Muse/News: New visions, final bows, and happy little Zzzz’s

Rachel Eggers on Jun 18 2018

Muse/News: New visions, final bows, and happy little Zzzz’s

SAM News

Double Exposure: Edward S. Curtis, Marianne Nicolson, Tracy Rector, Will Wilson is now on view! Last week, Kim Holcomb of KING5’s Evening Magazine got a sneak peek of the exhibition, interviewing Barbara Brotherton, SAM’s Curator of Native American Art, and featured artist Tracy Rector.

Brangien Davis of Crosscut looks at both our show and the Deconstructing Curtis show at the Suquamish Museum.

“These added perspectives emphasize that Native Americans are contemporary Americans. They continue to adapt while preserving a long legacy of strength and struggle.”

Fred Wong of The International Examiner interviewed curators Xiaojin Wu and Ping Foong about their transformative vision for the future Asian Art Museum. If you’re a SAM member, hopefully you’ve reserved your spot to hear more at their sold-out Conversations with Curators lecture this Wednesday.

“It promises to be a mixture of old and new treasures: the magnificent Art Deco building, the vast Asian Art collections, and the bold re-imaging of the objects’ stories by Drs. Xiaojin Wu and Ping Foong, the two new treasures at [Seattle Asian Art Museum].”

Local News

After 16 years with the company, dancer Karel Cruz took his final bows with Pacific Northwest Ballet. The Seattle Times’ Moira Macdonald offers this farewell to this “master of partnering.”

Aileen Imperial and Stephen Hegg of Crosscut take us into the growing Ball and House culture of Seattle with this video story.

Here’s City Arts’ Brett Hamil on Chad Goller-Sojourner’s live multimedia memoir, Marching in Gucci: Memoirs of a Well-Dressed AIDS Activist, coming to Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute June 21–23.

“More than a remembrance of those he lost, it’s an expression of his determination to make art out of those frantic years, in which he fought to save others while doing harm to himself. It’s an account of improbable survival.”

Inter/National News

Happy little Zzzz’s: Laura M. Holson of the New York Times on the voice—which can only ever be described as “dulcet”—that’s now lulling users of the Calm app to sleep.

I miss having Kerry James Marshall’s work on view at SAM, so I enjoyed this Vancouver Sun review of his new solo exhibition at the Rennie. Also, his Vignette (The Kiss), which debuted in Figuring History, sold this week at Art Basel.

Speaking of the Swiss fair “best known for presenting the bluest of blue-chip European art,” Julia Halperin of Artnet notes the eager interest of buyers for works by African American artists.

“It’s great people are interested,” the dealer Jack Shainman says. “But the big question is why did it take so long, and why was it so hard to get here?”

And Finally

Contemporary art space SITE Santa Fe announced the lineup for their SITElines.2018 Biennial in a most melodic way. Could this be the future for press releases?

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Installation view Double Exposure: Edward S. Curtis, Marianne Nicolson, Tracy Rector, Will Wilson at Seattle Art Museum, 2018, photo: Natali Wiseman

Object of the Week: Untitled, Divinity

Elisabeth Smith on Jun 15 2018

Object of the Week: Untitled, Divinity

This image by Catherine Opie contains within it a number of seemingly oppositional elements: freedom and constriction, embellishment and erasure, intensity and ease, pain and restraint. The subject of the portrait, Divinity Fudge (born Darryl Carlton), stands with confidence, gracefully—if not stoically—lifting the opulent purple fabric that drapes his body, chandelier crystals embedded in his skin.

Over the course of her thirty-year career, Opie has photographed a number of American individuals and communities—most notably her lesbian and S&M leather community—and Untitled, Divinity is one of a larger series of photographic works by the artist, created in 2000 for the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS. Conceived in 1991 by the Alliance for the Arts in New York, Estate Project was established as an advocacy effort aimed at addressing “the protection of America’s cultural heritage during the AIDS crisis.”[1] Opie was among a number of artists commissioned by the organization to create artwork for the cause, and the result was her Polaroids series. The 13-Polaroid series, dedicated to her friend and artist Ron Athey, benefited the Estate Project organization, and half of the proceeds went to an artist living with AIDS. For Opie, “The whole project was a tribute to Ron and his S/M performance work.”[2]

In his performance practice, Athey employs S&M techniques and body modification to explore pain, trauma, transformation, and “allegorize the experience of survival, anger, and loss during the first decades of the AIDS crisis.”[3] Divinity, who is featured in two other photographs in the Polaroids series, appeared frequently in Athey’s work, such as the 1994 performance at the Walker Art Center—Four Scenes in a Harsh Life—which gained much national attention and notoriety. In a scene titled “Human Printing Press,” Athey cut 1 1/2 inch patterns into Divinity’s back. Impressions of Divinity’s wound were poetically transformed into prints on paper towels, which were then placed on a clothesline pulley and extended over the audience.[4]

In the Opie’s own words, “The 13 images in the series work as a journey through the ideas, actions and personas in [Ron Athey’s] performances, little vignettes from larger parts of Ron’s work. . . . The whole cast is not there, but the relationship with Divinity Fudge, who has performed with Ron for the past decade, is represented. There are images that I make in the series that have nothing to do with the performances, but act as pauses, offstage for a moment.”[5] Untitled, Divinity is one such offstage beat.

