Rachel Eggers, Author at SAMBlog

Muse/News: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Feb 5 2018

SAM News

Kimerly Rorschach, SAM’s Illsley Ball Nordstrom Director and CEO, is featured in the February edition of Seattle Met as one of the “50 Most Influential Women in Seattle.”

The Stranger put together a list of all the best Black History Month events: SAM exhibitions Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas and Sondra Perry: Eclogue for [in]HABITABILITY both make the cut.

The Seattle Times’ Moira Macdonald recommends seeing Oscar nominees on Cinerama’s big screen—as well as two upcoming SAM Films events: “Alfred Hitchcock’s Britain” series and “David Lynch’s First Seven Films: From The Alphabet to Eraserhead.”

Local News

Seattle Sketcher Gabriel Campanario visited the new Amazon Spheres and came away underwhelmed.

The King County Council has proposed an ordinance that would involve more control over arts and cultural agency 4Culture.

Seattle Times’ Jerry Large introduces the new leader at Northwest African American Museum, LaNesha DeBardelaben; City Arts recently reported on the celebratory opening of their current exhibition, Everyday Black.

‘”Once I stepped foot in this museum, I immediately knew that this is the place for me,’ she said. ‘NAAM has so much potential and so much dynamism to it.’”

Inter/National News

The New York Times on responses from the National Gallery and Seattle University following accusations of sexual harassment against Chuck Close; ARTnews reports on Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts’ plan.

“It’s often difficult to know which way up a painting should be.” A Morris Lewis painting at the Jewish Museum is on view with a new name—and a new orientation.

Joyce J. Scott’s sculptures, quilts, and necklaces are on view in her most comprehensive exhibition to date at New Jersey’s Grounds for Sculpture; one of the exhibition’s curators is Lowery Stokes Sims, who contributed an essay to the Figuring History catalogue.

“’My work is politically and socially oriented because that’s what keeps me up at night,’ Scott added. ‘It’s important to me to use art in a manner that incites people to look and carry something home — even if it’s subliminal — that might make a change in them.’”

And Finally

What happens when an artist and her emotional support peacock simply try to get from here to there.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Photo: Robert Wade

Muse/News: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Jan 29 2018

SAM News

Big news! The project to renovate and expand the Asian Art Museum was approved unanimously last week by the Seattle City Council. Curbed Seattle was among the outlets who reported the story.

The Seattle Times names Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas as one of the “hottest Seattle events” to look forward to in February.

Local News

Marcie Sillman of KUOW on artist Christopher Paul Jordan’s banner year, which— memorably for us—included his Latent Home Zero installation at the Olympic Sculpture Park.

Margo Vansynghel of City Arts interviewed Jolyn GC, curator of Perspectives in Portraiture, a new online gallery and ongoing pop-up space at WeWork.

32 fouettés! It’s exhausting/exhilarating just watching Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Lesley Rausch prepare for their production of Swan Lake, as the Seattle Times video team did recently.

Inter/National News

Donatello was the best, but this still rules: The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition, Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer, had a totally tubular visit this week by someone who happens to share the legendary artist’s name.

Los Angeles isn’t known for its public transportation system. Perhaps the many planned improvements, and this, will help: public art for the planned Crenshaw Line by Mickalene Thomas, Carlson Hatton, Shinique Smith, and more.

“It is, of course, extremely valuable and somewhat fragile.” Guggenheim curator Nancy Spector had a better idea for a loan to the White House; instead of the requested Van Gogh, she thought they needed Maurizio Cattelan’s “America.”

And Finally

Art history classes were never like this: Drunk History presented the story of art historian/war hero Rose Valland with help from actor/life hero Tiffany Haddish. Because she likes us, Haddish also made the Oscar announcements Emmy-worthy last week.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Colored TV, 1977, Robert Colescott, acrylic on canvas, 84 x 66 in., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Gift of Vicki and Kent Logan, © 2017 Estate of Robert Colescott / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo: Don Ross

Muse/News: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Jan 22 2018

SAM News

In a ceremony at the Seattle Art Museum last Wednesday, Dr. Chiyo Ishikawa, SAM’s Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art and Curator of European Painting and Sculpture, was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters), joining a prestigious group of artists, writers, scholars, and producers recognized for fostering French arts and culture. ARTnews and Vanguard Seattle both shared the news.

The project to renovate and expand the Asian Art Museum met some important milestones in recent public hearings with the Seattle City Council. Last week, Brendan Kiley of the Seattle Times filed an update on the project.

Local News

Seattle says farewell to educator Mona Humphries Bailey, who passed away recently at the age of 85. We here at SAM were honored to have her once serve on our Education & Community Engagement Committee.

Last week’s New Yorker cover featured an illustration by Mark Ulriksen depicting Seahawk and activist Michael Bennett kneeling with Colin Kaepernick and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Alison Marks: One Gray Hair, now on view at the Frye Art Museum, was reviewed by Erin Langner for Hyperallergic.

“ . . . instigates an urgent conversation about the perspectives that are lost in a monolithic world, with questions and answers moving fluidly between the work, the viewer and the artist.”

Inter/National News

The Brooklyn Museum has announced that they’ll present a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat in a one-painting exhibition (which will then go on tour); the work made headlines last spring after it was purchased by collector Yusaku Maezawa.

Meredith Mendelsohn of the New York Times profiles artist Derrick Adams, whose exhibition opening this week at the Museum of Arts and Design was inspired by the “Green Book,” guides for black travelers published from 1936 through 1966.

Antwaun Sargent writes for Artsy about LaToya Ruby Frazier—2013 winner of SAM’s Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence Prize—who has a new show at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise in Harlem.

‘”Whenever I’m making a portrait,’ says Frazier, and its subjects are ‘looking back at me, showing their dignity and pride and humanity, they are a marker on the timeline of history.’”

And Finally

This past weekend saw the Women’s March 2.0 take over cities and towns across the country. Here’s a song for those who want to keep the party going.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Photo: Natali Wiseman

Muse/News: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Jan 16 2018

SAM News

As a farewell to Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect, enjoy this SAM video featuring Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, author of the exhibition catalogue essay that explores the importance of Wyeth’s portraits of the black community in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.

Culture Type takes a look at what’s on the horizon for African American art in 2018, including SAM’s exhibition Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas, which opens February 15.

February also brings the return of Seattle Museum Month, during which visitors to participating downtown hotels get half-price admission to area museums (including SAM!). For that, Travel + Leisure and Architectural Digest both included Seattle among their winter travel recommendations.

Local News

KUOW’s Marcie Sillman talks with artists and arts leaders Vivian Phillips, Dani Tirrell, and Tim Lennon to ask the question: can art save the soul of Seattle’s Central District?

