Monday, July 21, 2008

Art on the fringe

Yesterday on my way to Artpark I stopped off at the Averill Gallery, right there on Lewiston's main drag.

The Averill Gallery is not your ordinary art gallery. It is alternative art. It is realism!

Isn't that scary and daring?? The artists exhibited therein create representational art. There was this cartoon I remember from Mad magazine back when I was a kid and used to read Mad magazine. It was one of those Dave Berg cartoons. It showed a hippie looking at a blotchy abstract painting and saying: "Marvelous!" Then looking at another abstract and saying, "Like, awesome!" The final frame showed a picture of a woman. And the viewer is scratching his head, saying, "I don't get it!"

That is what the world has come to! It's funny how the Averill Gallery makes no secret of taking a stand against that. Its Web site, www.averillgallery.com, proclaims: "Our goal is to support and promote local artists who work in realism (representational art). The local art scene is dominated by the world famous Albright-Knox Gallery of Modern Art and consequently, our local media and arts leaders ignore and downplay the tremendous talents of representational artists. Our Gallery hopes to buck that trend."

Them's fighting words.

Amazing how these days, if you paint a portrait or a landscape, you're a revolutionary!

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