Thursday, December 17, 2009

TWO BIG NIGHTS///12.18 & 12/19

FRIDAY 7 PM: CMRTYZ trunk show, with FREE music by PRISON<>TIME COPZ<>INDIAN WARS

Event shirt by CMRTYZ:


CMRTYZ shredders:


SATURDAY 7PM music by KARL BLAU, WET PAINT, and SLIPPERS (USA), $5

Friday, December 4, 2009

ECLECTIC MAGIC now open!! come party tonight!





Open everyday from 12-6 until January 3rd!!

Thursday, November 26, 2009

SNEAK peak at some designs for Eclectic Magic.


Stacey Rozich


Darin Shuler

We've been busy commissioning some new t-shirt designs for December's pop-up store, opening December 3rd. here is a sneak peak at two of the 6 local artists we'll be featuring:

Eclectic Magic at Cairo, Dec. 3rd-Jan. 3rd.





Eclectic Magic, open 12-6 everyday from December 3rd - January 3rd

Vintage---Music---Art---Local Designs

Opening party with music by WILD ORCHID CHILDREN, ALASKAS, and STEPHANIE. Friday December 4th at 7 pm. COME HANG.

Monday, November 9, 2009

EXPO 87, November 19th-21st, 2009





FULL SCHEDULE AND LINE-UP. thursday night is free/donation, FRI&SAT, $10 for all day pass at both venues.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

A-ROOM-A-LOOM October 21st 6-10pm








A-ROOM-A-LOOM
JULIA SHERMAN

Wednesday October 21, 2009 – 6-10pm

Cairo is thrilled and proud to announce the opening ceremony of A-ROOM-A-LOOM, a traveling community interactive woven installation, project established by artist Julia Sherman.

Come help WEAVE! At the opening reception, Wednesday October 21, 6-10pm, & Cairo doors will be open the following weekend October 24 & 25, 12-6 pm. Please email cairocollection@gmail.com to set up other weave times on week nights and for the following week! Please bring materials to weave*

Description: A-Room-A-Loom is a site-specific weaving experiment. With consideration for the architecture of the gallery, the loom uses the building’s walls to turn a room into a simple machine. With the loom spanning the width and breadth of the space, approx 6 feet x 14 feet, viewers are invited to become a part of the woven field! This loom is a very simple incarnation of what can be a very complex craft, and people are thrilled to have the opportunity to pick up the basics so quickly and with so little pressure. Anyone can be taught how to weave on the A-Room-A-Loom in a matter of minutes. Participants often form new friendships while sharing stories about the materials they bring in.

Past A-Room-A-Looms at Workspace in Los Angeles and Copy Gallery in Philadelphia have generated a curiosity for weaving and empowered the viewer to co-create a large-scale artistic project, via basic hands on interaction. *Some past materials that used have been: Dog fur, weeds from a neighbor’s garden, a blanket from distant travels, bubble wrap, the yellow pages, an ex-girlfriend’s pajamas, John Baldessari’s toilet paper, audio cassette tape, and tons of old clothes. The possibilities are endless!

It is super easy to learn! And super fun to do! Bring any and all materials you can think of, and let’s weave A-ROOM-A-LOOM at Cairo!

A-ROOM-A-LOOMs have been built in several cities, including Providence, Chicago, Nashville, Los Angeles, Vancouver-BC, Philadelphia, & New York. These pieces will take part in a large exhibition, as a group of woven A-ROOM-A-LOOMs.

ARTIST WEBSITE: JULIA SHERMAN

View other exhibitions at galleries here:

WORKSPACE GALLERY

COPY GALLERY

For more information, please contact Justine Ashbee and Joel Leshefka at email: cairocollection@gmail.com

Monday, September 28, 2009

Home, Wednesday Sept. 30h, 7-9 pm











Continuing our series of Intern-curated events, please join us for Home, brought to you by recent Providence transplant, Francesca Lohmann. Please join us Wednesday September 30th, 7-9 pm

A group show exploring the concept of "home", with selected works by Seth Clark, Sarah Cuno, James Ewart, Maureen Halligan, Marisa Keris, Francesca Lohmann, Anna Lynett, Annie Medina, Ana Mikolavich, Allison Roberts, Duncan Scovil, Nicholas Simpson, Henrik Soderstrom, Melissa Tyson, and Jay Zehngebot.

