ART FAG

By lili

Friday February 22, 2008

In order to get you and me off the computer and into the much needed sun, I’m going to keep this quick and dirty. Vitamin D is calling my name, and yours too.

Apart from being one of the first unofficial days of spring, today is also the host of the VAG‘s monthly FUSE event. As many of you already know, this event is part party, part educational, part ass kissing. It has a little something for everyone (some of you may want to bring your knee pads, it helps when you’re… never mind). This months event, “Truth, Beauty and Utopias”, starts at 6pm (but really at 7:30pm with the talk, “TruthBeauty: Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art”) with experimental music from Theater Conspiracy, Ion Zoo, and Safa throughout the evening and finishes up at 12am with musical guests DJ John Cougar, Petroleum By-Products and DJ She making it bearable to stick it out to the end. Check out the VAG’s website for the schedule and more info.

If the Friday night crowds at the VAG make your stomach churn, then I would suggest going to Rolande Souliere‘s opening “Materiality and Otherness” at Grunt Gallery (116-350 E.2nd ave). This ex-pat’s installations are ““unavailable to comprehension” according to her press release, so I wouldn’t bother trying to “get it” and rather just exploit the cheap wine. If you have a little time to kill on Saturday at 2pm, I would implore you to go to her artist talk to ask her why she would assume her work was “unavailable to comprehension.” I mean, are we all really that dumb? Or is she really that smart?

In my estimation, Saturday night’s opening of Hadley + Maxwell‘s show, “Editions 1+2” at the Or Gallery (103-480 Smithe) will be a refreshing one. The highly academic works by this duo are substantiated, not only by their research and intellect, but also by an artist statement and text by Eric Frederickson, the Director of Seattle’s Western Bridge. This official launch and artist reception starts at 8pm.

The only other things happening this week are later on, on Tuesday. Access is hosting a noise and experimental sound night starting at 8pm which would appeal to a lot of people I seem to know, but there is also an artist tour that evening called “The Tree: From the Sublime to the Social” at the VAG that I think everyone should try and attend. It starts at 7pm and is hosted by Kevin Schmidt, Andrew Dadson and Ian Wallace, so don’t sleep on this one. If you don’t know who those guys are, then you should, and you should go listen to what they have to say.

And now I’m going to go listen to what I have to say, which is “GET OFF YOUR ASS AND ENJOY THE SUN!”