Back at the tail end of the year 1999, I was working a temp job on the assembly line at the Starbucks roasting plant in the same town that I went to high school in, Kent, Wa.  The mass production of burnt “artisan” coffee was one thing, but the announcement that the company had purchased a shitload of new stores all around the planet each and every fucking day, and that there was no possible way for us to realistically ever catch up with those goddam orders–especially during the holiday season–but that we just needed to keep pushing along regardless, was really a sign of the times.  The year 2000 was swiftly approaching and suburbanites everywhere were buying jugs of water and smart pop because we were all supposed to be mercilessly doomed soon, due to an oversight causing a glitch in digital computer systems known as Y2K.  Whether the world was supposed to turn into a variation of the sepia-toned pseudo-zombie infested dystopia of Billy Idol‘s “Dancing with Myself” video or something closer to the Bladerunner-esque leanings of his Cyberpunk album, I’m not exactly sure.  Needless to say, Y2K  bug never truly arrived or affected anything substantially, and the new millennium started just like the last one ended, except that it felt like nobody was sure what to do next, without the tragedy to keep them occupied.  Boy band trite had finished off the last decade’s airwaves and something new had to happen culturally, or from some direction, but what?  We still had the same stagnating styro-foam society that we had before and, while there didn’t seem to be much optimism in the air, at least the impending doom just days before was something.  It unified people, even if it was through paranoia.  It created some level of action, even if that action was running in circles.  And it provided a focus, even if that focus was consumer-based.  What now?  What now indeed.  Looks like we’re gonna actually have to deal with the real issues… or not.

I used to wake up to go to that wack-ass job around 5am, but, on Monday nights (I believe it was Mondays), I’d ignore my need for sleep, staying up to listen to the Grateful Dead hour on the radio anyway.  I’d wake up in an incredible daze and try to pull myself together.  One morning I turned on the TV to discover that, while most people were fast asleep, the most incredible stuff was being played on television: old black and white mid-century videos about utopian futures and technological prospects.  More specifically, I saw little industrial films about something which would retain my affinity ever since: retro futurism, and even more specifically, kitchens of the future.  A woman in an apron and Donna Reed dress spinning around in a kitchen with a transparent dome on the counter, futuristic contraptions abound; I fell in love with all of it.  I’d get up every morning excited to see if something like that was on the airwaves and start my day off with the dreams of a past generation, which never came true, and it inspired me, regardless.  In fact, I even just received a book on retro-futurism as recently Christmas.  Even after the atom bomb blew the fuck out of Japan, there was still a great deal of optimism prior to the Vietnam war and the 1960s.  Technology was viewed as a positive and the type of industry and wonderful future that it would bring to us seemed inevitable.  Hell, even with the unprecedented number of deaths brought about by WWII, the industry created from it still helped to end the depression.  Industry was good.  The future was good.  Everything was good.  Yeah… by the time the new millennium came, we were a very different nation and a very different society.  When’s the last time that you heard a prediction about the distant future that didn’t involve a goddamn apocalypse?  That seems to be our inevitability now, a Mad Max-ian world of deserted highways an rape-crazed savages dressed like the Legion of Doom or sunburned zoo animals drowning in urban melted ice cap lagoons.  It was only a mere few weeks ago that the world was looking to an ancient Mayan calendar for signs that we were all going to be wiped off the face of the Earth, but what actually happened?  Nothing.  Again.  Nothing was destroyed, but nothing was fixed either.

For their latest group exhibit I’ll Love You ‘Til The End Of The World, Seattle‘s preeminent underground contemporary/pop surrealist art gallery, Roq La Rue, has implored their high caliber contributors to ask a slightly different version of the question, “What if?”  What if the “apocalypse” doesn’t come?  What if we can’t shake things clear like an Etch-A-Sketch, declaring bankruptcy on this planet and start from scratch, 40 days of rain cleansing it pure?  What if we actually just have to move forward with whatever we have and figure it out for ourselves… or not?  How will the future look?  Is there a new dawn ahead of us full of prosperity and good fortune, or does everything just continue to get increasingly more depressing?

On display until February 2nd, the show launches tonight, Friday, January 11th, with an opening night reception from 6-9pm with “music and libations” provided.  Among the list of contributing artists are such impressive world renowned, gallery favorites as Travis Louie, Scott Musgrove, Marco Mazzoni, and Nicola Verlato.  If you can make it to the opening, make it to the opening.

The following information comes via the official press release for the event:

Roq La Rue Gallery is pleased to present a group show for it’s first exhibition of 2013. Entitled “I’ll Love You Til The End Of The World”, the show theme is inspired by the musician Nick Cave’s song of the same name, as well as a rumination of the idea of “apocalypse”. Rather than focus on a dystopian wasteland, we are focusing on the idea of the apocalypse never happening (like our most recent predicted one last December!) and instead exploring what it means to have to keep going forward living with what humans have wrought with no civilization shattering clean slate. What comes next, a true apocalypse or a new golden age?

Check out preview images for the exhibit below the following event details…

WHAT:

Roq La Rue Presents – “I’ll Love You ‘Til The End Of The World“
Group Show

WHEN:

Opening:
Friday, January 11th
6pm-9pm

WHERE:

Roq La Rue Gallery
2312 2nd Ave
Seattle, Wa 98121

ADDITIONAL INFO:

Opening is ALL AGES w/NO COVER
Exhibit will be on view until February 2nd.
The gallery is open from 1 – 6pm from Wednesday – Saturday.
Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/487061948003544/

[click images to enlarge]

John Brophy

” Forever Yours “

oil on panel in ornate gold frame
11″ x 14″

Nicola Verlato

” Car Crash 10 “

oil on canvas
24″ x 36″

Laurie Lee Brom

” The End Of Her World “

oil on canvas in ornate dark wood frame
20″ x 24″

Martin Wittfooth

” Eschaton “

oil on canvas in large wood frame
36″ x 48″

Scott Musgrove

” Greg and Steve, On Vacation “

oil on panel in wood frame
25″ x 40″

Camille Rose Garcia

” Meet Me At The Last Place Of Earth “

acrylic, mica, pencil on paper in ornate black frame
11″ x 14″

Sarah Dolby

” Glory “

oil on canvas in ornate dark wood frame
20″ x 24″

Jane Kenoyer

” The Last Library “

oil on canvas in ornate wood frame
24″ x 30″

Marco Mazzoni

” Tertium non Datur “

color pencil on paper (two images in one frame) matted in simple black frame
24″ x 30″

Jean-Pierre Roy

” Hazard Us For Prophecy “

oil on canvas
38″ x 38″

Sail

“arrows, let flown each to each. (inhale, exhale)  “

ink on paper matted in simple black frame
11″ x 16″

Eric Fortune

” World’s Collapse “

acrylic gouache on paper (matted in aged wood frame under glass)
19″ x 27″

Travis Louie

” Yeti and Dodo “

acrylic on board in glossy black ornate frame
16″ x 20″

John Brosio

” Bride In Headlights “

oil on canvas in ornate black frame
14″ x 20″