Gathered from a group of young artists across the continental United States, the work in this show is a response to the question “What constitutes your experience of home?” Not yet at the age when we have truly settled, we are still in the process of constructing “home” for ourselves in both a physical and emotional sense. Friends, family, old stories, and familiar objects are the tangible characters that inform our internal conception of "home" and ground us with a sense of place.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Nat Damm Poster Show.



Thanks to everyone that came out, and to Nat, for persistence and vision within his field...he's come a long way since making that first poster at Ground Zero way back when.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

9/26 & 9/27 Ten Years of Poster design, by Nat Damm. A two day special event hosted by Cairo




Please join us this Saturday from 6-10 pm for ten years of poster design by Seattle artist, Nat Damm. show will also open Sunday September 27th from 12-6 pm. For more information about the show and artist:

Nat Damm

The poster show will feature OVER 100 11x17 street posters and heaps of silk screened posters from over the past ten years. We're talking old school folks, posters from The Sit & Spin, Graceland, I-Spy, The Breakroom, Vera and The Paradox. There will of course be work from Neumos, El Corazon, The Crocodile, The Showbox, Chop Suey, not mention venues from all over the country. As if it couldn't get any better he'll be unveiling several large and in charge life size silk screens of drum sets as well. Friends of Nat will also know that where Nat goes, beer is. Bring friends.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Our Family, curated by Serrah Russell

We had the pleasure of working with three fantastic interns this past quarter. Each was asked to complete their time at Cairo by hosting an event of their choosing. First up is Serrah Russell, who curated Our Family, which opens Thursday September 17th at 6 pm, and shows through the weekend. Please join us. Description of the show below.






Welcome home to broken bones and silver spoons, to play houses and stitched up wounds.

A group show of drawings, deconstructions and collages by Paige Fukuhara, Lilly Hern-Fondation, and Julia Salamonik.

As we are cleaning, we find them under a bed. They appear and distract us when on a hunt for something else. After an estate sale, they remain unsold, enduring memories of those who have gone before us. They are monumental and symbolic, but they are also banal, blurry and left for discard. As these images become far removed, stories fail us and names escape us, scenarios are imagined and memories constructed, with wishful thinking and tragic deceptions.

The connection of past events to present life is impossible to sever, even when our minds can not recall the reasons for their grasp. This connection has prompted us to make our own family, to distill, to memorialize and to alter, in order to understand. And in doing so, our family images become less specific, less referential of yours or mine. It becomes ours.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Whiskeypriest number 1 and 2 shows Friday Sept. 11th at 9 pm

On-going original series produced by Skagit Valley filmmakers. We showed the first episode during EXPO 86 last year, catch it again with episode 2 Friday Sept. 11th at 9 pm.

WHISKEYPRIEST
…Former Episcopalian priest who practiced in a handful of churches throughout the Pacific Northwest, was ejected from the church for reasons unknown, continued to perform confessional duties for people of all faiths on his own and without the permission of the church, known as a local recluse, went missing for over 15 years, rumored sightings in Alger, Marblemount, Sumas (WA), maintains the moniker W.P., or “Whiskey Priest,” originating from Graham Greene’s novel “The Power and the Glory” (1940), continues to receive confessions by way of a PO Box…




Friday, August 21, 2009

Images of Amelia Bauers show, on view through Sept. 6th



We are currently open Friday 2-7 pm, Saturday & Sunday 12-6 pm





Interview with Amelia Bauer

We asked Amelia a series of questions about herself and her work.

Cairo Collection: What attracts you to the decorative arts?

Amelia Bauer: I have always been fascinated with intricate and obsessively crafted objects. My mother is a potter and my father is an architect, and growing up my house was filled with traditional crafts and modernist furniture. I remember seeing a Victorian house for the first time. I couldn’t believe all of the ornate details, it just blew my mind. It was like a whole universe opened up to me that seemed so foreign and exotic. One of my father’s favorite dictums was “form follows function”and it was so exciting to find that, regardless of my father’s convictions, examples of embellishment in excess of function go back as far as the Egyptian empire.