Does this count as “art news?” I say YES: Former Zig Zag barman Erik Hakkinen is turning the basement of the Lusty Lady into a cozy cocktail bar—conveniently located across the street of the Seattle Art Museum.

City Art’s Margo Vansynghel interviews Seattle/Baltimore artist Paul Rucker, who was just named one of 20 TED Fellows for 2018.

“There’s nothing that I’ve created in the gallery that’s more horrifying than what’s outside those doors. The lynchings have not stopped, they’ve merely changed forms—from rope to guns. I created a new piece called ‘You Might be Disturbed by Images Beyond This Point.’ I’ll place it at the exit of every gallery I show at, because I can’t make anything more disturbing than reality.”

Inter/National News

Who’s a good museum employee? The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston gets a 12/10 for hiring Riley, a Weimaraner puppy, who will learn how to detect insects and bugs in order to help protect the art.

Artsy tells the fuzzy story behind the first work by a female artist to be acquired by the Museum of Modern Art for its permanent collection.

Hyperallergic interviews Daniel Weiss of the Met about its new admissions policy and how it affect visitors.

And Finally

Everyday Africa is a project that shares images of the ordinary, nuanced, and beautiful in Africa in order to combat harmful, racist clichés.

— Rachel Eggers,

Muse/News: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Jan 8 2018

SAM News

“Lust and death”? Sign us up! The Stranger’s Charles Mudede features the upcoming Ingmar Bergman film series in the latest edition of the paper.

“Look at it this way: A film like The Commuter, which must not be missed, is your fat-rich steak, and a movie like Bergman’s Through the Glass Darkly or Silence or Persona is your broccoli. You just can’t eat steak all of the time. You will die from just eating steak. You need your veggies. You can almost live forever on a diet of just films of the great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman.”

Tiffany Y. Ates featured the “redefining art history” work of Mickalene Thomas in the January/February edition of Smithsonian Magazine. Thomas will be one of three artists featured in Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas.

“Le déjeuner sur l’herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires (The Three Black Women), part of a new group exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum, depicts the subjects in a mosaic of vibrant colors, fragmented shapes, rhinestones and glittered Afros. ‘These women are so grounded and perfectly comfortable in their own space,’ says Catharina Manchanda, a curator at the museum. ‘While we might be looking at them, they are also sizing us up.’”

Local News

City Arts released their annual Future List: the “artists and trailblazers who will illuminate the year to come.” On the list are some SAM friends: Sculptured Dance alum Randy Ford and Wyeth Film Sprint fan favorite director Claire Buss.

Gayle Clemans of the Seattle Times takes note of the recent growth of galleries in homes, garages, and Airbnbs, as artists and curators try to work around rising rents.

The Stranger’s Emily Pothast features Natasha Marin (of the Reparations.me project) and her latest collaboration at CORE Gallery, BLACK Imagination: The States of Matter.

“It’s home-baked bread with butter for a stomach tight with growling. BLACK Imagination is for black people first. It’s a celebration of ourselves.”

Inter/National News

Major news: The Metropolitan Museum of Art abandons its pay-what-you-wish policy for out-of-towners, requiring those visitors to pay a mandatory admission fee of $25.

Artsy has an appropriately visual feature highlighting 25 people who defined the visual culture of 2017, including Agnes Gund, Beyonce and Solange, and da Vinci (still got it!).

Victoria L. Valentine of Culture Type recalls “the year in black art,” including Sondra Perry winning SAM’s Knight Lawrence Prize among many other moments.

And Finally

Please enjoy Moonlight director Barry Jenkins’ recent epic Tweetstorm as he watched his seatmate on an airplane watch Notting Hill.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Courtesy of Photofest.

Muse/News: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Dec 18 2017

SAM News

For those still holiday shopping, consider a Calderesque desktop mobile from SAM Shop, featured in Seattle Met’s gift guide, or give the gift of art with a SAM membership, as recommended in the Seattle Times’ Shop NW.

If you’ve got visitors in town for the season—or if you still need to check out Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect yourself!—take the recommendation of the Seattle Times and head to the museum. As they note, we’ll have extended and holidays hours through the end of the exhibition on January 15.

Local News

The Seattle Times’ Brendan Kiley highlights the difference arts funding can make, profiling local musician and student Angel Rodriguez—winner of the NEA’s first “musical theater songwriting challenge.”

City Arts’ Margo Vansynghel invites a tech worker to join her for a visit to SOIL’s new show, Tech Support, trying to understand how local tech workers might engage more with the art scene.

“I think it’s one of the most beautiful pieces of jazz ever composed.” Charles Mudede of the Stranger is 100% correct; read his interview with pianist Jose Gonzales about the story behind Vince Guaraldi’s “Christmas Time Is Here.”

Inter/National News

The New York Times features artist Alexandra Bell and her “Counternarratives” series, which examines biases in media coverage.

“Museums are living, breathing organisms,” she said. “We need to make space for other voices.” Priscilla Frank for the Huffington Post on how museum educators are dealing with “art history’s problematic faves.”

The Minneapolis Institute of Art is establishing the world’s first Center for Empathy and the Visual Arts, which aims to “to spark and nurture empathy […] to contribute even more toward building a just and harmonious society.”

And Finally

For those celebrating, have yourself a very Happy Hanukkah and a truly Merry Christmas.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Installation view of Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect at Seattle Art Museum, 2017, photo: Natali Wiseman.

Muse/News: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Dec 11 2017

SAM News

City Arts’ Margo Vansynghel interviewed Sondra Perry, winner of the 2017 Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence Prize, about her newly opened installation at SAM.

“When I meet her in the darkened gallery, she speaks softly and fast, her ideas and sentences tumbling over each other like waves without arrest. One can find a similar sense of intellectual excitement and multiplicity in Perry’s work.”

The winter edition of the Stranger’s Art & Performance Quarterly is out! Zoom in on Winter 1946, a painting from Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect, in their recurring “Anatomy of a Painting” feature.

Zagat features their picks for best restaurants and bars near SAM—hey, thanks for the tips!

Local News

City Arts on the impending closure of INCA in Queen Anne; this avant-garde gallery hosted Sondra Perry’s first solo show back in 2015.

Chiyo Ishikawa, SAM’s Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art and Curator of European Painting and Sculpture, lent her thoughts to this KUOW story by Marcie Sillman on the artistic and civic legacy of the Tsutakawa family.

City Arts names the local artists of the year in a colorful two-page spread, with illustrations by Kelly Björk.

Inter/National News

Hyperallergic reviews Mentors, Muses, and Celebrities, Mickalene Thomas’ show that’s now on view at the Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis.

“[It] is not only about looking at black women, it is about them observing the world around them and finding their place in it, and even amidst the trials and tribulations waged against them, finding ways to rejoice.”

