The Real World

Tonight, 27 fresh-minted artists working in every imaginable medium shall begin an exhibition at The Ritter Gallery. The artists are students — seniors in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program at FAU — who’ve worked for four long years or more in relative secrecy, toiling to develop their skills and styles. The exhibition, entitled “Futur-us,” is their coming out. Every aspect of the exhibition is the students’ work, from fundraising (for which they created an honest-to-god zombie film for on-campus screening) to publicity (for which they mastered the delicate art of writing corporate-sounding press releases). The artists, if we may editorialize, are extremely good.

You should catch them while you can. Some will go on to fame and collectability and live their lives surrounded by floozies, sycophants, and fabulous romantic decadence. Others will perish, battering themselves against the indifferent edifice of the capitalist art establishment until their bodies are broken and their dreams all withered and dead. Only now are they all together, bright-eyed and idealistic, happy just to show you some art and flattered if you choose to buy some. Art Basel it isn’t. Awesome, it is.

The Ritter Gallery is located at the Boca Raton campus of Florida Atlantic University (777 Glades Rd., Boca Raton). Futur-us opens at 7 p.m. Thursday and runs through May 3. Call 561-297-2966 for more information.
April 16-May 3, 7 p.m., 2009