Send listings two weeks in advance to visualarts@seattleweekly.com.

Lectures and Events

Artist Demonstration: Jaq Chartier The Seattle-based painter, whose abstract works involve experiments with various pigments and mediums, talks about the ins and outs of acrylics, including health safety. 2 p.m. Sat. April 23. Seattle Academy of Fine Art, Zeisel/Arnold Studio, Room 202, 1501 10th Ave. E., free, 206-526-2787.

Artist Lecture: John Divola The L.A.–based photographer talks about his recent work, which involves finding old photos shot on the sets of B-movies, then collectively displaying these anonymous works to create a wonderfully fake world. 6:30 p.m. Thurs. April 21. Henry Art Gallery, UW campus, free, 206-543-2280.

Lecture: Galleries vs. Alternative Spaces Local artists Su Job (Ace Studios Gallery), Allison Faye (Gallery 110), Carol Bolt (Platform) and Randy Wood (SOIL) discuss the pros and cons of working with commercial galleries versus co-op and alternative venues. 12:30-2 p.m. Thurs. April 21, Seattle Academy of Fine Art, 1501 10th Ave. E., free, 206-526-2787.

Earth Day Arts Festival A variety of Earth-friendly art events at Issaquah’s Gilman Village, including nature scenes in pastels by Colette Taber and lots of art that makes use of recycled materials. Artist’s reception: 6-8 p.m. Fri. April 22. Art Festival: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Wed. April 20-Sat. April 23. Revolutions Gallery, 317 N.W. Gilman Blvd. #26, Issaquah, free, 425-392-4982.

La Festa Del Arte An evening of performance, food, drink, and funk music—all to raise money for ArtsCorps, a nonprofit, youth-focused arts education program. 7:30 p.m.-midnight. Sat. April 23. Museum of History & Industry, 2700 24th Ave. E., $50 (reservations required), 800-838-3006.

Lecture: Bismark and the Cult of Leadership Author Richard Frankel and curator Robin Held discuss how a portrait of German leader Otto von Bismark (one of those in the Frye’s collection) presaged the rise of Nazi art and Soviet-era social realism. 7 p.m. Thurs. April 21. Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Ave., free, 206-622-9250.

Video Screening & Lecture: Neil Goldberg The New York–based video artist (whose multiple-screen video of Manhattan weather, 19 Rainstorms, is now at Western Bridge) screens and talks about his work, which takes the banal and transforms it through repetition and creative editing. Among the works screened will be the self-explanatory My Parents Read Dreams I’ve Had About Them and Hallelujah Anyway, a sequence of videos of Manhattan shopkeepers opening up the gates of their businesses. 7 p.m. Tues. April 26. Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., $3, 206-267-5380.

Openings

Priceless Works In “A Lot Like Love,” art imitates film . . . or something like that. Kristen Imig’s photos of kissing couples were used in the new romantic movie of the same name, in which Amanda Peet plays a woman who finds her calling as a photographer. Apparently, Imig has staked out this odd little niche, providing photos for other films including Spider-Man and Welcome to Collinwood. Reception: 7-10 p.m. Fri. April 22. 619 N. 35th St., Suite 100, 206-349-9943. Noon-6 p.m. Thurs.-Sun.

Seattle Art Museum A sampling of works in SAM’s collection of 19th-century French artists, including academy-style painter Bouguereau and the anti- academy work of impressionists such as Monet and Berthe Morisot. Opens Sat. April 23. University St., 206-654-3100. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sun.; 10 a.m.- 9 p.m. Thurs.

Wright Exhibition Space “Aboriginal Vision” offers selections of contemporary Australian Aboriginal art from the expansive collection of UW international studies professor Margaret Levi and her husband Robert Kaplan. Opens Thurs. April 21. 407 Dexter Ave. N., 206-264-8200. 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Thurs.-Sat.