Kerry James Marshall has designed a monumental public sculpture for Des Moines honoring the National Bar Association, the nation’s oldest network of African-American attorneys and judges.

Rumaan Alam for the New Yorker with a charming piece about bringing his children to art museums—and how they’ve changed how he sees and experiences art himself.

And Finally

Kendrick Lamar’s video “ELEMENT.” was inspired by the photography of Gordon Parks; now, the Gordon Parks Foundation presents an exhibition of the video and the works that inspired them.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Installation view of Sondra Perry: Eclogue for [in]HABITABILITY at Seattle Art Museum, 2017, photo: Natali Wiseman.

Muse/News: Arts New from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Nov 27 2017

SAM News

#AsiaNow, the blog of the Association for Asian Studies, interviews SAM curator Ping Foong about her book, The Efficacious Landscape, which won the 2017 AAS Joseph Levenson Book Prize, Pre-1900 Category.

“During a field trip with classmates to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, we were able to see a handscroll attributed to Guo Xi, believed to be painted in his style centuries after he lived. At that moment, I had a strong reaction to the imagery, causing me several nights of sleep: I was seeing the very poems about Guo Xi’s paintings, composed by Su Shi and his circle that I just read.”

Art in America reviewed SAM’s recently closed installation, Denzil Hurley: Disclosures, noting how its formalist explorations transmit a “foreboding ambiguity.”

“With the subtlest of moves, he weds abstraction to extra-aesthetic concerns: Black Lives Matter protests come to mind, with the chilling recollection that the white-clad Klan has had a presence in the state of Washington since the 1920s.”

Local News

Claudia Castro Luna has been named the 2018-2020 Washington State Poet Laureate; the poet and teacher is the first immigrant and woman of color to assume the role.

City Arts offers this helpful summary of recent leadership changes at Seattle arts organizations, including the appointments of Rachel Cook at On the Boards and Tim Lennon at LANGSTON.

Seattle Times film critic Moira Macdonald shares a nostalgic look at the city’s historic moviehouses.

“Old moviehouses, where we sit in the dark with the ghosts of generations and get lost in someone’s dream of flickering light, just might do the same. They hold our stories; they become part of our stories.”

Inter/National News

Hyperallergic exclusively shares the trailer for Beuys, a documentary about the legendary conceptual artist Joseph Beuys; his Felt Suit (1978) is currently on view in Big Picture: Art After 1945.

On December 2, artist Cai Guo-Qiang will present an explosive performance piece on the site on the first-ever human-made, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in Chicago.

Check out exciting photos from Prospect 4 Triennial in New Orleans, which includes work by 73 artists from the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean, as well as Africa, Europe, and Asia.

And Finally

8,000-year-old rock engravings reveal that dogs have been good dogs for millennia

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Muse/News: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Nov 20 2017

SAM News

Here’s Jennifer Sokolowsky of the Seattle Times on how social media is shaping art; SAM curator Catharina Manchanda speaks about the Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors experience.

For art institutions evolving with technology and visitors’ tastes, it’s a delicate balance. “In the end, it’s, ‘How do you have a meaningful experience of art?’ and the answers will depend. From a curatorial perspective, I just want to make sure that the traditional and core mission of the museum lives on,” Manchanda said.

The Stranger’s Slog revived their Short Film Fridays feature to share the winning short films from the Wyeth Film Sprint; the results are appropriately strange and sad and surreal.

SAM earned a reader’s “Rave” in the Seattle Times for Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect; they noted among the patrons “a keen concentration I’ve never seen before.”

Local News

Seattle Magazine recognizes the “Most Influential Seattleites of 2017,” including SAM friends such as C. Davida Ingram, Inye Wokoma, and the KEXP Gathering Space.

Bookend the Jacob Lawrence centennial celebrations with Woodside/Braseth Gallery’s “William Cumming & Jacob Lawrence,” which, the Seattle Times notes, “offers a chance to dig deeper into these two artists’ legacies.”

KING’s Evening Magazine visits MOHAI’s exhibit of the expressive black-and-white photography of Al Smith, which “chronicles 65 years of Seattle history, the Central District neighborhood, and the people who inspired him.”

Inter/National News

Clearly the biggest art world news recently was the dramatic and record-breaking sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi.”

Antwaun Sargent for Artsy on the recent unveiling at Princeton of a public sculpture by Titus Kaphar, which was commissioned as part of the university’s reckoning with its history of slavery. Kaphar was the inaugural recipient of SAM’s Gwendolyn Knight | Jacob Lawrence Prize in 2009.

Madrid’s Reina Sophia unveils “Rethinking Guernica,” a free website—available in Spanish and English—that offers a visual timeline of Picasso’s most famous painting.

And Finally

Hyperallergic on a forthcoming book that investigates the aspirational kitsch of midcentury album art that expressed “an era of shifting desires.”

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Photo: Installation view of Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors at Seattle Art Museum, 2017, photo: Natali Wiseman.

Muse/News: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Nov 13 2017

November 13, 2017

SAM News

In advance of next summer’s exhibition, Double Exposure: Edward S. Curtis, Marianne Nicolson, Tracy Rector, Will Wilson, Seattle Times photographer Alan Berner captured Will Wilson and his mobile tintype studio, creating works that will appear in the exhibition.

The Seattle Times featured SAM’s Art Beyond Sight program, which host free tours of the museum’s collection and special exhibitions for visitors with low or no vision.

“We are so lucky to have this. Art is hard to hear and it’s difficult to describe. But they make it come alive.”

Here’s the Stranger’s Katie Kurtz on Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect and the artist’s many secrets.

“The long artistic life of Andrew Wyeth—born in 1917, painting by 15, dead at 91 in 2009—is a portrait of a man forever wrangling with secrets. In Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect, the secrets are hidden in landscapes, anchored to weather-beaten rowboats moored in fallow fields, and etched in the bends of grass blades.”

Local News

KUOW’s “City of Dreams” project explores “why Seattle is a special place for artists, innovators and creators.” (I think it IS the rain!)

Sarah Margolis-Pineo interviews C. Davida Ingram for Art Practical about her practice, in advance of her Jacob Lawrence Legacy Residency project in 2018.

Here’s City Arts’ Margo Vansynghel on Alison Marks: One Gray Hair, now on view at the Frye Art Museum.

“The silence lengthens. It almost reverberates from the shining halls of the Frye Art Museum on a gray November morning. I’ve just asked Juneau-based artist Alison Marks (Tlingit) why she decided to name her first solo museum exhibit One Gray Hair, opening here on Saturday. All she says is, ‘Hmm.’”

Inter/National News

Check out the Holland Cotter’s review—and the big, beautiful images!—of Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer, now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Add this to your art vocabulary: digital residencies. Here’s Artnet on how Instagram “may be the hottest new exhibition space.”

