April 6-12, 2005

Seattle Art Museum Rental/Sales Gallery SAM's Rental/Sales Gallery continues its showcase of local galleries, this time with artists from Bryan Ohno Gallery, including Francis Celentano, Anna Daedalus, and Patricia Hagan. Also on display: works by Gabriel Fernandez and Chauney Peck. 1220 Third Ave., 206-343-1101. 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat.

Suyama Space Roger Feldman's architectural sculptures are designed to be unsettling—literally. The three installations, each about the size of Thoreau's cabin, are built simply from 2-by-4s and other framing materials and are meant to be experienced. So take off your shoes and enter. Each of the structures is made to rock and teeter. One is constructed with an Escher-like zigzag of parallelograms, and it takes random, disturbing lurches as you walk about the room. The most memorable of the three pieces is sealed off in sensory-deprivation blackness. 2324 Second Ave., 206-256-0809. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri.

Viveza The seemingly abstract paintings of Melinda Hannigan are actually close-ups of rusty old container ships. 2604 Western Ave., 206-355-0070. Noon- 5 p.m. Tues.-Sat.

Western Bridge "19 Rainstorms" is a sampling of rain- and foul-weather-themed video, photography, and installation by Neil Goldberg, Trisha Donnelly, Olafur Eliasson, Anri Sala, Tania Kitchell, and others. (See visual arts pick, p. 84.) 3412 Fourth Ave. S. 206-838-7444. Noon-6 p.m. Thurs.-Sat.

Museums

Frye Art Museum In Robin Held's first exhibition since taking over as curator at the Frye, Seattle artist Joseph Park gets a solo show, "Moon Beam Caress." His precise paintings draw on Japanese animation and film to create an alternative noir world peopled with angst-ridden cartoon creatures. 704 Terry Ave., 206-622-9250. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat.; noon-5 p.m. Sun.; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thurs.

Henry Art Gallery There's such an embarrassment of riches at the Henry right now, it's hard to list it all. Top billing goes to Doug Aitken's three-screen video installation Interiors, a majestic meditation on the search for meaning amid the stress and alienation of 21st-century urban life. Sprawling throughout an entire gallery, four separate story lines play out on a vast box of screens, allowing you to view three of the videos simultaneously as a sculptural whole from many different angles. The nearly wordless stories arch from the contemplative (a young family with a new baby stands in a junkyard as a Brian Eno–like soundtrack throbs underneath) to the mysterious (a man sands a helicopter in a sterile factory cleanroom) and the frenetic (hip-hop artist André Benjamin gushes a verbal storm while a woman smashes a handball and an Asian businessman twitches in a sweaty convulsion of stress). The effect is sincerely moving. The collective vignettes pack a surprising emotional wallop, considering the stories are stripped to their most simple visual and sonic elements. Also on display: "Celebrity Skin" offers a jarring juxtaposition of photos of famous 19th-century French people with Alice Wheeler's stark images of Kurt Cobain and company. "Playtime" collects whimsical art made from toys and Peter Fischli and David Wells' amazing 30-minute video of a pyrotechnics installation. A collection of minimalist works by locals offer disturbing mixes of childhood simplicity and grown-up emotional turmoil, including Claire Cowie's excellent Panorama Drawing.And that's not all! There's also Axel Lieber's inside-out, Mondrian-like architectural models suspended in air. Whew. UW campus, 206-543-2280. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sun.; 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Thurs.