Last Chance

CoCA Seattle-based Born magazine, an online crucible where visual artists, writers, and computer programmers cross-pollinate their talents, is the inspiration for “Help Wanted,” a smart and funny group show. Shawn Wolfe’s Ballard and Ballard project creates a faux 1990s talk show hosted by two very scary pseudo-intellectuals. In The Estate of Beverly Thomas, playwright Tim Sanders, architect Brian McWatters, and others re-create the household knickknacks of a 90-year-old woman who lived in Everett. But best of show goes to Think Tank, the brainchild of artist Trimpin and computer programmer Cheb Sevrel. Plunk your quarter in, and in a few minutes the carousel of chicken-bobber toys and George W. Bush action figures generates a random assortment of snippets from Bush’s speeches, much more cogent than the original material. 410 Dexter Ave. N., 206-728-1980. Noon-5 p.m. Wed.-Sun. Ends Sat. April 23.

Empty Space Theatre In conjunction with Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine’s play Biro, which tells the story of a Ugandan man’s efforts to obtain health care for HIV/AIDS in America, Empty Space displays Mwine’s photos documenting life in contemporary Uganda and Cuba, which he shot while doing research for the play. 3509 Fremont Ave. N., 206-547-7500. Noon-5 p.m. Tues.-Fri.; noon-8 p.m. Sat.; noon-7:30 p.m. Sun. Ends Sat. April 23.

Jacob Lawrence Gallery Paintings and drawings by Bachelor of Fine Art graduates at the University of Washington. UW campus, School of Art, 206-685-1805. Noon-4 p.m. Tues.-Sat. Ends Sat. April 23.

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 they rock and teeter as you walk inside them, providing a wonderfully disorienting approach to architecture. 2324 Second Ave., 206-256-0809. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri. Ends Fri. April 22.

Washington State History Museum Do you remember being able to think about 9/11 without cursing Bush for dragging us into the bloody quagmire of Iraq? We don’t, and we’re not at all sure that “September 11: Bearing Witness to History” will help. It’s a touring show of charred flags, blackened firefighter helmets, and twisted steel from the WTC, all presented like sacred relics. 1911 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, 253-272-3500. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Wed.; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Fri.-Sat.; noon-5 p.m. Sun. Ends Sun. April 24.

Galleries

911 Media Arts Rosalind Schneider, an early innovator in the world of video art, installs “Wave Tranformations,” in which near-abstract video of waves and oceanscapes is projected on a large weather balloon. 402 Ninth Ave., 206-682-6552. 3-7 p.m. Tues.-Sat.

ArtsWorks “Cartoonists Take Up Smoking,” a group show of more than 300 editorial cartoons by 60 artists, all taking aim at Big Tobacco. 1914 Fourth Ave., 206-292-4142. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri.; noon-5 p.m. Sat.

Bluebottle Deth P. Sun’s sad cartoonlike paintings are populated with children in hooded Halloween costumes and little cats contemplating their brief existence. 415 E. Pine St., 206-325-1592. 1-7 p.m. Tues.-Fri.; noon-6 p.m. Sat.-Sun.

Bryan Ohno In “Fragile Attachments,” Patricia Hagen’s abstract works take a turn for the minimal. On fields of blank canvas, a menagerie of green leaflets, nubbins of fruit, and droplets of color float by. In other paintings, little planetoids hang tentatively in space, like the friendly rock inhabited by the hero of The Little Prince. 155 S. Main St., 206-667-9572. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat.

Crawl Space Everyday household objects captured in a three-dimensional hybrid of collage, print, and photography by local artist Isaac Layman. 504 E. Denny Way, #1, 206-240-6015. Noon-5 p.m. Sat.-Sun.

D’Adamo/Woltz This gallery’s second annual showcase of work by students at Cornish College and Pratt Fine Arts Center features work by Chad Downward, Renee Cowan, and others. Most notable among them is Timea Tihanyi, whose disturbing hybrid sculptures allude to bodily functions and incorporate fleshy rubber and bone-dry porcelain. 303/307 Occidental Ave. S., 206-652-4414. 11 a.m.- 5 p.m. Mon.-Sat.; noon-5 p.m. Sun.

