MUSEUMS AND ART CENTERS

BELLEVUE ART MUSEUM

301 Bellevue Square, Bellevue, 425-454-3322.

*GAME SHOW

BAM weighs in with another unexpected look at art. Brian Wallace's latest exhibit features games designed by artists, writers, and musicians. There's work that is fun to touch and see and play with, but the intent is serious: An exhibit about creativity, decision-making, and how one relates to a work of art. Artists-in-residence include Seattle artist Helen Lessick and English game theorist Beryl Graham. Through Jan 30.

CENTER ON CONTEMPORARY ART

65 Cedar St, 728-1980.

NORTHWEST ANNUAL 2000

This year's juror, New York artist Mike Bidlo, produced a healthy and not altogether unsurprising list of winners for CoCA's yearly who's who. The show is heavy on photography and work that leans toward the conceptual, and painting is sort of underrepresented -- although what's there is marvelous, including a big, creepy, white-trash, Dejeuner-sur-L'Herbe--type painting from Marion Peck. But however you classify the work, there's a lot to like, such as Judy Allen's Dialogue, which is as mysterious as a question posed by a surrealist. There's also a lot of intriguing religious imagery -- Ryan Davidson's mandala-like Mousetrap, and Rod Appleton's rust-and-salt Maltese cross in Insurrection II -- which gives CoCA a church-like feel among all the modernity. This year's show also features work from last year's winners, Patrick Holderfield and Yvette Franz. Through March 11.

CONSOLIDATED WORKS

410 Terry Ave N, 860-5245.

DO NOT TOUCH:

AN EXPLORATION OF DELICATE OBSESSIONS

Artists delicately delve into the idea of intransigence with this conceptual exhibition curated by ConWorks' Meg Shiffler. The inquiries range from the thematic, such as Nayland Blake's obsession with rabbits (culminating in a 7-foot neoprene bunny suit), to the ephemeral and abstract questions posed to artists by their materials. In one display, Stephanie Speight creates 64 suspended balls out of cash register tape. Admission is $5. Through Feb 27.

FRYE ART MUSEUM

704 Terry Ave, 622-9250.

RIFT

Ravaged, bleak, and inhospitable landscapes from Norwegian artist Patrick Huse's years in Iceland. Contrast this with the Hudson River school, below; what a difference a century and a half can make. Through March 5.

JON SWIHART

Twenty years of cryptic paintings by Swihart, who fuses highly realistic painting with mysterious rituals, everyday details, and unexplained imagery. As a result, they seem like works we should recognize and understand -- but don't. Through Feb 6.

THIS TRANQUIL LAND: HUDSON RIVER PAINTINGS

FROM THE HERSEN COLLECTION

In the mid 1800s a loosely formed group of artists concentrated their talents on representing the transcendentalist's Nature with a capital "N." It's a kind of romanticism we wouldn't be able to get away with these days; the wink-and-nod would be implicit. Also, those guys could make a canvas glow. Through April 16.

HENRY ART GALLERY

15th Ave NE at NE 41st St, 543-2280.

BANKS IN PINK AND BLUE

Genetics, aesthetics, and ethics: It's a frequent theme in work shown in alternative galleries, and now it's at the Henry, in an installation by Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle. Here, mixed media is an understatement; Manglano-Ovalle uses sperm banks, a liquid nitrogen tank, and abstract DNA portrait photographs, as well as the more prosaic video and audio, to ask his unanswerable questions. This is the second of three in the series Future Forward: Projects in New Media. Through April 16.

*INSIDE OUT: NEW CHINESE ART

A group exhibit exploring the avant-garde in China from the mid '80s to the present. Showing artists from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, as well as Chinese artists living abroad, Inside Out is a study in the contrasts of cultural identity -- traditional and modern, public and political, national and individual. Many of the Chinese artists featured here have an excellent sense of the absurd; photographs from various performance works include an artist who covered himself with honey and sat in a latrine attracting flies, and two artists firing a gun at their own work at Beijing's National Gallery. The show is so extensive that it takes two galleries to hold it all; the other is at the Tacoma Art Museum (1123 Pacific Ave, Tacoma, 253-272-4258). Through March 5.

