Happy anniversary to Roq La Rue! Kirsten Anderson opened the art gallery in 1998 and it has survived several different iterations, from the scrappy dive space in Belltown to its current slick digs in Madison Valley. It even closed for a minute back in 2016, before Anderson opened Creatura House in 2017, but she brought Roq La Rue back in 2018 and it has managed to persevere through COVID and Seattle's not-always-welcoming-to-artists evolution ever since. Appropriately, Anderson is throwing two parties to celebrate the gallery's survival. The first is this weekend's 25th Anniversary Group Show, which opens Saturday night and features work from some of the best artists seen in Roq La Rue through the years, including Madeline Von Foerster, Peter Ferguson, Lori Earley, Alessandra Marie, Hannah Flowers, Travis Louie, and Femke Hiemstra (who is also this week's Stranger Artist of the Week). DJ Marvelette will be there and Anderson is printing up limited-edition merch designed by some of her artist pals. The celebration will continue this fall with another group show in October, but more on that later. Let's focus on the here and the now. Viva Roq La Rue! by Megan Seling