Pittsburgh Art Events: 1/ 22-23/10.

Friday

The Downtown Gallery Crawl for the winter is upon us, and the Cultural Trust is offering attendees a melange of stuff- some of which has been up for weeks, and some that is being newly unveiled for the event itself (5:30-9PM).

Space Gallery (812 Liberty Ave.) still houses the "Behind our Scenes" exhibit (curated by Laura Mustio & Nicole Rosato), which showcases the work of artists affiliated with local art institutions like the Mattress Factory and the Carnegie Art Museum. I attended the opening, and would suggest that the show is worth a quick run-through. The Pitt News has a write-up of the show here.

I've also seen PCA curator Adam Welch's collection of large assemblage pieces and other works at the 709 Penn Gallery. Welch has been quite busy trying to reconcile the perplexing dichotomies within himself and society (here's a review by Kurt Shaw). You'll have to see for yourself how he's managing. While you're at it, stop by next door (707 Penn) for a display of works by Anjali Srinivasan.

Wood Street Galleries hosts a genuine opening reception for a retrospective of works by Argentinian artist Martin Bonadeo, and Future Tenant has Do You Understand?, a multimedia exhibit on online communication, curated by Kim Rullo. Even though they opened this thing last weekend, you can get a "Sneak Preview" online at their official site. Meanwhile the 937 Gallery (on Liberty Avenue) has three full floors of stuff to take in, including Robot Resolution for the tech geeks, and the For Real For Real storytelling series for the literate nerds.

At 820 Liberty, Urban Tree Forge and Moxie Dada has its closing reception for Resolutions. Evidently the curators there are trying to get you to think, as they are advertising an "Exhibit challenging viewers to think about environment, sustainability, self government & control". Finally, you should make a point of stopping by Pittsburgh Tribune Review art critic Kurt Shaw's relatively-new gallery (805 Liberty Ave.). He's featuring "rare original prints" by French Expressionist Georges Rouault.


If you'd rather simply avoid the hustle-and-bustle of Downtown on a Friday evening, you can choose instead to go to Paper - series on paper by Kelly Blevins, Seth Clark, Joren Dykstra, Maria Mangano & Andrea Muha at the Gallery on Baum (4643) in Oakland. I've been tracking events there for a bit, and it seems like this is their first show that features local artists, so come out (6-9PM) and reinforce this new direction. There's a nice preview (and a couple of images) of this over at The Pittsburgh Galleries Blog.

Saturday

Your options seem kind of limited for Saturday. All I could find is Now & Then and Cubism Revisited, featuring the work of David Lewis and Terry Shutko respectively, opening at the Mendelson Gallery in Shadyside (2-5PM). It should be worth checking out.

(EDIT: There's also a show of drawings at the Panza Gallery: 115 Sedgwick Street in Millvale from 6-9PM. I feel terrible for forgetting this because it's an exhibition by folks I draw with most Thursdays. Hell, I might even have something in the show.)