SEATTLE ART MUSEUM

100 University St, 654-3100.

*HEREABOUTS: NORTHWEST PICTURES BY

SEVEN PHOTOGRAPHERS

A group of our finest local photographers show documentary images of less-familiar parts of Washington: Erika Langley goes backstage and onstage with the strippers of the Lusty Lady; Robert Lyons visits rodeos; Glenn Rudolph visits hoboes, farmers, naturalists, and golfers in rural Washington; Alice Wheeler offers portraits of her family and rock-scene friends. It's all very, very good. Through March 12.

SEATTLE COLLECTS LICHTENSTEIN

Seattle's most established art institution gives over space to one of the artists who, along with Warhol, most challenged the idea of originality and what is acceptable as real art. Well, now he's dead and an icon, and the works shown here are largely drawn from local collections. Through May 14.

SEATTLE ASIAN ART MUSEUM

1400 E Prospect St, Volunteer Park, 654-3100.

MODERN MASTERS OF KYOTO

Works by late 19th- and early 20th-century artists from Kyoto round out the programming for SAAM's "Year of Japan." This collection is owned by Northwest residents Griffith and Patricia Way, and contains more than 80 examples of Kyoto-school nihonga -- modern Japanese paintings executed in traditional media formats. Through Feb 13.

WORLDS OF FANTASY: CHINESE SHADOW

PUPPETS

Volunteer Park hosts more than 70 puppets from the 19th century. The majority of the exhibited works come from the collection of Theodore Bodde, who purchased the extraordinary objects while in Beijing in the 1930s. Chinese textiles with related themes will accompany. Through April 2.

TACOMA ART MUSEUM

1123 Pacific Ave, 253-272-4258.

INSIDE/OUT

The celebrated touring show of contemporary Chinese art from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Chinese artists living elsewhere in the world is too big for any one venue, which is why TAM shares it with the Henry. Through March 5.

WRIGHT EXHIBITION SPACE

407 Dexter Ave N, 264-8200.

*THE WRIGHT COLLECTION

Virginia and Bagley Wright have rehung their foundation's exhibit space, devoting one gallery entirely to their great collection of '60s and '70s color field paintings, and introducing a large David Salle oil and the John Baldessari piece Two Onlookers and Tragedy to the mix. Other highlights of their collection include a Robert Longo, Eric Fischl, a huge Warhol Rorschach, and Jules Olitski's Thigh Smoke. Open-ended run.

CONTINUING EXHIBITIONS

LARRY BEMM

Abstract paintings which layer oval forms in light, near-pastel colors. Ballard/Fetherston Gallery, 818 E Pike St, 322-9440. Through Feb 5.

CAROL BOLT

Bolt's site-specific installation is entitled Willing, and in a weird, obsessive way, it's about hope. The work is within view of the public in the First Avenue window of the Rental/Sales Gallery, where it'll sit through mid February. Inside the gallery, a show by artists who work in encaustic. Seattle Art Museum Rental/Sales Gallery, 1334 First Ave, 748-9282.

LISA BUCHANAN

These large new paintings are beautifully patterned but nothing like simple decoration. They recall the backgrounds of a Klimt painting, but the shapes are more uneasy and neurotic. Bryan Ohno Gallery, 155 S Main St, 667-9572. Through Jan 29.

DAN BUDNIK

Photographs from the Selma-to-Montgomery march in 1963. Benham Gallery, 1216 First Ave, 622-2480. Through Feb 26.

DISTANT ECHOES

At the beginning of the year, a show of artists looking backward. Tracy Moffatt's Laudanum photographs recast 20th-century decadents as 19th-century ones, and show them blurred and faded -- by nostalgia, perhaps? Ross Palmer-Beecher's junk metal wall pieces draw from traditional American quilt forms, while Darren Waterston's swampy landscapes draw from Old Master painting techniques. Greg Kucera Gallery, 212 Third Ave S, 624-0770. Through Jan 29.

TOM FEHER/SCOTT BICKELL

A pair of photographers exploring new possibilities of traditional photographic printing techniques. Feher shows moody shots from here and far away, while Bickell ruminates on Vashon Island and Washington coast landscapes and flowers. Photographic Center Northwest, 900 12th Ave, 720-7222. Through Jan 30.

ROLON BERT GARNER

Longtime Seattle arts fixture Garner, currently associated with Two Bells Tavern's excellent art program, shows recent paintings at Two Bells and the Virginia Inn -- the other downtown Seattle bar with great taste in art. Two Bells Tavern, 2313 Fourth Ave, 441-3050; Virginia Inn, 1937 First Ave, 728-1937. Through Feb 1.