One of the most consistent themes in the decorative arts (and to me the most compelling) is to take forms from nature and organize them into strict and sometimes geometric patterns, like the lotus leaf pattern of the Egyptian empire, or the lavish floral and feather-based patterns of the baroque era. I find it so interesting that we build structures to shield us from the chaos of the natural world, and then fill them with the references to the natural world, but in a way that is palatable and safe. It is our way of convincing ourselves that we are separate from, and in control of nature — or maybe an attempt to make some sense of it, while at the same time keeping a safe distance. It allows us to hold a romanticized picture of the wild unknown.

CC: What compelled you to generate film stills/imagery in needlepoint and lace?

AB: I had been working on a lot of pieces in which I explored the themes that I laid out above. I was really examining this tendency in the decorative arts to organize the natural world. Simultaneously I was thinking about this Hawthornian idea of the forest or the unsettled wild as being the site of chaos and evil. With the pieces in STILL I wanted to make something that pushed the chaos side of that equation. I thought that the typical Hollywood movie functions for us today in the way that a baroque wallpaper might have functioned in its time. That is to say that when we watch a movie we are able to experience all its chaos (emotional, physical, etc.) from a safe distance.

Hollywood movies showcase our wealth as an empire. All of the high budget productions are louder, brighter, faster and better, and there is more here than in any other country. Empires past flaunted their wealth and power with the various objects that adorned a monarch’s palace and the in the facades of major buildings. I wanted to link Hollywood movies to those lavish imperial displays by putting movie stills back into the format of an older craft. The explosions and defenestration are shown for what they are-- decorative flourishes, in excess.

I also liked taking something violent and hard and fast and making it into this slow, soft thing. I think of the lace as handkerchiefs that could be used in mourning the loss of a loved one, and the pile of pillows are equally comforting. I’ve always felt that I am exposed to more violence, devastation, and tragedy via movies than in my real life. I think as Americans we have so many emotional
experiences in movies before, if ever, we have them in reality. Yet, the reality is that our country is waging war, and there are all kinds of destruction and violence that I feel very detached from. I wanted to make pieces that mourned fictional deaths as a way of demonstrating that disconnect.

CC: What aspects of film and Hollywood in particular are you attracted to?

AB: Well I’m a bit of a film geek in general, but this project has less to do with “film” as a medium, and more to do with Hollywood as a producer of popular culture. There is so much money that goes into Hollywood. The film industry here is so central to our national identity, so I think it’s helpful to look at it as a text for what we’re interested in as a society. It’s where all of our fantasies and fascinations are indulged, so it seems like a very rich area to explore.

CC: What contemporary artists are of interest to you right now?

AB: I tend to be fascinated by artists that do work that I feel is very far from what I would ever make. Its exciting to see something and have the feeling, “it would never even occur to me to make this, but I LOVE it.” Most recently I’ve decided that I really like Cory Arcangel. He’s got good ideas, I love his general ethos, and I would never ever make anything like it.

CC: What artists, if any, do you consider are currently handling the same issues?

AB: I think in general I try not to look at things that are close to what I’m doing, for fear that I’ll see something too similar and become discouraged. I suppose something vaguely related that comes
to mind is Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Theaters series, wherein he photographs the interior of a movie theater using the length of the movie on screen as his light source. I absolutely love those photographs. They capture the utter romance of the movie theater, and as prints they are exquisitely crafted and deeply seductive. Another piece that I love is Pierre Huyghe’s The Third Memory, a split screen video projection showing footage from Dog Day Afternoon alongside footage of John Wojtowicz, the man on whom the movie was based, retelling his story decades
after the fact on a sound stage. The piece reveals to us that Wojtowicz’s memory of the real life event is heavily affected by the film adaptation. It’s a brilliant piece that speaks so strongly of the way that Hollywood affects the way we view and interpret so many of our life experiences.

Monday, June 15, 2009



Hollywood Depicted in Needlepoint and Lace: a new project by Amelia Bauer

Opens Thursday July 23rd, 7 pm

Amelia Bauer’s work considers ways in which the decorative arts throughout the history of western civilization have attempted to organize the chaos of the natural world. The pieces in her newest show entitled STILL reflect that tendency, while also examining the coinciding romanticization of, and fascination with violence. In STILL, Bauer presents a peculiar kind of rubble: a pile of pillows on the gallery floor. Each pillow in the pile uses needlepoint to photo-realistically depict a different car explosion scene from a Hollywood movie. Handkerchiefs line the walls of the gallery. In each handkerchief, a cinema-derived scene of defenestration is rendered in lace.

