Blue Genie Art Gallery — The best place you’ve never been

You don’t need a T-shirt to tell you Austin is a weird city, made up of many weird places. Most of my personal favorites revolve around either pizza or videos, or rather they did until last month, when a musical quest gone awry sent me and some friends to visit the Blue Genie.

Hidden in a parking lot in East Austin, behind a herd of sleeping panel trucks, is a small warehouse studio with a nifty theater attachment that has been serving as both art gallery and musical venue, for a variety of small performances and displays that will have any hipster feigning utter apathy. The first time I stumbled upon it was in the last gasps of South by Southwest—me and my crew of partyheads had been pinballing all over Austin the better part of the night in search of some super-secret Beastie Boys show that had been the subject of many eager whispers throughout the festival, but luck was not to be had. Still scratching our heads at a quarter to eleven, we stopped for fuel, booze and ice cream, and found our consolation prize at Waterloo.

Another slightly less secret but still hush-hush after-party was taking place at midnight, across town at some magical starry point on the flyer-map marked “Blue Genie.” Imagine our surprise after a fast fifteen minutes east, coming upon a queue of cars all waiting to turn into a Goodwill parking lot. But once we made it to the back it became clear this was the place: looking down on us from above was a smiling blue giant right out of Walt Disney’s worst flashback, waving us in to where Blackalicious was waiting to rock mics all night. As a venue it felt small without being cramped, and all of the art on the walls added a more personal, more intimate touch—it felt like you had just wandered into your buddies’ garage to listen to them flow.

My second encounter with the Blue Genie began unexpectedly as well, after getting a pinkslip via instant message at a job I’d lost no love for. When I got home my roommate led me back across town so that we could glance in wonder at Frederick the II’s Lost Wunderkabinet, a themed artistic “event” put on by the design juniors of UT. The theater had been transformed into a gallery for the works of fictional post-modern artist Frederick the II, a gathering of lost “wunders” of the technology rush, the age of the ad.

The ephemeral viewing environment of Frederick the II’s Lost Wunderkabinet playfully alters perception of perspective and scale by deconstructing advertisements and redefining the interaction between society and the billboard, while offering interventions to facilitate alternative communication.”
—Frederick’s flyer

On display were mock ups of billboard apartments, Game Boys and Nokia phones trapped in preservative jars on shelves, and a rotating Ferris wheel of cupcakes over by the keg. Keeping with the theme of changing perspectives, the DJ kept finding ways to drop obscene rap vocals into the electric lounge music that was keeping the groove. He was followed by local bands the Weird Weeds and the Narrow Escapes. I ended up leaving with a renewed sense of wonder at the everyday miracles of modern living, at least until my cell phone dropped a call later that night. Now it’s art, too.

If you’re planning an event, want to show off your work, or need to order a custom-made work of genius, the Blue Genie is your place.