The Magic Lantern of Ingmar Bergman: A Second Season of Classic Films

Greg Olson on Jan 8 2019

The Magic Lantern of Ingmar Bergman: A Second Season of Classic Films

SAM and the Nordic Museum continue our centennial celebration of Swedish writer-director Ingmar Bergman, who explores deep existential questions, and reveals the abiding mystery and beauty of life. All the films were photographed by Oscar-winner Sven Nykvist. Films in Swedish with English subtitles. Get your tickets to the series today!

Jan 10: Sawdust and Tinsel/The Naked Night (1953)

Things get complicated when a circus owner (Ake Gronberg) and his mistress (Harriet Andersson) visit the town where the wife and children Gronberg abandoned still live.  Bergman felt that Andersson “radiated more erotic charm than any other actress.” Digital restoration, 93 min.

Jan 17: Winter Light (1961)

A village pastor (Gunnar Bjornstrand) brings little comfort to his mistress (Ingrid Thulin), a widow (Gunnel Lindblom) and a fisherman (the majestic Max Von Sydow) afraid of nuclear annihilation. Perhaps learning to truly give of himself can make true, communal consolation possible. Digital restoration, 81 min.

Jan 24: Hour of the Wolf (1966)

When artist Max Von Sydow has a bad dream he sketches it on his pad, and the demons of his art gradually become real for both he and his wife (Liv Ullmann). They confront the shadow side of life, and art, at a dinner party at a lonely castle, where Von Sydow’s “dead” former mistress (Ingrid Thulin) is in attendance. Digital restoration, 93 min.

Jan 31: Shame (1967)

What would you do if the comforts, and protections, of civilization, were gone? In an unnamed country, a civil war rages, and concert musicians Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullmann flee to a peaceful island. Ironically, they still have to fight for what they believe in and wrestle with the hard truths of their marriage. With Gunnar Bjornstrand. Digital restoration, 103 min.

Feb 7: The Passion of Anna (1968)

A chance encounter with a beautiful woman (Liv Ullmann) embroils him in the personal dramas of her, an architect (Erland Josephson), and his wife (Bibi Andersson). Von Sydow knows it can be dangerous to get involved with others, but how can he resist? As mysteries of tangled emotions and wicked actions proliferate, Ullmann dreams of “Living in the truth.” Digital restoration, 101 min.

Feb 14: Cries and Whispers (1971)

In a mansion in a park, two women (chilly Ingrid Thulin, earthy Liv Ullmann) are comforting their dying sister (Harriett Andersson), who is anticipating her “new voyage.” Mysteries of eroticism, personal and family pain, and tension are in the air, but, as critic David Thomson says, “It evokes a sense of a time when three sisters were as one in a summer of joy.” In 35mm, 91 min.

Feb 21: The Magic Flute (1974)

Aglow with light, love, humor, and Mozart’s sublime music, this operatic masterpiece tells the enchanting tale of friends Tamino (Josef Kostlinger) and Papagano (Hakan Hagegard) who try to rescue Pamina (Irma Urrila) from the evil enchanter Sarastro (Urik Cold). Will we see a dragon in a Bergman film? Yes! In 35mm, 135 min.

Mar 7: Autumn Sonata (1977)

A renowned pianist (Ingrid Bergman) comes to visit her estranged daughter (Liv Ullmann), the wife of a humble country parson (Halvar Bjork). Bergman has put her art and career above her child, and in their mesmerizing late night talk, resentments and humiliations, as well as the hope for love and forgiveness, come pouring out. In 35mm, 93 min.

Mar 14: Fanny and Alexander (1982)

This festive, warm-hearted celebration of the joys and dramas of family life centers on a large 1907 family that runs a repertory theater. The film is vibrant with Bergman’s great life lesson that imagination and performance can restore balance and hope, and it conjures the wonder of everyday life. As Bergman says, “I moved in complete freedom between magic and oatmeal porridge.” With Pernilla Allwin, Bertil Guve, Harriet Andersson, and members of Ingmar Bergman’s family. In 35mm, 188 min.

– Greg Olson, Manager of Film Programs

Images: Lopert Pictures/Photofest

Muse/News: Perception’s doors, Anthony White’s moment, and Basquiat’s invisible ink

Rachel Eggers on Jan 7 2019

Muse/News: Perception’s doors, Anthony White’s moment, and Basquiat’s invisible ink

SAM News

Special to the Seattle Times, Sharmila Mukerjee offers this lovely review of Peacock in the Desert: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur. The exhibition closes January 21!

“Peacock in the Desert is a fascinating show because it allows us to experience sensibilities that are different; what would we gain if we reopen the doors of our perception to the marvelous?”

And the Seattle Times’ Moira Macdonald writes up the inaugural Tasveer South Asian Literary Festival. SAM is a partner for the event; we’re hosting talks as well as a screening of the silent film Throw of Dice on January 13.

Local News

File under: Incredibly Good News. The Stranger has brought on Jasmyne Keimig as a staff writer, covering visual arts and music. Readers (and publicists) say amen!

Gayle Clemans for the Seattle Times, reviewing the “multimedia, multisensory” Between Bodies, now on view at the Henry Art Gallery; she also finds connections to two other shows in the region.

It’s Anthony White’s moment: The artist’s first show for Greg Kucera is now on view. Within the month, he’s been written up by The Stranger A&P, Seattle Met, Seattle Magazine, Crosscut—and then The Stranger again.

“There’s this feeling of this crazy party filled with useless excess, but also this pathos, this really understandable desire to have something meaningful and great in your life.”

Inter/National News

Same old—wait just a minute! Using a UV light, conservator Emily Macdonald-Korth discovered that Jean-Michel Basquiat hid secret drawings in his paintings using invisible ink.

Artnet looks back at their 20 favorite stories of 2018—including their in-depth look (which SAM participated in!) into how institutions have—or have not—moved the needle on showing and buying art by Black artists.

A fascinating read: The New York Times convened Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Toyin Ojih Odutola, and Cécile Fromont for a roundtable discussion about the possible restitution of African art in French collections.

“We can’t even fathom what new African museums could be, and what they could do. Look at Latin America, for example. The museological innovations there — unique types of exhibitions, involvement with the communities — challenge in all the best ways what big museums around the world have been doing. When you think about the talent and expertise born from an enriched African museum landscape: that’s exhilarating.”

And Finally

If you can resist tears while watching WeRateDogs™’s annual best-of compilation, I just don’t know what to say to you.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Portrait of Maharaja Ajit Singh, ca. 1830, Amardas Bhatti, Jodhpur, opaque watercolor and gold on paper, 16 7/8 × 13 1/8 in., Mehrangarh Museum Trust, photo: Neil Greentree

Object of the Week: Untitled (Louisiana)

Elisabeth Smith on Jan 4 2019

Object of the Week: Untitled (Louisiana)

A pioneer of color photography (sometimes even referred to as “the godfather” of color photography), William Eggleston is, for many, synonymous with photographs that evocatively capture the mundane, trivial, and everyday. In the 1960s and 70s, at a time when color photography was largely associated with commercial advertising, Eggleston managed to elevate it into a fine-art form.

Born and raised in Tennessee, Eggleston largely focused his attention on the rural South but has traveled across the United States documenting post-war American life and culture. His compositions are unmistakable—they embody a slowness and stillness that, despite the certainty suggested by their documentary quality, grows more complex and complicated over time. Landscapes, buildings, signage, trash, restaurants, the contents of a freezer or oven—all is fair game for Eggleston. Peter Schjeldahl once wrote that to view Eggleston’s work was to be “pummeled by eccentric beauty, and to wonder about it.”[1]

Untitled (Louisiana) is an exemplary work in this regard. Its geometry, framing, lavish color, light, and shadow are quintessential Eggleston. Taken from the neutral vantage point of a restaurant tabletop, the image focuses our gaze on an unlikely cast of characters: a few scattered menus, hot sauce, salt, pepper, and a Winston cigarette lighter. Other details we might also overlook, like the poor paint job or stack of napkins in the background, are hard to ignore. Contrary to the relative emptiness of the photograph, there is an overwhelming amount of visual information to absorb.

In today’s rich media landscape, such moments of stillness are increasingly hard to find. And while our smartphones have turned us all into amateur photographers, sharing everyday observations and experiences on social media, how many of us really sit with an image we find scrolling through our feeds, taking the time to dissect and analyze the story being shared—to wonder about it?

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

[1] Peter Schjeldahl, “Local Color: William Eggleston at the Whitney,” New Yorker, November 17, 2008, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/11/17/local-color-peter-schjeldahl.
Image: Untitled (Louisiana), 1980, William Eggleston, dye transfer print, 16 1/16 x 19 7/8 in., Pacific Northwest Bell, the Photography Council, the Polaroid Foundation, Mark Abrahamson, and the National Endowment for the Arts, 83.55 © Artist or Artist’s Estate.

Muse/News: A piping hot cuppa at SAM, fruity art in Seattle, and lots of milk punch

Nina Dubinsky on Dec 31 2018

Muse/News: A piping hot cuppa at SAM, fruity art in Seattle, and lots of milk punch

SAM News

Thank u, next: Seattle press reflected on the year (was it just a year?) that was 2018. Both Seattle Magazine and The Seattle Times gave shout-outs to Double Exposure, SAM’s major summer exhibition that explored the complicated legacy of a celebrated photographer and the dynamic present of Indigenous arts.