The movie stills Bauer has chosen to translate into needlepoint and lace are pulled from varying film genres--from romantic comedy to horror--produced between 1948 and 2009. Significantly, all of her sources are American productions. These bright flowering explosions and shards of shattering glass are the decorative elements that bejewel so many Hollywood films. The natural impulse to violence is depicted in cinema as glamourous decoration. The Hollywood machine is America’s own decadence of empire. The artworks in STILL resonate between an homage to this decadence and a mourning place for the fictional victims within these stories.

Amelia Bauer is a Brooklyn based artist born and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has been living in New York for the past 12 years, excluding a ten-month working vacation in Seattle in 2005. She is a Presidential Scholar in the Arts, and received her BFA with honors from the School of Art at The Cooper Union. Her work has been exhibited at Capricious gallery in Brooklyn, the Swarovski Crystal Palace at Art Basel Miami, Helen Pitt Gallery in Vancouver B.C., CCA Santa Fe, the Center on Contemporary Arts in Seattle, American Fine Arts in New York City, New Mexico Museum of Fine Arts, Miami Museum of Art, and National Museum of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution. Her drawings have been published in The New York Times, the Believer and Warrior Magazines, and several McSweeney’s publications.



Photos from Toby Leibowitz opening

A huge success, thank you to everyone who came out and enjoyed an incredible evening!!



Toby on the right!





Thursday, May 21, 2009

Opening reception for Peg and Awl, by Toby Liebowitz: Saturday May 30th 7-10 pm



Brand new work by Seattle artist Toby Liebowitz. Immaculate drawings, and accompanying collaborative installation (Max Liebowitz and Sean Pecknold) introduce us to the fictional depression era Peg and Awl Society.





Peg and Awl is a fictional society based in Douglas County, Oregon between the spring of 1933 and the winter of 1934. A community built from the dreams of the great depression; a place for artists, carpenters, writers and adventurers with visions of a utopian society. Through a series of graphite drawings, that span the seasons of a year, we witness the rise and fall of a community of people who are forced to face the realities of human desire and the harsh unknown.

The name of the community "Peg and Awl" comes from the song of the same title, popular during the industrial revolution of the late 1800s in America. The song prophecies the demise of handcrafts in favor of the machine. This fictional Peg & Awl society, created by Leibowitz, largely based on handcrafts, is an ode to the simplicity and creative spirit in our past, present, and potentially our future communities.

Toby Liebowitz attended Parsons School of Design for Illustration & Currently, is pursuing a degree in Agriculture at the Evergreen State College. Toby has shown her work in Seattle, New York and London.

Artist Statement about the installation:

Early in the 20th century hundreds of small sustainable communities were popping up around America. One of the most common ideas was the notion of free land and the liberation to builds ones shelter however and wherever they pleased. It was always with what they had and just the amount of space that was needed. The installation is trying to reenact a space of handmade and time spent shelter. Inside the shelter a sound piece is looped. Taking fragments of human life, a baby first laugh, and fragments of sound clips appropriate to 1933, clips of FDR’s fireside chats. The sound piece will aurally express the arc of the society “Peg and Awl” through the seasons and cyclical nature of patterns in human nature and the repeating of history past.

Sculpture Installation by Max Liebowitz
Sound Piece by Sean Pecknold

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Heidi Anderson show on view until May 17th

gorgeous. gallery is open friday 2-7, saturday and sunday 12-6







Monday, April 27, 2009

Ghost Of Plants - Heidi Anderson - May 8th





Ghost of Plants

New Work from Heidi Anderson

Opening Reception Friday, May 8th at 7.00 PM

Heidi Anderson’s work is of a parallel world where her visions are rendered into fantastical apparitions. Spirits come to life in vivid color and float freely in atmospheric landscapes that reflect inner realms, personal mythology and an appreciation for the mysteries of nature.

Heidi Anderson was born in Seattle, WA. She received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2003. Heidi has shown work in San Francisco, Brussels, London, Berlin, Copenhagen, Miami, and most recently at the Salon Du Dessin Contemporain in Paris.

