Muse/News: Museum Gifts, Unique Bonsai, and Emotional Maps

SAM News

Lee Carter for Artnet on Calder: In Motion, The Shirley Family Collection at SAM, sharing reflections from collectors Jon and Kim Shirley about Alexander Calder’s art and why they wanted to gift their collection to SAM.

“Ultimately, it was important to keep the Alexander Calder pieces together, all at SAM. ‘Museums are great public institutions,’ said Shirley. ‘For years we have lent our Calders to exhibitions in other parts of the country and around the world. It’s clear to me that museums are where they belong and we should work as hard as we can to make museums vital institutions.’”

The Stranger includes SAM Gallery’s Printing the PNW show on their list of “best bang for your buck” events. We can’t say it better than them:

“After peeping legendary Edo-period Japanese ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai’s woodblock prints, paintings, and illustrated books (yes, including Great Wave, plus a LEGO interpretation of it) on view at Seattle Art Museum, why not drop by SAM Gallery to scope out Japanese-inspired prints created by local artists?”

Local News

“Cinerama — ahem, SIFF Cinema Downtown — is back”: The Seattle Times’ Moira Macdonald reports from the reopened theater.

Crosscut’s Brangien Davis’s latest ArtSEA post bids farewell to Wier Harman, recommends Black Nativity at Intiman Theatre, and spotlights some solstice events. 

Here’s NW Asian Weekly on Irene Taylor’s new HBO documentary about a unique 82-year-old bonsai that lives at the Pacific Bonsai Museum.

“… its seeds were sent to Japanese American Juzaburo Furuzawa during his internment under Executive Order 9066 in World War II…The Furuzawa Pine gained international attention in February 2020 when it was stolen from the Pacific Bonsai Museum, only to be mysteriously returned less than 72 hours later.”

Inter/National News

Revisit “The Defining Art Events of 2023,” courtesy the editors of ARTnews.

The Art Newspaper offers this remembrance of sculptor Richard Hunt, who passed away at the age of 88. 

“A World Map With No National Borders and 1,642 Animals”: The New York Times’ Natasha Frost on cartographer Anton Thomas’s “Wild World.”

For Mr. Thomas, this equates to a kind of “emotional geography,” where features with greater emotional heft — the New York City skyline, say, or the Golden Gate Bridge — may take up more space. “There are animals the size of mountain ranges on my map,’ he said. ‘But you know what? The African lion should tower over Kilimanjaro, if we’re drawing an emotional map.””

And Finally

What is a solstice, anyway?

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Installation view of Calder: In Motion, The Shirley Family Collection, Seattle Art Museum, 2023, © 2023 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo: Chloe Collyer.

Muse/News: Support for SAM, Intiman’s Next Stage, and Lost Art Found

SAM News

Looking out from a place that looks out: The Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig considers Louise Bourgeois’s Eye Benches at the Olympic Sculpture Park.

“It’s a dreamy experience to sit on the back of an eye. A surreal proposition that makes your observations of people, sky, park, and mountain so literal.”

Last week, the Seattle arts community received very welcome news: The Friday Foundation has gifted $9 million to nine organizations in the Seattle arts community, including the Seattle Art Museum. The foundation honors the lives and legacies of the late Jane Lang Davis and Richard E. Lang, inspired collectors and supporters of the arts. The Seattle Times and KUOW both announced the news.

Local News

For International Examiner, Danielle Quenelle reviews two Pioneer Square shows: Lakshmi Muirhead at J. Rinehart Gallery and Humaira Abid at Greg Kucera Gallery.

Crosscut’s Agueda Pacheco Flores reflects on how the pandemic has changed her role as an arts writer, and how she’s witnessed the resiliency of Seattle’s arts scene.

Intiman Theatre has a new home after eight nomadic years; it will become theater-in-residence and leader of a new program at Seattle Central College. The Seattle Times’ Brendan Kiley reports on the unique arrangement.

“‘If you look at the mission of the Seattle colleges and the mission of Intiman, they are so well aligned,’ [Sheila] Edwards Lange said. ‘I hope this will change the face of theater not only in our city but across the country.’”

Inter/National News

“A work you may not know—but should.” Artnet’s Katie White with a close reading of an oil pastel by Hollis Sigler. Another work by the feminist artist is currently on view at SAM in the installation, On the Edge.

Deana Lawson has won the Guggenheim Museum’s Hugo Boss Prize, reports ARTnews. She is the first photographer to win the $100,000 award.

Thrilling news: One of the five missing panels from Jacob Lawrence’s Struggle series has been found. Visitors will be able to see the newly discovered panel along with the others when SAM presents The American Struggle next spring.