SAM’s recently debuted installation Claire Partington: Taking Tea was featured in both Art & Object and Fresh Cup Magazine.

“Through her use of material and symbolism, Partington explores the multi-faceted history of the international tea trade, including issues of appropriation, colonialism, slavery, and the gendered roles associated with tea.”

Also now on view: Body Language, a small but nuanced installation exploring the power of gesture. Seattle Met gave it a recommendation.

And the Seattle Times looks ahead to the “hottest Seattle events for January 2019,” recommending SAM’s film series The Magic Lantern of Ingmar Bergman (if you don’t know Bergman, now’s your chance!) and Tasveer’s first-ever South Asian Literary Festival, for which SAM’s Gardner Center for Asian Art and Ideas is a partner.

Local News

Watch this video by Crosscut’s Jen Dev on Franklin High School’s Arts of Resistance & Resilience club, which just completed a 40-foot-long mural honoring the 50th anniversary of the Seattle Chapter of the Black Panther Party.

A response to the carb-laden winter? Two shows about fruit are now on view; Seattle Met’s Gwen Hughes reviewed the FoodArt Collection’s and The Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig wrote up the Jacob Lawrence Gallery.

The Seattle Times’ Crystal Paul visits Edgar Arceneaux’s Library of Black Lies, now on view at the Henry, noting that it “invites endless interpretation.”

“As you move through the labyrinth, things become simultaneously clearer and muddier. You encounter real books, fake books and books half-obscured. You have to look closely to tell what’s real, and even then, you’re not always certain.”

Inter/National News

Artsy’s Jackson Arn on “the short, unhappy career” of Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall, an artist and muse of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; we’ll hear more about this group’s exploits in SAM’s summer 2019 major exhibition Victorian Radicals.

In This Imperfect Present Moment artist Toyin Ojih Odutola created one of her signature ballpoint pen portraits of Aretha Franklin for the New York Times Magazine’s annual “The Lives They Lived” issue.

Hyperallergic’s Jasmine Weber on a recently discovered silent film, Something Good, which is believed to be “the earliest cinematic depiction of affection between a Black couple.”

“This artifact helps us think more critically about the relationship between race and performance in early cinema,” Field tells UChicago. “It’s not a corrective to all the racialized misrepresentation, but it shows us that that’s not the only thing that was going on.”

And Finally

He contained multitudes—and lots of milk punch, apparently. How the New York Times traced the final days of Uncle Walt.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Installation view of Body Language at Seattle Art Museum, 2018, photo: Natali Wiseman

Object of the Week: Winter Landscape on the Banks of the Seine

Seattle Art Museum on Dec 28 2018

Object of the Week: Winter Landscape on the Banks of the Seine

“An artist should express his feeling with the harmony or idea of color which he possesses naturally. He should not copy the walls, or objects on a table, but he should, above all, express a vision of color, the harmony of which corresponds to his feeling.”[1] – Henri Matisse

During the rise of modernism, which occurred between the late 19th century to the early 20th century,[2] artists began to move away from representation towards abstraction, and they changed the types of painting that were traditionally accepted in the Western world. At this time, artists started to return to the basic natures of paintings such as colors, lines, shapes, and textures, rather than words and representations in order to communicate and interact with their audience.

Winter Landscape on the Banks of the Seine, which Matisse began in 1904 and finished in 1905, contains quick vibrant dabs of color pigments against the dreary grey and stark white background of the canvas. Matisse did not literally paint a winter setting along Paris’ River Seine. He painted the emotions that this setting produced within him. By arranging cool and warm tones on a two-dimensional canvas, Matisse was able to successfully convey the feeling of gentleness and serenity within his work. He left behind these emotions for Seattle Art Museum visitors to explore and perceive.

Widely recognized as one of the most important and innovative colorists during the post-impressionism movement, Henri Matisse focused on creating harmonious, unified, and balanced arrangements of colors on two-dimensional canvases to evoke emotions within his audience. Though Henri Matisse’s mother was a painter, he did not have a direct path into the world of art. He began to study law in Paris and even though he considered it to be tedious and uninteresting, he still passed the bar exam in 1888. He reluctantly started to practice law after he graduated because his father arranged a job for him in a law office. His career path was altered, however, when he received art supplies from his mother in 1889. “From the moment I held the box of colors in my hands, I knew this was my life,”[3] Matisse stated.

Happy birthday to Henri Matisse (December 31, 1869–November 3, 1954)! Thank you for your legacy and contribution to the world of art.

– Trang Tran, SAM’s Emerging Arts Leader Intern

[1] Jack D. Flam, Matisse On Art (New York: Phaidon Press Limited, 1973), 51.
[2] “What is Modern Art?” Museum of Modern Art, accessed 20 Dec 2018, https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/what-is-modern-art/
[3] “The Personal Life of Henri Matisse,” Henri Matisse, accessed 23 Oct 2018, http://www.henri-matisse.net/biography.html.
Image: Winter Landscape on the Banks of the Seine, ca. 1904-05, Henri Matisse, oil on canvas, 12 3/4 x 15 3/4 in., Gift of Norman Davis, 91.88

Object of the Week: Study for Nude for Balzac F.

Elisabeth Smith on Dec 21 2018

Object of the Week: Study for Nude for Balzac F.

For those familiar with the French writer Honoré de Balzac, and the iconic monument produced by Auguste Rodin in his honor, it might be hard to reconcile this study in SAM’s collection as a related work. Indeed, the bronze sculpture, headless and unclothed, leaning backward as if a Greek god seems—at first glance—to be a far cry from the finished piece, in which Balzac dons a monk’s habit with long, disheveled hair.

Rodin was commissioned to execute a monument of the late Balzac in 1891, much to the chagrin of certain members of the Société des Gens de Lettres (who may or may not have been informed by Emile Zola of the meeting to select the artist for the monument).[1] Still, Rodin took the appointment in stride, writing that, “I have always been interested in this great literary figure, and have often studied him, not only in his works but in his native province.”[2] As a method actor assumes a role in its entirety, so too did Rodin embark on an intense study of all Balzacian iconography and literature before he began his work. According to French journalist and art critic Gustave Geffroy, “Rodin had read and reread not only all the works of Balzac, but also all that has been written about Balzac.”[3]

The subject occupied Rodin’s time for several years, and he produced study after study—nearing fifty in total. Around 1895, he grew dissatisfied with his direction, feeling the sculptures were either too derivative of other portraits or were too realistic. In fact, this study, created circa 1896, “marks an important stage in the development of Rodin’s thoughts about the monument. All ideas of verisimilitude have evidently been abandoned in favor of the creation of a figure that symbolizes the nature of Balzac’s genius.”[4]

By August of 1896, the final accouterments for the piece would be decided, as chronicled by a French journalist:

One or two months ago, M. Rodin finished a maquette which gives him the satisfaction he searched for so untiringly. Balzac will be represented standing, in a strong, simple posture, his legs slightly apart, his arms crossed. He will be dressed in a sort of long robe without a belt, which will fall down to his feet.[5]

By developing the Balzac’s body and head separately but simultaneously, Rodin prioritized the idea of Balzac over achieving a physical likeness. Indeed, Balzac’s creative vitality, power, and energy are conveyed in both the study as well as the finished piece. Lucky for us, the study is currently on view in France: Inside and Out in the European galleries on the Fourth Floor.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

Image: Study of Nude for Balzac F., ca. 1896, Auguste Rodin, bronze with black patina, 36 x 15 x 12 1/4 in., Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard C. Hedreen in memory of Anthony Callison and the Modern Art Purchase Fund, 89.181.
[1] John L. Tancock, The Sculpture of August Rodin (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1976), 428.
[2] Excerpt from a letter dates July 3, 1891, quoted in L’Echo de Paris, Paris, August 29, 1896.
[3] “L’Imaginaire,” Le Figaro, Paris, August 29, 1893, 1.
[4] Tancock, 440.
[5] Le Temps, Paris, August 19, 1896.

Museum Bhavan: A Book-Object by Dayanita Singh

Traci Timmons on Dec 18 2018

Museum Bhavan: A Book-Object by Dayanita Singh

During SAM’s current exhibition, Peacock in the Desert: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India featuring the rich artistic traditions of India, SAM’s Dorothy Stimson Bullitt Library is showcasing one its own treasures of Indian artistic practice: Dayanita Singh’s artist’s book, Museum Bhavan (2017).

Museum Bhavan

This limited edition artist’s book is an extension of another compelling work created by the artist. Singh initially created a large, structural, non-book version of Museum Bhavan in 2015 as a series of large, wooden portable “museums” that incorporates hundreds of photographs from her many decades of work in an easily alterable display. It is from this original Museum Bhavan that the artist’s book, Museum Bhavan, originated.

Museum Bhavan

Here is the original Museum Bhavan on display at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in Delhi in 2013. See a walkthrough of the installation here. (Source: Google Arts & Culture.)