Website for Heidi and her twin sister Erika: http://www.heidianderikadraw.com/

Friday, April 3, 2009

April 10th and 11th at Cairo. Two great shows




We have two great music shows at Cairo on April 10th and April 11th.

Friday April 10th Weekend, Flexions, and Katherine Hepburn's Voice, 8 pm, $7

Saturday April 11th Braidstorm (tape release), Dimples, and Fuck you Safari, 8 pm, $5

Monday, March 30, 2009

New LULU Jewlery in!



Check out the new LULU Jewelry that arrived at our online store

Cairo Collection

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Jesse Brown & Aaron Harris, Opens Saturday March 21st, 7-10 pm



ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN, BUT IT PROBABLY WON’T, a two person show of new work by Jesse Brown and Aaron Harris.

Jesse: http://www.papervspencil.com
Aaron: http://aaronharris.otherpeoplespixels.com/home.html

OPENING Reception Saturday, March 21st 7-10pm
Show runs through April 26th

JESSE BROWN

ARTIST BIO
---------------
Jesse Brown is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Seattle, Wa.
His work has been exhibited at galleries in Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, New York, Tokyo, Berlin, London and Paris.

Jesse’s work is often an exploration in geometric forms, pattern, shape and repetition which display a very clean, graphic quality. He is known for working in a variety of mediums including drawing, painting, paper sculpture, limited-edition artist books, installation, video and textile works.

In addition to creating work to be shown within the gallery setting, Jesse has also been involved in creating murals and public installations in Seattle, for nearly ten years he worked as the Artistic Director at the Seattle based non-profit Urban Artworks, an organization that creates murals throughout the city with at-risk youth.

Jesse is currently designing a permanent public art installation for one of the Sound Transit LightRail stations in the SODO neighborhood, scheduled to be completed in June 2009.

AARON HARRIS

ARTIST BIO
---------------
Aaron Harris is a Seattle based artist, working primarily in painting, drawing, printing and film. His work has been shown in Seattle, Chicago and New York.

Artist Statement: These paintings, unless otherwise noted, take place in or near West Seattle. Scandinavia and Japan are also involved. Some are based on true things that have happened, and for those, I’ve included descriptions in the titles.

You should imagine Whale “sounds” when possible while viewing these paintings.

Some thinking ideas while viewing the paintings are: the internet, stucco walls, salt water, wood saunas, how many people there are in this crazy world, how you feel about what happened to you in your day so far, or what’s happening to you right now, how long or short things have been around, and what they where before they are what they are now, and if you’re around people, you can think about them.

Please refrain from thinking about your boss, your crazy schedule, downward spirals, or pussyfooting around. Remember to enjoy! Yourself.


Please contact Joel Leshefka or Justine Ashbee at this email or for phone conversations, call 206.453.4077.

In addition to the opening at Cairo, Mike de Leon (whose photos can be found in the Cairo print viewer), will be having a going away to NYC/print sale/party at NoSpace, and and and Spike Mafford, whose studio is next to Top Pot Doughnuts, will also be having an opening that very same night. Three great spots, three great shows, one night....see you there

Monday, February 23, 2009


Suspension of Disbelief, a show by Cornish College of the Arts students


Friday Feb. 27th-March 8th, Cairo introduces it's series of INTERLUDES, with a show curated by Mandy Blouin of Cornish College of Arts students in a exhibition entitled Suspension of Disbelief.Opening Friday February 27th 7-10pm

Ben Mast
Justin Lytle
Kelsey Fein
Ryan Fedderson
Matt Holmes
John Ruszel
ManDilla

INTERLUDES
is a new series of shows lasting nine days. Hosted by Cairo these shorter show will fall between longer six week shows booked throughout the year. INTERLUDES, focuses on younger up and coming artists, and will also be a platform for artists showing later in the schedule to preview works in progress. Look for upcoming INTERLUDES by Heidi Anderson, and Derek Bourcier and Robin Stein (both showing in the September group show at Cairo, entitled "80 and up").

for information on this series please contact Joel Leshefka, or Justine Ashbee at 206.453.4077

Great Weekend of music.


Thanks to all the bands who played, and everyone who made it out this weekend, especially those who helped us create our first sold out show on friday!! who knew we could fit some many people into such a small space....