A master at capturing subjects as diverse as high school football players, lesbian families, surfers, freeways, and mini-malls, Opie has redefined American photography. Dedicated to expanding notions of queer identity—especially its subcultures that are too often misunderstood and overlooked—Opie’s project aims to highlight the beauty of this community as well as the importance of our individual differences.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

Images: Untitled, Divinity, 2000, Catherine Opie, photograph, 103 x 43 in., Gift of the Collectors’ Forum, 2000.114 © Artist or Artist’s EstateRon Athey blots blood from the back of Divinity Fudge during Four Scenes in a Harsh Life, 1994.
[1] “Biographical/Historical Information,” Estate Project for Artists with AIDS records, The New York Public Library Archives & Manuscripts, accessed June 13, 2018, http://archives.nypl.org/mss/4798#overview.
[2] Maura Reilly, “The Drive to Describe: An Interview with Catherine Opie,” Art Journal, vol. 60, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 82-96.
[3] David J. Getsy, Review of Pleading in the Blood: The Art and Performances of Ron Athey, edited by Dominic Johnson, Contemporary Theatre Review, vol. 24, issue 3 (2014): 299-400.
[4] Erroneous reports quickly circulated that blood dripped from the prints, exposing audience members to HIV-positive blood (Athey is HIV-positive, Divinity is HIV-negative). Hardly a factual account or an intended outcome of the performance, this hysterical response would later be misappropriated by conservative politicians to decrease federal funding of the arts.
[5] Catherine Opie, “Flash: On Photographing Ron Athey,” in Pleading in the Blood: The Art and Performances of Ron Athey, ed. Dominic Johnson (London: Intellect and Live Art Development Agency, 2013), 143.

Muse/News: Contradictions in Art, Humanity in Landscapes, and Cake goes to Court

Rachel Eggers on Jun 11 2018

Muse/News: Contradictions in Art, Humanity in Landscapes, and Cake goes to Court

SAM News

The Seattle Times’ Brendan Kiley previewed Double Exposure for the Sunday edition.

The museum knew it couldn’t present a simple hagiography of Curtis’ work without acknowledging its contradictions. “Double Exposure,” [Barbara Brotherton] said, “isn’t so much about Curtis and Native artists responding to his work as it is about putting them on equal footing.”

Molly Vaughan’s Project 42 was featured in this story and video by Crosscut’s Brangien Davis and Aileen Imperial. Look for the video as an interstitial on KCTS, too!

“Labor in my work is very important,” she says. “The labor that is put into the works is part of the memorialization. It’s the time that I spend thinking about that person and their story, and about how I’m hosting their spirit while I’m making their garment.”

Here’s the Stranger’s inimitable Charles Mudede on Basquiat’s “gorgeously brutal” Untitled, capitalist values, and giraffe necks.

Local News

Artist Trust recently announced Marita Dingus as the winner of the 2018 Irving and Yvonne Twining Humber Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement; see Marita’s work at SAM Gallery beginning this Thursday.

Rosin Saez of Seattle Met counts the “thoughtful, if curmudgeonly, ways” of Anthony Bourdain, tracing the moments the food & culture connector visited Seattle.

Don’t miss Rebecca Brown’s feature in the Stranger’s summer A&P, “What Looking at Landscapes Can Do to You,” a review of the current exhibition on view at the Frye Art Museum.

“This art is about looking and being aware that we live on a planet that’s bigger than us that we shouldn’t take for granted. Most of the landscapes don’t have people in them at all—and when they do, they’re small. We need to remember this.”

Inter/National News

Following last week’s significant ruling by the Supreme Court in Masterpiece Cakeshop vs. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, both Artnet and Hyperallergic reflect on what it means for the art world.

The Art Newspaper previews the Charles White retrospective now on view at the Art Institute of Chicago and later traveling to MoMA and LACMA. A key figure of the Chicago Black Renaissance, White was a mentor to SAM favorite Kerry James Marshall.

For Freedoms, an organization founded by artists Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman, has launched an epic 52-state initiative to encourage political engagement by artists and art institutions this fall.

“We believe art is a necessity, especially in civic discourse,” she continues. “At its simplest level, we’re hoping to see more art exist in the world.”

And Finally

Good news: Art auction stock photos are about to get way less weird.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Images: Left: Sunset on Puget Sound, 1912, Edward S. Curtis, American, 1868-1952, photogravure on vellum (paper), 11 3/4 x 15 1/2 in., Seattle Art Museum, Gift of John H. Hauberg, 86.173. Right: Ch’aak’ S’aagí (Eagle Bone), 2018, Tracy Rector, Seminole/Choctaw, b. 1972., video, Seattle Art Museum, 2018 Commission, Courtesy of the artist.

Object of the Week: Bamboo Netting Jacket

Elisabeth Smith on Jun 8 2018

Object of the Week: Bamboo Netting Jacket

One of the many “eco-friendly” fashion trends that graced the United States during the aughts was bamboo clothing. You could find it in just about every form: bamboo shirts, hoodies, socks, athletic wear—you name it. However, this woody grass has long been used in a variety of ways due to its wide-ranging properties, and bamboo undergarments, such as this netting jacket, were prominent in China as early as the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Modern bamboo textiles cannot hold a candle to them.

