“I believe great art helps us see the world around us a little differently and can often provide a sense of purpose and fresh perspectives.”
– Paul G. Allen
Right now SAM has a Botticelli hanging in its galleries! The Madonna of the Magnificat by Sandro Botticelli is part of a series of paintings on loan from the Paul G Allen Family Collection that is rotating. Botticelli’s Madonna expands on our current exhibition Flesh and Blood: Italian Masterworks from the Capodimonte Museum.
Widely known as the co-founder of Microsoft and a philanthropist, Paul G. Allen also had a lifelong interest in visual art that is reflected in his collection that spans centuries, genres, and media. A Cultural Legacy: A Series of Paintings from the Paul G. Allen Family Collection showcases singular masterworks that connect to works in SAM’s collections and special exhibitions.
The first painting in the series was Large Interior W11 (after Watteau) by Lucien Freud. This intimate, insightful group portrait exemplifies the 20th-century British painter’s distinctive style—one that invites us to “see the world around us a little differently.” The future featured work is White Rose with Larkspur No. 1 by Georgia O’Keeffe, which will be on view in 2020 in time for Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstract Variations to open at SAM on March 5.
Image: The Madonna of the Magnificat, ca. 1483–87, Sandro Botticelli, Italian, 1444/45–1510, tempera on wood panel, 24 3/4 in., Allen Family Collection.
We partnered with our friends at Seattle Opera to bring you a double dose of all things Baroque. Here is “Vidit suum dulcem natum” from the Stabat Mater by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi performed in front of Guido Reni’s painting, “Atalanta and Hippomenes,” on view at SAM right now as part of “Flesh and Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum.”
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi studied in Naples and premiered all but one of his operas there. This piece, Stabat Mater, was composed in 1736. An example of Guido Reni’s more Baroque approach to painting that developed during his time Naples, “Atalanta and Hippomenes” was completed between 1620–25 and is visiting Seattle Art Museum from Naples. Enjoy this video of these Baroque works of art together before you visit SAM to see this and other important Italian paintings in person. Let this opera set your mood!
“Flesh and Blood” offers a rare opportunity to experience the fierce beauty of art from the 16th and 17th centuries. Renowned Renaissance artists such as Titian and Raphael join Baroque masters including Artemisia Gentileschi, Jusepe de Ribera, Guido Reni, and Bernardo Cavallino to reveal the aspirations and limitations of the human body and the many ways it can express love and devotion, physical labor, and tragic suffering. You have until January 26, 2020, to see this exhibition.
Last week, Gina
Siciliano—the author I Know What I Am:
The True Story of Artemisia Gentileschi—gave a My Favorite Things tour at
SAM, and Crosscut’s Brangien Davis recommended it in last week’s
“Things to Do”. If you missed it, don’t despair: there’s still
plenty of time to experience Gentileschi’s masterpiece, now on view in Flesh and Blood:
Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum.
Local News
The Seattle Times’
Paul de Barros on Seattle
jazz club The Penthouse, which presented A-list performers in the
’60s. Now, archival recordings from the club will be released on November 29.
Real Change’s Lisa Edge on the mixed-media work of Jite Agbro; her work Deserving is on view at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art (BIMA).
“Within the piece,
I was more mindful of my steps because of the way the mesh was ever so slippery
beneath my boot. I became aware of a slight unease at being so close to a
skylight I’d admired from the concrete floor below.”
Inter/National News
Paul Laster writes about Do Ho Suh’s work for White Hot magazine, including past presentations at SAM and his theme of displacement. The artist’s Some/One will be a centerpiece of Be/longing at the Asian Art Museum.
Here’s Max Duron of
ARTnews on the
hiring of Denise Murrell as associate curator at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art; Murrell’s work will overlap the modern & contemporary and
European painting departments.
“From our
conversation, Gates seems to envision a city-sanctioned and -funded memorial.
‘I want to believe that the city is open to it,” he said. “I believe Samaria
has the right to ask the city to receive this sacred space.’”
This etching by Francisco José Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828), titled Foolish Extravagance, is part of series titled Los Disparates (The Follies) from 1815/16–1823/24. Completed by an artist who lived through the oppressive Spanish Inquisition, among other sociopolitical events, each print from the series variously address themes of foolishness, misrepresentation, abuse of power, and fear.
Disparates was published posthumously in 1864 by The Royal Academy of San Fernando, from the 18 (of 22) plates in their possession. When The Royal Academy first produced this edition, they did so under the title Los Proverbios, sending scholars on a quest to match the prints with their respective proverbs. Later proofs by the artist—with handwritten titles beginning with the word “disparates”—shifted their meaning: these images were not illustrative of proverbs, but rather of follies. In the time since, the series has evaded clear interpretation, and “any promise of clear symbolic meaning that these things might offer is empty.”[1]
In Foolish Extravagance, four
bulls twist, jerk, and careen one on top of another, seemingly free-falling against
an amorphous black background. Offering little information, this black void
heightens the sense of disorientation and absurdity that the image conveys.
Lacking any rationalism that would be signaled by a horizon line, or other
compositional cues, this and other etchings from Los Disparates evidence an absence of reason and coherent meaning.
– Elisabeth Smith, SAM Collection & Provenance Associate
Image: Foolish Extravagance, 1815, Francisco José Goya y Lucientes, aquatint and etching, 8 5/16 x 12 3/4 in., Manson F. Backus Memorial Collection, 35.133
If you haven’t heard, Artemisia Gentileschi’s renowned painting Judith and Holofernes is currently hanging at SAM as part of Flesh and Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum. This particular painting by Gentileschi has gotten a lot of attention in recent years as discussions of representation of women in the arts as well as rape culture have become part of mainstream media. A graphic novel, I Know What I Am: The Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschiby Gina Siciliano was recently published by Seattle-based Fantagraphics. This Pacific Northwest illustrator and author conducted research for seven years to offer a picture of Italy’s cultural climate in the 17th century as well as an unflinching look at Gentileschi’s life whose artistic success and documented rape trial have cast her as a feminist hero in her time, one that we can still learn from today.
After giving a talk on the Contemporary Resonance of Artemisia Gentileschi at the opening of Flesh and Blood with Chiyo Ishikawa, SAM’s Deputy Director for Art and Curator of European Painting and Sculpture, and Estelle Lingo, Professor of Early Modern European Art at University of Washington, we wanted to learn more about her enthralling graphic novel. Done entirely in ballpoint pen, the book is an education in world history that is full of drama, tragedy, and passion. Italian artists in the 1600s don’t seem too hesitant about stabbing each other. Read below for more information on this talented author, feminism, and the figure of Gentileschi. If you’re planning to visit the exhibition to see Gentileschi’s painting, come on Thursday, November 21 and take a tour of the galleries with Gina!
SAM: What drew you
to Artemisia? When did you realize you were making a book-length work?
