Jeffu Warmouth: No More Funny Stuff is a mid-career retrospective featuring the puns, parody and absurdist humor of New England’s Jeffu Warmouth. The exhibit runs through June 1 at the Fitchburg Art Museum.

Jeffu Warmouth is a contemporary artist who maneuvers among the realms of photography, video, sculpture, performance, installation and interactive media with agility and aplomb. He came to the visual arts via comparative literature, and traces of that early, undergraduate passion for poetry, writing and journaling can be found throughout his work. To this day, the avant-garde, minimalist plays and prose of Samuel Beckett remain compelling sources of inspiration, as do the staccato, humor-riddled poems of Ken Mikolowski. Warmouth’s use of everyday objects, activities and gestures has roots in a number of art historical sources, too. His pop art proclivities connect him to Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol, and his penchant for performance links him to Vito Acconci and Bruce Nauman.

Throughout his career, Warmouth has relied upon his own image and persona (complete with handlebar mustache), as well as campy canned goods, kung-fu fighting vegetables and fictitious fast-food menu offerings to expand upon, subvert and critique both consumer culture and contemporary art. The result is an accessible, layered body of work that provides a refreshing, reflexive approach to all that is funny, frustrating, weird and wonderful about our everyday existence. Warmouth is a professor in the Communications Media Department of Fitchburg State University, where he has taught since receiving his MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1997.

There will be a live performance of Warmouth’s work at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, March 23. On Sunday, April 13, from 1-3 p.m. there will be a live performance and an opportunity to meet the artist.

Visitors can also explore the Learning Lounge to learn about the artist and the art of humor in a gallery full of fun, educational, interactive activities for all ages. It includes special projects created by students in Fitchburg State’s Interactive Media Seminar under the tutelage of Jon Amakawa. The Learning Lounge is organized by FAM Director of Education Laura Howick. This program is funded by a grant from The Clementi Family Charitable Trust.

Jeffu Warmouth: No More Funny Stuff is made possible by a pilot collaboration between FAM and Fitchburg State University. This exhibition is organized by Associate Curator Mary M. Tinti, with major contributions by the students of Rob Carr’s Document Design courses at Fitchburg State University. This project has been supported by the Louise I. Doyle Exhibition Fund and a grant from the Artist’s Resource Trust.

For more information, visit fitchburgartmuseum.org.