Made from cut sections of fine bamboo, this garment was constructed by sewing together hollow bamboo segments to create a woven mesh-like textile. The result is a simple but functional fabric that allows air to flow, keeping its wearer cool and dry (especially in the hot and humid climate of southern China). Further, this additional layer would protect outer garments, often made out of more expensive materials, from being stained and ruined. Despite the fact that this netting jacket would not be seen, its maker possessed an exquisite attention to detail and its construction; together, the mesh design, blue trim, and fasteners all enhance the elegant utility of the piece.

During the late 1800s, bamboo was already beginning to be mixed into other fibers to create alternative fabric blends. However, it was not until the 1990s that textile manufacturers realized bamboo could be substituted in producing rayon, a man-made fiber created from wood pulp and processed cellulose. As Syl Tang writes in Disrobed: How Clothing Predicts Economic Cycles, Saves Lives, and Determines the Future, rayon “was revolutionary for clothing makers. It felt like silk, yet was much cheaper to produce and did not insulate heat, which made the fabric perfect for hot climates.”[1] Add to this the fact that bamboo is an environmental powerhouse—it grows densely and quickly, regenerates after being cut, mitigates greenhouse gases—it is no wonder that bamboo was packaged as a better, safer, and greener option to other textile blends.

For the most part, many clothing companies touting the environmental and health benefits of bamboo during the 2000s were really just selling rayon (or viscose). Taking advantage of the green movement and the devotion of its consumers, such companies were able to get away with perverting a natural material that, as we see in this jacket, needs nothing else.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

[1] Syl Tang, Disrobed: How Clothing Predicts Economic Cycles, Saves Lives, and Determines the Future (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), 74.
Image: Bamboo netting jacket, 19th century, Chinese, Bamboo, beads, 29 x 25 1/4, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 33.1062.

What do you want to do when you grow up? SAM can help with the answer!

Seattle Art Museum on Jun 5 2018

What do you want to do when you grow up? SAM can help with the answer!

Remember when you were in school and everyone nagged you about what you wanted to do when you grew up? You may have known, you may not have known, you may have thought you knew and ended up changing your mind. SAM’s High School Career Day programs differ from others by rejecting the notion that 15 and 16 year-olds need to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives. Instead we explore the vast career options within a museum whilst creating a space for students to feel okay with the unknown.

SAM’s Equity Team’s Career Days center the interests of aspiring youth while involving staff from across departments and shedding light on the real people who navigate the creative, interesting, and sometimes odd, world of nonprofits, art, and museums. Students have heard from folks in SAM’s Education, Curatorial, Security, and Development departments, as well as from teaching artists, and more!

Our last Career Day on April 25, 2018 was with Mount Rainier High School and 85% of students said this experience helped them better understand their future career interests and plans for after high school. Nearly 70% of students said this experience helped them think about school in a new way, or motivated them to do better in school. Some of the students shared their thoughts with us after their visit!

“I thought about how it would be an interesting job but it made me realize I need to do better in school to become what I want.”

“Learning about the history of some of the art made me understand and find a deeper appreciation for history in school I don’t enjoy.”

“We saw a figures in history exhibit where old paintings had been re-imagined to represent a larger modern community. I’d like to work harder to later represent youth and help educate about identity expression at school.”

Our next Career Day is in November and we will continue to offer this program in the future. If you would like to bring your group to the museum for a Career Day experience, please email us!

– Rayna Mathis, School and Educator Programs Coordinator

Muse/News: Tech in museums, revolutionary fashion, and the magic of akari

Rachel Eggers on Jun 4 2018

Muse/News: Tech in museums, revolutionary fashion, and the magic of akari

SAM News

The museum’s first-ever Chief Technology Officer, Manish Engineer, appeared on Geekwire’s podcast to talk about his path to SAM, his plans for the institution, and the balance he wants to strike between art and technology.

“’I always want to make sure that people are looking at the art more so than anything else,’ he said. ‘When you think of things like visual hierarchy, I want to make sure that the art is first and on top of hierarchy.’ And that phone or tablet with its supplemental information? ‘I want to make sure that’s secondary,’ he said.”

Kerry James Marshall’s Past Times recently set an auction high for any work by a living African-American artist; The New York Times’s Scott Reyburn wrote about the rise of value for works by Black artists. He notes that these shifts are also reflected in curatorial choices; SAM’s recent Figuring History exhibition and current Basquiat painting on view are referenced.

Local News

Vogue features Indigenous fashion designers, in advance of Toronto’s first-ever Indigenous Fashion Week; blankets by Bethany Yellowtail are available at Seattle’s Eighth Generation.

Who went Upstream this weekend? Seattle Times music writer Michael Rietmulder attended and tweeted all weekend; here’s his take from the first day of the second edition of the music festival.

City Arts’ June cover photo of Prairie Underground’s Davora Lindner is amazing; don’t miss Amanda Manitach’s fantastic profile of Davora, either.

