"The Garden of Virtue and Vice"
Original music by Michael Flint
NOVEMBER 19 - DECEMBER 31
OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 8:00 - MIDNIGHT
Opening performance by Tony Driscoll and animal gods
ADMISSION: $5 GENERAL, CoCA MEMBERS FREE
LOCATION: CENTER ON CONTEMPORARY ART
65 CEDAR STREET
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
REGULAR GALLERY HOURS:
November 19 - December 16 Wednesday - Sunday, 11am - 6pm, Thursdays 'til 9
December 17 - 24 seven days a week, Thursday 'til 9
December 26 - 30 11am - 6pm
Admission: $2 general, CoCA members free
Questions????? call Susie Purves 728-1980
CoCA is proud to present a major solo installation, entitled The Garden of
Virtue and Vice, by Seattle artist Timothy Siciliano. In this installation,
Mr. Siciliano uses his ambivalence about being an AIDS survivor as the context
through which the garden becomes an ironic metaphor. This garden is a
homosexual Shangri-La and like most gardens, is a triumph of man over nature.
As in a real garden, there is a surface prettiness that, upon close scrutiny,
reveals base and often unsightly organic process. The Garden of
Virtue and Vice will be beautiful and funny and dazzling, but when examined more closely
will reveal difficult and frequently controversial content. The fact that
humans are often fascinated by what they find most repulsive is a theme that
The Garden of Virtue and Vice confronts.
This is an environment where perverse icons, Queer gods, and demons play out
fantasies of sexual alienation and mortal loss while everyone else is hell-bent
on having fun. Knees will be jerking in all quarters as Mr. Siciliano takes on
the sacred cows of mainstream gay politics as well as straight presumptions
about gay sexuality. Men!, men!, men! are the theme in this raucous, colorful,
funny, irreverent take on the current state of male sexuality.
Mr. Siciliano is interested in exploring taboos, rethinking beauty, and
embracing contradiction. Good taste, political corectness and realistic order
are thrown out the window in favor of a whimsically perverse world of
ambivalence and anarchy.
Timothy Siciliano lives and works in Seattle. In recent years he has become
best known for his public art, the Seattle Center Design Team, "Acrobat
Constellation", METRO "Metro Midway", 8 Metro bus stops, and University of
Washington "Queer Gods" temporary art works at bus stops. He is a 1992
recipient of an WESTAF/NEA Regional Fellowship, and shows his work at Vox
Populi Gallery in Seattle.
RELATED EVENTS
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1 & 2, 8:00 P.M.
PERFORMANCE ART! $7 General, $5 CoCA members
STOKLEY TOWLES
DREW PISARRA
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 8:30 P.M.
Gallery Talk with Timothy Siciliano And Jim Jones,
exhibition essayist and publisher, Zero Hour Press
CoCA members free, $2 general public