Museum Bhavan

In 2017, Singh published the “book-object,” Museum Bhavan, as an easily transportable “pocket museum,” working with long-time collaborator and publisher Gerhard Stiedl. This Museum Bhavan includes a series of nine accordion-fold books—which she refers to as “museums”—that contain Singh’s black-and-white photography and fold out into long strips. This aspect mimics the series of wooden accordion panels used in the original Museum Bhavan. Additionally, the 2017 version includes a booklet of conversations entitled Conversation Chambers that also reflects an aspect of the original: the structures of the original Museum Bhavan can be opened to act as a wall or they can be pulled inward to form intimate spaces. Accompanying wooden benches and tables help create “chambers” that encourage reflection or conversation. The conversations documented in the artist’s book include one with her publisher, Gerhard Steidl, and another with curator and writer, Aveek Sen. Unlike the original Museum Bhavan, the “book-object” version is enclosed in a handmade clamshell box created in India, covered by fabric designed by the artist.

Museum Bhavan

Through this book form, Singh has pushed the original Museum Bhavan’s concept of the evolving presentation further. This Museum Bhavan is an artist’s book, a photo book, and something that can be displayed as a tabletop exhibition while simultaneously being the catalog of that exhibition. By offering an exhibition in a box, Singh encourages viewers to install and curate the work as they like and where they like. Singh desires “the mass-produced quality of publishing and the uniqueness of the art gallery…,” but she wants to make it accessible. She believes that this kind of work is the museum of the future.

Similar to the original version, the title of each “museum” or book is ambiguous and interchangeable: Museum of Men, Godrej Museum, Little Ladies Museum, Museum of Furniture, Museum of Vitrines, etc. Her photos appear without titles or captions. The ambiguity, she says, is intentional.

Museum Bhavan

“I don’t want to spoon-feed you with photographs, and I don’t need to because photography is such a magical medium…. If you allow it, it will present all sorts of meanings.”

—Dayanita Singh

To get a closer look at these works, another artist’s book by Singh (Sent a Letter, 2008), or other works in our Book Arts Collection, make an appointment to visit the Bullitt Library. Appointments can typically be scheduled Wednesday–Friday, 10 am–4 pm.

– Traci Timmons, Librarian

In consideration of Singh’s intent, the display of Museum Bhavan will change in the case throughout the run of Peacock in the Desert: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India.

Photos: Natali Wiseman

Muse/News: Jaw-dropping art at SAM, wigs off at Seattle Opera, and David on the subway

Rachel Eggers on Dec 17 2018

Muse/News: Jaw-dropping art at SAM, wigs off at Seattle Opera, and David on the subway

SAM News

“My jaw is still on the floor.” Washington Post art critic Sebastian Smee looks back at art in 2018 “from Nanette to the Carters,” naming Peacock in the Desert as one of the year’s best exhibitions.

Peacock in the Desert was also featured in last week’s edition of Real Change by Lisa Edge, who says it “wows right away.”

Artnet includes SAM installation In This Imperfect Present Moment on their round-up of “32 Inspiring Museum Exhibitions to See Across the US Over the Holidays,” one of only seven shows in the western US to be recognized.

At the recent Great Figgy Pudding Caroling Competition, SAM Education’s Priya Frank and David Rue joyfully represented as judges; don’t miss this Evergrey video with Priya about the event, which raises funds for our neighbor the Pike Market Senior Center.

Local News

The new Seattle Opera building celebrates its grand opening last weekend; Crosscut’s Brangien Davis goes inside the facility’s light-filled costume shop, which includes a dedicated space for wig making.

Local writer Emily Pothast debuts in Art in America with this review of Group Therapy at the Frye Art Museum.

Seattle Times food critic Bethany Jean Clement on “Cook,” an unpretentious cookbook with recipes and illustrations from “artists, gallerists, curators, food-industry types, friends.”

“’The aesthetic of the book is totally an homage to every community cookbook — every church, Junior League, elementary school cookbook — ever made,’ she says. She found an old-school cursive typewriter font to use for some of the recipes. ‘If I could’ve made it on a ditto machine, I would’ve,’ Ito adds.”

Inter/National News

“The butt, yeah—the butt’s great.” Art critic Jerry Saltz takes a statue of Michelangelo’s David into a NYC subway station.

Artnet reports that Kaywin Feldman has been appointed the first-ever female director of DC’s National Gallery of Art. Revisit her essay published earlier this year on “museum leadership in a time of crisis.”

Feldman departs the Minneapolis Institute of Art; speaking of, the Mia just debuted a new in-house smartphone app “that transforms the galleries into a giant escape room.”

“’It’s one of the many ways we are embracing the idea of meeting our customers where they are, welcoming them to the space, helping them find surprise and delight,’ said Douglas Hegley, Mia’s chief digital officer.”

And Finally

She styled songs, she marched in Selma, she stole hearts. Goodbye, Nancy Wilson.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Installation view of Peacock in the Desert: the Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India at Seattle Art Museum, 2018, photo: Robert Wade

Object of the Week: White Night

Elisabeth Smith on Dec 14 2018

Object of the Week: White Night

Cloud cover in the Pacific Northwest makes stargazing difficult at times, but that didn’t stop Mark Tobey from painting White Night in 1942.

Featuring the artist’s signature “white writing” treatment—a dense and abstract calligraphic mode of painting—White Night manages to evoke a sense of spirituality while also conjuring the night sky. After the artist’s conversion to the Baha’i Faith in 1918 and subsequent study of Zen painting in Kyoto, Japan, Tobey would indeed, throughout his long career, explore the relationship between the spiritual and the abstract in art. In the words of the artist, “I believe that painting should come through the avenues of meditation rather than the canals of action.”

It is a difficult endeavor to paint something felt rather than known. Yet somehow Tobey is able to capture the awesome power and energy of the night sky. Of course, the sky we see today is very different from what Tobey would be giving representation to in 1942. The first satellite was launched into space fifteen years later, ushering in a new era of space exploration and forever altering our relationship with the cosmos. In this context, White Night becomes a rather prescient painting—somehow predicting the invisible activity that would soon populate the night sky, and the images of space such satellites would capture.

The Geminid meteor shower is tonight, and while we might not be able to experience it through the winter clouds, we can still look up and recall this painting’s dynamic and mysterious energy.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

Image: White Night, 1942, Mark Tobey, tempera on paperboard mounted on composition board, 22 1/4 x 14 in., Gift of Mrs. Berthe Poncy Jacobson, 62.78 © Mark Tobey / Seattle Art Museum

Community Gallery: Winning Photographs by High School Students

Chelsea Werner-Jatzke on Dec 11 2018

Every year, SAM’s Community Gallery features the winning photographs from the Washington State High School Photography Competition (WSHSPC). This year 33 photos were selected from nearly 4,000 entries by judges Mel Curtis, Claire Garoutte, and Bruce Hudson. One of our many amazing community partners, WSHSPC has been providing a prestigious public platform for student photography since 1995 and we are excited to share the lens of today’s talented youth with everyone. Stop by the Community Gallery on the ground floor for free the next time you swing by SAM—these winning photos will be on view through December 30.

Muse/News: Party crashers at SAM, Seattle’s Instagrammable library, and Zanele Muholi’s self-portraits

Rachel Eggers on Dec 10 2018

Muse/News: Party crashers at SAM, Seattle’s Instagrammable library, and Zanele Muholi’s self-portraits

SAM News

Claire Partington: Taking Tea is now on view! This site-specific installation brings out the untold human stories of the 1,000 European and Asian porcelain pieces in SAM’s Porcelain Room, reminding viewers of the reality of precarious ocean voyages and human exploitation. Brangien Davis of Crosscut offers this review of this “intervention” that will be on view for the next two years.

“Now, smack in the middle of the room — unprotected except by a guard at the door — stand six ceramic people in old-fashioned dress, positioned as if having tea. Suddenly, our focus is shifted to the figures, who don’t have any teacups in hand, but seem to get their pick of the room. These party-crashers might just change the space forever.”

This Thursday, light up the dreary days of December with SAM Lights. The Seattle Times has all the details on this annual event in their feature, “Holiday sights light up the night.”

Local News

The Seattle Times’ David Gutman talks with artist Laura Hamje about why she can’t stop taking pictures—and making paintings—of the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Volunteer Park Trust and Kaiser Permanente announced a new partnership in support of programming at the Capitol Hill park that also houses the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

Brangien Davis of Crosscut has a great story about the Central Library, which was just named the “most Instagrammable library” in the world.

“A recent Tuesday afternoon at the library didn’t turn up a single photo snapper. Instead, people could be found using the lofty building for a range of purposes: a man excitedly picking up a stack of books that had just come available; a chatty cluster of folks having coffee at the cafe; people with all their belongings in bags using the computer stations in the so-called Mixing Chamber; a young adult practicing violin in one of the reservable music rooms; one woman seeking documentation of the Alaskan Way Viaduct’s debut; another in search of a name steeped in Seattle history for a new restaurant.”

Inter/National News

Roberta Smith, Holland Cotter and Jason Farago of the New York Times look back at “The Best Art of 2018,” including Hilma af Klimt at the Guggenheim, Charles White at MoMA, and Delacroix at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Hyperallergic broke the news that a board member of the Whitney owns a company that produces tear gas that’s been used at the border; both the Whitney staff and its director have offered their powerful replies.

Yrsa Daley-Ward of the New York Times reviews Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, the new book on South African artist Zanele Muholi; the portrait exhibition comes to SAM in 2019.