Gina Siciliano: I knew immediately that I was going to make a
graphic novel about Artemisia, right when I was introduced to her work in art
school, and then when I first saw the Judith painting in the Uffizi back in
2007. When I was ready, I broke the story into three parts and dove in, piecing
her life and times together in chronological order. Initially I wasn’t going to
extend it all the way to the end of her life, but I changed my mind. I decided
to make a full biography because I sensed a lack of older women characters in
movies, novels, comics, media, and our culture in general. It feels like once
women reach a certain age they’re just thrown out of the picture or relegated
to stereotypes, and it became important to rise against that.
What’s one piece of
information that got you really excited when you found it?
There were so
many exciting discoveries throughout this process, it’s very difficult to
choose just one example! When Jesse Locker’s book came out in 2015 that
completely changed the third part, and also when Elizabeth Cohen wrote about
the recently discovered handful of letters written by Artemisia and Pierantonio
to Francesco Maria Maringhi around 1620. They haven’t been entirely translated
into English, but Cohen revealed snippets of Artemisia’s writing in English,
and it was intense and wonderful to get a sense of Artemisia’s voice at that
point in her life. I got chills reading about her breakdown after the death of
her children and during her harrowing journey back to Rome. I rearranged that
whole section of the book after that. I’m also currently very excited about
Sheila Barker’s new scholarship on Artemisia.
But if I had to
pick the most exciting discovery of all it would be the 1647 revolt of
Masaniello! Rosario Villari’s book on the subject was a landmark for me, and
since there’s so little information in English I read his book several times,
taking extensive notes. I was struck by the Neapolitan people’s desperation,
and the way they repeatedly rose up violently against severe oppression and
corruption. I was startled to learn that Artemisia survived a ten-month
revolution, and it had barely been mentioned in my sources at all.
There seem to be
many versions of Artemisia’s life. The details of female life were not much
documented at the time so how did you decide to present the version of her life
that you did?
The goal was to stay as historically accurate as possible and invent as little as possible. I was influenced by Alexandra Lapierre’s approach. She spent five years doing research in various Italian archives, then strung together the holes in the information—the gaps in history—with fiction. Rather than project my own agenda onto Artemisia or use her story as a jumping-off point for my own artistic expression, I wanted to find out as much as I could about Artemisia—how she felt, how she lived, how she interacted with others. I see her as inseparable from Italian history. I wanted to re-create her world, and then put her into it. The goal was to put her life and work into context, not take her out of context. That being said, of course, bits of myself and my own outlook slipped in all over the place. But I included a big notes section, to show the reader that we’ll never know exactly what happened—all we can do is continue to discuss how we come to conclusions, how we piece together history based on a variety of sources, ideas, and perspectives. My version of Artemisia is based on academic research, as well as my personal, emotional connection to her work.
What about the
decorative symbols and icons in the full-frame character illustrations?
Each one of these
full-page portraits is comprised of Renaissance and Baroque symbolism, and also
my own impressions. Each one has its own mood, based on the character’s role in
the story. Some of these people—Caravaggio, Orazio, Artemisia, Galileo, the
Duke of Alcala, Masaniello—we know quite a bit about, so I had a lot to work
with. For example, Masaniello was a fisherman, so there are fish surrounding
him, Galileo has a diagram of the Copernican view of the cosmos above him, etc.
For these people, I used images of them from their own time to re-create how
they looked. But other figures—Loredan, Arcangela Tarabotti, Tuzia Medaglia,
Giovanni Battista Stiattesi, Artemisia’s daughters—are more mysterious. I had
to do more inventing and cobbling together whatever scraps of information I
could, to show what they might’ve looked like.
There isn’t space here to describe all the symbolism, but I’ll give a few examples: Artemisia’s daughters are shown with large, rounded, upright vessels—a common Renaissance symbol for chastity and sexual purity, whereas a spilled, horizontal vessel was a symbol for sex and impurity. The Duke of Alcala is surrounded by fig trees—lush and full of fruit—a Renaissance metaphor for sexuality again, in this case, male virility. Pierantonio stands below two bull skulls, alluding to his being a cuckold (Loredan’s epitaph about Artemisia on page 224 claims that she carved the horns of a cuckold for her husband). The glowing candles foreshadow Pierantonio’s later night-time swordplay. The characters with close ties to the Medici—Francesco Maria Maringhi, Christine of Lorraine, Maria Maddalena of Austria, Galileo—all feature the Medici’s famous logo/crest—a group of small, round, fruit-like balls. Loredan’s portrait is surrounded by water since he serves as an introduction to Venice, and below him is the logo of his famous academy (the Incogniti)—the mysterious Nile River, the source of which was still unknown at the time.
Can we have a
feminist hero and still have context and historical time and place?
My book is meant
to present a loud and enthusiastic YES to this question!
Will you talk a bit
about proto-feminism?
This is
essentially an earlier version of feminism. To me, the best biographies don’t
idolize or sentimentalize the subject, nor do they gloss over the
inconsistencies and contradictions of a person. Rather, they go deep into
history and analyze their subject’s position, and all the potential factors
that made them who they were. I love Paul Avrich’s writing about anarchists for
this reason. I’m also reading Lily Tuck’s wonderful biography of Elsa Morante.
Elsa Morante was an incredibly independent Italian woman, one of the first to
wear pants! At the same time, Tuck mentions how Morante chastised another woman
for having hairy armpits and sometimes scorned the feminist movement. I tried
to be open to these types of contradictions when writing about Artemisia too.
There’s reason to believe that Artemisia was a militant Catholic who didn’t
always treat her servants very well. But she also wrote about the disadvantages
she faced as a woman, she refused to let Agostino Tassi (the man who raped her)
off the hook during the trial, and we know that she worked within the same
circle as the Venetian Libertines who talked a lot about the roles of women
(the querelle des femmes). We can judge Artemisia by the standards of her own
time, and we can judge her according to the standards of our time. I think
there’s room for both.
Proto-feminism didn’t look like our modern first-, second-, or third-wave feminism. There wasn’t a political movement, it was more social. There was an ongoing intellectual debate about women and plenty of writing about women’s rights. Most of the early modern feminist writers made their point by listing numerous examples of virtuous women from the bible and ancient history and mythology, as these were the touchstones of Italian humanist and Counter-Reformation thought. Sometimes they listed contemporary examples too. But, as powerful as these lists of women were, they also conformed to the proper (men’s) definition of honorable women. Even the most outspoken feminists of the time, like Arcangela Tarabotti, used only the most chaste, angelic examples of women to argue for women’s rights. But she was trying to refute the prevailing notion that women’s sexuality was toxic, out of control, and evil (Eve and the original sin, remember?). Her argument that women are inherently pure and chaste seems weird to us (like we don’t even get to have our own sexuality?), but in that intensely Catholic environment it makes sense. That’s only one aspect of her writing, and I would argue that her feminism is still important.
