Three Artists x Three Decades

It’s difficult to believe that 500X Gallery is 33 years old. The Exposition Park arts venue has hung in through trends and trials and remained a vibrant hub of local work, never seeming to age–save for whatever the art gallery equivalent of a little distinguished gray around the temples might be. In celebration, Leslie Murrell has curated Imprints: Three Generations of 500X. The main gallery hosts this triple shot of artists: Tom Orr represents the beginnings (he was part of 500X at its start) and actual construction of the space, so it’s fitting that his Fingerprint Series #3, repeating silkscreens of his own fingerprint, should be showcased in Imprints. Vance Wingate navigates the “in-between days” with drawings that analyze rigidity of system and freedom of intuition using connected dots. Appropriately, Wingate owned his own Dallas gallery, so respectful deviation has been appreciated with his exhibition. The new class is repped by Natalie Macellaio, who mimics on the wall the gallery’s own cracks in the floor, but in precious silver. She’s taken the old or the worn and made it new and more beautiful–because it’s not that it wasn’t already. Trying to honor a certain time is often kitschy in a time-capsule way, but Murrell and her three artists have skillfully exposed the imprints they’ve contributed to 500X, and that 500X has made on them…and us. Experience it all for yourself noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, 500 Exposition Ave. Visit 500x.org.

Saturdays, Sundays, 5 p.m. Starts: Jan. 15. Continues through Jan. 30, 2011