“If storytelling is one of humanity’s most powerful gifts, then visual activism feels like alchemy. Especially when the work in all of its detail, subtle or overt, moves you in a way you don’t all the way understand.” 

And Finally

The most wholesome content on the Internet last week happened at SAM.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Installation view of Claire Partington: Taking Tea at Seattle Art Museum, 2018, photo: Natali Wiseman

Object of the week: Box with the Sound of Its Own Making

Elisabeth Smith on Dec 7 2018

Object of the week: Box with the Sound of Its Own Making

Honoring the life and legacy of Robert Morris, who passed away last Wednesday, this week’s Object of the Week highlights his iconic 1961 piece, Box with the Sound of Its Own Making.

A founder of Minimalism, Morris’s 1966 series of essays Notes on Sculpture cemented his reputation as a pioneering sculptor as well as a critical thinker. Among his many contributions to contemporary art of the 1960s and 70s (and beyond) was the prioritization of the relationship between viewer, artwork, and environment. Such hallmarks of Minimalism as repetition, scale, and an absence of expressive content were key elements in many of his works, forcing viewers to consider the spatial arrangement and scale of the sculptures themselves. In the words of New York Times art writer Ken Johnson, “Because the [minimalist] sculptures lacked the complex internal relationships of traditional composition, the viewer would focus on the object’s relationship to the architecture of the room and its effect on his or her perceptual experience of space, light and shape.”[1]

Rebelling against the notion of an artwork as something precious or finely crafted, Morris often worked with simple, everyday materials like plywood, felt, and mirrors. Throughout his decades-long career, Morris worked in a wide array of modes that explored the experiential nature of art and sculptural possibilities of space, ranging from labyrinths and performance to earthworks and environments with sound systems.

Box with the Sound of Its Own Making is an exemplary work in this regard. The piece is, cheekily, exactly what the title suggests: a seemingly ordinary box with a soundtrack of its own construction—three and a half hours of sawing, sanding, and hammering. Morris deftly does away with the mystery of artistic creation, pulling back the curtain to reveal a document of the physical labor necessary to create the work itself. What might otherwise be interpreted as precious, mute, and opaque is, in fact, a dynamic, narrative sculpture that highlights duration, process, and provisionality. See this piece at SAM, on view in Big Picture: Art after 1945.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

[1] Ken Johnson, ‘Robert Morris, 87, Dies; Founding Minimalist Sculptor With Manifold Passions,” The New York Times, November 29, 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/obituaries/robert-morris-dead.html.
Image: Box with the Sound of Its Own Making, 1961, Robert Morris, wood, internal speaker, wooden cube: 9 3/4 x 9 3/4 x 9 3/4 in., overall: 46 x 9 3/4 x 9 3/4in.; TRT 3.5 hours, Gift of the Virginia and Bagley Wright Collection, 82.190 © Estate of Robert Morris

Muse/News: A princess at SAM, Jimi in Seattle, and a return to form

Rachel Eggers on Dec 3 2018

Muse/News: A princess at SAM, Jimi in Seattle, and a return to form

SAM News

Reads this review by Nalini Iyer for The International Examiner of Peacock in the Desert: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India.

“Peacock in the Desert offers Seattle a wonderful opportunity to experience Indian history, culture, and art and will appeal to visitors of all ages.”

And watch Princess Shivranjani Rajye of Marwar-Jodhpur share why she thinks our exhibition is so special.

Local News

Seattle Magazine has a great list of event recommendations for the month of December—mark your calendars, buy tickets, go to there.

“I Returned to The Nutcracker as an adult.” Seattle Met’s Stefan Milne watches the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Nutcracker and floats between its various worlds.

Daudi Abe for Crosscut reviewing Bold As Love, the new exhibition at the Northwest African American Museum that explores Jimi Hendrix’s Seattle roots.

“The display highlights Hendrix’s quintessential experience growing up in the Central District—from a photo of 5-year-old Jimi at a family picnic at Leschi Park to some of his impressive drawings that include what appears to be the Miss Circus Circus hydroplane.”

Inter/National News

Mwatana for Human Rights has released a document—titled “The Degradation of History”—that lists 34 archeological and cultural heritage sites that have been damaged in war-torn Yemen.

Artnet reports: “The American sculptor Robert Morris, a shape-shifting artist, `and pioneer of minimalism, has died of pneumonia at an upstate New York hospital. He was 87.”

The New York Times on the just-released report that calls for France to return pieces of African cultural heritage to their home countries; there have already been initial responses from African officials.

“France holds at least 90,000 sub-Saharan artifacts, of which 70,000 are in the Quai Branly Museum. The report estimated that up to 95 percent of Africa’s cultural heritage is held by institutions outside of Africa.”

And Finally

A compelling piece of post-post-modern video art about those now 7-5 (!) Seahawks.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Installation view of Peacock in the Desert: the Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India at Seattle Art Museum, 2018, photo: Natali Wiseman

Object of the Week: Ai-Apec Stirrup Spout Vessel

Elisabeth Smith on Nov 30 2018

Object of the Week: Ai-Apec Stirrup Spout Vessel

Among their many achievements, Mochica (also known as Moche) society is well-known for their innovations in and mastery of ceramics. Celebrated for their figurative vessels—often resembling animals, plants, deities, and even adult activities—Mochica ceramicists produced a variety of exquisite forms whose painted and sculpted surfaces reflect the vibrant life, religion, and culture of the Mochica people.

Mochica stirrup spout vessels, in particular, would take on complex and figurative scenes. Named for their resemblance to stirrups, such vessels are identifiable due to their wide body, which connects to an elegant circular hollow handle. Though unsure of exactly what was stored in these vessels (until recently it was believed that their purpose was mainly funerary), it is likely that they contained beverages like corn beer (chicha). Equal parts beautiful and versatile, stirrup spout vessels were also functional: in the high elevation deserts of Peru, the narrow spout would prevent the evaporation of the vessels’ liquid contents.

In this Ai-Apec Stirrup Spout Vessel on view in the exhibition Cosmic Beings in Mesoamerican and Andean Art, an anthropomorphic figure stands surrounded by six peaks topped with snail shells, which also share anthropomorphic features. Holding a staff, the stoic figure—Ai-Apec, the chief deity of the Mochica—dons a patterned tunic and pendant earrings in the form of feline heads, as well as a helmet with two more feline figures.

Generally, Mochica vessels are slip-painted and bichrome, with red decoration on a white or cream background. However, this Ai-Apec vessel is much darker—a type of ceramic known as blackware; the dark color is achieved through a firing process that removes oxygen from the kiln, causing iron compounds in the clay to turn black. Not only does this piece represent a mythical continuity between the Mochica and later Chavín and Chimú cultures, but it represents an artistic continuity as well—such blackware ceramics were also made by the Chavín and Chimú.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

Image: Ai-Apec Stirrup Spout Vessel, ca. AD 200-500, Mochica, blackware ceramic, 10 × 8 1/2 × 8 in., Gift in honor of Assen Nicolov, 2018.3.2

 

Textiles with a life of their own: Parekh Bugbee at SAM Shop

Seattle Art Museum on Nov 28 2018

Textiles with a life of their own: Parekh Bugbee at SAM Shop

We are obsessed with all things Peacock in the Desert: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India! Even SAM Shop is getting in on it and is bringing second-generation Indian textile designer Parekh Bugbee for an in-store trunk show on December 8. We sat down with Payal Parekh Bugbee to discuss the tradition of textiles in her family, sustainability, and spectacular colors. See these beautiful scarves in person while you chat with the designer and sip on some complimentary chai courtesy of Jaipur Chai. drop by anytime between noon and 4 pm and get a jump on holiday shopping!

SAM: How did Parekh Bugbee first start and where does the name come from?

Payal Parekh Bugbee: The initial roots of Parekh Bugbee began in 2011 when I met my husband-to-be during a work trip to Thailand. He’s a photojournalist and also does projects for global health NGOs. I didn’t know how our relationship would blossom but before long he traveled to India to formally meet my father and ask for my hand in marriage. At the time, I’d returned from living in New York City where I did undergrad studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology and had re-located to Mumbai to train under my father. Since the 1960s, my father had worked on collections made for many international designers. These were big name, well-known design houses and they put their labels on everything produced, so at the end of the day customers really wouldn’t know that the pieces were initially designed and manufactured by him. To this day he is a very humble artisan and doesn’t mind. Growing up in India, I spent many years observing his print mastery and artisan skillset. As such, I developed a real zeal for a career in textiles.

Parekh Bugbee, is a combination of my maiden and married names, the fusing of East and West cultures merged into one company. The prints and textiles we make merge traditional and evergreen Indian designs with modern and contemporary motifs.

Have you always wanted to be involved in your family’s business?

In truth, I always had a gut feeling at a very early age that I was destined to carry forward what my father had created but the mystery was what precise form it would take. As a teenager in the early 90s, my parents sent me to New York City to join my elder sister to study and pursue a career. Photography initially grabbed me passionately and I became adamant that I wanted to be a fashion photographer. These skills later proved useful to document and promote my father’s textile works and that was personally rewarding. When I returned to India after college, I worked as a photographer shooting textiles. It was an interesting journey—in India, the boy children usually inherit the duties of a families business but my father never had a male offspring, so it was natural that he wanted his daughters to understand his industry and carry it forward.