Conservator to exterminator: how a dead grasshopper was found in a Van Gogh painting.

And Finally

The New York Times Magazine offers this dispatch from “one of the quietest places on earth.” Doesn’t that sound nice?

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Photo: Natali Wiseman.

Muse/News: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Nov 6 2017

SAM News

JiaYing Grygiel reviews Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect for ParentMap, with tips from curator Patti Junker and education director Regan Pro for how kids and families can enjoy the show.

“Go on a hunt for the sleeping dog, the cows, the tin soldiers on a windowsill and the portrait of Wyeth’s young son, Nicholas. Every picture is filled with characters, strong emotions—and an opportunity to tell a story.”

Art in America profiles artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas and his “Haida manga” style; a short mention announces an upcoming work planned for SAM—stay tuned for more information on that!

“An upcoming mural project for the Seattle Art Museum, titled The Carpenter’s Fin, will extend that aspiration. Scheduled for completion in fall 2018, the watercolor-and-ink mural consists of 108 sections on six panels of mulberry paper and is about twenty feet long.”

Local News

Put down that book for some good news: Seattle is officially a City of Literature. The UNESCO designation means we’ll be able to participate in cultural exchange programs with other cities in the network.

Here’s City Arts on the goals of the Artists of Color Expo & Symposium, featuring two days of speakers, panels, workshops and networking on November 17 and 18. SAM is one of many organizing partners.

Look inside the bag of Seattle Times’ Gabriel Campanario, AKA the Seattle Sketcher, who captures city life in hand-drawn sketches. I see tools…but where’s the snacks?

Inter/National News

“We have entered a new golden age of black painting,” says W Magazine’s Antwaun Sargent, noting the Obamas’ choice of portraitists and the recent prominence of black figurative painting and portraiture.

The New York Times on Kahlil Joseph: Shadow Play at the New Museum, the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York; the film is an “impressionistic collage of Harlem’s past and present.”

Art historian Linda Nochlin passed away this week at age 86; she made her name with the landmark essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” and worked for over six decades.

“I feel that in some sense, all my work is provisional: that is to say, while I believe in it very strongly, I still remain open to what I hear, learn, and experience…Feminist art history—like feminism itself—is a product of give and take, talking and listening.”

And Finally

My, my MetroCard: Some New Yorkers will get a limited-edition Barbara Kruger card the next time they ride the subway. Your move, King Country Metro.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Installation view of Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect at Seattle Art Museum, 2017, photo: Stephanie Fink.

Muse/News: Art News from SAM, Seattle, and beyond

Rachel Eggers on Oct 30 2017

October 30, 2017

SAM News

Last week, SAM announced that it has received a $3.5 million challenge grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to establish and endow the Asian Paintings Conservation Center at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. The only one of its kind in the western United States, the Center will be devoted to the conservation, mounting, and study of Asian paintings. The Art Newspaper exclusively announced the news.

Reviews for Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect continue to pour in. Here’s Margo Vansynghel for City Arts on the “sweeping yet intimate” retrospective:

“You can and you should get up close to inspect Wyeth’s technical prowess, his impossible white winter light, the finest strains of hair and the harshness of his landscapes.”

Arts writer Erin Langner shares her experience as a volunteer contributor to John Grade: Middle Fork in the fall issue of ARCADE. For the large-scale sculpture now spanning the museum’s Brotman Forum, hundreds of volunteers recreated the form of a living tree out of thousands of pieces of reclaimed old-growth cedar.

The New York Times on Nandipha Mntambo, whose sculptures made using cowhide were a highlight of Disguise: Masks and Global African Art and is now part of SAM’s collection; her solo show is now on view at Zeitz MOCAA.

Local News

Michael Upchurch of the Seattle Times on the Mary Ann Peters show now on view at the James Harris Gallery, in which she “turns her energetic imagination to the migration crisis.”

If you missed the binocular telescope that was installed over the summer at the Olympic Sculpture Park as part of Christopher Paul Jordan: Latent Home Zero, you can see it as part of the artist’s upcoming solo show at Kittredge Gallery Tacoma; City Arts’ Margo Vansynghel has the details.

And here’s City Arts on a fantastic Hillman City spot: vintage furniture shop Jacob Willard Home, owned by “walking index of design” Karl Hackett.

Inter/National News

What a difference a word makes: Hyperallergic on the stand the Charles H. Wright Museum takes when it calls the events of Detroit in 1967 a “rebellion” and not a “riot.”

Use up that vacation time: Here’s Artsy with “9 Famous Artists’ Studios You Can Visit.”

The Newseum in Washington, DC, is a “cathedral to the craft” of journalism, but it’s facing financial challenges, reports the New York Times.

And Finally

It’s not Halloween until I’ve watched this canonical internet video. Have fun tomorrow!

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Photo: Courtesy of Nick Dorman.

Muse/News: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Oct 23 2017

SAM News

Walls of Wyeths! Check out this Seattle Times slideshow by staff photographer Alan Berner. And don’t miss Michael Upchurch’s full review of the exhibition.

“Confounds expectations…lets you see Wyeth’s genius with fresh eyes.”

In his review for Seattle Weekly, T.S. Flock goes in-depth on the “critical re-imagining” found in Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect.

“This isn’t a best-of show, nor a hagiography. It’s an expansive view of the artist’s life and the lives of those around him through his work, an exhibit that will satisfy both longtime fans and first-time audiences. More important, it is a chance to have a conversation about the role of art—what agendas it has served in recent history and what wisdom may yet be found in it.”

Your daily dose of cuteness: Here’s what a day at Tiny Trees preschool at the Olympic Sculpture Park sounds like, thanks to Rachel Belle of KIRO Radio.

Local News

Seattle/Baltimore artist Paul Rucker’s Birth of a Nation Project appeared (unforgettably) at Out of Sight 2016; York College recently decided to close his Rewind exhibition to the public, citing the “potentially disturbing” work.

The Seattle Times explores the fascinating and poignant story of Centralia’s founder, George Washington, and plans to honor his legacy with a statue.

File under: “Seattle’s dramatic media landscape.” The Seattle Weekly is shifting to a broadsheet “community news” format and will employ only three staffers.

Inter/National News

What’s a “cultural experience” to you? A new study shows that shifting definitions has major implications for museums and similar institutions.

Photographer Stefan Draschan likes museums. Which is good, because it takes a lot of time for him to capture these perfect “people matching artworks” images.

The New York Times on archival record label Numero Group’s rediscovery of transgender soul pioneer Jackie Shane, who walked away from her career in 1971.

And Finally

Jerome Robbins + Chopin + Instagram = Perfection.

