Highlights

U of A Sculpture show at Flow 159

Saw some good art this weekend. Same as last year though, it seems like the season’s picking up in terms of good art and lots of events, right before everyone’s about to skip town for the Holidays. A few photos are up on the Tu Scene Flickr. If you would like to share any recent event shots, get at tuscene@yahoo.com. What caught my eye:

Poetics of Light
Through February 27
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 11am-5pm; Thursdays till 7pm
Etherton Gallery
135 S. 6th Ave.

Kate Breakey‘s gothic-y framed photograms was presented one of the best 2D installations I’ve seen in Tucson so far. Masao Yamamoto‘s photo collages were delightfully weightless, despite the space limitations of the foyer. Although it would’ve been exciting to see something more like this. I’m sure the photogenic drawings by Carol Panaro-Smith and James Hajicek are complicated to create and are successful pure botanicals, not trying to be anything else but what they are, but the results looked like prints you’d buy at a Pier 1 or something.

U of A Sculpture Show
Gallery Hours: Tuesdays 10am-5pm, Thursdays 10am-5pm and by appointment, call (520) 730-0482
Flow 159, The 5th on 6th, Suite 179
439 N. 6th Ave. #159

Tina Notaro of Flow 159, working in conjunction with Lane Johnson of The 5th on 6th, and her fellow U of A sculpture classmates took over three spaces in the Firestone Building. It’s heartening to see university students interacting with the community (now if it could just be the other way ’round, we’d be set!), since the experimentation possible using institutional facilities is a rare opportunity in the real world as us studio art major grads can attest to. The show in the currently empty Suite 179 is only up for a week, I’m not sure how long the other exhibits will be up.

Bean Pod to iPod: Evolution
Site-specific, one night only
107 E. 6th St.

I was a bit disappointed by this one. Unless there was some sort of interactive part I missed, I didn’t really see how the concept lived up to the description: “Bean Pod to iPod displays art in a storage POD. The purpose of the unconventional exhibition space is to draw attention to the fact that we [humanity] are in it together. We hope to show that technological advancement and sustainable practices can harmoniously come together to create a greater future.” It basically a typical art opening, only outside, consisting of  a few student work-type paintings and a sculpture or two (some better than others) in a storage pod, a couple of DJ’s and the most finger food I saw all night.

Holiday Spectacular V
Through January 30
Gallery Hours: Monday-Saturday, 11am-7pm
Zoё Boutique
735 N. 4th Ave.

Speaking of conceptual spaces, I just have to remark on this one because it’s weird to see thongs and bras at eye-level and then look up and see someone’s painting. Anyways, Mel Dominguez‘s work just keeps getting fantastically (in the literal sense of the root, fantasy) deeper and deeper. Also, Tucson, it’s about time someone said this in public: rockabilly-deathgothrave visuals are, 99% of the time, NOT art; it’s a design trend/scene. To quote Orson Welles from F Is For Fake, “It’s pretty, but is it art?”

Vytas Sakalas: Doorway To Infinity
Through January 2
Gallery Hours: Tu-Sa 11am-5pm
Contreras Gallery
110 East 6th Street

The gallery felt crammed with Sakalas’ large, intricately colorful/lined works; it could’ve looked more polished with half the work displayed as was in there, but on the other hand, Contreras is a commercial gallery so I certainly understand why it’s necessary to utilize the space more like a store. Sakalas’ burnt birch wood drawings were particularly interesting and well-executed, they transformed to the materials to another level.

My Bad

ARTSWAP is on December 12, not December 5. Visit artsmarketplace.org for details.