After spending one month in the office agreeing to work with him, I realized that it was connected to so many lives and it gave so much back to everyone who was involved in producing these fine textiles. I came to understand it as an ecosystem within itself from concept to completion. Most of the artisans are from different cities and villages around India. In simple terms, the work and the skills they employ make it possible for their kids to have a good education, a solid home, and modest savings for the marriage of their children. My father over the years built apartment units on the acreage around the factory so the artisans and their families could live close. A mango orchard was planted not long ago and he started a sustainable organic garden as well. To look at the whole picture is necessary to understand what goes into making these textiles.

I understand Parekh Bugbee uses organic and natural dyes. How do you get the spectacular colors?

We have a long process for drying the fabrics. My father refers to it as ‘cooking the textiles.’ After the silkscreen printing process, which is accomplished by a meticulous application of layers upon layers of color, the fabrics are run through an extremely high-temperature steam and then dried in direct sunlight for at least two days. This direct sun exposure ensures best results for fastening the color onto each textile.

Do you see changes in the way textiles are produced in India that are considering environmental implications?

Textiles in Asia are a very large and complex industry and even in India there are many approaches to this art, but in our practice, we try our best to be very environmentally conscious. Our entire factory is made out of recycled materials—floor to ceiling—and for as long as I can remember my father has been all about ‘zero wastage’ when it comes to the production line. A while back he created a sophisticated water filtration system which essentially recycles all the water used in the textile printing process to eventually be used in the vegetable gardens.

All of the scarves are so beautiful! How many do you keep for your personal collection?

These textiles have a life of their own and a story behind them. I feel that with time they will only be more valuable as most wearable textiles are now produced cheaply by machine only. These are made by hand every step of the way. That is now rare. And that is why they will retain their special nature.

Honestly, I do have a very wide range of my favorite silk scarves and shawls. I  have them tucked away in a closet and someday it will be a great honor to pass them on to my child. I really believe that these textiles are not just mere pieces of fabrics, they are textile jewels that will never go out of fashion.

Images: Courtesy of Payal Parekh Bugbee

An Ethos of Equity: Learn About SAM’s Exhibition Advisory Committees

Rachel Eggers on Nov 27 2018

An Ethos of Equity: Learn About SAM’s Exhibition Advisory Committees

Over the years, SAM has from time to time brought together a group of community members from diverse backgrounds and affiliations to advise on the presentation of a special exhibition. In 2009, SAM met with leaders of the city’s South Asian community when a set of exquisite royal paintings from Jodhpur would be presented at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. A group of fashion designers and instructors advised the museum—and helped create a fashion show featuring local designers at the museum—for SAM’s fall 2016 exhibition celebrating the work of the legendary Yves Saint Laurent.

These, and numerous other examples, signify the importance to SAM of connecting with people outside of the organization to fulfill its mission of reflecting the community it serves. This ethos guides much of SAM’s work already; for example, the Education & Public Engagement Division nurtures ongoing relationships with local artists, performers, writers, and other culture-makers in presenting dynamic programming and events.

Now it’s official: going forward, the museum will bring this community-centered process to the development of all major special exhibitions presented throughout the year, convening Advisory Committees who will meet and advise the museum throughout the planning process.

A major impetus for making this process official? The deeply rewarding experience working with an advisory committee for Double Exposure: Edward S. Curtis, Marianne Nicolson, Tracy Rector, Will Wilson (June 14–September 9, 2018). As plans for this major exhibition came together, it was clear that the complex subject matter would require thoughtful execution at every step.

The exhibition would be held for the sesquicentennial of the birth of photographer Edward S. Curtis (1868–1952), but far from a celebration, SAM would present a richly nuanced re-evaluation of his legacy. “While Curtis made many contributions to the fields of art and ethnography, his romanticized picture of Native identity has cast a lingering shadow over the perception of Native peoples,” noted Barbara Brotherton, SAM’s Curator of Native American Art. “Today, Indigenous artists are creating aesthetic archives reclaiming agency over their visual representation.” Brotherton worked with three contemporary Indigenous artists—Marianne Nicolson, Tracy Rector, and Will Wilson—to conceive of Double Exposure, an exhibition that would thread their works in conversation with Curtis’ iconic photographs, as well as objects from SAM’s collection.

This collaboration between curator and contemporary artists also included the advisory committee, whose feedback helped make space at the museum for a reckoning with Curtis’s legacy. With Double Exposure, SAM took a big step in its efforts to decolonize the museum. We’d like to acknowledge the committee members once again: Dr. Charlotte Coté (Tseshaht / Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation), Jarrod Da (San Ildefonso Pueblo), Colleen Echohawk-Hayashi (Pawnee Nation / Upper Ahtna Athabascan), Andy Everson (K’ómoks First Nation), Jason Gobin (Tulalip Tribe), Darrell Hillaire (Lummi Nation), Madrienne Salgado (Muckleshoot Tribe), Lydia Sigo (Suquamish Tribe), Asia Tail (Cherokee Nation), and Ken Workman (Duwamish Tribe).

To bring together the advisory committees, invitations are sent to leaders, artists, and thinkers whose own work and communities are reflected in the particular themes of an exhibition. These selections are drawn from SAM’s already-rich network of partnerships and more importantly provide opportunities to create new connections with community leaders and organizations in the region. Reflecting the value of this work, and ensuring that the opportunity to serve is accessible to everyone, SAM offers a stipend to all committee members. Each committee meets with a cross-divisional group of SAM staff who are charged with taking the feedback and guidance of the members back to their colleagues. Interacting with each step of the exhibition-making process over the course of multiple meetings—including curatorial, marketing, education, and more—the committee’s input contributes to the development of exhibition content, communication, and interpretation.

Advisory Committees for upcoming exhibitions are already at work. SAM is grateful for their dedication—and eager to experience how this community-centered model contributes to SAM’s mission to connect art to life.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Equity Team Outreach Taskforce Chair

Photo: Natali Wiseman. Pictured, L to R: Ken Workman (Duwamish Tribe), Jarrod Da (San Ildefonso Pueblo), Dr. Charlotte Coté (Tseshaht / Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation), Curator of Native American Art Barbara Brotherton, Double Exposure artist Tracy Rector, Asia Tail (Cherokee Nation), Lydia Sigo (Suquamish Tribe), Madrienne Salgado (Muckleshoot Tribe). Not pictured: Colleen Echohawk-Hayashi (Pawnee Nation / Upper Ahtna Athabascan), Andy Everson (K’ómoks First Nation), Jason Gobin (Tulalip Tribe), Darrell Hillaire (Lummi Nation).

 

Muse/News: Merch memories, hair collections, and donut stories

Rachel Eggers on Nov 26 2018

Muse/News: Merch memories, hair collections, and donut stories

SAM News

Thelonious Goerz of University of Washington’s The Daily offered a lovely review of our recent “Songs of Rajasthan” event. Don’t miss other fantastic events related to Peacock in the Desert: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India—including tours, lectures, and film—on SAM’s calendar.

The holidays are officially here! Seattle Weekly has you covered with a comprehensive list of event picks for the season, including the luminous SAM Lights at the Olympic Sculpture Park on Thursday, December 13.

Local News

Crosscut’s Emerging Journalist Fellow Manola Secaira on the repatriation of Mexican artifacts that a UW grad student discovered on an estate sale listing.

Also in Crosscut: former Seattle City Councilmember Jean Godden offers this remembrance of civic leader Phyllis Lamphere, who recently passed away at age 96.

Jasmyne Keimig for The Stranger on Clyde Petersen’s new installation at Bellevue Arts Museum; Merch & Destroy uses cardboard sculpture to “translate the drudgery and unglamorous bits of touring.”

“The world building and tiny details of his creations—like the very visible Washington State vehicle registration slip in the van or the crate full of hilariously titled made-up vinyl records—make this exhibition feel lived-in.”

Inter/National News

“They are like animals in a zoo.” London’s Tate Modern is being sued by neighbors over its “viewing terrace,” which looks directly onto their expensive, glass-enclosed apartments.

Caroline Goldstein for Artnet offers a look at Rodarte, the debut fashion exhibition of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, which explores the work of sisters Laura and Kate Mulleavy.

18th-century naturalist Peter A. Browne assembled the world’s greatest hair collection—and it was saved from the trash by a curator.

“The reintroduction of the hair to the wider public could finally have a scientific impact, albeit not the one Browne imagined. ‘What is so useful about this collection now is all of that DNA is preserved, and he had no idea he was doing that when he sent out his requests to people for hair,’ Peck stated.”

And Finally

Crosscut photojournalist Dorothy Edwards visits King Donuts in Rainier Beach.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Installation view of Peacock in the Desert: the Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India at Seattle Art Museum, 2018, photo: Natali Wiseman

Muse/News: Jeffrey Gibson’s layers, Viking surprises, and Baroque drama

Rachel Eggers on Nov 19 2018

Muse/News: Jeffrey Gibson’s layers, Viking surprises, and Baroque drama

SAM News

Like a Hammer, the solo exhibition of contemporary art star Jeffrey Gibson, opens at SAM in about three months! Learn more about his exciting artistic practice from OUT and Architects + Artisans, who both review his solo show This Is the Day, now on view at the Wellin Museum in New York State.