– Rachel Eggers, Public Relations Manager

Image: Installation view of Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect, photo: Natali Wiseman

Muse/News: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Oct 16 2017

SAM News

“See Wyeth whole and re-evaluate his stature as an artist,” says Michael Upchurch in his exhibition preview featuring an interview with curator Patricia Junker that appeared in Sunday’s print edition of the Seattle Times. Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect opens this Thursday.

“Because reproductions of his work circulated far more widely than the paintings themselves, Junker says, few people in recent years have had a chance to take true measure of his achievement. Younger people she talks to know his name, but don’t know the art. The SAM show promises to change that.”

Welcome the return of layers with SAM’s video featuring Haida artist/fashion designer Dorothy Grant talking about her exquisite Raven Great Coat, now on view on the third floor.

Local News

City Arts’ Margo Vansynghel on Pantry by Joey Veltkamp and Ben Gannon, which ran for one night only as the final show of Calypte Gallery.

“The jam became a personal metaphor for loss, and the act of making jam a means of preserving something inevitably slipping through their fingers—‘canning the memory of something that was,’ as Gannon says.”

Seattle Times’ Gayle Clemans invites you to get “[UN]contained” at CoCA’s new artist residency site held in three shipping containers; the first three artists were Anastacia Renee Tolbert, Anissa Amalia, and Edward Raub.

Darren Davis of Seattle Met interviews the inimitable Waxie Moon on the eve of his (non-singing) opera debut in The Barber of Seville at Seattle Opera.

Inter/National News

Behold, 24 newly minted geniuses. OK, they prefer to say “MacArthur Fellows.” Amongst the ranks are painter Njideka Akunyili Crosby, photographer Dawoud Bey, and two authors soon visiting Seattle.

Yes, wire hangings! The innovative wire sculptures of mid-century artist Ruth Asawa are now on view at David Zwirner. Artnet asks: why did this re-appraisal of her work take so long?

Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald will paint the official portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama for the National Portrait Gallery. They are the first black artists commissioned to paint a presidential couple.

And Finally

I think we can all agree that GIFs are an important and moving art form. Now, there’s an instant camera that creates GIFs you can hold in your hand.

– Rachel Eggers, Public Relations Manager

Photo: Natali Wiseman.

Muse/News: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Oct 9 2017

SAM News

Like the suddenly falling leaves, fall arts happenings are swirling all around. The Stranger offered their “complete guide” to the best of October—including SAM picks like Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect, the Jean-Pierre Melville film series, and the (sold out!) Diwali Ball.

Noted architect Tom Kundig leads a tour of the best Seattle architecture in this CNN Travel video; the Olympic Sculpture Park is one of his picks.

We enjoyed this Architects Newspaper salute to Denise Scott Brown on her 85th birthday; in which they share notable stories of her general awesomeness. Scott Brown—along with her partner, Robert Venturi—designed the original Seattle Art Museum that opened in 1991.

“There’s a million ways to be a woman. There’s a million ways to be a mother. And there’s a million ways to be an architect.” –Denise Scott Brown.

Local News

Watch this lovely KCTS tribute to ceramicist Akio Takamori, featuring interviews with his former UW colleagues and students, including Patti Warashina and Jamie Walker. His Blue Princess (2009) is currently on view at SAM.

“The boundary between the figurative and the abstract is erased in curious ways,” says the Seattle Times’ Michael Upchurch in this glowing review of the Frye Museum’s two new photography shows.

Farewell to Jon Rowley, the “fish missionary” whose art form was teaching us to appreciate perfect things like Copper River salmon and Olympic oysters.

Inter/National News

Author Kazuo Ishiguro was awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature. You really need to read Tacoma bookseller/Ishiguro Superfan Kenny Coble’s tweetstorm when he heard the news.

The Art Newspaper takes you inside two new recently opened museums: the Zeitz Mocaa in Cape Town and the Yves Saint Laurent museum in Paris.

What’s the most iconic artwork of the 21st century? Artnet asked experts to weigh in. Mentioned: Mickalene Thomas’s Le Déjeuner sur L’herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires, coming to SAM’s walls in February as part of Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas.

And Finally

We can now listen to ripples in space-time. (Really!)

– Rachel Eggers, Public Relations Manager

Image: Installation view of European art galleries at Seattle Art Museum, 2017, photo: Natali Wiseman.

Muse/News: Art News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Oct 2 2017

SAM News

The Stranger launched their new format last week! The art section’s lead story was on Latent Home Zero by Christopher Paul Jordan at the Olympic Sculpture Park, which closes today—so head over there!

“Equal parts historian and visionary, Jordan uses the overlapping histories of land use, urban planning, and displacement in Tacoma as a microcosm to address the whole history of black migration across the United States. ‘We’ve been everywhere,’ says Jordan. ‘Urban space, rural space, but with every generation comes a new form of displacement, mass migration, and exclusion. Take a step back, how do we take agency of how we construct our belonging away from our homeland?’”

SAM’s Art Beyond Sight tours for visitors with low or no vision were featured in the Seattle Times last week with photos from a recent tour this summer at the Olympic Sculpture Park.

City Arts gets on our level: Priya Frank, SAM’s Associate Director of Community Programs, was interviewed for the October edition of Taste Test. #Radbassador

Local News

The Seattle Times’ Michael Upchurch reviews Humaira Abid: Searching for Home at Bellevue Art Museum, noting that the sculptor “hits a new peak, combining technical prowess with fierce vision to produce charged political drama.”

Via KUOW: Prompted by their daughter’s concern, a Seattle family returned to the Sealaska Heritage Institute a Chilkat robe that hung in their dining room for years, unaware that it was a sacred clan object.

Seattle Magazine highlights Forced From Home, a traveling virtual reality exhibit at SLU’s Discovery Center this week that offers “a more nuanced understanding of the refugee crisis.”

Inter/National News

The New York Times on the Studio Museum’s superstar director/chief curator Thelma Golden and its plans for a new David Adjaye-designed building.

“’So many of the shows she did were not just great shows but reframed art history,’ said Adam D. Weinberg, the Whitney’s current director. ‘Thelma was instrumental in making possible the whole rethinking of not just African-American art but American art.’”

WIRED takes on art in the age of Instagram, asking “where do we draw the line between art and Instagram filler?”

Cabbage Patch Kids, inflatable air dancers, and Shake Shack: Just a few of the wonderful, everyday things that started out as art.

And Finally

Those production values tho! Our friends at Analog Coffee with a helpful tutorial on an art form we at SAM have perhaps overlooked.

– Rachel Eggers, Public Relations Manager

Image: Installation view of Latent Home Zero, 2017, Christopher Paul Jordan, American, Seattle Art Museum Commission, photo: Mark Woods.

Muse/News: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Sep 25 2017

SAM News

Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect was featured in the Seattle Times’ fall arts preview among the visual arts recommendations.