“’Prairie Underground embodies the idea of political uprising, insurrection and a secret society,’ Lindner says.”

Inter/National News

On the newsstands: The New Yorker’s annual Fiction Issue, with cover art by artist Loveis Wise; it was her debut for the magazine and also only the second time a Black woman’s art has been featured on the cover.

Raise your hand if you have an electric paper lantern in your home: yep, that’s everyone. Artsy traces Isamu Noguchi’s creation of the simple—yet magical—forms of akari.

What happens when you’ve booked a show four years ago—called Casanova: The Seduction of Europe—and it’s opening now in the age of #MeToo? Hyperallergic’s Emily Wilson shares what San Francisco’s Legion of Honor Museum did.

“’The simplest problem to fix is framing his rapes as seductions and Casanova as a kind of sexy scoundrel,’ she said. ‘We can avoid glorifying or censuring and try to imagine if, instead of a wealthy white European man, this story was told through some of the women of the time.’”

And Finally

It’s June!!

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Photo: GeekWire Photo / Clare McGrane

Object of the Week: Dog Hedge

Elisabeth Smith on Jun 1 2018

Object of the Week: Dog Hedge

The teapot is a centuries-old vessel whose origins are firmly rooted in China. Features of the teapot have evolved over time, depending on the culture and period, but for the most part the vessel is a straightforward formula with certain basic elements: a spout, a handle, a lid, and, of course, a container for hot water. Tried and tested, right? Enter Peter Shire.

For decades, Los Angeles-based Shire has worked at the intersection of fine art, craft, and industrial design, experimenting with a variety of mediums and methods to produce iconic ceramic works and furniture that challenge the modernist maxim “form follows function,” first coined by American architect Louis Sullivan. The form of this ceramic teapot, titled Dog Hedge, does not immediately align with its understood function. In fact, many of Shire’s teapots (an ongoing and touchstone series in his practice), don’t pour tea properly—they are objects meant to be looked at. In the words of the artist, they are “referentially functional.”

One of the original members (and first American) of the 1980s Italian design collective Memphis Group, Shire has proven himself a master of surfaces and mimicry. Interested in the plasticity of materials such as clay, he approaches his practice with playful rigor. In this 1982 work, orange, lime green, and red geometric shapes overlap with rectilinear planes of speckled pink and blue to form a postmodern constructivist composition. The various ceramic components balance precariously, testing the limits of the teapot’s utility.

For this work, Shire found inspiration in such diverse sources as Stonehenge, aqueducts, post and beam architecture of the 1950s, the architecture of Luis Barragán, and the “anthropomorphic qualities of the [teapot’s] spout as a mouth and the lid as eyes.” In Shire’s hands, the teapot—as both an object and an idea—becomes deconstructed and reimagined on his own personal, conceptual, and architectural terms. Appearing from one angle as a dog in profile, the piece’s title also references Stonehenge—a monument whose unclear use and construction no doubt finds a parallel in Shire’s own work.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

Images: Dog Hedge, 1982, Peter Shire, ceramic with glaze, 9 1/2 x 14 x 9 1/2 in., Gift of Anne Gould Hauberg, 86.138 © Artist or Artist’s Estate

Introducing SAM’s 2018 Emerging Arts Leaders

Rachel Eggers on May 31 2018

Introducing SAM’s 2018 Emerging Arts Leaders

“SAM connects art to life.”

These are the first five words of SAM’s mission statement. Staff and volunteers read these words on the wall every day when arriving at work. It’s the lens through which we view everything we do.

One crucial part of that mission is to work for equity and inclusion within our own walls, knowing that the museum must reflect the community it serves. In 2016, SAM launched the Emerging Arts Leader Internship, a paid internship 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.

This summer, two more interns begin their work. Near the end of their internship, they’ll lead a free tour in the galleries focusing on some what they’ve learned while contributing to SAM.

Introducing SAM’s 2018 Emerging Arts Leaders:

Dovey Martinez

Born and raised in Seattle, Dovey is triumphantly returning to the city after completing her Bachelor’s in Studio Art at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut. As a Honduran American and the child of immigrants, Dovey initially explored becoming an immigration lawyer. Fortunately for the arts and for SAM, she turned her focus to art: to the formal qualities of paint, to depicting the lives of marginalized communities, and to working for equity and inclusion.

Dovey was a member of Rainier Scholars, a Seattle-based college access program. One of her mentors there said this about her work:

“Her paintings convey the real struggle and sacrifice of her family and the millions of other amazing families working in agricultural fields and cleaning houses in order to create opportunities for the next generation of children hoping to benefit from the American promises of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Thanks to her interest in contemporary art and with working with the public, Dovey will be working primarily with the Curatorial department and with the Education department on public programming.

Seohee Kim

Seohee is preparing to graduate this June from the University of Washington with a degree in Communications and a minor in Diversity. A first-generation Korean American, she grew up in a predominantly white community in the American South. A self-described Third Culture Kid, Seohee had to balance the divergent rules and codes of school and home. It was at college where she learned to “embrace both cultures equally, and to value the challenges as learned opportunities to wield as tools in assisting those who similarly feel wedged between cultural identities.”

