This is Eric Trich's "Augmented Reality" and you'll play with it on Saturday night at W.A.A.S. gallery.
If you've ever fancied yourself an artsy type, this is your weekend. Saturday night is a full-on assault of creative activity: there's Eric Trich's iPhone interactive experiment, "Augmented Reality" at W.A.A.S.. An immersion experience with danishes in the West Village. Two art walks. A freaky cone of light and fog at Angstrom, and most importantly, K8 Hardy's new show at the Dallas Contemporary. Don't worry, it's all in here. Time to hit up your friends, share this list and make a plan! (You can click the event titles for more information.) I'll see you out there. (I'll be the one making shadow puppets in a light cone.)
Thursday 9.20 Four Nights: Four Decades at the Power Station -- The third floor of the Power Station has been and educational video art playground for the last three weeks. Tonight is the final installment of the series, and it will focus on important work created in the aughts. If you haven't gotten over there yet, do it now. Then, pop into Angstrom Gallery on Saturday to see the Power Station project Anthony McCall's trippy '70s work, "Line Describing a Cone." (See Saturday.)
"I Can See Myself" at Kettle Art -- This group show gives artists a chance to answer two questions: "When you look in a mirror, what do you see?" And, "How do you feel others see you?" Find out what comes from all that real talk at Thursday's opening reception.
Friday 9.21 KOOZA -- If you haven't experienced a Cirque tent show, they're very different from their stadium cousins. KOOZA is intimate and has a parlor room vibe to it, but it's also totally weird. (It's Cirque, after all.) This installment is also kinda sexy, so go on a date.
Party Mouth at Ochre House -- It's the latest play by avant garde stage wizard, Matthew Posey. Our theater critic Elaine Liner has this warning: "Expect outrageous humor, Japanese Bunraku puppets, live music, dancing and Warholian weirdness." Done. Tickets are $15, but if you go on Monday it's pay-what-you-can.
Addison OKTOBERFEST! -- Beer! Dancing! Dachshund races! Bier-barrel bowling! A German Idol yodeling contest! It's Oktoberfest, y'all and it's going on all weekend in Addison. Maybe rent a hotel room?
Salute to Supernatural -- I don't watch this show, but apparently A LOT of you do or they wouldn't have made an entire convention around it. If you are hooked on the adventures of the Winchester boys, you'll get a chance to mingle with them at this nerdly mash-up party. It goes on all weekend.
Last Day To See The MTV: ReDefine Collection at Goss-Michael -- It all gets auctioned off on Saturday night at the glamor-heavy philanthropy affair, MTV: ReDefine. You can't afford that party. The cheapo tickets start at $350 dollars, which is more than you spend on groceries in a month. Here's my thought: Go visit the art now while it's free, then make a donation to the Staying Alive Foundation online. Just give a little. Non-rich folks can help too.
Art Uprising in the West Village -- This three-day event kicks off Friday with an art walk and auction, with proceeds benefiting EASL. The local non-profit acts as a financial safety net for visual artists in emergency situations. Saturday and Sunday is when Uprising goes party-style (I suggest you read more about it and view the band line-up here.) It's a big ol' art fest, y'all. There will be 18 bands, work by 50 local artists (pick some up, it goes to a good cause), and food and drink vendors. Also, you can bring your dog on Sunday.
Saturday 9.22 This is a giant day for art in Dallas. I'm going to rent a jet pack off loanables.com then shoot over to as many of these shows as possible, leaving you to fend for yourselves. Here's a giant list so that you can pick your poison. Think of this as a special edition art insert.
DADA Art Walk and Bike Swarm -- It's a chance to visit all of the DADA galleries (there's 40-something of them) during the daytime, before things get crazy at night. They're also doing panel discussions at the MAC, which is a great excuse to go visit the Roger Winter retrospective that's currently running. It's great.
"Constructing Perspective" at NERV -- This still super-new gallery might get overlooked on Saturday. It's just a little further to the map's fringe than many of the other, cozier neighborhood events. I'll go ahead and challenge you to fit it in. Here's what we know about this group show organized by Humano Art: There's work by 12 local artists, raffles, tacos and a whole bunch more.
