This weekend, you shouldn’t even need to leave your own neighborhood to find some new art just waiting to be admired. Fourteenth Street NW has the big coordinated openings, but a number of places from H Street to Alexandria will be having gallery openings and festivals (which, hopefully, won’t be rained on).
14th Street NW: Saturday
>> After a fascinating eight-week photography series this summer, the Randall Scott Gallery almost seems to cap it off with their first show of the new season. Julia Fullerton-Batten’s solo show, in between, features the awkwardness, loneliness and “in-betweenyness” experienced by adolescent girls. Some of her photographs show them in mid-air (pictured right), leaping in a familiar scene (bedroom, hallway) for an unknown reason; perhaps the manifestation of a daydream. Others overlay images of girls in different positions around a creativity-inducing room (theater, library), so they’re alone together in a classic representation of teenage years. The gallery will also host the third incarnation of Video Smack, with two short films by Jani Ruscica of Finland. 6 to 9 p.m.
>> Head north a block on 14th to Irvine Contemporary. Frequent visitors to the gallery will know the work of Teo Gonzalez, who opens his third solo show there on Saturday. Gonzalez’s amusing ameboa-like paintings are fascinating in their obsessive, but not perfect repetitiveness of circles and dots-in-circles, but the artist has a particular focus on color this time around. 23.4837K is his attempt to play with the idea of creating a perfect (and impossible) 24K pigment. If anything, go to surround yourself with a little bling before heading down the street. 6 to 8 p.m.
>> As usual, get to 1515 14th Street to pack in the most art under one roof. On the third floor, Hemphill opens another exhibit with its golden child, photographer William Christenberry (his work is at left). 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Down on the second floor, Curator’s Office opens Potential Energy, a series of paintings made in a collaboration by Kate McGraw and Ann Tarantino, who used each others’ work and “energy” as the work unfolded. 6 to 8 p.m. In an exhibition that focuses more on the manifestation of the physical work than the creation itself, Adamson Gallery shows off master printer David Adamson’s collaborations with a number of artists, including Chuck Close, Robert Rauschenberg, and iona rozeal brown. 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Last but not least, G Fine Art features the “sampling” work of Ryan Hackett, who studies animal behavior and turns it into a beat of its own; don’t forget to see Cory Orbendorfer’s pop-art roller derby girls in the project room, which will always put a smile on your face. 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
>> Brushfire is sweeping across D.C.; the “social change art exhibition” headed up by Provisions Library will be at a number of venues in the next few weeks, and we’ll have more information on the movement for you soon. In the meantime, finish your 14th Street trek at Plan B Gallery, which has the political art of six artists, including Dana Ellyn and Matt Sesow, with the reception from 6 to 8 p.m.