Davidson Francesca Sundsten’s painstakingly rendered surreal paintings of the natural world are too perfectly rendered for my taste. On the other hand, a series of drawings of phantasmagoric plants—almost an afterthought in the show—offers a fascinating cocktail of natural history and whimsical swirls of abstraction. Also on display: lovely minimalist Zen-inspired woodblock prints by Korean artist Lee Chul Soo, sunny houses by Marlene Bauer, and impressionist sketches from nomad life by Mongolian artist Shagdarjavin Chimeddorj. 313 Occidental Ave. S., 206-624-7684. 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tues.-Sat.

Francine Seders “Connections” has a somewhat novel concept: comparing older and newer works in the careers of four longtime Northwest artists (Andreas Grunert, Diann Knezovich, Elizabeth Sandvig, and Marc Wenet). 6701 Greenwood Ave. N., 206-782-0355. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.- Sat.; 1-5 p.m. Sun.

Gallery 110 In “Fools, Jesters, and Clowns,” Seattle sculptor David Traylor uses ceramic, fur, barbed wire, and torn lace to create strange, urnlike sculptures—all with a dose of sadomasochism in them. Based loosely on the wise fools of Shakespeare’s plays, the works often resemble large instruments of torture: a cat-o’-nine-tails fashioned from ceramic and strips of torn lace attempts to soar upward but is grounded by a large weight. One shadowy form is capped with a conelike top, immediately bringing to mind the infamous Abu Ghraib photo of a hooded prisoner. Traylor’s ambiguous pieces “take upon us the mystery of things,” as King Lear once said, and reveal that the tragic can contain hints of the playful, and vice versa. 110 S. Washington St., 206-624-9336. Noon-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat.

Gallery 4 Culture The blurred airplanes and limpid waves in Judy Blanco’s lovely little show “Marine Layers” bring to mind the doomed flight of Amelia Earhart and childhood dreams of flying. In addition to the mysterious little photos, a series of drawings in cyanotype (the stuff blueprints are made of) attempts to find order in the chaotic nature of ripples and aerodynamics. 506 Second Ave., Suite 200 (Smith Tower), 206-296-7580. 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri.

G. Gibson “Artificial Nature,” John Divola’s collection of found photos of movie sets from the 1930s to the 1960s, serves up a wonderfully fake world. Empty of all people, the images have the feeling of a crime scene or a landscape after a great plague—the only evidence of human activity is the jarring intrusion of a movie slate set up in each shot to identify the scene and remind us it’s only make-believe. Also on display: recent work by Andrea Modica, including a series documenting a girl with acute diabetes, and another featuring portraits of the skulls of mental patients. 300 S. Washington St., 206-587-4033. 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Wed.-Fri.; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat.

Garde Rail Kevin Titzer’s figurines of down-and-out characters made from wood, metal, and other debris. 110 Third Ave. S., 206-621-1055. 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Wed.-Fri.; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat.

Globe Gallery “Foreign Waste” features Shannon Benine’s long-exposure photos of industrial sites at night. 105 S. Main St., #100, 206-612-7655. 9 a.m.- 5 p.m. Mon.-Fri.

Greg Kucera Margie Livingston’s gorgeous abstract canvases are threaded with a delicate, architectural latticework of narrow stripes; they draw inspiration from branches and other natural form arranged in her studio. California artist and dark jester Reuben Lorch-Miller creates text-based art in the tradition of Ruscha and Nauman. His neon signs, digital prints, and collections of pixilated images pulled from the Internet play with notions of rebellion and artistic authorship. 212 Third Ave., 206-624-0770. 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tues.-Sat.

Grover/Thurston New work by Michael Nakoneczny (see visual arts spotlight, above). 309 Occidental St., 206-223-0816. 11 a.m.- 5 p.m. Tues.-Sat.

Howard House “Red Thread,” named for the expression in German that refers to a train of thought, is a fascinating group show sampling new conceptual art from the contemporary avant-garde in Vienna. Highlights include Franz West’s ungainly phallic garden sculpture in welded aluminum, Thomas Bauman’s thrashing foil-robot sculpture, and paintings by Americans-in-Vienna Donald Baechler and Lisa Ruyter. 604 Second Ave., 206-256-6399. 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat.