Embracing her multifaceted identity and experience is what guides Seohee’s interest in communications, in which she’s excelled. One of her former professors shared,

“Seohee has a longstanding interest in visual cultural production as a medium for communicating about racialized difference. Her schoolwork and previous experiences have long focused on the simultaneous negotiation, power, and disconnections between her various identities.”

Because of her passion for storytelling and multilingual and intercultural fluencies, Seohee will work primarily with the Curatorial and Communications departments, researching and writing about art.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Equity Team Outreach Taskforce Chair

Image: Left, Dovey Martinez. Right, Seohee Kim.

New Cedar for Bunyon’s Chess

Seattle Art Museum on May 30 2018

New Cedar for Bunyon’s Chess

A brilliant conservator[1] once noted that “art conservation is a fight against entropy.” This is especially visible for works sited outside which require conservators, artists, and stakeholders to carefully consider what is essential for an outdoor sculpture to continue to exist for future generations. When the carved cedar elements of Mark di Suvero’s sculpture Bunyon’s Chess were no longer structurally stable, di Suvero and his studio worked closely with the Seattle Art Museum to explore the artwork and discover solutions.

Bunyon’s Chess was created by Mark di Suvero in 1965 for Virginia and Bagley Wright’s residence in Seattle. The family’s documentation of the creative process provides wonderful insight into the artwork.

In 2006 the Wrights promised the work to the Seattle Art Museum and it was moved to the Olympic Sculpture Park. The cedar elements had begun to show degradation in their original site but this accelerated at the park partially due to the exposed location and partially due to the natural deterioration of cedar. As cedar ages in an outdoor setting a number of events occur: the natural biocide slowly migrates out with water, the wood absorbs water at an increasing rate as it deteriorates, fungal deterioration is common, as well as insect and wildlife damage. The logs of Bunyon’s Chess were treated annually with a fungicide to slow the fungal deterioration but without major visual interventions such as end caps or moving the sculpture to an interior location, deterioration continued at a fairly rapid pace.

In 2009 an in-depth condition assessment was performed which determined that the deterioration, particularly on the interior had progressed to a state where the logs were in danger of falling. In 2010, the logs were consolidated, the large losses filled and the exterior coated to prolong the life. During this period research and conversations with di Suvero regarding the replacement were begun as this treatment could not prolong the life of the cedar indefinitely. Di Suvero determined that new logs could be carved to replace the original cedar, as it is the visual integrity of the work that is important.

After much research, new cedar of the similar dimensions and tight ring growth was sourced for carving. Seattle artist Brian Beck peeled the logs in preparation for carving.

Kent Johnson and Daniel Roberts from di Suvero’s studio traveled to Seattle and carved the new logs using the original cedar elements as a guide.

Beck worked with Johnson and Roberts to create the same join between the two logs. Much of the original hardware such as the 36” bronze bolts and galvanized steel eyehooks were presevered and reused on the newly carved elements.

If you look carefully, at the top of the sculpture you will note a slight bend in the top tube. Di Suvero wanted this natural bend to remain but believed this opportunity should be used to reinforce the structure.

Fabrication Specialties Ltd. worked with the di Suvero studio to create an interior support which was welded in place.

The logs were strung with new stainless steel cabling and were carefully measured and marked to the lengths of the original cables to assist with the rigging. Larry Tate, Andrew Malcolm, Tracy Taft, Ignacio Lopez, and Travis Leonard of Fabrication Specialties placed the new logs within the original steel frame working closely with images and a model of the original. The di Suvero studio generously participated in video calls throughout the day.


Special thank you to: Mark di Suvero and Studio, Virginia Wright, Fabrication Specialties Ltd, Equinox Studios, Alta Forest Products, Brian Beck, Christian French, and Catharina Manchanda for helping preserve this public artwork free for everyone to enjoy at the Olympic Sculpture Park year round.

– Liz Brown, SAM Objects Conservator

Photos courtesy of Virginia Wright and Liz Brown.
[1] Lauren Chang

A Commingling of Minds in Sondra Perry’s Installation

Chelsea Werner-Jatzke on May 30 2018

With her current installation at SAM, the 2017 Gwendolyn Knight | Jacob Lawrence Prize winner, Sondra Perry asks, “What happens if we go to a place that we want to create as a habitable place for full life on earth but we don’t know what life looks like there?” Combining 3D rendering, terraforming, family, and the desire to bring people together inside the gallery, Perry’s work gives a machine its voice while creating a cosmic commingling of minds. See Eclogue for [in]HABITABILITY at SAM before it closes July 8!

Muse/News: SAM director honored, food art pops up, and photos that puzzle

Rachel Eggers on May 29 2018

Muse/News: SAM director honored, food art pops up, and photos that puzzle

SAM News

Double Exposure: Edward S. Curtis, Marianne Nicolson, Tracy Rector, Will Wilson opens June 14! A photo by the Seattle Times’ Alan Berner of our First Avenue lightbox appeared in print on May 19. The exhibition was also their visual arts pick for the “hottest events for June” in last Friday’s Weekend Plus section.

“June will launch a series of shows about famous and troubling photographer Edward S. Curtis, his weird way of staging what Native American culture looked like and responses from contemporary artists. The flagship exhibit of this thorny flotilla will happen at Seattle Art Museum — the cultural struggle, using various art-weapons, is still raging.”