Launched in 2016, SAM’s Emerging Arts Leader Internship now boasts seven graduates—including two who are now full-time SAM employees. That’s pretty rad. Meet the current Emerging Arts Leader intern, Trang Tran!

Toronto’s Narcity offers “13 Fun Washington Date Ideas That Are Way More Fun Than You’d Think”—including the Seattle Art Museum.

Local News

The end of an era, indeed. City Arts announced that it is ceasing publication after 12 years. Brangien Davis of Crosscut explored what this means for arts coverage and for local artists.

In advance of her TEDxSeattle talk last Saturday, Molly Vaughan spoke with Seattle Met’s Stefan Milne about the continuing Project 42, “active accomplice creation,” and sharing her platform.

Jasmyne Keimig for The Stranger on The Vikings Begin at the Nordic Museum, whose moody galleries “capture the ethos of early Viking society”—including some surprises.

“Not only were women guardians of many aspects of spiritual life, and carriers of the concept of revenge, but there’s evidence they were also warriors, and were buried in high-status graves packed with weapons—a custom previously believed to have been only for men.”

Inter/National News

Artnet’s Kate Brown reports on Rijksmuseum’s upcoming exhibition that commemorates the 350th year of Rembrandt van Rijn‘s death. I just love the simple, all-you-need-to-say title: All the Rembrandts.

A few of SAM’s once-featured and still-favorite artists have been making news lately: Sondra Perry won the 2018 Nam June Paik Award, Kerry James Marshall was ranked number 2 on Art Review’s Power 100, and Mickalene Thomas is included on the OUT100 list.

Murder most Baroque? Artnet’s Javier Pes on a London show exploring violence in the work of 17th-century artist Jusepe de Ribera, including rumors that he murdered his rival (dang!).

“The single-venue show will be topical in London, which has seen a recent escalation in gang violence. There have been fatal stabbings in Camberwell and Peckham, two neighborhoods that are near Dulwich. Payne says that the violence in Ribera’s art is ‘not gratuitous.’”

And Finally

Making art out of rude cell phone disruptions.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Like A Hammer, 2014, Jeffrey Gibson, Mississippi Band Choctaw/Cherokee, b. 1972, elk hide, glass beads, artificial sinew, wool blanket, metal studs, steel, found pinewood block, and fur, 56 × 24 × 11 in., Collection of Tracy Richelle High and Roman Johnson, courtesy of Marc Straus Gallery, New York, image courtesy of Jeffrey Gibson Studio and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California, photo: Peter Mauney.

Object of the Week: Royal Incubator

Elisabeth Smith on Nov 16 2018

Object of the Week: Royal Incubator

Widely regarded as one of the most important American sculptors of the 20th century, David Smith once described his early sculptures of the 1940s and 50s, like Royal Incubator, as “drawings in space.” Smith, a welder, often used wrought and soldered metals such as steel, bronze, and silver, arranged in a highly visual and pictorial arrangement. As explained by art historian Richard J. Williams, “[these sculptures] were really only legible as three-dimensional pictures, albeit abstract ones.”[1]

Smith’s early work prioritized the act of viewing from a fixed perspective, and while experiencing his pieces in space—and in the round—is important, Royal Incubator’s legibility as a single plane, much like the Cubist paintings of Picasso, is tantamount. In addition to finding influence in Cubism, the dream-like imagery in such early works evidences the heavy influence Surrealism had on Smith. However, thanks to its location installed in Big Picture: Art after 1945, now on view in SAM’s Modern and Contemporary Galleries, Royal Incubator’s association with Abstract Expressionism is also made clear. In many ways, it can be seen as a three-dimensional equivalent to the active, monumental, and gestural paintings by Pollock, Krasner, and Gorky nearby.

Born and raised in Indiana, Smith first worked as a welder and riveter at the Studebaker automobile plant in South Bend. Later, during World War II, Smith worked for the American Locomotive Company, working to fabricate trains and M7 destroyer tanks. These experiences proved formative, advancing his welding skills and relationship with metalwork. Smith’s early works bring together the real, often in the form of found metal scraps, with the imagined, resulting in a unique and at times deeply autobiographical visual style. For example, in Royal Incubator, metal spigots become birds of flight in a dream-like composition that defies clear interpretation.

Delta Air Lines, the Official Airline of the Seattle Art Museum, is a generous sponsor of Big Picture. Their support makes it possible to share this incredible post-war collection with our community.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

[1] Richard J. Williams, After Modern Sculpture: Art in the United States and Europe, 1965-70 (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 2000), 23.
Image: Royal Incubator, 1949, David Smith, steel, bronze and silver, 37 x 38 3/8 x 9 7/8 in., Gift of the Virginia and Bagley Wright Collection, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum, 2016.17.5 © Estate of David Smith

Say Hi to SAM’s New Emerging Arts Leader: Trang Tran

Rachel Eggers on Nov 14 2018

Say Hi to SAM’s New Emerging Arts Leader: Trang Tran

SAM’s ongoing Emerging Arts Leader Internship continues this winter with Trang Tran, a senior at the University of Washington.

This paid internship is aimed at candidates who are underrepresented in the museum field. It’s an interdisciplinary internship that allows the intern to interact with diverse aspects of museum work and contribute their unique insights and perspectives. Members of SAM’s Equity Team, representing several departments at the museum, make up the hiring committee for this important internship that is just one way SAM is working to create points of entry into the museum field and work toward equity and inclusion within our own walls. Launched in 2016, the internship program now boasts seven graduates.

Trang started her internship in September and will be here through the end of 2018. Growing up, she was expected to pursue a STEM career and planned to study biology—until an introductory art history course changed the course of her life (art has a way of doing that). Graduating next June from UW, she’s now pursuing an art history degree—with a minor in microbiology! During her cross-disciplinary internship, she’ll explore all facets of the museum field and share her unique insights along the way. Says Trang, “I want to demonstrate to society—especially the Asian community—that every child deserves to have an equal opportunity to choose their career path. I want to become that change.”

Save the date for Thursday, December 6! Trang will lead a free My Favorite Things Tour in the galleries focusing on some of what she’s learned while contributing to SAM. You won’t want to miss it.

We asked Trang: What’s a work of art that challenged your perspective on life?

Trang: The Last Judgment by Michelangelo, which he painted on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City during the Renaissance era. The stylistic goals of the Renaissance era were rationality, balance, and unity. However, Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment was very dynamic, chaotic, and filled with ambiguity. Michelangelo challenged the norms of the Renaissance movement and as a result, he created one of the world’s greatest treasures. His refusal to conform to the norms of the current art movement encouraged me to pursue a career outside of the ones that children who grow up in Asian communities are generally expected to pursue. I want to demonstrate to society that I can become successful doing something I love instead of chasing a career that society labels as “successful.”

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Equity Team Outreach Taskforce Chair

Muse/News: Party people, Black pioneers, and surrealist snacks

Nina Dubinsky on Nov 12 2018

Muse/News: Party people, Black pioneers, and surrealist snacks

SAM News

Last Friday, SAM presented another edition Remix, its creative late-night out featuring music, tours, and art-making. And as per usual, the beautiful people of Seattle showed up and showed out: Check out these colorful photo slideshows from Seattle Refined and Queerspace Magazine. See you at the next edition of Remix in March!

Local News

Andrew Hamlin for Northwest Asian Weekly on the Wing Luke’s new show, Worlds Beyond Here: The Expanding Universe of Science Fiction; Tamiko Thiel, whose augmented reality experience appeared at the Olympic Sculpture Park in 2016, is included in this group show.

The Seattle Times launches Art Outings, in which their critics find places where art and snack & drinks are brought together. First up: The Frye Museum’s just-launched Third Thursday Happy Hours.

Real Change’s cover story this week: Lisa Edge’s review of Tacoma’s Washington State Historical Museum show featuring rarely shown works on paper by Jacob Lawrence about Tumwater founder George Bush.

“Lawrence depicting Bush’s migration is a convergence of two important pioneers. Bush, in the literal sense as he moved out west a century before The Great Migration, and Lawrence because of the barriers he broke within the art world. The series is an opportunity to learn more about two people who thrived in spite of entrenched barriers.”

Inter/National News

Artnet’s Sheila Regan reviews Art for a New Understanding, the new survey at the Crystal Bridges Museum, calling it “a serious attempt to redefine what contemporary Indigenous art means today.”

Brigit Katz for Hyperallergic on Color Problems, a “widely overlooked, yet staggering” book on color theory by Emily Noyes Vanderpoel first published in 1901—it’s now getting a careful reprinting.

Carl Zimmer of the New York Times reports on the extraordinary discovery in Borneo of what scientists are calling “the oldest figurative art in the world”—it’s 40,000 years old!

“The early images and figures might have illustrated stories contained vital information for how to survive in hard times, Dr. Conard said. Or perhaps the drawings helped joined people as a group, encouraging them to cooperate—‘a kind of glue to hold these social units together,’ he said.”

And Finally

Snacks – with a Surrealist manifesto.

Photo: Jen Au

Object of the Week: Triplicate vase

Elisabeth Smith on Nov 9 2018

Object of the Week: Triplicate vase

Some things never go out of style, but some words do. Take, for example, fuddle (verb) ca. 16th century: 1. confuse or stupefy (someone), especially with alcohol; 2. a state of confusion or intoxication. Fuddle, related to a more common and modern derivative, befuddle (which dates to 1873), was once so in vogue that it was incorporated into drinkware terminology: the fuddling cup.

