It is September in Seattle and the Gallery walk fell on the Thursday before the holiday weekend. Downtown Seattle was packed with gallery goers and various vendors in the Occidental Plaza hawking their wares. Fire twirlers and capoeira dancers added to the carnival atmosphere of the evening. Some notable shows at Soil, Platform, G. Gibson, Shift and Foster/White galleries served up delectable fare for the art viewers. Who needs that stupid desert rave party Burning Man when you can see better art at home.

SOIL
Nocturnes
Curated by Fionn Meade
September 1 - October 2, 2005
Hours: Thursday-Sunday 12-5pm
Nocturnes features four artists who explore animation within their wider studio practice. Cat Clifford, Laleh Khorramian, Lucy Raven, and Mary Simpson. Two from Seattle and two from New York, each artist in Nocturnes shows new films which transport the viewer into alternative realities of the artists\'d5 making. The basic tools of animation are now accessible and affordable enough that artists can experiment with the form. This is another example of artists using new technology to break down the economic barriers to attack work with an auteur\'d5s sensibility, Nocturnes features four artists whose work steps away from conventional formats to inhabit new territory with its own rules They are exhibiting related works and source material, including prints, drawings, and sculptural elements. A fascinating look into old aesthetics via new technology. Soil Gallery

Rayner, Seubert, Bernhard
G. Gibson Gallery
300 South Washington Street Seattle 98104
Tues-Fri 11-5:30 & Sat 11 to 5, Mon. by appointment.
Gail Gibson's new space in the Toshiro-Kaplan Building provides a stunning forum for the betst in Contemporary Photography. Of particular note is the work by Susan Seubert, her Coat, Panties 1, 2005 is an 11" x 14" tintype. Using this old form she enters into the subject the way that Roetegen experimented with the first x-rays. The tintypes are an arresting visual image literally popping off of the white walls. It is as if the artist has gone through the attic of the mind and excavated forms and relationships from a bygone era. The quiet excellence of these works demand a solo exhibition in the near future. G. Gibson Gallery

Susan Robb: recording field level five
Platform Gallery
Susan Robb's pesentation is based on the 19th century premise that when one is isolated from nature you become open to being battered and bruised by culture. This idea holds some currency in the Northwest although I don't buy it!. This new series of work includes video in which nature is viewed as an isolated event; sampled sound pieces made from recordings of the 2004 Whitney Biennial, which abstract the very thing that should clarify and an installation ominously called The Wall. What saves the work from an overtly dystopian world view is Robb's wry humor. The artist is a recipient of a Pollack-Krasner Award as well as a City of Seattle CityArts Projects Grant. Her work has been included in Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics, a exhibition that travelled nationally and was organized by the Henry Art Gallery, as well as in exhibitions in Berlin, Tokyo, and Sweden and the Pacific Northwest. She was the recipient of The Stranger's 2003 Genius Award in the visual artist category.
Susan Robb web site

Distil Bill: Carolyn Zick at Shift Gallery
It started as an inside joke - a single doodle of a vest worn religiously by an art school professor. Carolyn Zick's new paintings, drawings and sculptures are an obsessive exploration of the romantic myth that remains attached to artistic icons. Using the barrel chested bust to distill the very essence of these myths, Zick playfully pokes fun at our need to even have artistic heroes. Blame it on Leonardo da Vinci, the inventor of the "artist as genius" myth. Zick has produced drawings, watercolor and oil paintings and cast slip sculptures to create [distil] Bill. The strongest pieces in the exhibition are the drawings which are both simple and intricate at the same time. She also authors the premier art weblog in Seattle

DangerousChunky.com.

Distil Bill

Manfred Lindenberger at Foster White
\ Manfred Lindenberger was born in Berlin, Germany in 1914. As a child he was exposed to the museums of Berlin which offered extensive collections of the Old Masters. After graduating from the University of Berlin in 1936, he immigrated to the United States where he completed his education at the University of California, Berkeley. His early work was influenced by the Northwest scenery. In the late 1980s he began to paint in acrylics and his work changed from landscape to figurative representation. Lindenberger is the closest thing we have to Vassilly Kandinsky in Seattle. He believes his recent gestural paintings, "express the understanding that pigment and color application are intertwined much like the fabric of our society." He has exhibited with the Foster/White Gallery since 1991. The exhibit runs at Foster White Gallery September 1-24, 2005. Manfred Lindenberger

These are just some of the many fine exhibits which seem to prove that despite reports to the contrary, the Visual Arts are alive and well in Seattle.
Video Clip of Pioneer Square Fire Performance