Motelmotelmotel: Bridge Motel Blowout, Freemont Saturday

Having lived in Freemont in my bohemian days [before the condos and health-food], I can't wait for this event on Saturday night; the Motel Project kicks off the fall with an evening of performance art and 'one-pot' cuisine at the Bridge Motel on the eve of its destruction.

If you are in the Seattle area this Saturday, you have to go. It will feature the Vis-a-vis society in the reception office, and that is reason enough to go.

The Seattle Weekly says:

More than 18 installation and performance artists, many of whom are all-stars on Seattle's art scene (including Jack Daws, Paul Rucker, and PDL), have been given a week to transform their own dilapidated corners of the building. Their only guideline was to avoid the subject of drugs or prostitution, as pan wanted the artists to push past the motel cliché.

Within these loose parameters, artists have brought some compelling ideas. Min's endurance piece, called Hurting Cats, consists of him being locked in a motel room with six cats for three days and three nights. It's supposed to mimic the ridiculous nature of off-site summit meetings in which powerful people come together to make decisions. It's also a heavy-handed homage to a political piece by Josef Beuys, who spent three days in a room with a coyote, ironically challenging the Vietnam War and the hegemony of American art.

Daws—whose newest show of punchy political sculpture at Greg Kucera Gallery, "Nothing to Lose," is also worth a visit—similarly plays with political and historical undertones. Daws will be taking the roof off his room and building a sort of campfire inside. He's drawing irreverent parallels between the campfire as a place for frontiersmen to rest their heads for the evening and the motel as our modern-day campfire.

Also known for purposeful cheekiness, the trio PDL will be showing an installation called Deep Space. Greg Lundgren, the L part of the group and the unofficial media contact, was uncharacteristically tight-lipped about the project, saying he didn't want to reveal the surprise. He did say Deep Space will be "much lighter" than the confessional piece the group has recently been touring to venues such as Bumbershoot, wherein people enter a booth and confess to the artists.

There will be cooking, too. Davida Ingram, who works in the community affairs department at the Seattle Art Museum, will publicly perform a project she's been doing in private. Putting classified ads in papers that read something along the lines of "Black woman willing to make your favorite meal," Ingram has been cooking for strangers so long as they purchase the goods. For the Bridge, she will transform her space into a dining room where the most recent respondents to her ad will get fed. If Ingram's piece makes you hungry, no worries: Michael Hebberoy's also going to be on-site hosting the ever-creative, ever-enjoyable One Pot event, which is always an epic dining experience wherein perfect strangers mingle together at the same table around the same delicious plate. Though he hasn't exactly decided what this particular dining experience will consist of, according to his Web site, it will include a long table, some big pots, plenty of food, and maybe even a little participation.

Hey, what's not to love?

check it out HERE