“Grand Pre-.”

In an opening at Popps Packing designed to confound and delight, artists Ben Hall and Andrew Mehall teamed up for a massive installation that hopped the banks of Popps’ main gallery, parking up the street outside, and crossing St. Aubin to continue in locations in and around Mehall’s residence.

The cushy interior space of “Dollar Show,” with “Abridged Screen Test for the Lives and Times Of Buddha and his Cousin Ananda, Mi Primo Ananda” (video, left) and “Banquette Terrarium with Bulletproof Glass and Birdeater (Optional)” (center, the tarantula was only present for the opening).

The work, which bore some of Hall’s signature humor and obscurity, and required a navigational aid, employed a vast range of materials, including mulch, secondhand bullet proof glass (complete with bullet holes), a live tarantula, ceramic Buddha heads—which were both immediately present in the installation, as well as employed as “talking heads” in a video piece playing within the main exhibition space—yards upon yards of yellow cellophane wrap, Astroturf, a car, two inflatable dancing noodle-men roadside attractions, and a pile of Better Made potato chip bags. Mehall’s presence was apparent in the construction of makeshift structures, and specifically the visual and physical exploration of these spaces, with a kind of forced voyeurism through semi-opaque layers.

From outside “Dollar Show.”

The central piece of the main gallery was a large-scale terrarium of sorts, achieved by wrapping yellow plastic cellophane around a loosely geodesic dome, which visitors were welcome to enter. The mulch floor was soft and the effect inside, surprisingly cozy. A big screen TV presents an endless loop of ceramic Buddha heads swapping out different hats as they deliver dialogue. The enclosure—as well as the reception—is well stocked with Better Made chips.

“Ceci N’est Pas Une Reacharound.”

Detail from “Grand-Pre.”

Across the street, two inflatable men of the kind typically used to attract attention to car dealerships by the highway flap madly in promotion of Andrew Mehall’s backyard. The effect is jarring and violent. There can be found a third wrapped vehicle, which, like the ones parked in front of Mehall’s house and outside Popps beneath tinsel garlands, has elements meticulously traced or rubbed onto clean white t-shirts masking the original surfaces. Down the side alley of Mehall’s house, one can peer into a basement window to find another terrarium, a monument of Better Made chip bags, a disco ball spinning slowly and silently in a utility sink.

The spooky scene across the street, “Super Pie DeSanto’s Commentary on Spatial Use Relative to Economic Instability.”

What does it all mean? I wouldn’t dream of telling you, but you might get some answers at the artist talk on Saturday, November 22nd at 5 p.m. Then again, no promises.

Popps Packing: 12138 Saint Aubin, Hamtramck; www.poppspacking.org