Galleries - La Petite Mort and SPAO

I went to two openings on Friday night. First the Juan Carlos Noria show at the Galerie la Petite Mort. We were looking forward to it because the Noria work was billed as pornographic. I guess it was, but it was a good illustration that one person's porno is another person's shrug. My friend and art connoisseur S. thought these two babies were an installation. Sort of a counterpoint to the explicit sex paintings. I'd already noticed that the babies were real, but agreed that they would have worked as art. They have lots of unlabelled paintings stacked up in the basement. Along with various artists' portfolios. It's kind of like shopping for art in one of those antique stores on Bank Street south of the canal.

Next, I dropped in on Exhibition No. 1 at the School of Photographic Arts: Ottawa. Lots of energy in the room. With 20 graduating students, they had a great variety of strong work.

The gallery is at 168 Dalhousie, the show is only on until Friday. Worth going. Artist talk on Sunday the 7th from noon to 2:30pm.