oranje - recent posts from my current home

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Downtown Gallery Crawl - part 2

Peter Kope and Michele de la Reza from Attack Theater brought Game Night to the Wood Street Gallery for the gallery crawl. This is a popoular program for Unblurred, first Fridays on Penn Avenue. During Unblurred, though, the company members also perform the Seven Minute Dance Series. It's a great way to get to know the company's works and get a sneak preview of upcoming works. They'll be performing October 6 for Unblurred. And yes, there will be games.


The Sprout Fund began sponsoring murals in the various Pittsburgh neighborhoods in 2003, with thirty murals completed to date. It's a great opportunity for young artists to get their feet wet in the public art arena. While I was downtown for the gallery crawl, I swung by and snapped a picture of the second mural for the area. Brian Holderman was hanging out with some friends across from the mural. Now, I don't understand why the dedication ceremony didn't take place during the gallery crawl, but there you go. The dedication ceremony is taking place Friday, September 29th, 6:00pm at 7th & Liberty Avenue.

I think that this fall's gallery crawl was disappointing. Merge Divide wrote eloquently about it in Serendipity. There were a lot of performance-oriented programs for an event that is supposed to showcase visual arts. The video exhibit at Space was unviewable because of the band. While the band seemed to be pretty good, I found that the music echoed so much from the walls that I couldn't make out the lyrics.
Wood Street Gallery had dance events instead of visual arts. Even the Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery got into the act with a drum performance. (I'll post about the exhibit later)

What happened? Did everybody just ignore the calendar? Are they so concerned with bringing in masses of people that they've resorted to bread-and-circuses to make a greater number impact?

2 comments:

Lisa Hunter said...

Who organized the gallery crawl? I think they work best when dealers combine forces and use their client/mailing lists. When an outside event planner organizes this type of event, sometimes the word doesn't go out to the right people to draw an art crowd.

Susan Constanse said...

Well, there were masses of people. There are only four of these gallery crawls a year. It's sponsored by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, who operates both Wood Street Gallery and Space. There is not a single for-profit gallery in downtown.

It was the performances that were showcased that night, not the visual arts. With the major downtown venue, Wood Street Gallery, having no visual art installed, I have to wonder.