“Last week a friend of mine went to the show and said, ‘There’s a blank spot on the wall and I believe that’s where your painting belongs,’ ” she continued. “I felt I owed it both to the artist and the Met to allow them to show the painting.”

And Finally

Jam not to scale.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Eye Benches I, 1996-1997, Louise Bourgeois. black Zimbabwe granite, 48 3/4 x 53 x 45 1/4 in., Gift of the artist, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum, 2005.113.1-2 © Louise Bourgeois, photo: C.E. Mitchell

Muse/News: Reimagined museums, reflective art, and the many rhythms of Cuba

SAM News

Last week, SAM announced that the Asian Art Museum will reopen to the public on February 8 and 9 with two free 12-hour days of programming, reflecting the 12 themes of the dramatically reimagined collection. The Seattle Times broke the news.

Natalie Ball: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Snake is reviewed by Bean Gilsdorf in Art in America. It’s also the cover story in this week’s edition of Real Change, with a feature review by Lisa Edge inside.

“Ball’s creations are freighted with symbolic messages, composed in a language that conjures both ancestral tradition and contemporary identity.”

“While audiences may not understand all the references she’s included, she wants them to connect with it emotionally. ‘I want them to feel it,’ Ball said. ‘I want it to pull or tug.’”

Building bridges! Centering joy! Priya Frank, SAM’s Associate Director for Community Programs, is one of Puget Sound Business Journal’s annual “40 Under 40” leaders.

Local News

Last week, we shared coverage of an internal battle at Intiman Theatre. This week, the organization has agreed on a plan for its future.

Seattle Met’s Stefan Milne has some thoughts on the five gallery shows to see this month.

The Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig gets reflective in Carrie Yamaoka’s recto/verso at the Henry Art Gallery.

“It’s representation in the purest of senses, in that you can literally see yourself in her work—not an abstracted label of your body, say, or your identity, but your body and your identity.”

Inter/National News

The new MoMA opens on October 21, and press have had their sneak peek. Here’s thoughts from the New York Times and Vulture; CBS Sunday Morning will visit this week.

Can he collect it? Yes he can! Artsy chats with Q-Tip about his art collection, now on view at Bonham’s in New York.

It’s one of those beautiful New York Times interactives, this time taking us on a road trip across the many rhythms of Cuba.

“Cuban music is often described as a tree, with various primary roots that supply life for many branches. But separating the island’s music into distinct genres is an inherently flawed task — they intertwine and cross.”

And Finally

A swan song (or 10) from Jessye Norman.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Muse/News: Baroque drama, soap bubbles, and Colescott’s good trouble

SAM News

Are you ready for DRAMA? SAM’s trailer for the major fall exhibition is here in all its glory. Flesh and Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum opens October 17; both Seattle Met and Seattle Magazine recommend it.

Jeffrey Gibson, whose solo show Like a Hammer graced SAM’s walls earlier this year, is officially a genius. He, along with 25 other noteworthy doers, was named a MacArthur Fellow last week. Congrats, Jeffrey!

Local News

The Seattle Times’ Brendan Kiley reports on the conflict within Intiman Theatre between the board and staff, as the organization again comes under threat. The Stranger’s Rich Smith also reported on the rumblings.

The Frye just opened three new shows. Seattle Met’s Stefan Milne loved Pierre Leguillon: Arbus Bonus, calling it “direct, elegant, inquisitive, multitudinous.”

And the Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig loved Unsettling Femininity, their first thematic show from the founding collection that explores male and female gazes—and one ensorcelling soap bubble—amid newly lavender walls.

“It’ll last forever. It’s been here since before my grandparents were born and will be here for longer than my grandchildren. This bubble with outlast my life as a symbol of how my own life is fleeting. Amongst all that oil paint!”

Inter/National News

GRAY Magazine’s Tiffany Jow on Andrea D’Aquino’s new collage book on Ruth Asawa, which explores the artist’s fascinating personal history. It’s directed at readers age 5-8—but I think you’ll want a copy, too.

Reggie Ugwu of the New York Times reports on last week’s unveiling in Times Square of Kehinde Wiley’s bronze sculpture Rumors of War, of a man and “the horse he rode in on, from a previous century, perhaps, or was it a future one?”

Artnet’s Taylor Dafoe reviews Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott, now on view in Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center. Lowery Stokes Sims and co-curators grapple with his amazing work—and his underappreciated status.

“He misbehaved,” she explains matter-of-factly. “He did not conform to any of the canonical ideas about painting, about depictions, about points of view—he just misbehaved and we’re all better for it.”

And Finally

It’s been a month. Farewell, September.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Atalanta and Hippomenes, ca. 1620–1625, Guido Reni, Italian, 1575–1642, oil on canvas, 75 9/16 x 103 15/16 in., Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte.
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