Last night was the First Thursday Art Walk (aka in certain circles, the First Thursday Death March). I rarely go to these anymore, but K talked me into it last night. Greg Kucera has
Marcel Dzama which was great to see, and
All City Coffee has a great show of Pop Cartoon work, and Outsider gallery
Garde-Rail always has great shows.
Soil has an interesting exhibit of installation work. Platform has a great show by
Patte Loper, including a piece I'd have bought instantly if I had eight grand handy (yes- the Close Encounters one). Billy Howard I usually like but I didn't see what he had last night. But man- everything else I saw was pretty dullsville. In fact- I was in a couple of new galleries and I started to get a little angry about the lack of quality or vision in the art. There is a "fancy" gallery that has a new space that made my mouth water, but the art...well- it didnt look like "art" to me, just bad glass, bad color field paintings, and bronze work that while perfectly nice, just looked very decor to me. I'm the most sympathetic person in the world towards fellow gallery owners, but it makes me ill to see places run with too much money and too little taste.
I had the art buying itch bad though,(and have ever since I
didn't buy a little painting of a horse in a lightning storm which was attributed to
Fuseli...I'm going to kick myself about that forever) but couldn't currently afford a Dzama piece (oh- how I wanted one) so I figured I was out of luck. But as were walking by a thrift store I noticed they were hosting an art show (in Seattle, every restaurant, bar, and clothing shop has a "gallery") called "Penny Dreadfuls" so I was enticed in. I ended up buying a fantastic piece, an anatomical rendering of a vulture done in embroidery. Score! I'll post it when I get to take it home in a month.
