HENRY ART GALLERY

15th Ave NE and NE 41st St, 543-2280


* CHEAP THRILLS: GREAT DESIGN FOR $5 OR LESS

In 1929, the Henry mounted this show's predecessor, Objects Commercially Produced Costing Fifty Cents or Less. Note how sales language has changed, as well as the effects of inflation. Cheap Thrills, which celebrates the Henry's 75th birthday, is a collection of everyday objects revered by artists and designers that encourages us to re-see the everyday. Through March 10.


OPENING EXHIBITIONS


PETTER GOLDSTINE

The Tent City Campaign features photographs from Goldstine's three months living in Tent City III. Opening reception Sat Feb 9, 6-10 pm. Independent Media Center Gallery, 1415 Third Ave, 328-9361. Through Feb 28.


LAURIE HEMINGWAY

Exciting new work in the little-explored medium of Etch-a-Sketch. Opening reception Fri Feb 8, 6-10 pm. Cut Kulture Gallery, 2018 First Ave, 374-8753. Through Feb 28.


ALLAN PACKER

Go in order to see The Bride, a life-sized set of cast body parts all joined together on a grid, like model parts before they're snapped off and glued together. Opening reception Thurs Feb 7, 6-8 pm. Davidson Galleries, 313 Occidental Ave S, 624-7684. Through March 2.


* PEEPSHOW 28

For three weeks, the peep booths at the Lusty Lady will feature art videos on sexy and sexual themes. This show includes work by director Atom Egoyan, everyone's favorite porn star Annie Sprinkle (hooray for the Bosom Ballet!), and local dirty (and talented) old man Mark O'Connell. Bring lots of quarters. The Lusty Lady, 1315 First Ave, 622-2120. Through Feb 21.


* SALLY SCHUH

For a couple of years now, Schuh has been mining an extraordinary collection of photographs and notes that once belonged to a Jewish matchmaker. In less-talented hands, this might have turned into a maudlin and undigested act of appropriation, but with Schuh it's a long meditation on desire and its concomitant signs. Here, she's showing intaglio prints and some cropped images from the series. Opening reception Thurs Feb 7, 6-8 pm. Greg Kucera Gallery, 212 Third Ave S, 624-0770. Through March 3.


BRYAN SMITH

If I tell you that Smith assembles collages from cardboard and other cast-off paper, it might sound like a kindergarten project in a gallery. But I've seen this work--it has a kind of Rauschenbergian power, with unexpected dimensions and weird depth. Opening reception Thurs Feb 7, 6-8 pm. King County Art Gallery, 506 Second Ave, Suite 200, 296-7580. Through March 1.


* Gary Smoot

In two new installments of his seven-part Wiener saga, Smoot continues to investigate the pathos of disintegration. Don't miss the opening--that's the root of the sad, stately process. Opening reception Tues Feb 12, 6-10 pm. CMA Gallery, Ceramics Department, University of Washington, 4205 Mary Gates Memorial Drive, 543-0178. Through Feb 23.


CONTINUING EXHIBITIONS


* EFRAIN ALMEIDA

Did you know that some of the hottest contemporary artists are from Brazil? It's true! Almeida's sculpture includes strands of beads that are "drawn" over the floor, like a contour map, or a body outline. James Harris Gallery, 309A Third Ave S, 903-6220. Through March 2.


RICHARD BEERHORST

Portraits and still lifes that are--wait for it--optimistic. Esther Claypool Gallery, 617 Western Ave, 264-1586. Through Feb 9.


ALICIA BERGER and JOHN BURROW

A sound-and-video installation about superheroes by two Cornish faculty members. Henriette E. Woessner Alumni Gallery, Cornish College of the Arts, 723 Harvard Ave E, 800-726-ARTS. Through Feb 9.


TIM BISKUP, GARY BASEMAN, TONY MILLIONAIRE

Work that mines the fine gray area between art and illustration. Roq la Rue, 2224 Second Ave, 374-8977. Through February 28.


AMZE and ALEX EMMONS

An installation, called Boomtown Expands, about gentrification and the urban economy. Secluded Alley Works, 113 12th Ave, 839-0880. Through Feb 21.


THE IMMORTALITY CLINIC

The riddle of finite existence revealed, through the work of artist Jason Puccinelli and other death-defying tricks. Vital 5 Productions, 2200 Westlake Ave N, 254-0475. Through March 1.


* FRANKLIN JOYCE

Joyce likes to take to the streets and the clubs armed with battery-powered backpack and mobile projection unit. The point is strictly interaction: projecting images onto people and spaces and becoming part of the action. As his final project for 911's artist-in-residence program, Joyce has created a window installation from his nighttime excursions. 911 Media Arts Center, 117 Yale Ave N, 682-6552. Through Feb 17.


* LISA LIEDGREN, BLAIR WILSON

Both Liedgren and Wilson use the most ordinary of shapes--dots--but to entirely different ends. Wilson is a sort of cartoony post-Pointillist, while Liedgren's work looks more like Braille, or Morse code, or some other unreadable system. She's like Damien Hirst, only smarter. Kittredge Gallery, University of Puget Sound, 1500 N Lawrence St, Tacoma, 253-879-3100. Through Feb 24.


* MATTHEW PICTON

The British-born and Oregon-residing Picton sees the world as a thing to be traced, rather than plumbed, with work that documents the surface of a thing without referring to its depth. This new show features bejeweled subway maps. Howard House, 2017 Second Ave, 256-6399. Through March 9.


TIM RIPLEY

Bright, idiosyncratic photographs and lightboxes from Ripley's travels in Brazil and other countries. Sunset Tavern, 5433 Ballard Ave NW, 784-4880. Through Feb 8.


INEZ STORER

New paintings in Fantasies/Lies. Grover/Thurston Gallery, 309 Occidental Ave S, 223-0816. Through Feb 14.


RYAN SWANSON

Drawn on whatever the artist can find--paper bags, sugar sacks--and then digitized, Swanson's creatures are helpless-looking, sweet, and more than a little threatening. They're not unlike those amorphous, unidentifiable Japanese cartoon creatures. Nation Gallery, 1921 Fifth Ave, 374-9492. Through Feb 10.


EVENTS


* ARTIST TRUST AUCTION

Pay attention! This lame-brained calendar previously published the wrong date for this event. It's this weekend: Sun Feb 10 at 9:30 am at the Seattle Center Pavilion. On Feb 9, there's a preview of the work, donated by over 200 artists, from 3 to 7 pm, and lectures starting at 4 pm from local luminaries Lisa Corrin, Carol Hassen, Elizabeth Brown, and Rock Hushka. For auction tickets ($75, $100, $125) call 467-8734, ext. 16, or go to www.artisttrust.org/auction/tickets. My spy on the inside tells me there's some great work going on the block.