A Year of Fridays
Part I: January

It was bitterly cold this past week, so I was pleasantly surprised to walk out this evening to a temperature in the high 40s and no wind to speak of. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who was expecting much worse, since attendance was low at 2008’s inaugural First Friday, and at least three of the major galleries were closed. Still, there’s something to be said for not having to stand in line and push through a crowd. The whole experience seems more personal.

However, with so many of my favorite galleries closed, my viewing options were sort of limited. The first show I saw was nothing but realist landscapes and seascapes. I had absolutely no interest in them. I shuffled through, briefly looking at each painting (it always seems rude not to do at least that much), and about halfway through it occurred to me that I could not think of a landscape that had ever really moved me. I have been deeply touched at one time or another by still lifes, figurative works, abstractions, murals, and virtually any other kind of painting you care to name, but somehow landscapes never affect me on a personal level. I admire many of them on purely technical terms, but never on an emotional level.

I wondered why that was-- could it be because I don’t feel a particular connection to any one place? Is it indicative of my sense of alienation, my feeling of being an outsider? Perhaps it’s just because my connection to other kinds of painting is so strong. Whatever the actual reason, it was that question that was occupying my mind when I went into the next exhibit, another series of landscapes. This time, though, the pieces were large-scale panoramic photographs, and suddenly, I found my whole attitude changing. I remembered that while landscapes are my least favorite kinds of paintings, they are my absolute favorite form of photography. A photograph of a person will capture my attention for seconds at most. But I can stare at a photograph of a landscape for hours.

The reason, I decided, is complexity. I deeply admire complexity and richness in a work of art. I am fascinated by the ability of the human mind to create something so completely packed with information that it cannot be absorbed in a single viewing. In painting a person or a still life, the artist is adding something of his/herself to otherwise ordinary subject matter, and in doing so, creates a complexity that was not inherently there. But in painting a landscape, the subject matter is so broad, so filled with information already, that painting it cannot help but flatten it out. Photography is the only way to preserve the life of the original scene. And by the same token, in photography, the ordinary-- a face, a bowl of fruit-- often remains just that, and uninteresting because of it.

Of course, even typing this out now, I realize the wrongness of it, the million exceptions to every supposition and statement. But I’m content to speculate; that’s part of what First Fridays are for.

After making a few more stops, revisiting some sculptures I’d seen the month before and browsing through a modest collection of prints and posters at a local press, I found myself in a gallery that was, to my surprise, showing one of Matthew Barney’s Cremaster films. I was fortunate enough to arrive at the beginning, and I proceeded to spend the next half hour or more watching the film in its entirety. I’m sure I was the only person who did so. It was a refreshing experience; I don’t pretend to understand Barney’s full intentions, but I cannot help but admire his efforts. His films have that sort of dream logic, wherein we know that there are strict rules, we just don’t recognize them. Again, complexity. Whatever else, they are the works of an active, engaging mind.

By the time the film had looped back to the beginning it was getting late. My last stop was an unexpected one, since I expected most of the galleries to be closed by 9:00, which is the time most people grow tired of walking around eating finger food and drinking cheap wine, and start to file into nearby restaurants and bars. But as it happened, there was a small gallery on the outskirts of the District still showing some ceramics work.

I noticed an intermittent stream of visitors moving from the gallery’s main room to a second story, where I could hear the unmistakable sounds of a live band. I followed a few of them, and found myself standing at the top of the stairs, watching and listening to a band of adolescents, say 11-13 years old, playing for what appeared to be mostly parents. Their name was Illusion, and despite being too young to shave or see most movies without a legal guardian, they were actually pretty good. I listened to two Beatles covers and one Green Day before turning to leave. As I made my way back downstairs, I noticed a painting on the wall, a beautiful rendering of a decrepit old farmhouse with the words stenciled above it, “Nothing lasts forever.”

A very clever storyteller could have made up such a scene, but it was even funnier, even more perfect for being real.

On the way back home I walked past one of my favorite sights in the District, an old brick warehouse that’s been covered, year by year, in murals. Most are clearly an homage to the painter’s favorite artist (one-- a mosaic of faces painted in black and white - looks for all the world like a Barry McGee), and they run the gamut from the very good to the very poor. I was disappointed to see that one of them, a particularly well-executed surrealist landscape that I’ve always admired, had been defaced since I last saw it, with a single word of graffiti: CROATOA. I’ve been seeing that word painted on walls all over town the past few months, starting farther south in midtown and gradually migrating here. I stood there for a second, staring sadly at the ruined painting, before walking on.

Nothing lasts forever, I thought. But we can hope.