In their June issue, Seattle Met Magazine presents Light a Fire 2018, shining a light on the city’s most impressive nonprofits and the people who run them. This year, our SAM Director and CEO Kimerly Rorschach has been awarded Extraordinary Executive Director!

Esquire profiles Middle Fork artist John Grade, who has a new work in an unexpected location: Nordstrom’s new men’s store in Manhattan.

Local News

Did you catch Danai Gurira’s Familiar at the Seattle Rep? Two takes on the play ran in advance of the play’s final weekend from City Arts’ Gemma Wilson and The Stranger’s Charles Mudede.

You will find me NOWHERE NEAR those glass benches. But for those without fear, check out Seattle Magazine’s look at the Olson Kundig revamp of the 56-year-old Space Needle.

Mac Hubbard for Seattle Met on the launch of Sunday Salons, the latest gallery around town to pop-up in an apartment; this one hosts the FoodArt Collection of Jeremy Buben.

“This ability to approach and resonate with our relationship to food is part of Buben’s perpetual interest in this work. And the room for creative license is apparent from the trappings of the apartment: a nude with parts shielded by pancakes and a waffle wedge, neon indicative of diners, a mold of a Cheetos bag housing an air plant.”

Inter/National News

Eileen Kinsella for Artnet on a show about sports and social justice opening in September at the High Museum in Atlanta; it will feature works by artist Glenn Kaino in collaboration with Olympic athlete and activist Tommie Smith.

Artnet’s Sarah Cascone on the shuttering of the much-troubled and once-beloved Interview Magazine.

Ksenya Gurshtein for Hyperallergic on an exhibition of early American photography at the J. Paul Getty Museum that reveals much about the complexities of American life during the 1840s to the 1860s.

“It’s necessary to look to such images as a reminder that evil has long been done in the name of national interests and that photography was as suspect at its inception as it is today, in the age of fake news and truthiness.”

And Finally

This is something I can get behind: Lunch at 11 am. It’s OK to be hungry! Eating is good!

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Photo: Natali Wiseman

SAM Gallery Artists on Seattle: Christopher Kroehler

Seattle Art Museum on May 29 2018

SAM Gallery Artists on Seattle: Christopher Kroehler

Having lived here all of my adult life, Seattle has played a huge role in shaping me and helping me find my voice as an artist.

I first moved to Seattle so I could study painting at the University of Washington. I lived in a downtown loft space on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Virginia sharing the building with musicians, sculptors, filmmakers, writers, photographers, and painters. I took classes from influential professors like Jacob Lawrence, Michael Spafford, and Curt Labitzke who helped guide me as a young artist.

Over the years, I’ve spent countless hours sketching in cafes around the U-district and in restaurants and bars throughout the city. I was drawn to the vibrant neighborhoods of Fremont and Capital Hill which fed my creativity and I found calm walking the beaches along the sound and nearby parks.

My paintings are a reflection of the people and places I have grown to know and love. I implement images from a variety of sources including sketches and photos I have taken around town over the years. I paint on vintage windows salvaged from local buildings being transformed. As I repair glazing or touch up the wood frames, I think about the history and stories behind the window and what was seen through the glass. I like the depth that this adds to each of my paintings.

Next time you’re downtown, stop by SAM and enjoy some time with my cast of characters on display at TASTE through August 6.

– Christopher Kroehler, SAM Gallery Artist

Image: They Were There for Deb, Christopher Kroehler, 30 x 30 in., oil on plexiglas.

Memorializing Trans Lives in Project 42 at SAM

Chelsea Werner-Jatzke on May 29 2018

Memorializing Trans Lives in Project 42 at SAM

At the center of Project 42: Molly Vaughan stands an elaborate dress with a 25-foot-long train hanging down from the ceiling. Created for the 2017 Betty Bowen Award winner installation at SAM, it is one of artist Molly Vaughan’s most ambitious pieces in the series that will eventually include 42 garments memorializing murdered trans individuals.

Seattle-based artist Molly Vaughan made this particular garment in collaboration with Lesley Dill in memory of Lorena Escalera Xtravaganza. Created using a vintage victorian form for a bustle, the train is covered in a reorganized poem by Emily Dickinson. Lesley Dill selected “The Soul Has Bandaged Moments” and stenciled it by hand as she rearranged the text and broke stanzas.

“Lesley was an inspiration to me and to Project 42,” says Molly Vaughan. “As a docent at the the Orlando Museum of Art I toured a dress of Lesley’s and it left a big impact on me. As a printer, it’s my job to replicate the hand of the artist who intentionally hand-stenciled the text, rather than digitally reproducing it.” Look closely and you’ll see the pen strokes of Lesley Dill’s process. What you won’t see when you visit, is the embroidery on the interior of the garment that Molly has created just for Lorena that is meant to convey her inner life and extravagance.

Lesley Dill says that she works with Emily Dickinson’s text often because “Dickinson’s writing is the door I walked through to become an artist.” After reciting a stanza of this specific poem over the phone she continues to explain: “It’s a gothic poem and speaks of a poetic persona whose identity is haunted and exhilarated. A large part of the entire Project 42 is about the vivacity of life and bandages of the soul. I feel that Lorena and the project are deserving of intensity and multiple layers of meaning.”