Likewise, we can see that the powerful Medici women—Christine of Lorraine and Maria Maddalena of Austria—were, like most queens and noblewomen, arranging marriages within their courts to solidify their family’s (and their own) wealth and power. But this doesn’t negate the radical way in which they intervened to prevent domestic violence, and their attempts to give women some say in who they would marry. That meant a lot within a society where marriage had very little to do with choice, especially among the upper classes.
At first glance,
Artemisia’s world looks like a grim, unrelenting, misogynist hell hole, but
when we look closer and dig deeper, we can see that women (and men) were
pushing back against the status quo in all kinds of ways. The fact that so many
powerful men got behind Artemisia, aided her career, and continually bailed her
out (Orazio, Francesco Maria Maringhi, Cassiano dal Pozzo, Galileo, etc.) also
says a lot. These men probably saw her as an exception to the norm—an
exceptional woman—rather than seeing women collectively as equals. Artemisia
probably saw herself as an exception to the norm too, and probably capitalized
on that to a certain extent. But I still think the roots of feminism lie in
these early attempts to widen the expectations of what women were capable of.
Plus, there’s still so much we don’t know. Feminist scholars are trying to
bring a lot of buried, unknown, misattributed, and misrepresented women’s
writing, art, and music to light. This is an ongoing process, an ongoing
discussion.
What is your
favorite Artemisia painting?
Oh geez, I don’t know! I guess the second Judith Slaying Holofernes in the Ufizzi. There’s just nothing else like it in the world.
– Chelsea Werner-Jatzke, SAM Content Strategist and Social Media Manager
Images: Gina Siciliano, I Know What I Am: The Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschi. Seattle, Fantagrahics Books, 2019.
“And there’s
something else about being close to it, the actual object, which Gentileschi
made with her own hands, just as Judith carried out Holofernes’s death with her
hands. A Google image search doesn’t cut it. The power of the painting—and the
perspective given through it—must be experienced in the flesh.”
“There’s a lot that
the visitor can’t see that is just as important: all the infrastructure that
makes this historic jewel a thoroughly modern museum, equipped to safely
display delicate artworks,” [SAM Director and CEO Amada] Cruz said. “The reimagined
building will allow us to better fulfill our mission to connect visitors to the
art and cultures of Asia.”
Margo Vansynghel
debuts as an official Crosscut writer covering arts and culture with this look
at the
pushback from some in the film community to Seattle City Hall’s new
“creative economy” strategy.
The Stranger’s Rich
Smith reviews
Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Locally Sourced, which closed this past
weekend. He mostly loved it.
“It was all a
liiiiittle on the corny side, I must admit, but it was hard not to get swept up
in this impressive celebration of our green-gothic corner of the world.”
ARTnews announced
that Ashley
James has been hired as associate curator of contemporary art at the
Guggenheim Museum. She is the first Black curator hired to the museum’s staff.
“[An earlier show]
also unveiled an important new body of research revealing an unknown
relationship between the two artists, who first met in the early 1930s and,
despite having a 20-year age difference, formed a strong bond, writing to each
other often about their artistic creations and arguing over the return of realism
after World War II.”
Artist
James Castle was born in Garden Valley, Idaho in 1899. The fifth of seven
children, he was born deaf, and spent his whole life unable to speak, read,
write, or sign. Castle started drawing at the age of six, leading to a lifetime
of creativity with art serving as his own personal form of communication.
In
1931, Castle moved with his family to Boise, Idaho, where Castle remained until
his death in 1977. There was much that was unconventional about the artist:
largely self-taught, his primary drawing materials included soot from the
family woodstove, mixed with his saliva, which he would apply to an upcycled piece
of cardboard (e.g. a milk carton) with a found utensil, oftentimes a sharpened
stick. His drawings were heavily influenced by the environment he lived in, and
were sometimes a mix of highly realistic and abstract imagery. He also drew
many scenes from the family’s previous homes, which are believed to be
recreated from memory.
Though
Castle was seemingly content to produce artworks for himself and his family, in
1951 his nephew shared some of the drawings with his art professors in Oregon,
who immediately expressed interest. Thus began a new stage of Castle’s life, in
which Castle’s work continuously garnered more attention, culminating in an
exhibition of his works at the Boise Art Museum, the highest honor he achieved
during his lifetime.
Today Castle is considered one of the most recognized self-taught artists. Two Totems with Man No. 56, in SAM’s collection, was produced using stove soot and saliva to make charcoal, which was then applied using a matchstick to a found salvaged piece of cardboard. As with many of the artist’s pieces, it has a knotted string hanger. A more abstract example of Castle’s oeuvre, the meaning behind the totems in Two Totems continues to evade scholars, although it is a motif Castle returned to often. Even so, with this and other works, we are able to gain valuable insight into how Castle viewed the world around him.
First things first, no rollerblading and don’t sell vape juice in the galleries.
Seriously though, we want you to have a great visit to SAM and with Remix (SAM’s late-night, creative night out that is definitely not a party) coming up on Friday, November 15 (tickets are still available, FYI), Weird Dog Productions is here to help outline how to behave at our museum.
Don’t touch the art, leave your selfie sticks at coat check, stay hydrated at the water fountains, and you’ll be an art influencer in no time. And remember, the Seattle Art Museum appreciates you!
Ask of Naples, and you will likely receive a description comprised of contradictions. A sprawling Italian city at the foot of towering Mount Vesuvius. A dense metropolis bordered by open sea. A vibrant place with a violent side to its history. Visitors to SAM through January 26, 2020, will become familiar with Naples through the exhibition Flesh and Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum. Drawn from the collection of one of the largest museums in Italy—dramatically situated in a former palace, atop a hill overlooking Naples—the exhibition brings together renowned artists of the High Renaissance and Neapolitan Baroque periods as it explores the intersection of physical and spiritual existence.
Naples
has historically been claimed by a range of ruling powers, including the
Spanish Empire for two centuries, beginning in 1503. At this time in Rome
Alessandro Farnese was building a monumental collection of works by Italian
Renaissance masters, including a powerful portrait of himself as Pope Paul III
that he commissioned from Titian in 1543, which is on view in Flesh and Blood.
This art collection was ultimately inherited by Charles of Bourbon, who brought
it to Naples when he assumed power over the city in 1735.
“I
am struck by the way that Neapolitan artists seem to collapse the distance
between heaven and earth. This was also my sense of Naples itself—the sea, the
dense city, and the hills are all squeezed into a narrow space, so you get the
most amazing visual juxtapositions,” says Chiyo Ishikawa, Susan Brotman Deputy
Director for Art and Curator of European Painting and Sculpture. Juxtapositions
are also pronounced in the development of the chiaroscuro style of painting
that became a signature of the Baroque era.