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Tiny Vipers, PWRFL Power, Generifus, Talbot Tagora, and Love Tan. Friday Feb. 20th and 21st 8 pm.



photo by kyle johnson


ever wish you could see your favorite artists perform in your living room?

well, it's not your living room, but cairo's performance space gives you all the intimacy and comfort of watching a show from home.

no noisy bro's in the back of the bar, no drunk fools elbowing for room.

come out Friday February 20th at 8pm for:

Tiny Vipers
PWRFL Power
Generifus

$7
all-ages

and Saturday February 21st at 8 pm for:

Talbot Tagora
Love Tan

$5
all-ages

Friday, December 26, 2008


Nicholas Kamuda Seascapes Show continues through January 25th. Cairo Winter hours: Saturday and Sunday 12-6 pm

Monday, December 15, 2008


We are pleased to offer a ONE NIGHT EVENT, this thursday night...

Weston Jandacka and Steph Kese present their newly illustrated book "he says, she says" for the very first time! Please join us, everyone is welcome.

Thursday, December 19th from 7-10 pm. Limited edition prints from the book will also be available.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Seascapes by Nicholas Kamuda, Opens Friday Dec. 12th, 7-9 pm


SEASCAPES

Solo show of Seattle-Based Artist and Designer Nicholas Kamuda

Opening Reception Friday, December 12th, 7-10pm
Show runs to January 25th, 2009


Cairo is honored to present Seascapes, new work by Seattle artist, Nicholas Kamuda. Please join us for the Opening Reception the evening of December 12th, 7-10pm


‘Sea is meeting point between the physical and intangible in both painting and landscape.’


When living in Japan, South of Tokyo, Kamuda would ride his bike to the beach. He liked the physical experience of being by the sea, feeling the rhythm of the sea, and never wanted to live far from it. Drawing the sea is, in essence, a way of communing with the sea and its rhythms. The rhythmic movements in his drawings are variations in splashing and control. For Kamuda, the experience of a highly physical mark-making process opens doors into the complex dynamics of the sea, and establishes a mental familiarity with the properties and surface of the texture of water itself.


The Seacscapes series serve as a vehicle for Kamuda to experience the nature of water through the physical process of familiarization. Through documentation, intimacy, and relationalism, Kamuda creates a moving representation by making use of the very element he seeks to represent.

Kamuda received a BFA in Painting & a BA in East Asian Studies from the Washington University in St. Louis and Waseda University in Tokyo in 2002.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Stephen Eichhorn-Extended through November


New Cairo Hours:

Thursday 2-7 pm
Saturday and Sunday 12-6 pm

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Supervideografen Film Screening

Thanks to Sean Pecknold for organizing/producing such an epicly awesome evening. you can see an encore showing Saturday October 25th at NoSpace gallery as part of expo86








handmade dvd covers (!!!!)

Advance Tickets now available for Expo 86

Come by Cairo or The Anne Bonny to get yourself advance tickets for this weekend's big/small festival!! Cairo is open 2-7 pm, The Anne Bonny is open 12-7 pm. Tickets will also be sold at the door, but these spaces are small, and we won't oversell the event.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Trailer for the Universe and You, screening Wed. October 22nd at 8pm

http://www.supervideografen.com/universe.html

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Supervideografen Collective presents, The Universe and You, Wed. October 22nd at 8pm


Cairo is proud to present a free screening of The Universe and You, from the Supervideografen Collective

Screening to be at 8 pm on Wednesday Oct. 22nd, 2008.

Supervideografen Presents: The Universe and You
A collection of animated explorations and visual interpretations of our place in the big unknown.

Animations by:

Justine Ashbee
Britta Johnson
JJ Walker
Emanuele Kabu
Sean Pecknold
Bill Porter
Matt Smithson
And many more!

This is a free event, please join us!

expo86 Seattle, three days of music, film, and dance. October 24-26th.














We are psyched to announce a mini-music, film, and dance festival being hosted by ourselves, NoSpace Gallery, and the Anne Bonny store. It will be amazing. Advance tickets available, with a $10 ticket getting you in to see a days worth of events at all three spaces. In all 32 performances over the weekend.