This Triplicate vase, also known in England as a fuddling cup, is really three mugs in one. Joined together by slip prior to the kiln, these three uniform mugs are connected internally so that liquid can flow from one to another as emptied and imbibed. The cups’ intertwined handles add further illusion to the nature of their fabrication.

The German porcelain factory Höchst, which produced this delicate piece, was founded in 1750 by the Elector of Mayence, near Mainz, just outside of Frankfurt. The lightly colored floral design is representative of the manufactory’s early painting style (not to mention the eighteenth-century European predilection for botanical motifs), which helps dates the fabrication of this piece circa 1755.1

In England, such vessels were usually associated with taverns, and considered “‘joke’ drinking pots.”2 The modest size of each individual vessel would deceive the uninitiated drinker, who was encouraged to finish the contents of a single mug, when in reality they would be consuming the alcohol in all three; the result would be confusion from the practical joke as well as from the volume of their alcohol consumption. Confusion and intoxication are inextricable when fuddling cups are involved, no matter how delicate and unassuming they may appear.

–Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

1 Julie Emerson, Jennifer Chen, and Mimi Gardner Gates, Porcelain Stories: From China to Europe (Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 2000), 235.
2 “Fuddling Cup,” V&A Collection, accessed November 7, 2018, http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O21042/fuddling-cup-unknown/.
Image: Triplicate vase, ca. 1755, German, Höchst, hard paste porcelain, 4 1/2 in. height, 19 1/2 in. girth, 2 1/16 in. diameter, Gift of Martha and Henry Isaacson, 69.175.

Toyin Ojih Odutola’s Postures: In This Imperfect Present Moment

Pam McClusky on Nov 8 2018

Toyin Ojih Odutola’s Postures: In This Imperfect Present Moment

We read each other’s body language all day, every day. In the museum, surrounded by artworks depicting a variety of figures and movements, this instinct can be put to an international test of how well we understand gestures and postures. A walk through the galleries can simulate what it’s like to be in another country, where you don’t know the verbal language and need to navigate based on reading bodies.

In the exhibition In This Imperfect Present Moment, a person’s body is telling you to stop and recognize that their moment has come, and you are a vital participant. They are ready to talk. Which language are they likely to speak? Toyin Ojih Odutola was born in Nigeria, grew up in Alabama, went to art school in San Francisco, and now lives in New York. She’s given many insightful interviews that provide a sense of the conversation you might have with her about her work. For now, here’s just one quote: “I’m attracted to the understated in art: moments that can be quickly passed over, but are complex and layered. There’s nothing wrong with bombast, and the maximalist in aesthetic and presentation, and I often exploit those very qualities. But nothing beats the underwhelming, the quiet, the subtle. When you see the economy of line used so effortlessly—that always gets me, because it isn’t easy.”

– Pam McClusky, Curator of African and Oceanic Art

Images: In This Imperfect Present Moment, 2016, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Nigerian, b. 1985, charcoal, pastel, pencil on paper, 83 x 24 in., Private collection, © Toyin Ojih Odutola, photo courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. You are welcome, 2012, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Nigerian, b. 1985, pen, ink on paper, 11 x 11 in., Private collection, © Toyin Ojih Odutola, photo courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

Muse/News: SAM director to retire, found photos, and what Oprah says

Rachel Eggers on Nov 5 2018

Muse/News: SAM director to retire, found photos, and what Oprah says

SAM News

Last week, SAM announced that Kimerly Rorschach, SAM’s Illsley Ball Nordstrom Director and CEO, will retire in fall 2019 after seven years leading the institution. The Seattle Times shared the news in their Thursday print edition, featuring an interview with Kim. ARTNews, Artforum, and others picked up the news.

Sign me up: “Manipulation, melodrama, and black-and-white thrills ensue,” says Seattle Met, recommending last week’s selection in our 41st Film Noir Series. There are only four screenings left in the series—come get moody with us!

The Seattle Times has “everything you need to know about the hottest tickets in town” for November, including Peacock in the Desert: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India, and Seattle Magazine features the Peacock-inspired edition of Remix on their list of “15 Best Things To Do in Seattle in November 2018.”

And finally, the November/December issue of Art Access features a review of Peacock in the Desert by art critic Susan Platt.

“The exhibition, like India itself, is full of elaborate objects, stunning color, and fascinating history.”

Local News

Seattle Met’s Stefan Milne sees “different takes on immersion” in two new shows: Between Bodies at the Henry and Annie Morris at Winston Wächter Fine Art.

I recently shared reviews of Bellevue Art Museum’s show of found photos from the collection of Robert E. Jackson; watch ArtZone’s interview with Robert about his extraordinary collection.

The November issue of City Arts is out now; the feature by Margo Vansynghel asks “what’s worth saving?” as she explores the process of historical building preservation —and what values and whose stories are deemed worthy.

“The history of the everyday is worth saving along with the history of yesterday and today. In some cases, architectural preservation is self-preservation.”

Inter/National News

Hey, remember our awesome For Freedoms tours? The organization that inspired them just came out with a series of photos reimagining Norman Rockwell’s paintings featuring Rosario Dawson, Van Jones, and others.

Hyperallergic reviews the new show at the Asia Society Museum, The Progressive Revolution: Modern Art for a New India, charting a moment that “encapsulated avant-garde abstraction without bowing to its Western idiom.”

Charles Desmarais on the “extraordinary conclusion” of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s search for a new leader; Thomas P. Campbell replaces Max Hollein (… who just took over for Campbell at the Met).

“On another front, the appointment of one more white man to a powerful museum position is not likely to sit well with those who have demanded greater diversity in such jobs. That call, heard widely throughout the field, was taken up by FAMSF staff in June, when a letter signed by more than 100 employees asked the board to seriously consider women and people of color during the search.”

And Finally

I have been doing what she tells me to do since I was a child and I don’t intend to stop now.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Photo: Scott Areman

Object of the Week: Chukwu Okoro Masks

Chelsea Werner-Jatzke on Nov 2 2018

“This is one of the best places I’ve seen masks installed because normally they would hang it on the wall. But doing it this way, with the costumes and everything, also gives it character because these masks were not really meant to be hanging on the wall like that.” – Emeka Ogboh

Remember when Disguise: Masks and Global African Art was on view in 2015? We’re bringing you a flashback to Nigerian sound artist Emeka Ogboh discussing masks by Chukwu Okoro in SAM’s collection, why he chose them as one of his favorite things in the museum, and their significance in regards to the soundscapes he created for Disguise. Currently, these masks can be viewed in our African art galleries as part of Lessons from the Institute of Empathy where three Empathics have surrounded themselves with works from our African art collection as a way to help visitors awaken their own empathy. The Empathics display their trademarked process for transformation and ask you to consider the other artwork around you. Come see what we mean.

Image: Installation view Chukwu Okoro Masks at Seattle Art Museum, 2016, photo: Natali Wiseman.

Muse/News: Peacock struts, Saint Woman commands, and the pumpkin dances

Rachel Eggers on Oct 29 2018

Muse/News: Peacock struts, Saint Woman commands, and the pumpkin dances

SAM News

Peacock in the Desert continues to strut:

The exhibition was included in The New York Times’ overview of “Art to See This Fall,” which says it’s “the next best thing to visiting the clifftop Mehrangarh Fort Museum overlooking Jodhpur.”

It was king of KING, with segments on the station’s Evening Magazine and New Day NW—the latter featured an interview with His Highness Maharaja GajSingh II and his daughter Baijilal Shivranjani Rajye.

And reviews for the show ran in The International Examiner, Crosscut, The Daily, and The Spectator.

“Spanning five centuries, Peacock is an eye-popping look at a royal-family legacy. It uses video, audio and room-filling installations, along with dozens of fantastically detailed paintings (magnifying glasses are provided so you can study them closely), to immerse you in its world.”  —Michael Upchurch, Crosscut

Also: You may have seen Amy Sherald’s Saint Woman on the cover of this week’s Real Change (cash or Venmo accepted!); reporter Lisa Edge reviews the SAM show In This Imperfect Present Moment for this week’s centerpiece story.

“’It’s like she’s thinking about something else. She’s in command of her own space. Her own time,’ said curator Pam McClusky.”

Seattle Magazine’s annual list of the city’s movers and shakers is out—and Priya Frank, SAM’s Associate Director of Community Partnerships, is on it! She’s named “one to watch”—we couldn’t agree more. Congrats, Priya!

Local News

Very sad news: Yoko Ott, an artist and curator with connections to numerous Seattle organizations, died last week at the age of 47.

Tschabalala Self! That, and other offerings, are part of the exciting lineup coming up at the Frye Art Museum announced this week.

Sharon Salyer of The Everett Herald speaks with artist Romson Regarde Bustillo about his show on view at Edmonds Community College that asks, “what’s in a name?”

“’Art is information as much as it is something inexplicable,’ Bustillo said. ‘When we look at it, we have an emotional and a visceral reaction, but it is not removed from the way we’ve been conditioned to process information.’”

Inter/National News

Oh, Canada. Smithsonian Magazine reports on the latest humane news from our northern neighbor: Doctors in Montreal will soon be able to prescribe museum visits to their patients.