In the early 17th century, a uniquely Neapolitan school of painting emerged. Among the school’s founders, was Naples native Battistello Caracciolo (1578–1635), whose stunning painting, The Virgin Rescuing Souls from Purgatory (1622–1623) presents a group of figures—saintly and earthly alike—against a darkened background that at once feels confined and infinite. Also featured prominently is Jusepe de Ribera (1591–1652), a Spanish painter who relocated to Naples in 1611. Like many of the works in this exhibition, his dramatic portrayal of Saint Jerome and the Angel of Judgement (1626) echoes the vivid contrasts of Naples, eternally oscillating between an enthralling light and a violent darkness. Visit Flesh and Blood to develop your own sense of Naples.
Images: The Virgin of the Souls with Saints Clare and Francis, 1622–23, Battistello Caracciolo, Italian, 1578–1635, oil on canvas, 114 3/16 × 80 11/16 in., Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte. Pope Paul III, 1543, Titian, Italian, 1488/90–1576, oil on canvas, 44 3/4 × 34 15/16 in., Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte. Saint Jerome, 1626, Jusepe de Ribera, Spanish, 1591–1652, oil on canvas, 105 1/8 × 64 9/16 in., Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte.
Entrepreneurs and professionals from Hong Kong founded the Washington Greater China-Hong Kong Business Association (WGHKBA) in 1994. WGHKBA’s core mission involves facilitating business and social interactions to enrich people’s lives who hold similar interests, while also increasing awareness of Greater China and Hong Kong’s contemporary issues. WGHKBA’s vision is to bolster successful transpacific partnerships and economic development between Greater China, Hong Kong, and Washington State.
This year, WGHKBA has graciously chosen the Seattle Asian Art Museum as the beneficiary of their 2020 Chinese New Year Gala. This year’s gala will also honor SAM’s Director Emerita, Mimi Gardner Gates, for her passion for the arts and for her creation of the Gardner Center for Asian Art and Ideas. Each year, WGHKBA’s lunar new year celebration gathers over 900 guests, and this year’s gala includes a Luly Yang runway fashion show, traditional Lion Dance performance, and many other once-in-a-lifetime experiences. The gala will be held at the Seattle Sheraton Hotel on Saturday, February 8, 2020.
WGHKBA’s Chairman, Benjamin Lee, commits countless hours
each year to put on this gala. He shares, “The Seattle Asian Art Museum is an
organization I admire and respect, so I’m very excited to help support the
museum. I always like giving back to Asian-related causes, so we provide a good
platform to help our community reach out and support.”
If you would like to be a part of WGHKBA’s Chinese New Year Gala, please visit the WGHKBA website for ticket and sponsorship information.
Oracle-bone script (jiaguwen) is a form of Chinese writing that emerged during the Shang Dynasty—dating from the 14th–11th century BCE—and is considered the earliest known form of systematic Chinese script.
Some of the oldest oracle-bone inscriptions were short texts
inscribed on the flat shoulder blade bones of oxen and shells of tortoises.
Such bones were used for divination, a process which involved the inscription
of a question with a bronze pin—lending the script its characteristic angularity—and
then heating the bone to reveal cracks, which would be divined for answers.
The symbols used eventually became words, which were later developed
into a Chinese script that is recognized today as part of China’s long
tradition of calligraphic arts. This work by Rao Zongyi, titled Couplet, utilizes the ancient script,
brought to life for a contemporary audience.
Rao—a poet, calligrapher, painter, and scholar of the humanities—produced
the couplet in 1971 while a visiting professor at Yale University. Composed by
Rao, the poem describes in red ink a kun-style operatic performance by Chang
Ch’ung. Together the two scrolls read: The
wind makes the snow dance amidst the sunlight, the music hangs like clouds on
her garments.
– Elisabeth Smith, SAM Collection and Provenance Associate
Yesterday, SAM rolled out an exciting new era for members! With new digital membership cards we are reducing plastic and paper waste, increasing convenience, and saving museum resources, allowing us to put more of your membership contribution towards connecting art to life. All while offering the same great benefits—now available through your smartphone wallet.
It may take several days for you to receive the email with your digital membership card. Dual members and higher, you may not receive your second card at the same time. If you do not receive your digital membership card by Monday, November 11, please contact us.
Remember, using a digital card is an option! You can continue to use your plastic membership card or we can always verify membership status at the Ticketing Desk when you present your photo ID.
What do you need to know now that SAM membership has caught up with the digital age? Check out our FAQ!
When the Seattle Asian Art Museum reopens next year, visitors will experience the museum’s renowned collection of Asian art in a whole new way. Most of the original galleries will showcase the museum’s collection, while the building’s new gallery—housed in the expansion—will focus on rotating special exhibitions. SAM’s curatorial team saw the renovation process as an exciting chance to rethink how visitors engage with the Asian art collection. “How often does a museum go offline and move everything out?” notes Foong Ping, Foster Foundation Curator of Chinese Art. She continues, “This was an opportunity to dream a little bit.”
The curators convened groups of scholars and community advisors to explore approaches to displaying SAM’s artworks. Moving away from the chronological and geographic organization of most museums, they took a thematic approach instead. Each gallery of Boundless: Stories of Asian Art, the new collection installation, focuses on a theme central to Asia’s diverse arts and societies, ranging from worship and celebration, to visual arts and literature, to clothing and identity. For instance, a gallery titled Spiritual Journeys brings many objects together, from a Pakistani Bodhisattva, to an Indian Stupa, to a Chinese demon, to explore spiritual imagery through unifying ideas such as spiritual guides and guardians. The reinstallation provides an experience of great diversity and a broad context within which to engage with artworks.
Boundless also presents varied voices and perspectives on artworks to offer visitors a wide array of approaches to appreciating SAM’s collection. Along with traditional curatorial texts, artists and Seattle community members also offer their perspectives. The Color in Clay gallery presents a large selection of ceramics from China as well as vibrant works from Vietnam to Iran in a natural light-filled gallery without any contextualizing text. Monitors with more information will be available, but Foong’s hope is for visitors to be immersed in looking closely at subtle differences in tones and textures in the clay and the glazes. “I’m particularly excited about this display because it represents a completely different experience than we’ve ever had at the Asian Art Museum,” she says.
The first special exhibition Be/longing: Contemporary Asian Art also draws primarily from the museum’s collection. It brings together works by 12 artists born in different parts of Asia—Azerbaijan, Iran, India, Thailand, China, Korea, and Japan—who have all lived outside of Asia and are exploring their Asian heritage from global perspectives. Be/longing features Some/One by Do Ho Suh—a sculpture so large that we were previously unable to exhibit it at the Asian Art Museum. SAM’s Curator of Japanese and Korean Art Xiaojin Wu explains, “Some/One is an imposing work that compels the viewer to think about identity and our relationship with society—issues we all care about.” Positioning Some/One alongside works by other contemporary artists, visitors will encounter its powerful resonance in a new exhibition, a new gallery, a new building, in the new year.
