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[Art reviews]

State of the Art
The art of rock

BY CARLY CARIOLI

There’s no manual for an aspiring artist and heavy-metal promoter who wants to curate art exhibits in Boston; you have to make up the rules as you go along. Carrie Hirschberg, a/k/a Scarrie, had done a string of exhibits at the usual haunts, hanging painted canvasses, skate boards, and drum heads at rock clubs including the Middle East and the Phoenix Landing and coordinating openings at the Milky Way and the Out of the Blue Gallery. The important step, though, was getting a waitressing job at Bill’s Bar, the blue-collar rock haunt at the lonely end of Lansdowne Street’s glitzy, Euro-friendly club row.

"Everyone told me if I wanted to do this kind of thing, I had to come to Lansdowne Street," she says as we sit in a booth at Bill’s, underneath a huge Josh Torres portrait of porn star Ron Jeremy that’s part of her first curatorial effort at the bar. "It took a while, but three years later, here we are."

With help from Bill’s GM, Jeff Marshall, Scarrie has inaugurated a series of exhibits dedicated to the crossroads between music and visual art. This first show features eight artists, most of them wage toilers from the street’s clubs, and all of whom, in one way or another, have ties to the rock. Some of those ties are easily grasped — Scarrie’s own work depicts leggy, iconic rock girls in mythic poses. Others are more surprising, like the photo series by hardcore hooligan Dave Tree. Mounted in antique suitcases and in plain white columns, his images — some of religious sculpture — have an austerity, a grace, and a tranquillity that hardly anyone would associate with his on-stage outbursts.

"The exhibit is a win-win situation," says Marshall. "It changes the look of the room and helps to keep people interested in walking into the bar. Being a box on Lansdowne Street, that’s hard to do without having an Avalon budget, where they change the room every two months. We’re the last club to spend money on. And this also gives an opportunity to artists who people don’t know to be seen."

Although opening up one more club’s walls to unknown artists may not seem like a coup in the grand scheme of things, it’s an important victory for a room that’s consistently gone against the grain of its surroundings. The joint that likes to call itself the "bastard child of Lansdowne Street" has fought its share of battles to remain an oasis of low-cover, cheap-beer, rock-dive ambiance in the midst of a dance-club empire.

"There are so many places — T.T. the Bear’s, the Middle East — that cater to local music and also support local artists," says Scarrie. "And we thought it would be great to open that up to Lansdowne Street. It’s got such a reputation for not having credibility — for not being community-oriented. It would be nice to change that."

"It’s not perceived as a community-oriented atmosphere," Marshall adds. "We’re the only niche on the street for consistently supporting local artists, and it means a lot to us to maintain that niche. It’s a constant battle. And when people come out to support it, as they have with this exhibit, it keeps the fight going."

The inaugural show was delayed — it had been scheduled to open September 11 — but it has come off better than anyone had hoped: some 75 people showed up for the opening reception. (Full-disclosure notice: the Phoenix provides promotional support for the series.) The next exhibit, which is scheduled to open November 20, features eight local and nationally known poster artists; and in the works are exhibits dedicated to tattoo art and to Jack Daniel’s. They’ve already got a head start on the latter, of course — there’s a shrine to the man behind the bar.

Bill’s Bar’s inaugural "The Art of Rock" installation is up through November 20. Bill’s is at 5 Lansdowne Street; call (617) 421-9678.

Issue Date: November 8 - 15, 2001

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