This is an epic opportunity to see performers you alreaday know and love in a small, intimate setting, and expose yourself to amazing performers you've never heard of. good stuff:

Official expo86 Website

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Stephen Eichhorn





Wednesday, August 27, 2008

House Plants, opens Friday Sept. 12th from 6-9 pm




HOUSE PLANTS

Solo show by Chicago-Based Artist Stephen Eichhorn

Opening Reception Friday, September 12th, 6-9pm



Cairo proudly presents House Plants, new work by promising young artist Stephen Eichhorn. Opening Reception Friday, September 12th, from 6-9pm. Eichhorn will be in attendance.

Stephen's Website


Chicago-based artist Stephen Eichhorn creates delicate hand cut paper collages from reproductions of foliage - palm fronds, grasses, leaves and flowers. Mining a variety of sources including National Geographic magazines and the dead stock of 70's and 80's wall coverings, he composes works that mimic the natural world, and yet seem almost outside reality. Eichhorn's work formally transcribes the simplest elements of the pastoral onto a conceptual framework, generating a visual language exclusive to its own world, one rooted in anthropology and humans quest to understand and recreate architecture found in nature. The final product eerily retains a sense of its origins.



House Plants is an allusion to both the source material and the popular use of the plant as a structural object. Banal & everyday, but also an artful cultivation of structure and form, the hand and sensitivity to the plant form are the mystique of his pieces.



House Plants will be on display in the Cairo gallery space through October. Exhibition to include a window installation with fellow Chicago Artist, Cody Hudson.

Cody's Website

Stephen Eichhorn lives and works in Chicago. he received a BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago. His work has been exhibited at José Bienvenu Gallery in New York, Bucket Rider Gallery in Chicago, and the Illinois State Museum. His work is included in a number of private and corporate collections, including a recent acquisition by Fidelity Investments. This is his first solo exhibition in Seattle.



For more information please contact Justine Ashbee or Joel Leshefka at 206.453.4077

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Garden of Earthly Delights Review by Steven Vroom

very nice article about the gallery and our last show by steven vroom:

article found here

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

cairo at dusk


photo courtesy of michael j de leon.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Opening for Jesse Brown at Wonderful Union Gallery

Very dear friend and all around talented man, Jesse Brown is having an opening at the Wonderful Union Gallery in Ballard Next Saturday (August 9th). Show is in conjunction with Ballard Artwalk.




"Escape Route"
By Jesse Brown
OPENING RECEPTION
Saturday, August 9th, 2008, 6-10 PM
Wonderful Union Gallery
2221 NW 56th St. Suite 201, Seattle WA 98107
(1/2 Block West of the Ballard Library)

Exhibition Dates
August 9th - October 3rd, 2008

ABOUT THE SHOW
Paintings, sculptures and a book of drawings are inspired by a number of consistent concepts in Jesse's work - structures, pattern, type, escapism and nostalgia.

Jesse will be releasing a book of drawings exploring ideas in death, language, concrete poetry and typography, titled "The Light Inside Your Coffin." The book will be available at the opening reception.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jesse Brown is an artist / designer originally from Seattle, now living in Chicago where he divides his time between personal work and commercial projects. Jesse's work has been exhibited in Seattle, Los Angeles, Berlin, Tokyo, Chicago and New York.

http://www.wonderfulunion.com/gallery

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Coming in September


Work by Chicago based artist Stephen Eichhorn. Opens Friday September 12th 6-9 pm

Sunday, July 13, 2008

The Garden of Earthly Delights, Opening Reception Saturday July 19th 6-9 pm


The Garden of Earthly Delights
Group Show of Intimate Portraits On View July 19th – September 9th, 2008


Alika Cooper
Pete Kuzov
Kyle Ranson
Chad States
Edie Tsong

Cairo presents portraits from an unlikely group of artists that share an interest in gender, sexuality, and intimate relations.

Painted worlds of visual fantasy and photographic portraits of the real and intimate, the erotic becomes a place filled with the intoxicating air of liberty. The Garden of Earthly Delights moves beyond the exploitative and voyeuristic, to a place of confidence in how we choose to encounter our own sexuality.