“Throughout the
exhibition, we are reminded of how art — much like a pitcher of wine or a human
body within the paintings — is a vessel for meaning and message. Gender, race,
class, age, ability and size play roles in communicating these meanings, in
ways that feel historically remote, intimately resonant or disappointingly
familiar.”
Seattle Magazine’s Gavin
Borchert writes up an
exciting new SAM commission; Carpe
Fin, a “Haida manga” mural by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, is now
on view downtown.
“The mural conveys
a vitally timely moral—a warning about the dangers of human disconnection from
the natural world.”
“Conservators
approach art from a unique vantage point, intimately located between science,
art, and museum politics. ‘We’re kind of in an ivory tower, but we’re looking
at the front line.’ Nicholas Dorman explains.”
Local News
Lisa Edge of Real
Change reviewsIconic Black Women: Ain’t I a Woman, now on view at the Northwest
African American Museum.
And Crosscut’s Agueda
Pacheco Flores visits
the Sea Mar Museum of Chicano/a/Latino/a Culture, which is now open.
“The new museum
draws attention to an often overlooked slice of Washington state history, which
includes major Mexican American contributions to agriculture, railroad
transportation and civil rights. It also breaks ground as the first museum in
the Pacific Northwest to highlight the Mexican American experience in this
region.”
Also
in California: Fires.
Artnet traces the threats to the Getty Museum and Charles M. Schulz Museum.
The New York Times’
Robin Pogrebin on a
new Bill Traylor show at David Zwirner, with proceeds mostly going
toward the Harlem Children’s Zone.
“’There is
something terribly natural, terribly right, about having the Bill Traylor
collection turn into money for his progeny,’ he added, referring to the Zone’s
students. ‘I think he would have been — or he is — delighted about that. And I
am, too.’”
Two
identical, white clocks sit on a scale. One—reading 12:15—appears the heavier
of the two, sitting ever so slightly below its counterpart at 12:04. Of course,
the minute discrepancy (pun intended) between the weights of the two
clocks—correlating with their respective times—is impossible, but the power of
the photographic image lies in its ability to convince us otherwise.
Ever
a master of the conceptual punchline, photographer Kenji Nakahashi plays with our
interpretation of time and its assumed objectivity. His longstanding interest
in the documentary value and, again, assumed objectivity of photography—a
time-based medium—is also at play, and clearly inextricable. In his
characteristically understated way, Nakahashi tackles the subjectivity of both
time and photography in one fell swoop.
Born in present-day Ibigawa, Japan, Nakahashi moved to New York City in 1973, where he lived until his death in 2017. His time in Japan was formative, but living and working in the United States is where Nakahashi developed a robust studio practice centered on everyday objects and materials. This is when he began turning the mundane—such as two clocks and a scale—into a source of poetic beauty, conceptual rigor, and humor. For Nakahashi, such small observations and actions became an important activity that allowed him to render the world anew.
– Elisabeth Smith, Collection and Provenance Associate
“Vulnerability” has been a bit of a buzz word ever since Brené Brown’s TED Talk, “The Power of Vulnerability.” Having watched Brené’s TED Talk and read one of her books, I value vulnerability a lot, but being vulnerable myself can still feel fairly nerve-wracking. So when the other Emerging Arts Leader Intern and I were asked to lead a My Favorite Things Tour, little did I know that the next 10 weeks would also include a road trip down vulnerability lane.
When I first heard about
the tour, I thought this tour would remain in the realm of theoretical,
academic concepts. To be fair, a large part of the process involved researching
the history behind each piece, utilizing resources from SAM’s libraries
(thanks, Traci, Jordyn, and Yueh-Lin!), and meeting with curators (thanks, Pam
and Chiyo!). But along with the historical research, our mentors and
colleagues, Rachel, Seohee, David, and Priya (thank you all!), encouraged us to
delve vulnerably into our stories and weave them into each piece.
Because of this, I began asking myself some questions about my story, including being mixed race. For a while, I’ve been nervous about my voice because being mixed race often feels like a grey area between two distinct points of view and voices in society. But as I worked on the tour, each of our mentors and countless people shared their time, insight, stories, and vulnerability to help me process, ask deeper questions, and craft the content of the tour. Without them, the tour and this blog post would look entirely different.
Not to mention, I’ll
always cherish the times the other Emerging Arts Leader Intern, Cat, and I
practiced nearly 50 versions of our ever-evolving tour with each other. Because
our tours delved into more personal topics, we became each other’s support and
cheerleader through a lot of ups and a few downs. Together, we also arranged
informational interviews with staff across many departments, assisted at events
like SAM Remix, DragonFest, and Summer Institute for Educators, and attended
department and equity team meetings. I learned so much from working with Cat
(miss you!) and love the ways in which SAM values and integrates
collaboration.
Throughout this entire internship, I’ve learned so much about museums, equity work within museums, and about myself. The interdisciplinary focus provided the opportunity to learn about many of the departments that comprise SAM. All throughout and above the galleries, it’s inspiring to see how many dedicated individuals play a role – from fundraising to checking coats to communicating with the press to leading student tours—to make SAM the museum that it is.
I also learned a lot
about equity work in museums that I didn’t know before. I’ve realized that it’s
not enough to know some terms or read some papers or books, but it takes the
vulnerability to ask myself the same questions within these papers. And it
takes the bravery to answer these questions honestly.
SAM gave me a safe space to ask questions and come from a posture of growth and progression rather than perfection. More than ever, I’ve learned how crucial and empowering it is to connect with people who share both similar and different experiences. The ways that SAM strives for equity within education, programming, exhibitions, staff, and every part of SAM is inspiring. SAM is opening up dialogue, asking themselves, and others, critical questions, and aiming to lead and learn with each step towards furthering inclusivity and equity. SAM taught me that it takes vulnerability and guts to genuinely look at equity within ourselves in order to implement equity institutionally and beyond.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who made this internship so special. And guess what? I’m so grateful, honored, and thrilled to continue on with SAM’s amazing Development Team as a Campaign Assistant! See you around!
– Lauren Farris, SAM Campaign Assistant & 2019 Emerging Arts Leader Intern
The Stranger’s Jasmyne
Keimig reviews
Robert William’s The Father of Exponential Imagination, now on view at
the Bellevue Arts Museum.
“A technically
skilled draftsman, Williams’s works are often psychedelic, depicting an
alternate, surreal reality. Jaws unhinge so that the tongue can become a sort
of beast to ride, Tarzan-like men wrestle with aliens, and hungry spirits reach
toward burgers covered in demons.”
“As difficult as it
can be to trace the stories and power plays behind objects, presenting a
permanent collection involves the even more daunting task balancing what
curators want to say with what they can, given the strengths and weaknesses of
their museums’ holdings. One current trend is to structure displays
thematically. When the Seattle Asian Art Museum reopens in February 2020, for
example, its installation will use works from different times and places to
explore such common concerns as identity and worship.”
