Andrew Salgado’s powerful portraits, some based on a homophobic attack he and his boyfriend suffered this past July , are a must-see at this year’s artist-run SWARM event.

Credit: supplied

Rumours of SWARM’s death not greatly exaggerated

By Michael Harris

SWARM, the city’s premiere schmooze-fest for culture vultures and entry-level artists, returns this week, from September 4-6. A popular annual festival of artist-run galleries, SWARM also welcomes the entire city to venues normally haunted exclusively by Vancouver’s artistic “in” crowd.

However, all is not exclusively highbrow at SWARM. It is, after all, a party, and each year the wine does flow (some will recall poor Kathy Slade’s giant ball of yarn being humped by a drunken attendee at her gallery show back in 2002). The participating galleries, separated into three distinct zones (Mount Pleasant; Downtown/Gastown; and Hastings/Commercial), will be crammed with crowds of revelers, some of which may occasionally take in the wall candy on display.

But SWARM’s great success is also its tragic flaw. Organizer Demian Petryshyn told WE this culture crawl, so beloved by the hipster set, has become “a cancer,” and he plans to pull the plug in 2011. (The term “over-exposed” doesn’t generally leap to mind when one considers the earnest offerings of our artist-run galleries. Who exactly — aside from the artists and their lovers — makes time to visit these white boxes?) But Petryshyn insists. While SWARM has done its job, having proven that artist-run spaces can attract real and vigorous crowds, if only for three days a year, he says “it must end. It has grown too virulent.”

Get in on this malignant party while you can, then (and keep an eye out for SWARM’s involvement with the 2009 and 2010 Cultural Olympiads). Forty-two exhibits are rounded up on the event’s website (SWARM2008.com), but the following will get you started.

ZONE ONE — Mount Pleasant (Sept. 4)

Paper Cut: A limited-edition folio of cut-paper illustrations has been created with contributions from three Winnipeg-based artists (not Royal Art Lodge pedigree, but pop-ish and faux-naive nonetheless). Curator J.J. Kegan McFadden gives a talk at 7 p.m. At Malaspina Printmakers (1555 Duranleau).

Performative: Interdisciplinary dance, lecturing and installation, filtered through assorted new media, result in a pair of highly physical works by the memelab. You’ll need a drink after such cleverness; stay for the afterparty, which starts at 11 p.m. At Open Studios (252 East 1st), 10 p.m.

The Sooner the Better Late Than Never: Group Show by the graduates of UBC’s Master of Fine Arts program. Look for Jesse Gray’s recombination of found and scavenged pieces, and Ryan Peter’s paintings, which borrow elements of the photographic process from early daguerreotypes to satellite imaging. At Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery (1825 Main Mall, UBC).

ZONE TWO — Downtown/Gastown (Sept. 5)

Learn To Read Art: AA Bronson, best known in these parts as a co-founder of the conceptual-art collective General Idea (in 1969), has curated this history of Printed Matter, which is a New York outfit that interrogates “the changing role of artists’ publications in the landscape of contemporary art.” Includes work by Yoko Ono (naturally) and Vancouver-based photographer and photoconceptualist Rodney Graham. Major pleasures for geeks and art-wonks. At Artspeak (233 Carrall), 3 p.m.

Andrew Salgado: Reminiscent of the meaty, full-on portraits that Nick Lepard has showcased this year at the Diane Farris Gallery, Salgado’s new paintings are perhaps more gutsy. Bloody noses and ruddy skin make the 25-year-old’s arresting portraits sympathy-inducing (the artist and his partner were attacked by a homophobic gang last summer). But the rough brushstrokes and potent gazes underlying that damage speak to a charming cockiness all the same. At Interurban Gallery (1 East Hastings).

The SWARM Party: Zak Pashak, owner of the Biltmore Cabaret, has worked his own creative magic this past year, turning the former dive into an “it” space for the city’s in-the-know, and then successfully untangling the web of municipal and provincial finger-pointing that shut the bar down two weeks ago (see page 9). Fitting, then, that the underdog extravaganza that is SWARM should have its party peak there. At Biltmore Cabaret (395 Kingsway), 10 p.m. $10 at the door ($20 in advance; email dpetryshyn@gmail.com).

SWARM runs Sept. 4-6. For full details, visit SWARM2008.com