“This major career survey of the American artist who bucked every ‘-ism’ of the late 20th century to follow his own distinctive path in figurative art looks like a stunner. SAM curator Patricia Junker has assembled 110 works by Wyeth for the show and written an impressive-looking catalog that digs deep into the accomplishments of the painter on the 100th anniversary of his birth.”

And Seattle Met’s October print edition recommends In Retrospect as one of their picks for the month, noting the “profound emotional stakes underneath all the quotidian realism” found in Wyeth’s work.

The Seattle Times film critic Moira Macdonald previews the upcoming 40th edition of our film noir series, the longest-running in the world. SAM’s own Greg Olson is interviewed.

“’These films have so much charisma, so much dark, wicked glamour to the way the stories are told and visualized,’ said SAM film curator Greg Olson, who has curated the series since its beginnings in the mid-70s. ‘It’s kind of intoxicating.’”

Local News

Seattle Weekly’s Minh Nguyen reviews the “luminous, underrated” media art of Doris Totten Chase, now on view at the Henry.

Now at the Frye: Three photomedia collections from three different artists. Seattle Met has the details on these “unmissable” exhibitions.

Ferry over soon to the Women in Photography exhibition at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, says Crosscut. It closes there October 1.

Inter/National News

artnet News on the amicus brief signed by over 100 arts institutions that supports overturning Trump’s immigration ban; SAM signed on when it was filed several months ago.

Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas artist Kerry James Marshall is everywhere! Here’s ARTnews on his upcoming mural for the Chicago Cultural Center with portraits of 20 women who’ve influenced the city, including Oprah and Gwendolyn Brooks.

Recent things that have been inspired by Andrew Wyeth: An accessory line’s lookbook, an indie film that premiered at TIFF, and Darren Aronofsky’s latest, mother!. Something’s in the water.

And Finally

My Best Friend™ Tracee Ellis Ross answers Vogue’s 73—yes, 73—questions and is DELIGHTFUL.

—Rachel Eggers, Public Relations Manager

Photo: Natali Wiseman.

Muse/News: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Sep 18 2017

SAM News

Thump! For me, fall officially starts when I hear the New York Times fall arts preview being delivered. Featured in the visual arts listings was SAM’s exhibition opening in February, Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas—alongside a BIG image in the print edition (long live print).

Last Friday, SAM announced that Molly Vaughan is the winner of the 2017 Betty Bowen Award; The Stranger and Seattle Gay Scene shared the news. Deborah Lawrence and Ko Kirk Yamahira also won Special Recognition Awards. Join us for a free award ceremony honoring all the winners on Thursday, November 9 at the Seattle Art Museum. Vaughan’s installation premieres at SAM on April 21, 2018.

SAM Gallery’s latest show at TASTE, Immaculate Disaster Series by Troy Gua, was highlighted in City Arts.

Local News

UW’s School of Art + Art History + Design and the Jacob Lawrence Gallery announced this week that artist C. Davida Ingram is the recipient of the 2018 Jacob Lawrence Legacy Residency. Go, Davida!

This fall, the Office of Arts & Culture brings you the Seattle Center Sculpture Walk, featuring eight temporary installations—including one from our recent Emerging Arts Leader Intern, Kalina Chung. Go, Kalina!

Here’s critic Mary Ann Gwinn on Barbara Johns’ new book on artist Takuichi Fujii, who painted throughout his incarceration in Minidoka; his work will also be in an upcoming exhibition at the Washington State History Museum.

Inter/National News

Hyperallergic on We the People, now on view at the M in Minneapolis, featuring “pieces that grapple not only with American identity but with an all-out call for revolution.” Molly Vaughan is one of the exhibition’s artists (hey, we know her!).

Could be that first bit of fall chill in the air, but I enjoyed this Artnet article—inspired by a show on view at Bowdoin College Museum of Art—on the art historical roots of memento mori.

Ezra Jack Keats’s bestselling children’s book The Snowy Day has charmed generations—and now its hero, Peter, will be featured on U.S. Postal Service Forever stamps.

And Finally

Crayola debuted “Bluetiful,” its new hue inspired by chemist Mas Subramanian’s accidental pigment discovery. Bliss out on the magic of crayon-creation with this Sesame Street throwback.

—Rachel Eggers, SAM’s Public Relations Manager

Photo: Courtesy of Molly Vaughan.

Muse/News: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Sep 11 2017

As of today, Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors is closed! What a wild ride the last few months have been during this blockbuster exhibition. Now we’re looking ahead to Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect and so is the press. Take a gander at this past week’s press clippings, hand selected by SAM’s PR Manager.

*Clutches Yayoi Kusama exhibition catalogue and cries while Boyz II Men’s “End of the Road” plays*

SAM News

Seattle Times photographer Alan Berner visited during the final days of Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors and filed this dot-filled send-off. Don’t miss the cameo from our mascot, Sammy the Camel. (Why a camel? Here’s the scoop.)

SAM lands on the celebrity news beat: When Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and singer Ciara had a date night at SAM after we’d closed, the news hit Page Six, W Magazine, Artnet, Ebony, Yahoo, Daily Mail, Entertainment Tonight, Jet, and HuffPo.

Love this Seattle Times RAVE for SAM staff: A visitor lauds our “daily, herculean efforts” during the Kusama run. We couldn’t have done it without our awesome visitors!

Seattle Magazine’s September print edition features our Andrew Wyeth retrospective among their picks for “Fall’s Most Buzzworthy Arts and Culture Events.”

“’The goal was to show that this unrelenting realist evolved and changed, sometimes quite dramatically, over time,’ Junker says. ‘If you think you know Wyeth’s art from the examples we see reproduced and hanging in the well-known museums, I feel certain you will come away from this exhibition totally surprised.’”

Local News

The Seattle Times reports on The Grocery, a new “cutting-edge” arts center in a former—you guessed it—grocery store in Beacon Hill.

Also in the neighborhood: Artist Ari Glass unveiled a new installation at Beacon Hill’s Art Deco building Pacific Tower, featuring his signature gold leaf and mica elements.

This should be an amazing show: The Stranger’s A&P features the sculpture of Humaira Abid, coming soon to a solo show at Bellevue Arts Museum.

Inter/National News

The journey continues for the home of Rosa Parks, recently shipped to Berlin and restored by an American artist. The house now has a ticket back home to the US—with an uncertain future ahead.

Poet John Ashbery died on Sunday at the age of 90; did you know he was also a collage artist, who made his solo debut as a professional at the age of 81?

Pierre Bergé, longtime business partner of Yves Saint Laurent, died Friday at the age of 86. We were honored to share his legacy during Yves Saint Laurent: The Perfection of Style.