And in Germany, museums are the subject of a TV show. It will feature noted creatives—like Vivienne Westwood and Karl Ove Knausgård—leading tours in inside eight historic European museums.

And come through, America (well, NYC)!: The just-released budget for the city features a record-breaking $198.4 million for cultural organizations.

And Finally

It’s a Halloween tradition! To all you ghouls and goblins, I present: The Pumpkin Dance.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: His Highness Maharaja GajSingh II of Marwar-Jodhpur and Baijilal Shivranjani Rajye of Marwar-Jodhpur in Peacock in the Desert: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India at Seattle Art Museum, 2018, photo: Stephanie Fink.

Object of the Week: Ruth Asawa Family and Sculpture

Elisabeth Smith on Oct 26 2018

Object of the Week: Ruth Asawa Family and Sculpture

Though this 1957 photograph is by Imogen Cunningham, its subject is Bay Area artist Ruth Asawa (1926–2013). For decades Asawa has been little known beyond the West Coast, and is all too belatedly finding herself rewritten into the history of American art. Rather than concentrate on photographer Cunningham, this post focuses on Asawa, her diaphanous wire sculptures, and her complex identity as a Japanese-American woman artist.

Cunningham’s photograph is a quiet yet evocative image: Asawa sits with her face occluded by the semi-transparent curvature of one of her hanging wire sculptures. She’s surrounded by her four children, ranging from toddler to six years old. Each, including Asawa, is engaged in and absorbed by his or her own activity: reading, playing, observing, drinking, and making. The iconic photograph has often been read in gendered terms, focusing on Asawa’s demonstrated domesticity, femininity, and passivity. Like too many women artists, Asawa has been positioned primarily as a wife and mother—identities that override her identity as an artist, which can and should include these other identities. As curator Helen Molesworth discusses in her recent paper delivered last month at the Smithsonian, “Ruth Asawa: ‘San Francisco Housewife and Mother’,” this image has additional import, positioning art making as a social activity, and Asawa, therefore, as a citizen above all else.

As a child, Asawa would draw and make art while in a World War II internment camp with her Japanese parents. She was not an outside or self-taught artist though, for she attended Black Mountain College and studied for three years and two summers (1946–49) with Josef Albers, Merce Cunningham, and Buckminster Fuller, among others. For Asawa, “Black Mountain gave you the right to do anything you wanted to do. And then you put a label on it afterwards. I think that’s the nice thing about what Black Mountain did for its students. It was like they gave you permission to do anything you wanted to do. And then if it didn’t fit they’d make a category for you. But I think Black Mountain helped make something with weaving and with printmaking, and it gave people the freedom to make something of each category.”¹

Black Mountain was a transformative place and time for Asawa, creatively as well as socially: incorporated into Black Mountain’s utopian environment was an attitude that expanded what art can do for society. Therefore, to be an artist is to be a citizen—engaging actively in the world and making choices alongside others.² Though Cunningham’s photograph captures Asawa in her home, surrounded by her four (of six) children, central to the visual narrative is her artwork, which is inextricable from her role as an artist, wife, mother, and citizen.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

Image: Ruth Asawa Family and Sculpture, 1957, Imogen Cunningham, Gelatin silver print, 10 3/8 x 10 3/8 in. (26.4 x 26.4 cm), Gift of John H. Hauberg, 89.43
¹Ruth Asawa, “Oral history interview with Ruth Asawa and Albert Lanier, 2002 June 21-July 5,” interview by Mark Johnson and Paul Karlstrom, Archives of American Art, https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-ruth-asawa-and-albert-lanier-12222#transcript.
²Helen Molesworth, “Ruth Asawa: ‘San Francisco Housewife and Mother’,” filmed September 12, 2018 at Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., video, 1:07:05, https://americanart.si.edu/videos/clarice-smith-distinguished-lecture-series-scholar-helen-molesworth-154476.

Muse/News: The Peacock has landed, dudes talking in shops, and the woman who was first

Rachel Eggers on Oct 22 2018

Muse/News: The Peacock has landed, dudes talking in shops, and the woman who was first

SAM News

The Peacock has landed! The Seattle Times’ Steve Ringman captured colorful shots of the galleries, one of which also appeared on the front page of last Thursday’s print edition. An overview of the exhibition and related events also appeared their Weekend Plus section.

Check out more recommendations for the show in Seattle Met, Seattle Magazine, and ParentMap.

Last week, SAM announced the appointment of Theresa Papanikolas as its new Ann M. Barwick Curator of American Art. The Seattle Times had the exclusive, featuring an interview with Theresa.

All of SAM was saddened to hear of the passing of Paul Allen last week at the age of 65; SAM director and CEO Kim Rorschach shared her thoughts on the massive cultural legacy he left the city of Seattle with Crosscut.

Local News

We’re gonna need more Windex: Crosscut’s Aileen Imperial follows the Space Needle’s “Lead Glass Keeper” Paul Best on a typical day of keeping (literally) tons of glass clean.

Here’s two reviews of Polaroids: Personal, Private, Painterly, Bellevue Art Museum’s new show of found photos from the collection of Robert E. Jackson, by City Art’s Margo Vansynghel and Seattle Weekly’s Seth Sommerfeld.

Naomi Ishisaka for the Seattle Times interviewing Inua Ellams about his play Barber Shop Chronicles that runs for three nights at the Moore Theatre in November.

“It’s about cross-generational conversations about African masculinity and how that is compromised by the West . . . it’s about dudes talking in shops and it’s about men trying to find a safe space to be vulnerable.”

Inter/National News

Artnet’s Kate Brown explores a recent study that asks whether Leonardo da Vinci had a condition called exotropia that makes one eye wander off alignment—and whether it contributed positively to his work.

Hyperallergic’s Sarah Rose Sharp with a gentle skewering (ha) of the recent event-within-an-event of Banksy’s shredded print at Sotheby’s.

“If you like to hallucinate but disdain the requisite stimulants…” The New York Times’ Roberta Smith reviews Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future, now on view at the Guggenheim.

The idea that a woman got there first, and with such style, is beyond thrilling. Yes, I know art is not a competition; every artist’s ‘there’ is a different place. Abstraction is a pre-existing condition, found in all cultures. But still: af Klint’s ‘there’ seems so radical, so unlike anything else going on at the time. Her paintings definitively explode the notion of modernist abstraction as a male project.”

And Finally

The Royal Ontario Museum goes to pot.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Photo: Nina Dubinsky

Donor Spotlight: Shawn Brinsfield Supports the Asian Art Museum

Seattle Art Museum on Oct 19 2018

Donor Spotlight: Shawn Brinsfield Supports the Asian Art Museum

It’s nice to know that our community also thinks the future of the Seattle Asian Art Museum is going to be cool! More than the critical infrastructure updates to the Art Deco building that won’t be very apparent to visitors, there’s the long history of Asian culture in the Seattle area made visible at the museum. To Shawn Brinsfield, the modest expansion on the back of the Seattle Asian Art Museum is a physical commitment to expanding the understanding and appreciation of Asia. Read why the Asian Art Museum matters to this donor, learn more about the project, and stay up to date on the progress of the renovation and expansion of the Asian Art Museum.

The new Seattle Asian Art Museum is going to be very cool with more space for SAM’s growing collection, better flow and open ‘look-throughs’ to the outside. I take art lessons and sometimes they take us to Volunteer Park to draw; so I look forward to sitting on my chair outside near the trees and drawing the new large glass-walled rear addition of the museum. Ok, full disclosure—I am still just learning to draw; but it will be fun viewing Asian Art Museum visitors fishbowl-like.

The average museum-goer may not appreciate the museum’s new sophisticated climate control environment, which gives the art ‘eternal life.’ Sometimes I think about the centuries of artists who made the works inside the museum. What kind of challenges and human pressures did they have? I wonder how they would react, knowing that their year-after-year sweat and toil and evolution as artists would be preserved by loving and meticulous conservationists today. It’s my understanding that the Asian Art Museum will be an important national center of conserving Asian art. And conserving art is actually a fascinating process. Really!

My mom and her family are of Japanese descent. They were living a full life here in Seattle back in the ‘good old days.’ Grandma Benko Itoi wrote tanka poetry, the family attended art events at the Nippon Kan Theater, they danced in traditional ways at the Bon Odori. Then when World War II broke out they were compelled to destroy most things related to their Japanese culture. So, 75 years later, it’s important to me to support the expansion of Japanese and Asian culture in the Seattle area.

All the art at the Asian Art Museum tells stories of history, ideas, and ways of life. In addition to enjoying the exhibitions on wooden block prints, folding screens, and Chinese scrolls, I have loved going to the Gardner Center’s Saturday University Lecture Series and listening to experts from all over the world. I value this, especially since I help recruit speakers for an Asian art and history group in Florida.

As for the future of the Asian Art Museum, I expect that the Asian Art Museum’s growth will mirror that of Asia’s increasing presence on the world stage. I hope that it continues expanding its collection of South Asian art and continues reaching out to the growing South Asian community here in the Northwest; as well as reaching out to the non-Asian community. My spending time in India on several trips has had a significant impact on my mind and behavior. I include, in my daily life, some practices and rituals which are indigenous to India and South Asia. I have a warm and friendly feeling towards the people and culture of South Asia.

– Shawn Brinsfield

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