We know the organizational and performative sides of Occupy Wall Street, via endless YouTube and news footage of its consensus-based general assemblies, marches and confrontations with the Man. Many have started picking up on the radio broadcasts streaming out of Zuccotti Park to more and more speakers across the nation and around the world.
Now, like the underground comics, agitprop art and avant-garde filmmaking that blossomed from the antiwar and pro-progressive movements of 40-some years back, the visual side of 99 percent politics is about to begin emerging. And as with so many contemporaneously countercultural things in the Hudson Valley, it will get its first local outpouring at the Varga Gallery in Woodstock, where the next big show on view is an open-call “Break on Through: On the Occupation, in the Tradition, for the Transition” exhibit set to open this coming Friday, November 11, from 11:11 a.m. to 11:11 p.m.
What will we be seeing in the salon-style, near-chaotic space next door to Upstate Films on Tinker Street in the town that old hippies seem unwilling to forget? According to Christina Varga, gallerist and artist, expect plenty of humor and passion, long memories of past battle lines and cosmic interpretations of present times in terms of surreal situations: in other words, another wild Varga art show, in keeping with the Gallery’s history of stimulating shows drawing out our region’s connections to former East Village art scenes or newer hip-hop influences, while introducing plenty of new talents alongside veteran art-world refuseniks.
Adding a bit of tabloid outlawism to the new show will be a solo room exhibition by Mikey Teutul of the American Chopper television series. “Be part of something huge,” La Varga says of it all, in her inimitably catchy way.
Varga Gallery is located at 130 Tinker Street in Woodstock. For further information call (845) 679-4005 or visit www.vargagallery.com for further information.
Join the family! 