A GIFT OF LIGHT AND TIME

In the tradition (sort of) of the patron's salon, this show celebrates work created by artists who spent residencies at Beverly McDevitt's "Casa dos Artistas," a house in Portugal. McDevitt has supported artists as well-known as Fay Jones and Gene Gentry McMahon, and as talented and underknown as Michael Machnic and Jena Scott. Bank of America Gallery, 701 Fifth Ave, Third Floor, 585-3200. Through Feb 11.

CHRIS GRANT

The final show at SOIL's Pioneer Square digs -- they're moving to Capitol Hill next month -- is an installation entitled Technological Isolation Tank #.618A. It's a single disembodied television screen showing an inscrutable, but somehow hypnotic video. That's all. SOIL Artist Cooperative, 310 First Ave S, 329-4271. Through Jan 30.

GROUP LANDSCAPE EXHIBITION

Exactly what it sounds like, showing a wide range of styles and influences. Refreshingly un-millennial. Winston Wächter, 403 Dexter Ave N, 652-5855. Through Feb 12.

BOB HAOZOUS

Installations and portraits by the Native American artist. One installation, Separation, was first shown at the 1999 Venice Biennale. Sacred Circle Gallery of American Indian Art, Discovery Park, 285-4425. Through March 26.

RANDY HAYES

Hayes layers paint over photographic images on canvas, and the result is a cool-mooded mixture of painterly effect and specific image and suggests the conflict (not always unpleasant) between memory and fact. Grover/Thurston Gallery, 309 Occidental S, 223-0816. Through Feb 12.

BARBARA JAKSA

Jaksa takes found boxes and creates little psyches out of them with egg tempera, objects, and mixed materials. You're encouraged to pick the boxes up and examine them; these contemplative and mysterious objects don't give up their meaning easily, however. Oculus Gallery, 163 S Jackson, Second Floor, 366-2108. Through Jan 31.

*DEBORAH LAWRENCE/ERIC STOTIK

Lawrence creates intricate, obsessive collages out of traditional imagery (from the Virgin Mary to the Land O' Lakes girl), combined with text and painting. Her slant is contemporary, social issue-driven subject matter and images; the result is layered, gorgeous propaganda. It looks familiar, but utterly isn't. Betty Bowen Award-winner Stotik shows small narrative paintings and drawings in back. Both artists draw on visual references from the history of art and make them quite new. Esther Claypool Gallery, 617 Western Ave, 264-1586. Through Jan 29.

STEVEN LAZEN

In his sectional compositions, Lazen investigates the pure shape of things by contrasting photographs of minimalist elements (the bars of jail cells, nuclear reactors, a startling human neck) with photograms of repeating text, such as a page of the phone book. These images repeat from one work to the next, giving the whole exhibition a calm but insistent feel. Lux Coffee Bar, 2226 First Ave, 443-0962. Through Jan 29.

*JESSE PAUL MILLER/SEAN MILLER

The unrelated Millers join forces for Miller's Crossing, a show which creates an interesting profile of each artist. Jesse Paul Miller is very good at the imaginative recombining of everyday elements (polka records, Polaroids, recording tape) using traditional artistic methods (painting, silk-screening) to make objects that make you look, and then look again. Sean Miller recombines disparate elements as well, but all within the surface of his very creepy paintings; the big-eyed, naive-looking subjects are anything but, and Jesus is as likely to have chicken feet as he is to save the world. Howard House, 2017 Second Ave, 256-6399. Through Jan 29.

*CARLOS MOLLURA/MARGARET KILGALLEN

Los Angeles artist Mollura, a standout at CoCA's Love at the End of the Tunnel exhibition, shows a huge inflated sculpture filling half of Harris' front gallery. In back, Kilgallen, whose recent installation at Deitch Projects in New York got her lots of fawning press, shows prints. James Harris Gallery, 309A Third Ave S, 903-6220. Through Jan 30.

NOW WHAT? REFLECTIONS ON THE PAST 1,000 YEARS

A passel of gallery artists and invitees ruminate on the millennium. The result is a very idea-driven show, with a focus on the difficulty of documenting any moment in time. T. Ellen Solod's Mitts reference life's ephemera, Bridget Young's sculpture is a prickly combination of nails and wax (viewers find themselves giving it a wide berth), and Squire Broel's ready-made icon -- a Starbucks cup covered with rune-like doodles -- is simply impenetrable, but not in a bad way. Other participating artists include Jena Scott and David DeVillier. Eyre/Moore Gallery, 913 Western Ave, 624-5596. Through Jan 29.

