OK, kids. Do you know what this Saturday is? No, it's not the day after the regular Friday-evening bacchanal where you play the Dutch oven game with your girlfriend. Well, it is that, but try to keep your regular activities to the early hours of the morning. No, this Saturday is the day when you stop complaining that there is little art and zero culture in the Broward/Palm Beach area.
You are going to stop complaining because Palm Beach will officially welcome the "Delray Beach Cultural Loop." The official website, delrayconnect.com, claims that the revitalized area that is centered on Atlantic and Swinton Avenues "may be the only cultural trail in the United States where the visitor can learn the 20th Century experiences of whites, blacks, and Caribbean immigrants." Festivities start at 9 a.m. with a dedication of the area. Get there by noon to sample all of the six museums and five art galleries in the loop. Admission is free at all locations.
Stick around for the 6 p.m. opening reception of an exhibit called "Odium" (247 Pineapple Grove Way, Delray Beach). The exhibit will feature emerging South Florida artists tackling the time-tested theme of tolerance in our society. Pieces in the exhibit include both three-dimensional sculpture and two-dimensional work. Some of the work explores balance as a metaphor for the virtues of diversity, while some employ plastic and tea bags to highlight cultural acceptance and tolerance. FAU students in the school's Sculpture Arts Society have put together this independent exhibition to showcase the talents of its members and those of similar campus art groups. They have also invited musical acts Death Digs Disco and Life in the So Called Space Age as well as a DJ to perform outside the exhibit space during the reception.
Complimentary beverages, wine, and snacks will be served. The event lasts from 6 to 10 p.m. Come out and get your culture fix in Delray Beach. While you're there, throw a few bucks to the museums; massive funding cuts are hammering them. -- Michael Keller
Slumming It
The Architectural Imaginings of Marjetica Potrc
SAT 11/22
The name may be unpronounceable (after all, most Americans don't know what to do with the c). The art may be unfathomable (Slums as art? Huh.). But Marjetica Potrc's time has come. The Slovenia-born artist, architect, and sculptor lands her first museum survey in the United States when the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art (601 Lake Ave., Lake Worth) opens "Urgent Architecture" this Saturday. Marjetica Potrc (pronounce it "Marietta P'terk") has gained some fame and a Guggenheim Museum Hugo Boss Prize for her reworking of the architecture of unplanned cities. Unplanned cities being a euphemism for shantytowns. Squatter hills. Skid row. Cannery Row. You get the idea. Potrc's architectural collage, on display at PBICA through February 29 (yes, that's 29; it's leap year -- mark your calendar), is based on the artist's research in densely populated impoverished areas of Caracas, the West Bank, and, um, West Palm Beach. Yes, you heard right. We're not denying there are poor people in West Palm Beach living in sad conditions. We're just pointing out that the poor people in Caracas and the West Bank would consider WPB slum housing to be "moving on up to the East Side." Call 561-582-0006. -- Dan Sweeney
Back in Time
An era in black and white
THU 11/20
There are some moments in history in which words are the glue that held people together, and there are events that are defined largely by images. The civil rights movement of the '50s and '60s is one of the latter. "We Shall Overcome" is a collection of 80 black-and-white photographs from this era of unrest, captured by former Life magazine photographers Gordon Parks and Charles Moore; Robert Sengstacke, former staff photographer for the Nation of Islam; and Black Star photographers Matt Heron and Bob Fitch. Images of iconic leaders such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. march behind grim portrayals of racial violence, segregation in schools, and personal portraits of those involved in the movement. The Smithsonian and the newly opened Museum of Lifestyle and Fashion History present this exhibit at the Fulton-Holland Educational Services Center (3300 Forest Hill Blvd., West Palm Beach) through January 2. Call 561-706-9420. -- Audra Schroeder
Your Inner Girl
SUN 11/23
The Palm Beach Photographic Centre (55 NE Second Ave., Delray Beach) opens its latest exhibit, "Anima," this Sunday. Hold on, hold on. Deflate that life-size Sailor Moon blow-up doll and stick your Pikachu back in its hole. We said anima, not anime. Whereas the latter describes annoying yet ubiquitous japanamation, the former is all about archetypes. Early psychologist Carl Jung came up with the notion that what we are is made up, on a subconscious level, of different stock characters familiar to all of us. In men, one of those Jungian figures is the anima, the feminine side that all men have inside; the yin to the yang, so to speak. Digital artist Timothy Morrissey has taken that concept and run with it with large-scale images that explore the Jungian theme. The exhibit is open through January 3. An opening reception takes place from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday. Call 561-276-9797. -- Dan Sweeney