Marc
Chagall was a prolific artist, producing numerous pieces in a variety of media.
Renowned for his richly colored, idiosyncratic style of painting that weds
abstraction and Cubism, some of his lesser-known masterpieces revolved around
the theater. Chagall’s relationship with the stage began in 1911, when he
worked on set designs for the Ballets Russes. He continued to contribute to
Russian-based stage designs throughout the ‘20s, before moving to Paris in
1923.[1] While
this was an artistically productive period for Chagall, the Nazi occupation of
France made living in Paris unsafe for the artist, who was Jewish. With the
assistance of organizations working to extricate artists and intellectuals from
Europe, Chagall and his wife immigrated to New York for the duration of World
War II, arriving in the United States in 1941.
In
1942, Chagall was hired by the Ballet Theater of New York to design the ballet
costumes and sets for a new play. Based on the poem “The Gypsies,” by Alexander
Pushkin, the ballet Aleko featured music
by Tchaikovsky.[2]
The ballet follows the story of Aleko, the protagonist who falls in love with a
Romani girl named Zemfira. Their love is not everlasting, however, and by the
fourth act Aleko kills Zemfira and her new lover in a fit of jealous rage. While
Chagall had worked on set designs before, this was the first time he applied
his skills to a ballet. He ultimately designed four backdrops—one for each act—and
over 70 costumes. While the ballet’s production was to be completed in New
York, union rules forbade Chagall from painting his own sets. As a result,
production moved to Mexico City, an environment which greatly influenced
Chagall’s designs. Heavily inspired by both Russian folklore and Mexican art
and architecture, Chagall produced beautifully whimsical hand-painted ballet
costumes and backdrops, including numerous design studies.
Chagall’s
Study for Aleko’s Horse is one such
study, merging images from both the second and fourth acts of the play. The
study’s rich, vibrant colors and whimsical subject matter capture the dynamic
and psychological aspects of the story. In the second act, which revolves
around a lively carnival, Aleko and Zemfira are still in love. By the fourth
act, Aleko dreams of strange and nightmarish fantasies, with images that twist
and swirl before his eyes. Aleko’s nightmares take him to the brink of insanity—and,
jealous and enraged, he kills Zemfira, in love with another man.[3]
The juxtaposition of these two scenes represents the dramatic turn of events, synthesized
in Chagall’s study as a densely layered, colorful dreamscape.
Image: Study for Aleko’s Horse, 1953-56, Marc Chagall, Oil on canvas, 18 × 24 in. (45.7 × 61 cm), Gift of Gladys and Sam Rubinstein, 2014.26.9 Estate of Marc Chagall/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Check out the October SAM Gallery show, Mapping the Grid before it closes October 31! Nina Tichava is one of four artists featured, all of whose work responds to maps, grids, and geometry. Tichava uses painting and printmaking techniques, to interweave drawing and collage with a variety of media, including paint, charcoal, ink, tape, ballpoint pen, canvas, and metal. She is a process painter, who creates paintings without a set plan or narrative.
In the works from her Mapping Series at SAM Gallery, Nina says “I was able to source nautical maps of the Pacific Northwest sound, and I had two large, vintage maps of Washington State in my studio. I’m a constant and compulsive collector of vintage maps, papers, postcards, wallpaper, photographs, posters . . . it goes on and on. I’m always searching thrift stores, garage sales and vintage shops, especially when traveling. I also hunt for materials on eBay, mainly when I’m looking for something specific.” Many of the maps in her work at SAM Gallery feature Pacific Northwest locations, such as downtown Seattle, Gray’s Harbor, and the Hood River. As an environmentalist and conservationist, Tichava is also working to help protect the locations shown in her maps. Tichava sells works on her website to support environmental charities, such as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. She was raised by hippy parents in rural New Mexico and Northern California and spent most of her adult life on the West Coast, where awareness of things like water conservation, clean air, and environmental impact are part of the culture and prioritized. She believes that “as climate change intensifies, and everyone is thinking about how to handle the complexities, I feel like it’s a small but tangible way I can participate and contribute to a solution.”
On top of the maps, Tichava applies numerous overlapping layers of stripes, painstakingly painted with a brush and individually applied strips of tape. “Reproduction and repetition being central themes, my paintings are responses to things mass-produced and processed to an ideal. My paintings are, by nature, imprecise and hand-made objects. Perfection is unattainable therefore each piece is unique—it is this inherent quality that continues to engage me in painting.” The Mapping Series was developed in collaboration with SAM Gallery and for many years was exclusive to the gallery. The idea came from a design project Tichava began in South Lake Union, and grew from there, encouraged by Jody Bento and the many collectors who have supported this series for years. See it for yourself!
“The show feels
like it’s tilted toward some uncanny vision of classical art. In doing so it serves as fine reminder of how
much our memories and connotations of periods can get distilled down to a few
images.” –Stefan Milne, Seattle Met
“For all their
intense realism, the works also show some seriously freaky scenes, both mythological and biblical.” —Brangien Davis,
Crosscut
The Stranger’s Jasmyne
Keimig adds another beat to her watch: stickers. This time, she finds the Dalí-inspired, the
public-transportation-celebrating, and more.
“Visitors are
encouraged to be reflective, and not just by looking in mirrors. People can
write down an insecurity on a triangular strip of paper and throw it into a
faux fire pit that has a dim orange light at the center. The papers don’t burn,
but together resemble flames.”
“Her idea of
landscape is, in fact, ‘not passive at all. It’s very deliberate and
strategized. Even our ideas about what places are—place names, borders and what’s
visible—they’re such powerful tools to control how we think of ourselves in
relation to land and to place.’”
Ancient Greek art is often associated with beautiful marble
statuary depicting heroic subjects, and beautiful male and female bodies. However,
until the Hellenistic period of Greek history, the female nude was not
portrayed in large sculptural works, passed over instead for heroic male nudes.
This all changed when Praxiteles, one of the most renowned Attic sculptors of
the 4th century BCE, designed the first life-sized female nude statue.
Purchased by the Temple of Aphrodite at Knidos, his revolutionary nude portrayal
of the goddess Aphrodite became famous, and was a well-known tourist attraction
in its day. As was the tradition, the Aphrodite statue would have been brightly
and realistically painted. According to historians, this produced a statue so lifelike
that men would fall in love with her instantly. Praxiteles’ creation led to a
new era of Greek sculptural work that now included the life-sized female nude
in the artistic repertoire, inspiring thousands of copies and derivations.
Designed during the 2nd century BCE, this statuette in SAM’s
collection depicts the nude torso of Aphrodite, carved by an unknown artist.