And Finally

The art of eating: Artsy with seven recipes from artists, including—wait for it—avocado toast (by Salvador Dalí, of course).

– Rachel Eggers, SAM’s Manager of Public Relations

Muse/News: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Sep 5 2017

All the news that’s fit to blog about. See what SAM’s PR Manager, Rachel Eggers, has been reading to find out what’s happening inside the museum and around the art world.

SAM News

For Crosscut, artist and writer Don Fels asks the question: “What has made Yayoi Kusama the hottest ticket in Seattle?” Don’t miss the fun time lapse video from the lines outside the museum (if only they had gone that fast!).

“It’s very fitting, almost willfully symbolic, that people are talking with one another as they stand together outside. She couldn’t have engineered delivery of her message better if she had tried, or maybe she’s been working at that very accomplishment all these years.”

Last week, SAM announced the five artists selected as finalists for the 2017 Betty Bowen Award, which honors a Northwest artist for their original, exceptional, and compelling work. The Stranger shared the news, along with Hyperallergic, Artnet, Artdaily, and The Skanner. Stay tuned for the announcement of the winner in mid-September—and for the winner’s solo show at SAM in April 2018.

Last week’s glorious Sculptured Dance event at the Olympic Sculpture Park was everywhere; dance writer Sandra Kurtz previewed it for Seattle Weekly:

“With the audience close enough to see the dust that those sneakers kick up and hear the slap of hands as they clasp in a fast turn (not to mention the mountains in the background), we get a fresh sense of a vital art form.”

The Stranger, Seattle Met and Crosscut also recommended the event; for those who missed it, helpful Instagrammers captured a bit of the evening’s magic.

Local News

Where’d You Go, Cate Blanchett? She and director Richard Linklater were spotted filming their adaptation of a famous Seattle book at the Central Library this week.

Coming soon to the airwaves of Rainier Valley: KVRU 105.7 FM, a low-power FM station serving the community.

The Mayor’s Arts Award winners were announced last week; CityArts reported from the sunny ceremony at Seattle Center.

Inter/National News

MoMA curator Sarah Suzuki and illustrator Ellen Weinstein teamed up to create a children’s book starring Kusama as the heroine.

Prepare for the film/art connections to be explored in Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect with this Artsy round-up of 17 artists and the films that influenced them.

The perfection of style: The New York Times files this inspiring slideshow of street style from the recent Afropunk Festival in Brooklyn.

And Finally

The project that’s achieving “a sense of shared destiny and common civic purpose” with one of my favorite things: LISTS.

– Rachel Eggers, Manager of Public Relations

Image: A pop-up performance during Summer at SAM by The Purple Lemonade Collective during Sculptured Dance at the Olympic Sculpture Park on August 31, 2017. Photo: Robert Wade.

Muse/News: Arts news from SAM, Seattle, and beyond – August 28

Rachel Eggers on Aug 28 2017

We love keeping an eye on contemporary artists once featured at SAM as they continue to make their mark. Also this week: dancing + statues + late Seattle summer.

SAM News

With the departure of Thomas Campbell at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and calls for the first woman director to be hired, Artnet names 11 woman art museum directors who could take on the job, including a familiar name.

“Go expecting a bit of a squish—and have a wonderful Seattle summer evening,” says the Seattle Times’ Moira Macdonald about this Thursday’s Sculptured Dance event.

Artsy highlights eight artists who are revealing the radical possibilities in knitting and crocheting—including Haegue Yang from SAM’s 2015 exhibition, Paradox of Place: Contemporary Korean Art.

Here’s Hyperallergic on the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art exhibition Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today, the first US exhibition of abstract art created exclusively by women of color; SAM’s 2015 Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence Prize-winner Brenna Youngblood is included.

Local News

The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture announced last week that funding has been increased for its Cultural Facilities Fund, which supports capital projects for arts and cultural organizations (hurray!).

Inter/National News

Jets to Marfa! This October, Solange will perform in Marfa, Texas, in front of Donald Judd’s “15 Untitled Works in Concrete.”

Now streaming on Netflix: Kino Lorber’s collection “The Pioneers of African-American Cinema.” Learn more and watch a video about the restoration process.

Artnet collects the thoughts of 12 art historians and scholars on the debate over what to do with Confederate monuments.

And Finally

Put my thing down, flip it, and reverse it: A Portsmouth, Virginia resident has an idea for his town’s Confederate monument: replace it with one of Portsmouth native Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott.

– Rachel Eggers, Manager of Public Relations

Image: A visitor takes in Haegue Yang’s Female Natives series in Paradox of Place: Contemporary Korean Art, Photo: Mark Woods.

Muse/News: Arts news from SAM, Seattle, and beyond

Rachel Eggers on Aug 21 2017

Let’s get to it! Here’s Rachel Eggers, SAM’s PR Manager with your weekly round up of the art news you need to read.

SAM News

#InfiniteKusama, indeed: The New York Times reports that Yayoi Kusama will open her own museum in the Shinjuku neighborhood of Tokyo; SAM’s exhibition is mentioned.

“Winter is always,” says Forbes, as they reference Game of Thrones and feature a gallery of chilly images from SAM’s upcoming Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect.

“Surprises abound. Historically, Wyeth’s style was called mechanical and unremarkable, but this does not seem so of the diaphanous curtains in the windows of his houses, or the feathers he captures floating in the air on a stormy day.”

Here’s Artsy on the resurgence of shamanic practices in contemporary art; Saya Woolfalk, whose ChimaTEK: Virtual Chimeric Space from SAM’s Disguise exhibition was recently acquired for the SAM collection, is included.

Local News

“…a joyful and awkward water ballet titled ‘Ankle Deep’ in the kiddie wading pool at Volunteer Park.” How local artist Briar Bates wanted her death commemorated.

In the Seattle Weekly, comic artist Tatiana Gill illustrates the life of Seattle civil rights legend Reverend Dr. Samuel B. McKinney (now 90 years old!).

The Seattle Times reviews exhibitions in Tacoma and Auburn featuring work by Northwest Coast indigenous artists.

Inter/National News

All 16 of the artists, authors, performers, and architects on the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities resigned last Friday in protest of Trump.

Canadian Art profiled Claudia Rankine and a recent lecture she gave in Banff on white supremacy in art and how institutions can respond to it.

Now on view at the Princeton University Art Museum: paintings by Howard Russell Butler (1856-1934) depicting solar eclipses before photography could capture them in detail.

“While a Navy officer stood by with a stopwatch, Butler worked in 10- or 20-second blocks as he drew the outline of the corona, assessed the colors of the sky and moon, and sketched the contours of the gaseous prominences that bloomed from the eclipse’s edge. Only then did he begin to paint.”

