Pittsburgh Art Events: 4/24-27/09.

This weekend there’s a time management workshop on offer down at Duquesne. I’m not going to offer you the details, but I will have you know that this talk would have been useful for fitting in all of the great events happening over the next several days. There’s so much to do that you probably won’t have time to listen to a lecture about scheduling. But if you find yourself amenable to the suggestion, have a quick scan over my picks…

Friday

To be honest, I have no idea whether or not the seasonal Downtown Gallery Crawl has morphed into this thing called “One Night Stand”… but it sure seems like the Cultural Trust is in the mood for a makeover. Several galleries in the Golden Triangle are hosting receptions with live entertainment on Friday, and it might be an efficient use of your time to drive around for 45 minutes or so and look for a proper parking spot. Mary Mack will be spinning to a backdrop of Czech photos at SPACE, Netherlands-based Telcosystems will appear to support the “at times visually violent, sonically extreme and physically intimidating” art displayed at Wood Street, and there will be spoken word by Brian Francis at Future Tenant. Apparently there’s an after party at Remedy in Larryville. It all (and more) gets underway at 7:30PM.

Perhaps you missed Tim Kerr’s opening at Zombo Gallery (4900 Hatfield Street) a few weeks ago? The closing is Friday from 6PM to around 10PM (or so). Take your time and read the words on his paintings. It seems like a bit of a risky choice to write directly on your visual work. But in this case, I found it rather inspiring.

The Brew House Distillery program annually offers emerging artists six-month residencies at their facility on 2100 Mary Street in the South Side. Stop by at Space 101 (from 7-11PM) for the opening reception starring the latest batch of home-grown creators. Just get out of that hood before the suburban tools start to flood in with their cheap beer piss and whiskey-muscles.

Friday/Saturday

My buddy Tom Henry is performing his wryly wacky form of comedy at the Improv in Homestead for a three night stretch (starting Thursday @ 8PM, with shows @ 8PM and 10PM on Fri and 7PM and 9PM on Sat), opening for national comic T.J. Miller. It’s $15 per show, plus money enough for the two drink minimum. Drop in and show support for the local jokester. If you don’t laugh at least once, then… well, um… then you’re a douchebag?!

Saturday

Ok, I haven’t really ridden a bike in years. But I do appreciate it when I see others doing so. That’s why I’m mentioning the pancake breakfast at the East Liberty Whole Foods on Saturday morning (8 AM). It’s $7, sponsored by the Community Design Center, and offers guests a chance to register for Pedal Pittsburgh. I can only speculate, but I imagine there’s nothing more pleasant than having a stomach full of griddle cakes expanding in your belly as you two-wheel up-and-down the hills of the ‘Burgh.

If you need to sit after your ride, stop by (11AM) at Fe Gallery in the L-Ville and find out “how art stuff happens” @ the Workshop for the Working Artist. It’s $5 (which should give you an essential clue in solving the thematic problem posed herein), and features local scenesters including Jennifer Baron, Susan Blackman, Eric Shiner, and T Foley. Then at 2PM you can check out the Ralph Munn Creative Writing Workshop, led by photo-essayist and memoirist Sandra Gould Ford, @ the Carnegie Library in Oakland. That one’s free.

Permit me to say that one of the major highlights this weekend should be the reception for the one-week run of CMU –grad Olga Brindar’s “Sketchbook Release: Moments and Minutiae” at the Panza gallery in Millvale (115 Sedgwick Street). I’ve been checking out her drawings for a few years now, and I’m excited for her first solo exhibition. Olga is a young artist who’s not afraid to put herself on display, and we are all the better off for it. It is imperative that you fit this into your Saturday agenda (6-9PM).

The aforementioned Remedy (5121 Butler St) is hosting an opening/reception (from 11PM-1AM) for their in-house muralist Emmeric Konrad. The theme is “Drawings Done in Bars & the Paintings They've Inspired”. Make sure to visit the dining room and learn what his art does for your appetite(s). Have their fine cooks make you somethin’ good while you are at it. I recommend most everything.