ALIKA COOPER received an MFA from California College of Arts. Her work evaluates and captures the fading gloss of the American Dream, glamour, and fame. With the understated synthesis of an opaque, neutral gouache palette on earth-toned printmaking paper, she harnesses sketch by sketch the transforming aura of the stars. Alika's work comes at an important time when our media focus on celebrity is pervasive and highly influential throughout our society. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. Alika Cooper lives and works in San Francisco. www.alikacooper.com

PETE KUZOV was born July 5, 1972 in Delta, Colorado. Interest in storytelling brings Pete to almost everything he does. In 1999, Pete received his MFA in Acting and Theatre Direction from Louisiana State University. After appearing in 3 film shorts and a feature film, he joined his partner in Roswell, where he began making one-man productions. Pete currently lives in New Mexico.

KYLE DAMON RANSON was born July 31st in 1969 in New York City. With an encouraging hippie mother, Ranson began to draw and paint at an early age. By the time he began high school, he was already taking life drawing classes at Connecticut's Lyme Academy. He went on to complete three semesters at the Maryland Institute College of Art, before relocating to San Francisco in 1994. Since his arrival, Kyle Ranson has slowly become a pillar of the San Francisco art scene. His bold murals and paintings often deal with dark mythological, fairy-tail like scenes depicting strange sometimes violent sexual subject matter. Yet, at the same time, Ranson also creates the most delicate portraiture. Inaddition to his several Bay Area solo shows, he has exhibited in Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia and London. Kyle Ranson lives and works in San Francisco. www.kyledamonranson.com

CHAD STATES grew up in Seattle area and attended Evergreen State College. He received his MFA from Tyler School of Art in 2007 and currently lives in Philadelphia. His work investigates the construction of identity and the psychological need to be photographed as way of constructing and maintaining ones identity. http://chadstates.com

EDIE TSONG is interested in the practice of portraiture, as a way to explore the relationship between self and other. Her projects have used video-conference, facsimile, plasticene, performance, and drawing to explore identity through portraiture. Tsong has lectured and exhibited nationally. She currently lives and works in Santa Fe, NM.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Aaron Osborn Paintings & Drawings On View Through July 14th




Beautiful works on display, Graphite Drawings and Wood Stain Paintings. Seen above:

I Feel Close to You, but What Does That Mean?
Graphite on Paper, 22.5” x 15” 2008

Aquarius
Wood Stain, Acrylic on Canvas, 24” x 20” 2008

It’s A Slow Growth To A New World
Graphite on Paper, 22.5” x 15” 2008

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Press Reviews

We've had some nice reviews over the past two weeks, you can read them here, or come check things out for yourself. Cairo is open Thursday-Sunday 2-7 pm.


NWSource


The Moment, The New York Times


The Daily Candy

Friday, June 13, 2008

Opening Night at Cairo


thank you to everyone for making this such an amazing evening.
More images coming soon.




Tuesday, May 13, 2008

cairo GRAND OPENING Saturday June 7th from 6-10 pm


Make Me One With Everything

Make Me One With Everything
Seeking connection between natural and man-made forms, five contemporary artists use geometry to reinterpret the invisible.

Opening reception June 7th 6-10pm. On view through July 14th.

Drawings & Paintings




Cairo presents new works from Aaron Osborn: Make Me One With Everything, a series of graphite drawings of fragmented architectural spaces and a collection of wood stain paintings of geometric conjecture. Pulling from the languages of crystals, constellations, and conventional American architecture, Osborn uses form to diagram his own esoteric investigation. His work seeks out the intangible, and abstracts the process of growth and the invisible structure of belief systems. http://www.aaronosborn.net

Jewelry


Stephen Eichhorn and Jessica Paulson are Chicago-based artists, partners, and, most recently, jewelry designers. Their jewelry line, LULU, is made from new and vintage components. Their designs reference natural and man-made patterns--clean black and white pieces are mixed with informal colorful details.

Apparel




Premiering pieces from Civilian, a new collaboration between two Seattle apparel designers, Katie Nash and Keiko Ichinose. ‘Civilian: where beauty meets function, cultivating awareness between the modern and natural worlds – simple and sleek.’

Cairo

Cairo is a forum for creative inquiry and exposure, showcasing visual arts, design, performance, sound, film, and artist-in-residence opportunities. We renegotiate the traditional relationships between artist and institution in partnership with our visiting artists, and, in the process, create an ever-evolving arts space open to all kinds of circumstance.

Cairo is a gallery, a boutique, and a working artist's studio. In addition to our ongoing arts exhibitions, always available in the gallery are independent arts publications, emerging artist flat-files, and our own collection of unique Cairo apparel.