2. Greg Lundgren revitalizes Vital 5 Productions (2000)Originally one of a row of temporary galleries in a to-be-developed strip of Second Avenue, Vital 5 now occupies a former car dealership and World's Fair showroom in prime Paul Allen territory in South Lake Union. With a string of dark, funny, hard-to-slot shows--uncommissioned portraits of Bellevue dogs, work by artists who may or may not be real, art exchanged for bounced checks--Lundgren single-handedly invigorates the debate about art's value, and makes art openings riotously fun again.
3. The Chihuly Smash at Lava Lounge (1997)The Mystic Sons of Morris Graves sell chances to smash a "beloved" Chihuly sculpture. The honor is won by cartoonist Peter Bagge, who sells it to someone else. Shards in the heart of Seattle's most prominent poseur.
4. The grand massacre (1999-2001)Skyrocketing real estate prices and shrinking arts funding precipitate a steady stream of losses. Farewell to Project 416 and Fuzzy Engine (and sorry, Walter Wright, that this city let you down twice), the Washington Shoe Building (although how much real work got done there is still unknown), ArtSpace, ArtsEdge, Horsehead, Fuse Foundation, curator after curator at the Henry and SAM, and, most recently, farewell to Brian Wallace at BAM.
5. CoCA rises (approx. 1993-1997)CoCA opens our eyes with some of the strangest and most subversive and best work in town: Modern Primitives (1993), alt.com.expo (1996, with Vaginal Creme Davis, Dame Darcy, Miss Murgatroid), Gender, Fucked (1996), Japanorama (1996, five years before Takashi Murakami and the Henry), Kunstkabinett (1995), Kustom Kulture (1994), and a performance by Survival Research Laboratories (1990), who are thereafter banned from Seattle.
6. CoCA falls (2000)CoCA loses its grip after years and years of board/director squabbling, rent woes, and exploding directors--but refuses to give up the ghost.7. Inappropriate public art
behavior (1991)In Public causes actual debate over art, with Daniel Martinez' incendiary downtown banners, which contrasted privilege and deprivation ("Are you a member of a country club?"/"Ask yourself: Why are you excluded?"), making shoppers too depressed to shop. In honor of the citywide public art exhibit, Jason Sprinkle and his people attach a ball and chain to Jonathan Borofsky's Hammering Man. Everybody cheers, and Hammering Man is well on its way to "beloved" status.
8. God rolls the dice (1997)Russian conceptual artist Alexander Melamid juries the CoCA Northwest Annual by rolling dice to determine which work is shown and which isn't. He calls it God Is Dice. The show looks much the same as it ever does, and raises the same questions about arbitrariness and absurdity.
9. ConWorks works (1999)ConWorks opens to packed houses and rave reviews in a renovated warehouse in South Lake Union with Artificial Life (the first in a series of excellent and thoughtful shows curated by Meg Shiffler), proving that you can mount a really weird art show and people will come.
10. Blob vs. Blob (1997 and 2000)Everyone's favorite eyesore, the Queen Anne Blob, is demolished, only to be replaced not five blocks away by Frank Gehry's EMP.
