed to this genius product because everyone poops every day — if they’re lucky. But, to think about making money is different from making art objects, and that’s something I’m still exploring.” Doubling down on her quest to “make dumb products,” a corporate layoff inspired her to transform a small LLC she initially founded to write off her art supplies into a legitimate side hustle. Deciding to make something “fiscally viable,” she pivoted from an initial offering of tube-like knit “sausage sweaters” to a range of 3-D printed foods she describes as grocery “fan art.” These “D.I.Why” objects include nightlights shaped like potatoes, tomatoes and onions, a garlic lamp and lenticular word art pro- claiming “Butt” or “Hole” when you view it from different angles. “One of my north stars for my art practice is mixing something familiar with some- thing unfamiliar,” Lin says. “I was trying to make something at a shoppable price point that would still be fun. If I’m hungry for in- spiration, I go walking in the aisles of gro- cery stores and start reading the boxes because they say such crazy things like ‘nu- trition in every bite.’” Initially marketing her “Affordable Silly Stuff” (A.S.S., for short) to fellow creatives and weirdos at markets like the Dallas Con- temporary’s annual book fair, she earned enough to pour her energy into more ambi- tious pieces, which she ultimately exhibited in her current show. Although Lin says she likes to keep her price points low (most items retail from $16 to $69), this exhibit has allowed her to spread her wings with bigger, more expensive ideas, such as an $888 non-functional Rolex inspired by her hus- band’s watch-collecting habit, and her $6,666 “Words for Men” video mirror. As Lin has recently landed yet another full-time day job, she’s unsure if she’ll have the time to build a show of this scope again, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to stop imagineering — she’s currently ideating an animated film about the adventures of a group of sperm. One thing is certain: what- ever she creates under her “Soft Surprise” moniker will remain highly conceptual, if seldom highbrow. “I don’t have the pressure to sell [objects] because I did all the hard work to make the e-commerce where it is,” she says. “My solo opening was such a pinch-me moment, but the sperm thing has been chewing at me for five years. I feel like I’ve done every other milestone, so this will be my magnum opus.” Stupidity is Timeless is open at Zeke’s Projects every Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. at 2123 Sylvan Ave. through May 30. Carolina Anjudar Joanna “Soft Surprise” Lin isn’t afraid to embrace the absured with her art. SCAN HERE TO ENTER TO WIN A PAIR OF TICKETS