Deep Ellum Gallery Walk -- Surprise! A last minute addition to Saturday's art mayhem, this event doesn't focus on new openings, but a bunch of your favorite spaces will be open so you can visit them. Included are: 500X Gallery, CentralTrak, Continental Lofts, Kettle Art, Kirk Hopper Fine Art, Latino Cultural Center, Mitchell Lofts, Mokah Art, The Public Trust, Steve Paul Productions, 29 Pieces and Tony Horton. It goes from 6 to 10 p.m. and their Facebook invite has a link to a downloadable map. Happy hunting.
FEED BAG -- This is a project nestled inside of Art Uprising. Scheduled to go from 7 to 9 p.m. in the space that was once Lemon Bar, FEED BAG is an immersion in experimental performance helmed by In Cooperation With Muscle Nation, a collective of local creatives who's talents cover a variety of mediums. I've heard the performance involves danishes. God, I hope the danishes aren't art because I will totally eat that art.
"September Issues" and "Pretty Much Everything" at Dallas Contemporary -- If you go to no other art event on Saturday, you better get to this one. Fort Worth-to-Brooklyn artists, K8 Hardy presents a series of "Dallas-sized" photographs and three light boxes which play with the idea of self-branding in "September Issues." I got a peek yesterday and damn, this one is important. It addresses tough subjects and is required viewing. The opening runs from 9 p.m. to midnight. It's free.
Art Beef "Soft Opening" -- Now don't confuse Art Beef with BEEF. The latter was an exhibition presented by S.C.A.B. at Angstrom in August, Art Beef is a new collective that also likes to utilize unconventional spaces. It's going down at 1802 Greenville Avenue from 7 to 11. Want to know more? Email them. Their Facebook page seems to be poised around mystery.
Anthony McCall's "Line Describing a Cone" at Angstrom -- This is a final gift presented by those generous folks at the Power Station. Pop into Angstrom on Saturday night and play in McCall's freaky cone of light and fog. It's 30 minutes long and runs on a loop from 6 to 11 p.m., so you'll have about ten chances to see it from start to finish. (Maybe make this a later stop. The Power Station crew mentioned that they might run it longer if folks are still swinging by.)
"Focal Point" at W.A.A.S. -- It's this gallery's one-year anniversary, so it's bringing together three buzzy, interactive artists and one super secret performance piece to celebrate. Possibly the buzziest of the three showing is local boy, Eric Trich who's going to let you play with his artful toys. You'll download an app, then move around the space occupying each 2D hanging work -- your space invasion is then converted into a 3D hologram thingy. Yes, this is crazy, and somewhere Philip K. Dick is outlandishly happy but doesn't know why. It runs from 7 to 11 p.m..
"Spare Parts" Fundraiser -- Over in West Dallas the Fort Worth Avenue Development Group is shaking things up. They're negotiating bike lanes, sidewalk expansion and public art programs, like Mobius Bench, the cool new point of pedestrian respite sitting on the corner of Chicken Scratch's lot. But doing that stuff takes money, so they're holding their annual fundraiser, "Spare Parts" on Saturday at the new Four Corners Brewery. You can bid on pieces made out of recycled items; they're all hand-crafted by loving, local artists. (If you like Art Conspiracy parties, you'll love Spare Parts.)
Sunday 9.23 Dr. No at Texas Theatre -- Still history's greatest Bond and Bond Villain combination, Dr. No is turning 50 years young. Texas Theatre celebrates all weekend by screening the flick in 35mm.
FenCon -- Hey dudes, it's a sci-fi literature convention! Hey ladies, there will be an astronaut! (Intergalactic growling noises.)
Monday 9.24 Sandra Fluke at SMU -- We're going to extend the weekend just a touch to remind you that Sandra Fluke speaks for free at SMU on Monday evening. Yeah, she's the lawyer who wanted to speak about reproductive rights and domestic violence, but was instead called a slut by Rush Limbaugh. Here's the deal with that: we got so wrapped up in Rush's slander that many forget this woman had something important to say. Go hear her now.