While this statuette is not life-sized, the pervasive popularity of Praxiteles’
work (lasting well into the Roman Empire) would have influenced both the
subject and style of this statuette. Although her legs and arms are missing—most
likely broken in antiquity—it appears from the curve of her shoulders that Aphrodite
would have been adjusting her hair. While she was often depicted emerging from
the sea, this statuette might have portrayed the goddess wringing seawater out of
her hair. Discovered in Egypt, this statuette was a byproduct of the constant
trade between Hellenistic Greece and their colonized counterparts throughout
the Mediterranean. Although Egypt was a Greek state by the 2nd century BCE, the
Ptolemaic rulers continued to favor Egyptian art and iconography over Greek
works. The presence of this statue in Egypt could mean that it belonged to a
Greek government official living in Egypt at the time.
– Hayley Makinster, SAM Curatorial Intern
Image: Aphrodite Torso (after Praxiteles), 2nd century B.C., Egyptian, marble, 13 1/16 x 5 1/4 x 4 3/8 in., Norman and Amelia Davis Classical Collection, 61.74
For Libra season I’ve chosen to discuss Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. A British artist whose work focuses on people of color, Yiadom-Boakye’s painting, Trapsprung is currently on view on SAM’s third floor. The subject of the painting is a ballerina with her back to you one leg effortlessly lifted into the air in a battement to the side. More than a painting of grace, Yiadom-Boakye is calling attention to the lack of women of color in ballet, in depictions of ballerinas, and to the racism that accompanies a dark-skinned woman in that métier. Listen to choreographer, Donald Byrd on Trapsprung to hear more about the painting.
Yiadom-Boakye was born in 1977. And guess what? Pluto was in Libra from 1971 to 1983 (excluding a part of 1972 when it retrograded into Virgo for a hot minute)! As I mentioned in last month’s article, in evolutionary astrology, Pluto represents the structure of our soul. It is our actions and thoughts, strengths and weaknesses, all accumulated from our previous incarnations. Because Yiadom-Boakye’s soul is represented by Libra, her paintings can be seen as realizing the need to seek justice for the underrepresented and undervalued black body. Yiadom-Boakye wants to bring balance through social justice. This is what the ultimate Libra archetype strives towards.
Libra is the 7th sign of the zodiac, and the sun transits the Libra constellation from September 23 to October 22. Libras like to get everyone’s input before they make a decision because they are the sign of “we” as opposed to Aries, the sign of “me.” Libras want fairness most of all. They ask all involved their opinions and needs, and then think through the impact on the group. Once things are balanced in their minds, they make a decision that best fits everyone. Libras use their verbal dexterity and charm to cajole others into agreement so a calm resolution is achieved. If you aren’t being treated fairly, then Libra is the friend to call because they will use their diplomacy and tact to help you out. Libra wants equality so that peace can reign.
Yiadom-Boakye’s soul-need isn’t to prove herself or be seen for her own power, rather she strives to support equity and social justice through her work.
– Amy Domres, SAM’s Director of Admissions Amy is also a Psychospiritual Evolutionary Astrologer and Healer at Emerald City Astrology.
Recently, SAM
announced that the Asian Art Museum will reopen to the public on February 8,
2020. Curbed
Seattle and NW
Asian Weekly both wrote about the building project, which “gives the
historic building both a home of its own and a stronger connection to the park
around it.”
Local News
Last week, city
council candidates appeared at Town Hall to
talk arts policy. The Stranger’s Rich Smith—and candidate Alex
Pedersen’s “art tie”—were there.
And the Seattle Times
has wrap-around coverage on the new Burke, including a
story from Brendan Kiley, photos, video, and graphics
to get you ready to explore.
“This Burke,
director Julie K. Stein says, isn’t just a new museum. It’s a new breed of
museum, imagined and designed with the incantation ‘inside-out.’”
Here’s the New York
Times’ Roberta
Smith on the new Roy DeCarava retrospective at David Zwirner; his
photographs, she says, “constantly flip between visual fact and a metaphor for
difference of all kinds.”
“Murrell achieved
something more profound, and more challenging, than archival ‘discovery.’ Her
exhibition placed the past blindnesses of art history on very public view,
making devastatingly clear the remedial nature of the lesson in seeing required
by this discipline—a lesson that could be encapsulated in a question as
elementary as: Tell me, class, how many figures are in this picture?”
A kylix is a type of ancient Greek drinking vessel, designed to hold wine for members of a symposium, or an after-dinner drinking party. Seated on cushion-covered couches along the walls of the host’s dining room, these party-goers would recline on their left elbow while drinking with their right hand. Because of their recumbent positions, kylikes were the perfect vessel to drink from. Relatively shallow, and with a handle on either side of the cup, men, and sometimes their consorts could drink without spilling while reclining with ease.
The outside of this particular kylix is decorated with a symposium scene, depicting various red figures. Each man holds a skyphos – another type of wine-drinking vessel – while dancing with an upraised hand. The inside, or tondo, of the kylix introduces yet another scene, and would have been revealed as the attendee finished his wine. The scene depicts two youths reclining on a couch while flinging the contents of a kylix with their right hand. While this may appear like a rowdy moment brought on by an excess of wine, the two men are instead playing kottabos. A fairly challenging drinking game, kottabos was a common feature of the after-dinner festivities, and the kylix was the equipment of choice. Partiers would loop their right index finger through the handle, aim, and fling the dregs of their wine at the target, which was usually a bowl balanced on a stand or floating in water. Playing required agility and good aim, and missing could result in dosing your fellow guests with wine! Perhaps the reward of cakes or sweetmeats made the mess worthwhile.
– Hayley Makinster, SAM Curatorial Intern
Images: Red-figure Kylix (cup) with Symposion Scene, active ca. BC 700 – 480 Painter of the Paris Gigantomachia, ceramic, 5 1/8 x 16 1/8 in., Gift of the Norman and Amelia Davis Classical Collection, 59.30
Every year Seattle Art Museum’s Community Gallery is dedicated to artwork by its staff and the eclectic outcome is a thing of true beauty—as colorful and strange as all the art lovers and artists that work here. This year, in a true testament to the volume of excellent work that was on view July 31 to September 1, not one but two talented SAM staff members were voted as faves by their peers. Ashley Mead, Assistant Registrar-Rights and Reproductions, and Natali Wiseman, Design Studio Manager, tied for our hearts this time around. Learn more about these two artists their obsessions with color, and their love for SAM’s Australian Aboriginal collection in this interview!
SAM: How does this work fit into your larger artmaking practice? Have you always worked in this medium?
Ashley Mead: It doesn’t? Or rather, because I’m inconsistent in my practice it totally fits with my larger artmaking practice. I just couldn’t tell you how. I’ve worked with paper for a few years and in collage for one year, and only because I agreed to do a portrait before I remembered that I can’t draw. Other than that, I dabble in just about every medium I can get my hands on—hence the inconsistency.
Natali Wiseman: I have always painted, but this is the first painting I’ve made in a few years. Previously I did a lot of really detailed illustrative painting, which completely broke me, so I took a long break. I wanted to try something a lot looser with less clean edges. Playing with dimensional paint was fun and new. For the last several years I have mostly been doing screen printing and collage, so it was nice to get back into painting.
