Art and photo contest winners share

Exhibits of two of Alaska's most important juried art shows opened simultaneously at the Anchorage Museum on Oct. 5. But the First Friday crowd had its attention diverted from the art for part of the evening by members of Alaska Dance Theatre performing in the museum atrium.

Dressed in tights painted to look like bones, muscle and other parts beneath the skin with matching facial makeup, the dancers went through extensive and fascinating choreography, slowly proceeding down the atrium steps and moving among the patrons to the accompaniment of spacey, new age-ish music. It was an arresting homage to the traveling human anatomy exhibit, "Body Worlds Vital," now on view at the museum through Jan.

The biggest of the shows that debuted on First Friday is the All Alaska Juried Art Exhibition XXXIV. The 40 pieces on display were selected from 479 submissions by 140 artists from across Alaska. That's a fairly small number for the long-running biennial; 91 items made the cut in 1996, for instance.

But the show is receiving star treatment from the museum, taking up three rooms in the Alaska galleries, which is usually reserved for the popular paintings of Alaska's "Old Masters" like Sydney Laurence, Claire Fejes and Fred Machetanz. For visitors staying on the ground level after entering from the main doors it's the first thing they see.

There is notably less variety in juror Susan Cross' selections than we've seen in previous All Alaska Juried shows. I counted two portraits, two fiber works, two ceramic sculptures and two photographs. Everything else is paintings or drawings ("Back to Where I Began" by Benjamin Schleifman of Palmer, which mixes acrylic paint with an assemblage of wood and beads using a Tlingit formline design is something of a hybrid exception) and most of them are landscapes.

Cross explained her emphasis on the land in her juror's statement, saying, "Alaska boasts a distinguished landscape tradition, both past and present. ... Many of the artists selected seem to be responding to this history."

Given the wealth of previous work, she noted, it can be hard for contemporary artists to execute a landscape that does not wander into cliche. But Alaska artists seem to have figured out ways to expand the form. Cross called the paintings "an exciting and fertile dialogue about the Alaska wilderness and how it is represented."

The $1,000 Juror's Choice Award went to three large charcoal pieces by James Behlke, previously seen in his solo show at Alaska Pacific University. His moody yet realistic depictions of cloud, rain and water could, at first glance, be mistaken for and elegantly worked ink drawings.

Behlke, who has been entering All Alaska Juried Exhibitions since 1978, said the subject of "inclement weather" was appropriate for Cross' visit. "The weather was awful when Susan was in town," he said. "I'm not sure if she even saw the mountains. (At her lecture) she commented that she realized the landscape could be black and white. Perhaps that worked to my advantage."

Where Behlke's three drawings are closely related, the three pieces by Klara Maisch of Fairbanks, selected by Cross for the $500 Recognition Award, seem to be by three different artists. "Natural Resources" is a valley shown in garish orange, green and purple. "Shadows" is a black-and-white etching of a bare mountain ridge. "Alaskan Collection" is a non-landscape still life study of bones, rocks, feathers and other items one might pick up on a hike.