Mark Beam
Mark Beam (Detroit, Michigan) is an American sculptor. At age 19, he moved to California, where he worked as a graphic designer and stand-up comedian. He made sculptures for Pee-Wee Herman's children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse (1986-1990). [1]
Beam lived and worked in Southern California and had his artwork collected by the Smithsonian Institute and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others.
Frank Zappa
Beam is a fan of Frank Zappa. In 1988, he took a yellow surfboard and remodelled it into a shark sculpture, which he then sent to Zappa as a Christmas gift. Zappa hung it near the fireplace in his basement. In 1992, when Andreas Mölich-Zebhauser and the Ensemble Modern organized a performance of Zappa's music, Moelich-Zebhauser insisted on naming the event The Yellow Shark, as well as the corresponding album The Yellow Shark. Zappa accepted the proposal, even though he felt it sounded better in German (Der Gelbe Hai) and rather "dorky" in English.[2] The image was also shown inside the sleeve.
When The Yellow Shark project started, Beam happened to recognize his sculpture in a press photograph in the Los Angeles times and contacted Barking Pumpkin. He was then promised to be paid and have his name mentioned in all promotion of The Yellow Shark. The shark sculpture is kept in the Ensemble Modern office. [3]
