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FIRST FRIDAY
Art in August isn't as lonely as it appears
By CHRISTIAN HOLLAND
del.ico.us
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August is the sun-lovers' January when it comes to art exhibitions. Most galleries close while their staffs steal away to the beach with the slightly-soured Chardonnay and expired Brie leftover from the previous season's shows. The galleries that stay open reserve the month for exhibitions that require less effort or draw fewer people. Gallerists view August in the same way that liquor store owners regard Lent, and group shows, the gallery world's equivalent of high school homecoming dances, are the norm.
The dearth of art shows is the art seeker's greatest challenge in the last days of the summer. After weeks of investigation, the staff of Big RED and Shiny could only dredge up two openings from the sea of galleries that typically open their doors on the community day of arts known as First Friday. On Friday, August 8, East Boston's Atlantics Works Gallery [80 Border St., Boston. 617.549.4911. atlanticworks.org] opens the group show Safe, while the Fort Points Art Community Gallery [300 Summer St., Boston. 617.423.4299. fortpointarts.org] opens Departure by W. Benjamin Bray and Christopher G. Watts, which, as a two person show, is indeed a departure from the summer's typical fare (see accompanying story).
Unfortunately, their relative isolation will rule out the usual First Friday gallery crawl, but they'd both be worth a look in even the busiest of seasons. Their openings may also draw large crowds because of their distinction as the only two places to be. Safe will be a ton of fun. The photographer (and Bernard Toale Gallery refugee) Laura McPhee juried the show and included 19 artists, most of them local.
Pleasing for the masses, though sometimes facile, the group show stands as the most popular of the summertime genres. Other than Sean Keenan's photography of decaying urban sites devoid of humanity in The Southeast Asia Series opening on Thursday, August 7, at the Judi Rotenberg Gallery [130 Newbury St., Boston. 617.437.1518. judirotenberg.com], the work on display all over Boston will be clustered together by thematic or social relationships to varying degrees of success.
The less competitive field provides an opportunity for young and student artists. Through August, three Boston galleries take their chances on the unanointed. Laconia Gallery [433 Harrison Ave., Boston. laconiagallery.org] exhibits Taking In: The Best of Art Institute of Boston Photography 2008 while Boston Young Contemporaries, which includes an astonishing 90-plus artists, crowds the walls and floors of Boston University's 808 Gallery [808 Comm. Ave., Boston. 617.358.0922. bu.edu/cfa/visual-arts/galleries/808]. In Nascent, at Suffolk University's New England School of Art and Design [75 Arlington St., Boston. 617.573.8785. suffolk.edu/nesad/gallery], James Manning compiled several recent graduates from area art schools, but he carried the nascent idea far beyond the age of their career and considered the beginnings of perception and how each artist interprets and manipulates reality.
The barrenness of the arts community is also a reason to look harder for good work. Despite being an extension of a hotel lobby, the Panopticon Gallery [502c Comm. Ave., Boston. 617.267.8929. panopt.com], which has been in operation since 1971, has been working hard to transcend the decorative pretext of its backdrop of hospitality. Both of its August shows, Then ... Absence: Images from the Ninth Ward, New Orleans and The Whole World Was Watching: Images from the 1968 Chicago Riots are good reasons to stop by.