Jack Straw New Media Gallery Kristin Tollefson’s multimedia installation “Organic Plan” is inspired by the landscape and folk art of Iceland. Central to the exhibit is a large, suspended ringlike sculpture that pays homage to baldrying, a traditional Icelandic embroidery technique. Audio of Icelandic folk songs and snapshots of native plants round out the Scandinavian extravaganza. 4261 Roosevelt Way N.E., 206-634-0919. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri.

James Harris Marcelino Goncalves’ weird, deadpan realist paintings are inspired by ads for a summer boys’ camp. “Camp” is the operative word here. 309A Third Ave., 206-903-6220. 11 a.m.- 5:30 p.m. Wed.-Sat.

Jeffrey Moose Expressionist woodcuts employing some innovative techniques (including mixing flour into ink) by German artist Klaus Suss. 1333 Fifth Ave., Rainier Square, second level, 206-467-6951. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri.; noon-5 p.m. Sat.

Joe Bar Paintings that recall artist Diem Chau’s odyssey of migration with her family from war-torn Vietnam to a Philippine refugee camp, and eventually to the U.S. 810 E. Roy, 206-324-0407. 7:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri.; 8:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Sat.-Sun.

Kirkland Arts Center This smart group show was curated by Seattle writer and art-scene guy Fionn Meade. The pieces are spare and restrained: Mary Simpson’s little dramas of cutout men and Victorian row houses owe their mystery to the fact the figures have been stolen from their context and plopped down on a blank page. Gretchen Bennett’s sly contact-paper compositions capture nature in extremes, Saul Becker’s weird abstract landscapes are crisscrossed with prismatic rainbows of color, and Marc Dombrosky hand-embroiders notes he’s found on the street. 620 Market St., 425-822-7161. 11 a.m.- 6 p.m. Mon.-Fri.

Linda Hodges In Daphne Minkoff’s mixed-media collages, forgotten objects and dilapidated structures take on a new life, while Robert Calvo fuses digital technology with the pixilated nature of needlepoint. 6-8 p.m. 316 First Ave. S., 206-624-3034. 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tues.-Sat.

Martin-Zambito “Warriors and Wenches” is an unfortunately named collection of paintings of women from the 1920s to the 1960s, plus an assortment of Italian fascist propaganda paintings. 721 E. Pike St., 206-726-9509. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tues.-Sat.

OKOK “Floral Distraction” features new work by Parskid, an artist and illustrator known for his little hooded skate-punk characters. 709 Broadway Ave. E., 206-322-7523. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Tues.-Sat.; noon-7 p.m. Sun.

ParkLane Gallery “My Self-Portrait” is a small show of oil pastels by homeless youth from the Eastside. The exhibit was organized by enterprising high-school senior Danielle Maxon to raise funds for the nonprofit Friends of Youth. 130 Park Lane, Kirkland, 425-827-1462. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. daily.

Phinney Center “Paper Politics” showcases a variety of prints with a radical, antiwar, and social- activist aims. 6532 Phinney Ave., 206-783-2244. 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Mon.-Fri.; 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Sat.

Photographic Center Northwest Japanese photographer Hiroshe Watanabe’s images of Kabuki theater performers and traditional Bunraku puppets. 900 12th Ave., 206-720-7222. Noon-9:30 p.m. Mon.; 9 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Tues.-Fri.; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat.; noon-5 p.m. Sun.

Platform Saya Moriyasu’s “Lamplight Lavish Gathering” is a large installation of this local artist’s ceramic lamps and other rough-cut, minimalist figures. 114 Third Ave. S., 206-323-2808. 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Thurs.-Sat.

Priceless Works “Small Salience” collects abstractions and figurative work by 14 artists who use minimal gestures and forms to make their points, including work by Patrick Holderfield, Peter Gross, and Linda Peschong. Meanwhile, Chauney Peck’s “Surface” transforms thousands of pipe cleaners and other commercial products into a roomful of sealike abundance. 619 N. 35th St., Suite 100, 206-349-9943. Noon-6 p.m. Thurs.-Sun.