What inspired the piece in the art show? Is there a story behind the work or is it part of a series?
Mead: It’s based on a photo of me, Ted, and Michael Besozzi taken at the Smith Tower on my birthday two years ago. We looked so good I wanted to know what we’d look like in paper—we’re definitely more colorful and less serious in this work than in the photo.
Wiseman: I have a 1960s craft book from my mom that has detailed instructions on making “chemical gardens”, also known as ammonia gardens (or sometimes you can buy them in kits, called “magic gardens”). The gardens are these melty piles of color, which I felt compelled to paint with overgrown fungal-looking flowers. There is something interesting to me about creating synthetic gardens.
What artists or artworks are inspirations to you in general?
Mead: Oh goodness. I’m a fan of color, that’s probably the biggest thing that draws me to a piece or artist. Specifics though, Van Gogh has always been a favorite. Mickalene Thomas is a more recent love. Oh, and I love our Australian Aboriginal collection. That’s just a short hodgepodge list.
Wiseman: This is hard! Color is a big deal for me. I love Sister Corita Kent’s work. I really like the Light and Space movement and color field painting. I also love Judy Chicago, Lynda Benglis, Richard Tuttle, Kenneth Noland, Jack Whitten, Gehard Richter, Wayne Thiebaud, Helen Frankenthaler, David Hockney . . . I suppose there could be a theme there. I love surrealism, particularly Rene Magritte, Man Ray, and Leonora Carrington. At SAM, I find the work in the Aboriginal Australian gallery to be very inspiring and meditative.
What other art projects are you working on right now or looking forward to?
Mead: All of them! I have about a half dozen commissions and half-million ideas, so good luck to me on figuring out what to focus on next.
Wiseman: More gardens, and I have some collages in the works. Hoping to do more large-scale screen printing, too. And I really want to get into ceramics!
– Chelsea Werner-Jatzke, SAM Content Strategist & Social Media Manager
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.
“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.
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.
“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.”
A tsuba is a hand guard of a Japanese sword, mounted between the handgrip and the blade, to protect the user’s hand. Either carved or molded, they also help balance the sword, which is comprised of a number of complicated—but equally important—components.
While highly practical in its purpose, there is, as with all things, room for ornamentation and embellishment. This 19th-century example in SAM’s collection, made of copper alloy with gold and silver inlay, depicts an elegant nighttime landscape. Under the arc of the crescent moon, the spray of gold plants and flowers appear to be basking in the moonlight, also gold.
Prior to the 17th century, the functionality of a tsuba was more important than its decoration. From the 17th century onward, tsuba became more elaborate, with carving and molding techniques more sophisticated. Designs on tsuba—such as this one—often draw their subject matter from Japanese folklore and nature, and importantly signal the status of the sword’s owner.
Currently, on view in SAM’s third-floor galleries, this tsuba is part of the exhibition Gentleman Warrior: Art of the Samurai, which explores lesser-known aspects of samurai culture, including patronage of the arts. From the tea ceremony to Noh theater, the samurai class helped advance various artistic practices in the service of showcasing both their military might and cultural prowess.
– Elisabeth Smith, SAM Collection and Provenance Associate
Image: Tsuba: Plants in Landscape and Moon in Inlay, 19th century, Japanese, copper alloy with gold and silver inlay, 2 5/8 x 2 1/2 x 3/16 in., Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 34.95. Photo: Elizabeth Mann
Experience the fierce beauty of High Renaissance and Baroque art at the free Community Opening for Flesh and Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum on October 17. From 5–9 pm, watch these artworks come alive as Palace Theatre & Art Bar takes the stage for a series of eclectic performances reflecting the darkness, drama, and human emotion of Flesh and Blood. Make a masterpiece of your own as you draw from live models during an art activity led by artist Barry Johnson. Seattle Opera singer will be in the galleries expressing love, devotion, and tragic suffering with pop-up performances. Living representations of the artworks will be embodied by dancers Mikhail Calliste and Michele Dooley. Flesh and Blood presents, as they say in Italy, il meglio del meglio—the best of the best.
Make sure to RSVP, but if you can’t make it to the opening, don’t worry! There are many other ways for you to visit SAM for free or at a discount during Flesh and Blood!
Free community passes may be available for community organizations or colleges and universities.
Many of our programs include free admission to our special exhibitions on the day of the event. Keep an eye on exhibition-related events.
First Thursdays mean discounts to Flesh and Blood! Adult: $9.99 Seniors 65+, Military (w/ID): $7.99 Students (w/ID): $4.99 Ages 19 & younger: Free
First Friday: Admission to Flesh and Blood is $7.99 for anyone 65 years and older.
As part of Museums for All, SAM offers free admission to low-income families and individuals receiving SNAP benefits when you show your EBT card.
Teen Tix pass program makes it possible for teens to visit for just $5!
Bank of America’s Museums on Us: On the first full weekend of every month, Bank of America cardholders receive free admission at SAM.
Blue Star Museums: free admission to military personnel and their families. Just show your military ID. The military ID holder plus up to five immediate family members (spouse or child of ID holder) are allowed in for free per visit (special exhibition surcharge may apply).
UW Art Students get free admission with the sticker on their student ID
SAM is for everyone and we’re here to make sure anyone can see the art they love! Don’t forget, entry to SAM’s permanent collections is always suggested admission! You can experience our global collection year-round and pay what you want.
Images: The Ecstasy of Saint Cecilia, 1645, Bernardo Cavallino, Italian, 1616–1656, oil on canvas, 24 × 18 7/8 in., Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte. The Virgin of the Souls with Saints Clare and Francis, 1622–23, Battistello Caracciolo, Italian, 1578–1635, oil on canvas, 114 3/16 × 80 11/16 in., Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte.
In my instance, visual activism has a lot to do with two things: connecting the visual and my activism. Which means that every image that I take has a lot to do with politics. In my work, I am pushing a political agenda.
– Zanele Muholi
Taken in Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa between 2014 and 2017, each of the 76 self-portraits in the Somnyama Ngonyama (Zulu for Hail the Dark Lioness) series is distinct and poses critical questions about social injustice, human rights, and contested representations of the black body. South African visual activist Zanele Muholi combines classical portraiture, fashion photography, and ethnographic imagery to establish different archetypes and personae.
Hear from the artist as they describe how household and found objects become culturally loaded props in these self-portraits. Scouring pads and latex gloves address themes of domestic servitude. Rubber tires, electrical cords, and cable ties reference forms of social brutality and capitalist exploitation. Collectively, the portraits evoke the plight of workers: maids, miners, and members of disenfranchised communities. The artist’s gaze challenges viewers while firmly asserting their cultural identity on their own terms. Don’t miss your chance to see Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness while it’s still in Seattle at SAM through November 3.
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.
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?”
“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.”