*SUSAN ROBB

Best known as a photographer (not to mention a pizza-place owner and an indie rocker), Robb has ventured into sculpture and installation work. Her show Weatherradio, 3200: Handmade Genetics and Homestyle Plastic, includes cast polymer plaques, fur and latex sculptures, and inkjet prints, all with biological themes. The Pound Gallery, 1216 10th Ave, 323-0557. Through Jan 30.

ANNA SKIBSKA

Here's an artist worth lifting your self-imposed glass moratorium for (if you're sensible enough to have one). Skibska's pod-like sculptures seem to be spun of glass threads, and are hung in a dark room with a few spotlights to heighten their delicate effect. Traver Gallery, 110 Union St, Second Floor, 587-6501. Through Jan 30.

GEORGE TSUTAKAWA

The creator of the mossy Opera House fountains shows paintings and sculpture. Foster/White Gallery, 123 S Jackson St, 622-7606. Through Jan 30.

NATHAN TUCKER

Paintings and digital images that range from flat patterning to iconic, cartoonish images to faces modeled in deep chiaroscuro. Robbie Mildred Gallery, 307 E Pike St, 903-1246. Through Feb 17.

VESTIGIAL TALES

Painters Damon Maxwell and Warren Dykeman join their demonic forces for this show. Both artists use the fantastic and the grotesque to moody, compelling, sometimes violent effect -- nothing sentimental here. Roq la Rue, 2224 Second Ave, 374-8977. Through Feb 11.

SCOTT WILSON

Wilson's large-scale photographs are disturbing and hard to escape. He wrings a goodly amount of horror out of real and digitally enhanced images of fetal animals, combined with all sorts of memento mori-type imagery -- a mad scientist also obsessed with beauty. Strong stuff. FotoCircle Gallery, 163 S Jackson, Second Floor, 624-2645. Through Jan 29.

EVENTS

FUTURE PERFECT, PRESENT TENSE:

THE AVANT-GARDE IN CHINA

A two-day symposium about new Chinese art, hosted by the Henry Art Gallery. They've got a whole list of experts lined up to talk about history, culture, and politics (and a couple of the artists themselves) in order to put the Inside-Out exhibit in context. Undoubtedly the key theme is the pull between China's traditional past and the onrush of modern times. Registration for the symposium is $25 for Friday, and $40 for Saturday. Henry Art Gallery, 15th Ave NE and NE 41st St, 543-2281. Fri-Sat Jan 28-29.

SOIL ART AUCTION 2000

The fundraising silent auction was a huge success and a great deal of fun. All the art is still up, and the unsold pieces can still be bid on during regular gallery hours through the end of the month. SOIL, 1412 12th Ave, 329-4271 or 297-9414.

TALK-ABOUT

This latest offering in a continuing series of lectures sponsored by the FotoCircle Gallery examines a quarter-century of photography, found images, and cartoons. The speaker is David Johnson, a photographer who has shown pretty much everywhere in Seattle. Photographic Center Northwest, 900 12th Ave, Wed Feb 2 at 7 pm, free.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR ARTISTS

ARTIST TRUST GAP GRANTS

Washington State artists may apply for grants of up to $1,200 to fund specific projects including the development, completion, or presentation of new work; publication; travel for research; and documentation of work. The GAP program is open to artists working in all disciplines. To receive an application, send a business-sized SASE to: GAP Application, Artist Trust, 1402 Third Ave, Suite 404, Seattle, WA 98101-2118, or download it from www.artisttrust.org. Deadline is Feb 25, at 5 pm.

CALL FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS

FotoCircle's populist (that is, unjuried) Pushpin Show will begin on Thurs Feb 3 at noon, when the gallery opens the doors of its new space. For $10, anyone who likes may tack up a photograph on the gallery walls (and for bargain hunters, two for $15). The show will hang through Feb 26. The new space is at 216 Alaskan Way S: the old ArtSpace.

TACOMA PUBLIC ART RESOURCE BANK

Tacoma Arts Commission invites artists involved in public art to immortalize themselves in the Public Art Resource Bank slide library. For application and guidelines, call 253-591-5191, or go to the City of Tacoma's website at www.ci.tacoma.wa.us/econdev/tedd/culture/TacomaArt/ welcome.htm. The submissions deadline is Feb 15.