Formatted on the train of the garment in the gallery the poem is difficult to read so we’re sharing it here for you.

The Soul Has Bandaged Moments

The Soul has Bandaged moments –
When too appalled to stir –
She feels some ghastly Fright come up
And stop to look at her –
 
Salute her, with long fingers –
Caress her freezing hair –
Sip, Goblin, from the very lips
The Lover – hovered – o’er –
Unworthy, that a thought so mean
Accost a Theme – so – fair –
 
The soul has moments of escape –
When bursting all the doors –
She dances like a Bomb, abroad,
And swings opon the Hours,
 
As do the Bee – delirious borne –
Long Dungeoned from his Rose –
Touch Liberty – then know no more –
But Noon, and Paradise
 
The Soul’s retaken moments –
When, Felon led along,
With shackles on the plumed feet,
And staples, in the song,
 
The Horror welcomes her, again,
These, are not brayed of Tongue –
 
– Emily Dickinson1
 
 
A large part of Molly’s collaborative process involves asking her collaborators to research the individual being memorialized. The process left Lesley Dill reflecting that “Lorena Xtravaganza was trying to find and name her true self in a world that had no room for this search. Her murder is a catastrophe of culture. Molly is giving us a chance to memorialize individuals who wanted to simply exist inside of their nature. When our culture murders trans people, I feel our belief in human goodness is wounded. With Molly’s work we are given new faith, we are reinvesting in faith.”
 

Find your faith renewed in humanity with a visit to Project 42. If you are looking for another reason to come, the garment created for Lorena Escalera Xtravaganza includes an interactive element where visitors are invited to tie fabric flowers to the train. Visit often if you hope to catch one of the unannounced performances that will take place in the galleries.

– Chelsea Werner-Jatzke, Content Strategist & Social Media Manager

1 Emily Dickinson, “[The soul has bandaged moments]” from The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition. Copyright © 1998 by Emily Dickinson.  Reprinted by permission of The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Images: Installation view of Project 42: Molly Vaughan at Seattle Art Museum, 2018, photo: Natali Wiseman.

Object of the Week: Abstraction

Seattle Art Museum on May 25 2018

Object of the Week: Abstraction

At first glance, this collage appears to be a simple study— a convergence, or construction, of differently colored shapes floating in a seemingly infinite space. A closer look, however, reveals that the work encompasses many of Hungarian-born avant-gardist László Moholy-Nagy’s beliefs about the role of art in the modern era.

Moholy-Nagy established himself as an artist in Berlin in the aftermath of World War I and spent much of the 1920s teaching at Germany’s famous school of art and design, the Bauhaus. Finding inspiration in the newly industrialized city, he saw potential for employing modern production processes for the creation of art.[1] He found that the city dweller was confronted with an array of new visual and aural stimuli—cars, buses, factories and crowds of people—as well as previously unheard of perspectives. One could now look down on the city from a skyscraper and look up a those tall buildings from a speeding car. For someone who had grown up in the quiet countryside these new experiences could be overwhelming. The artist concluded that artwork of the period should confront the urban condition and set out to find new, appropriate modes of artistic production.[2] Along this live of thought, Moholy-Nagy famously ordered paintings from a German sign factory in 1923 and, with the help of a mechanic and architect, produced a kinetic light sculpture in 1930. However, despite his embrace of new technology, painting remained for Moholy-Nagy the ultimate space within which to experiment.[3]

The metallic sheen of the copper and silver forms in Abstraction suggests newly invented industrial paints. The tall rectangles recall the shapes of recently constructed skyscrapers and the perspective suggests an aerial view. What better way for the modern urbanite to relate to the new spatial relationships of the city than to have those relationships abstracted on a small scale? If nothing else, a small French customs stamp on the back of the work reveals that the piece retained significance for Moholy-Nagy, as it followed him from Germany to France and then the United States, where he eventually settled.

– Murphy Crain, Asian Art and Gardner Center Coordinator

[1] László Moholy-Nagy, “Abstract of an Artist,” The New Vision and Abstract of an Artist (New York: George Wittenborn, Inc., 1947), 72.
[2] László Moholy-Nagy, Painting, Photography, Film, (Cambridge, Mass: M.I.T. Press, 1969), 43.
[3] Joyce Tsai makes this argument in “Technology’s Surrogate: On the Late Paintings of László Moholy-Nagy.” László Moholy-Nagy: Retrospective, ed. Max Hollein and Ingrid Pfeiffer (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2009): 136-167.
Image: Abstraction, 1923-28, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, collage of cardboard, tempera, ink, crayon, 18 3/8 x 22 5/8 in., Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 56.39 © Artist or Artist’s Estate

The Art of Ikebana

Seattle Art Museum on May 23 2018

The Art of Ikebana

The art of Ikebana, creating forms with cut branches and flowers, traces it origins back to the 8th century when monks began placing flower offerings on the Buddhist shrines. In order to understand the essence or soul of the art, however, it is helpful to go back much further to its ancient roots in the Shinto tradition. It is stated in the early verses of the Nihongi, “The Chronicles of Japan,” that everything has its own voice. The mountains, the waters, the plants, the teapot, everything speaks to us. People who practice Ikebana become continually aware that the many different plants have many different voices. Listening carefully to what they say is the key. Becoming intimate with nature in this way, one grows ever more appreciative of life’s precious moments, which in turn provides focus along with a sense of rest and tranquility.