“I don’t know that a person enjoys ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ so much as submits to it.” Celebrate today’s celestial event here.

– Rachel Eggers, Manager of Public Relations

Image: Laara Garcia performs in Saya Woolfalk’s installation ChimaTEK: Virtual Chimeric Space during SAM’s 2015 exhibition, Disguise: Masks and Global African Art.

Muse/News: Arts news from SAM, Seattle, and beyond

Rachel Eggers on Aug 15 2017

Another week, another story… Or try 10. Here’s Rachel Eggers, SAM’s PR Manager with your weekly round up of the art news you need to read.

SAM News

SAM’s Next Top Model: In a recent edition of the Seattle Times’ ShopNW, Kusama swag from SAM Shop was featured—and modeled by SAM’s Public Programs Coordinator, David Rue.

Following a visit to Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, Loney Abrams of Artspace leads a tour through each Infinity Mirror Room. SAM’s Jon and Mary Shirley Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Catharina Manchanda, shared some fascinating details about Kusama’s connections to Seattle.

“’Initially, she thought she wanted to go to Paris because up until World War II, Paris was the center of the art world,’ SAM’s curator Catharina Manchanda tells Artspace. But then, Kusama stumbled upon a painting by Georgia O’Keeffe—and everything changed. She went to the U.S. embassy in Tokyo, got a mailing address for O’Keeffe, and sent the artist a stack of drawings with a letter asking for advice on how to get to the United States. ‘At the same time, she also wrote to Kenneth Callahan, a member of the school of Northwest Modernists in Seattle,’ says Manchanda. ‘Luckily, Callahan wrote her back a welcoming letter and introduced her to Zoë Dusanne, an art dealer in Seattle who offered her an exhibition.’ So, Kusama moved to Seattle, and the rest is art history.”

Seattle Weekly profiles SAM’s three-times-a-year event Remix, now in its tenth year. Members of SAM’s Education department—Regan Pro, Philip Nadasdy, and David Rue—are quoted throughout along with choreographer Dani Tirrell, who presented excerpts from the forthcoming Black Bois in this edition:

“’My experience with SAM has been one that they are always pushing conversations forward,’ he told Seattle Weekly. ‘They bring in art and artists that are relevant to the times we live in. SAM does not shy away from things that may make people uncomfortable, and I think that is how they are able to engage with what is taking place in Seattle.’”

Local News

Seattle Times’ Gayle Clemans reviews the Frye’s current exhibition, Storme Webber | Casino: A Palimpsest, for which the artist aimed to “indigenize the gallery.”

ICYMI: Here was Emily Pothast’s Seattle Art Fair wrap-up in the Stranger earlier this week.

And here’s Margo Vansynghel for CityArts on BorderLands, on view through October 29 at King Street Station (go!).

“With such poetic, poignant offerings, BorderLands deals with nationalism, allegiance and resistance. The most arresting works on show tackle the flippant use of language—words often thrown around carelessly since last Nov. 8. What do these signifiers mean to the people who saw their land stolen, to the new arrivals in a nation of immigrants and, finally, to the art world? Some of the most impressive works on view—including Feddersen’s and Kahlon’s—ultimately question the enduring complicity in a system that feeds and sells us a too-easily digestible and unchallenged story about identity.”

Inter/National News

BuzzFeed News announced AM to DM, its new morning show to be livestreamed on Twitter. Hosted by Saeed Jones and Isaac Fitzgerald, you will need to watch it (ideally with avocado toast).

The New York Times’ Holland Cotter reviews the Pulitzer Arts Foundation’s Blue Black exhibition; curated by artist Glenn Ligon, it includes works by Kerry James Marshall, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and David Hammons (all represented in SAM’s collection).

A new study reveals that your Instagram “may hold clues to your mental health.” (Wait, was does excessive use of the Amaro filter mean??)

To those who fret about the state of arts journalism, I present TV’s catchiest theme song (I warned you) finally getting the deep dive it deserves.

– Rachel Eggers, Manager of Public Relations

Image: David Rue, SAM’s Public Programs Coordinator, is still in the running towards becoming SAM’s Next Top Model, photo: Natali Wiseman.

Muse/News: Art News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

Rachel Eggers on Aug 7 2017

Welcome to our newest blog series, Muse/News—your weekly recap of what’s happening in art news at the Seattle Art Museum and across the world. Check back Mondays for updates on the artists and events making headlines around the world. With the Seattle Art Fair come and gone over the weekend, there’s plenty to digest and our PR Manager, Rachel Eggers delivers the scoop here in a perfect bite size. Enjoy!

All was fair in the city this past week as the Seattle Art Fair breezed into town for the third year in a row. What initially seemed an ambitious experiment is quickly becoming a welcome mainstay of the Seattle cultural calendar.

SAM News

Chiyo Ishikawa, SAM’s Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art and Curator of European Painting and Sculpture (phew!) has been named Best Curator in Seattle Weekly’s annual readers’ poll. We’re glad everyone loves her as much as we do. Congrats, Chiyo!

Loved this substantial dive into the tensions of “selfie obliteration” in the Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors exhibition by Erin Langner for ARCADE.

“…Kusama’s inclination to control and present her own image in the 1960s seems well ahead of its time. Accepting the way images are consumed, she chose to control the construction, proliferation, and obliteration of hers rather than allowing someone else to do so. Some of her true self was left out in the fiction of the performance. But, she also ensured the performance was conveyed the way she envisioned it. To this end, maybe taking selfies, in an Infinity Mirror Room or elsewhere, can have meaning when done with similar intent—when they give us the chance to perform and let go of ourselves at the same time.”

Local News

Emily Pothast of the Stranger offered compelling thoughts on the fair and offered her five don’t-miss highlights.

SAM staff got out and about this weekend; check out tips for the Seattle Art Fair from SAM’s Chiyo Ishikawa in Crosscut and David Rue in CityArts.

Michael Upchurch of the Seattle Times recently reviewed the Henry show on local sculptor Doris Totten Chase (looks groovy!).

Inter/National News

Are you “here for the right reasons”? The New York Times visits a rose-filled one-night show. After the recent casting call here, maybe we’ll see a Seattleite embark on the “journey” next season (ugh, you know you’ll watch again).

Artist Julie Mehretu, represented in SAM’s collection, is working on a monumental commission for the San Francisco MoMA; her paintings “are trying to make sense of where we are in our country right now.”

“What should one do when faced with images of violence?” That’s the question writer and critical theorist Sarah Sentilles took up this week for the New Yorker. She appears tonight at Elliott Bay Book Company to discuss her new book, Draw Your Weapons.

– Rachel Eggers, Manager of Public Relations

Photo: Chiyo Ishikawa, SAM’s Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art and Curator of European Painting and Sculpture, dresses the part while considering Kusama’s multiverse.