Richard Hugo House In “Life of Leisure” local artist Shawn Beesley paints himself doing the things he loves best: gambling, playing golf, and watching sports on TV. 1634 11th Ave., 206-322-7030. 9 a.m.- 9 p.m. Mon.-Fri.; noon-5 p.m. Sat.

Roq La Rue Mexico’s Día de los Muertos, horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, and 1960s pulp fiction all inspire a new group show of lowbrow art by painters Michael “Pooch” Pucciarelli and Joe Chiodo. 2316 Second Ave., 206-374-8977. 2-6 p.m. Tues.-Sat.; noon-4 p.m. Sun.

SOIL Gerbils! In Randy Wood’s performance piece And They Will Be the Judge of That, two well-cared-for gerbils roam over one of the artist’s soy-based-ink drawings for one month. Only they in their little gerbil brains know how they’ll critique Mr. Wood’s piece. Also on display: Wood’s new series of spare drawings, “Ghost Rocks,” and new small works by Jana Brevick. 112 Third Ave. S., 206-264-8061. Noon-5 p.m. Thurs.-Sun.

Solomon Fine Art Using the Renaissance technique of silverpoint, Susan Schwalb creates delicate abstract stripe paintings that glow, glower, or bleed. Also on display: work by Kazuo Kadonaga and cast-glass legs and tongues by Jeffrey Sarmiento. 1215 First Ave., 206-297-1400. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat.

St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral Nicholas Prior’s visually rich photos of Seattle’s homeless population are being exhibited at venues around town to raise awareness of FareStart, which provides restaurant-employment training to people in transition. 1245 10th Ave. E., free, 206-323-0300. 7 a.m.-7 p.m. daily.

Western Bridge “19 Rainstorms” takes its title from Neil Goldberg’s video installation, in which he records various storms glimpsed throughout Manhattan from the perspective of a video camera placed inside a randomly swinging plastic bag. It’s not entirely effective, but there are snippets of beauty in the refracted raindrops and watery white noise. Trisha Donnelly’s Canadian Rain is an intense dance-conjuration video, and Tania Kitchell’s text etched on glass describes the arrival of a storm with haikulike simplicity. The masterpiece of this show, however, is Oliver Boberg’s Country Road, a continuously looping 30-minute video of a rural landscape drenched in rain. The scene, in all its sound-stage fakery, plays out like an intricate drypoint etching set in motion. The swirls and sounds of windblown water droplets are an invocation to pay attention to the world. Like the floating plastic bag in American Beauty, Boberg’s video finds elegance in the seemingly banal. 3412 Fourth Ave. S., 206-838-7444. Noon- 6 p.m. Thurs.-Sat.

William Traver In “Ebb and Flow,” Seattle artist Kait Rhoads weaves hundreds of tiny glass beads (murrines) into surprisingly delicate compositions. Also on display: bubbly, cloudlike ceramics by Jamie Walker and Mark Zirpel’s slightly sinister, medical- looking assemblages. 110 Union St., second floor, 206-587-6501. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri.; 10 a.m.- 5 p.m. Sat.; noon-5 p.m. Sun.

Zeitgeist In “Sensational Domestic,” Seattle artist Allison Manch juxtaposes large-scale photos of banal domestic spaces with a series of napkins hand-embroidered with quotes from her real-life subjects. 171 S. Jackson St., 206-583-0497. 6 a.m.-7 p.m. Mon.-Fri.; 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Sat.; 8 a.m.-7 p.m. Sun.

Museums

Henry Art Gallery Doug Aitken’s three-screen video installation Interiors is 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 contemplative (a young family with a new baby stands in a junkyard as a Brian Eno–like soundtrack throbs underneath) and the mysterious (a man sands a helicopter in a sterile factory cleanroom) to 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). Taken as a whole, the vignettes pack a surprising emotional wallop, considering that 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 pyrotechnic installation). UW campus, 206-543-2280. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sun.; 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Thurs.