Cultural gallery crawl

To its organizers, this Friday’s Cultural District Gallery Crawl will not be an A-to-B… To its organizers, this Friday’s Cultural District Gallery Crawl will not be an A-to-B kind of affair.

“In the process of moving from A to B you’ll inevitably run into something new,” said Veronica Corpuz, director of public relations for the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. “Much of the Cultural District is based on finding that educational or engaging performance. It’s different from just catching a movie. Entertainment is a good by-product, but we’re trying to build an appreciation for Pittsburgh’s art and artists.”

It is that educational attitude that attracted many of the galleries and stages participating in this year’s crawl, which starts at 5:30 p.m. and hits locations throughout the Cultural District. The Wood Street Galleries, one of the first stops in the crawl, is using the event to open a new exhibit called Outer Body/Inner Experiences.

“The exhibit invites viewer participation in an outer-body experience,” said Kate Little, curatorial assistant at Wood Street Galleries.

Located near the Wood Street T station, the gallery currently holds art by Airan Kang, Matt Stokes, Lawrence Malstaff, Luc Courchesne and Jim Campbell.

“We definitely use crawls like this to attract new viewers not only to our gallery but to the city itself,” Little said. “Most people see town as a 9-to-5 kind of place. They work here and then they go home. But we host events like this so that people will come back.”

Little believes the gallery crawl, the “crown jewel” of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Education Department, is one of the few programs in the city that is fully focused on art education.

“I know there are some weird cell phone art tours, where you get text messages about the different galleries, but other than that this is an area where Pittsburgh could use some improvement,” Little said. “You can’t learn about art from your cell phone.”

With a range of new venues added this year, Friday’s crawl will be one of the largest of the year. The evening begins at the JazzLive Summer Stage at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Fort Duquesne Boulevard and an outdoor block party on Ninth and Penn avenues.

At the block party, DJ Mike Canton of WYEP and DJ Nate “da Phat” Barber will spin “early soul” and hip-hop music. A local break dance crew, The Get Down Gang, will also perform.

Corpuz said the block party is going to be among the most exciting stops on the crawl and that anyone planning to attend the event should arrive no later than 7:25 p.m.

“There may just be a big surprise at the end of the block party. It’s going to end in a flash,” Corpuz said. “You don’t want to miss it.”

Another new feature of this year’s gallery crawl will be a performance by “indie/soul royalty Eric Roberson.” Corpuz said the gallery crawl show will be the first time Roberson and his band have traveled to Pittsburgh.

“We’re very excited to have landed Eric for this crawl,” Corpuz said. “We’re psyched to have him grace the JazzLive stage.”

Roberson will have some competition for best band in the crawl in Pittsburgh native and rising jazz star Chelsea Baratz. Based in NYC, Baratz has played with the likes of Christian McBride, the Roots, Soulive, Dirty Dozen Brass Band and DJ Logic.

“Our crawl has been growing over the past several years, and by this point we’ve been able to get really the best of the best,” Corpuz said. “The ultimate goal is to provide a high-quality, artful experience for both newcomers and veteran crawlers alike.”

A complete list and map of events can be found at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s website.