Saturday/Sunday

Art all Night, Pittsburgh’s premiere non-juried visual and auditory extravaganza starts at 6PM on Saturday night and runs until Sunday @ 2PM. It’s a Lawrenceville annual tradition, and takes place at the Red Warehouse (3510 Smallman Street) this year. According to the “official” numbers, last year saw 810 participating artists and attracted over 10,000 guests. Get there early for parking and refreshments. And if you want to display your work, drop off is Saturday afternoon (Noon-4PM). See the website for all the details you need. And yes… it’s all free.

Things to Do This Weekend.

Here we go again. There were a couple of slack weekends in a row with not much happening in the Pittsburgh arts scene... so it's typical to have tons of events packed into two evenings. The most notable is likely the Downtown Gallery Crawl on Friday night- a seasonal get together featuring a look at galleries and other events in the Golden Triangle. Of course it is officially Spring, so there will be tons of folks out and about. Doors start to open for visitors around 5:30PM and usually remain open and busy until 8PM , or so.

I can't say I'm overly excited by anything advertised by this particular crawl. At the 707 and 709 Galleries (Penn avenue) we have the closing of Jazz in Pictures, and the opening of Live Green, View Blue, Paint The Town Red. The latter includes the winning design models of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust International Design Competition. Up the block at Future Tenant (819 Penn Avenue), they are midway through their I am a Heather exhibition. Sure, sometimes it seems like everything has been done before. But who can truly say that they have seen a show of work entirely inspired by girls named "Heather"? Apparently someone within the CMU student curatorial staff has a thing for bad 80's movies.

The Wood Street Galleries has Text/Memory, installations by Jim Campbell & Mark Scheeff. Campbell makes "electronic art", while Scheeff apparently fucks around with robots (more information here). Something tells me I've seen this show before, but that seems impossible since tomorrow is the official opening. Perhaps the powers-that-be down at Wood Street need to diversify their interests a bit. A block down the street at SPACE Gallery (812 Liberty), Murray Horne has put together an exhibition (Pittsburgh Now) including a selection of artists he is evidently excited by. I'm not sure what these creators have in common besides the fact that five of them have (or have had) some ties to Carnegie Mellon University. That's certainly no novelty downtown.

Finally I will be making a point to stop by Artists Upstairs (937 Liberty) to see Dilated Dialogues (sic). It's reportedly "a photographic conversation between Americans who capture images abroad and foreign-born artists working here." There's no way to tell for sure (since I'm unfamiliar with virtually all of the artists at this Crawl), but it seems like this may be my personal highlight of the evening. If not, I can always take my butt down to the Culinary Institute and gorge myself on cheap chef-in-training-made delicacies.

If none of this appeals to your aesthetic sensibilities, the Mattress Factory is having an opening (7-10PM) called Inner and Outer Space, which features nine contemporary artists who promise to offer new perceptions of space by defying two dimensional surfaces. It costs $10 if you aren't a member. Or alternatively you could check out the Fein Art Gallery (519 E. Ohio Street). This North Side Gallery is having a display of then-and-now photos documenting Pittsburgh history. It's a group show, and includes some images from my new friend Rick Byerly. It's called See How It Was, See How It Is, and its opening reception runs from 5-9PM.


Saturday offers a whole new set of diversions for your wandering eye. Artists Image Resource (518 Foreland Street on the North Side) offers an exhibition of the work of 2006 Pittsburgh Center for the Arts "Emerging Artist of the Year", Kim Beck. I couldn't find much information about this specific show (other than the hours of 7-9PM), but I really liked what I saw at the PCA and I'm going to make an effort not to miss this one.

There's also a closing of Sublimation, a collection of pieces by artists involved in the Brew House Distillery Program. Local favorite Brett Davis is one of the eight artists involved, and it's always interesting to see what he comes up with. Your last chance to see this show is at the South Side location of this co-op at 2100 Mary Street, from 3-5PM.

Of all the happenings this weekend, I am most eagerly anticipating Lawrenceville's Eleventh Annual Art All Night. I'll always be sentimental about this event, because it was throughout this series that I first displayed my photography. Just as its title suggests, you can see artwork by hundreds of different local creators, starting at 6PM on Saturday, and extending through the wee hours all the way until Sunday at 2PM. The show is neither juried nor censored so you get a wide variety of work to enjoy. There's also food, drink and live music throughout the night. This year they are advertising the location as their biggest ever- in the former Roomfull Express Warehouse on 57th Street in Lawrenceville. This is a party you (and 7000 other 'burghers) don't want to miss.