Perhaps this helps explain how, in the 16th century, the art evolved from a strictly monastic practice into a samurai warrior discipline. Doing Ikebana before battle provided warriors sharp focus, and Ikebana afterwards allowed them to express gratitude for another day of life. And now in modern times, Ikebana is practiced by people from every culture around the world. Along with creating beautiful forms, one experiences presence in the moment along with a sense of peace in one’s own heart.

Ikebana differs radically from western floral design in that rather than gathering a multitude of flowers into one space and having them speak in a chorus, Ikebana strives to provide each element with a solo appearance highlighting its own unique voice. The idea is to provide a conversation among the various materials used in the design. As with any good conversation, the key word is space. Ikebana is essentially an art of space. Space in which to listen, space in which to speak. When you view an Ikebana piece and you feel drawn in, then the designer has been successful and the work can be considered good Ikebana.

Evolving from its traditional classical forms, Ikebana in the early 20th century underwent a similar transformation as did western art. Rather than trying to imitate nature, artists began creating out of their own personal impressions of what they saw simply with their eyes. This has led to abstract expressionism in the art of Ikebana as well. The spirit, the soul of Ikebana, is sometimes referred to as a flowing river whose waters cannot be stopped. It will continue to engender new forms on into the distant future. And this is at it should be.

Seattle’s Chapter 19 of Ikebana International, a worldwide organization of Ikebana teachers and students, will hold its 59th annual exhibit downtown in the University street entrance of Seattle Art Museum on the weekend of  May 26 and 27. View works from Ikebana’s classical periods as well as its modern abstract expressions along with demonstrations at 1 pm on both days.

– Charles Coghlan, Hana Design Ikebana Instructor

Images: Nina Dubinsky

Muse/News: Royal treasures, royal brides, and the Sikh Captain America

Rachel Eggers on May 21 2018

Muse/News: Royal treasures, royal brides, and the Sikh Captain America

SAM News

Sebastian Smee for The Washington Post with a glittering review of Peacock in the Desert, now on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston—and traveling to Seattle Art Museum this fall. Peacock in the Desert: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India illuminates nearly four centuries of Indian courtly life and opens at SAM on October 18.

“A thoughtful, stately and scholarly exhibition, filled with objects of almost unbelievable refinement, most of which have never left Jodhpur, let alone India.”

Local News

The Henry announced last week that Shamim M. Momin will be their new Senior Curator; Momin’s previous experience includes LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) and the Whitney.

Naomi Ishisaka, Ramon Dompor, and Corinne Chin of The Seattle Times tell the story of “accidental cartoonist,” performance artist, and activist Vishavjit Singh—AKA the Sikh Captain America.

Rich Smith of The Stranger speaks with Alexandra Gardner, the Seattle Symphony’s composer-in-residence, who worked with queer homeless youth on a new work that debuted underneath SAM’s tree sculpture Middle Fork last Saturday.

“The piece starts off with a lot of bells. It’s very sparkly. Some of the musicians were like, ‘Oh it’s so beautiful and sparkly, I thought it would be more angry,’ but it’s not at all. There are some ever-so-slightly dark parts. Overall the feeling they wanted to communicate was not about their past experiences, which may have been very dark, but rather a hopeful future. And I think that really speaks to the participants’ resilience and imagination.”

Inter/National News

Past Times by Kerry James Marshall, which once hung in a Chicago convention center, sold for $21.1 million at Sotheby’s. The price is a new record for the artist—and among living Black American artists, too.

This May marks the 50th anniversary of Paris’ 1968 student riots; Artsy’s Digby Warde-Aldam reflects on the protests’ legacy on the visual culture of protests.

The sacred, the profane, and the Rihanna: we’re still recovering from the recent Met Gala coverage. Here’s Eleanor Heartney of Artnet with a review of the “gorgeous and unsettling” exhibition that explores the Catholic imagination.

“Contemporary art and religion have long been perceived as antagonists. However, this show suggests that the real chasm is between religion and fashion—the one focused on the realm of spirit and values, the other on luxury and conspicuous consumption.”

And Finally

A couple got married last Saturday, and millions of people watched. The cultural meanings of it all were much discussed; don’t miss The New Yorker’s Doreen St. Félix on the “profound presence of Doria Ragland,” the bride’s mother.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Maharaja Abhai Singh on Horseback, c. 1725, Dalchand, Jodhpur, opaque watercolor and gold on paper, Mehrangarh Museum Trust, photo: Neil Greentree.

Object of the Week: Shredded Wheat Factory with Ford

Traci Timmons on May 18 2018

Object of the Week: Shredded Wheat Factory with Ford

Photographer Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883–1976) is best known for her portraits, nudes, and photographic examinations of plants. So how does this photograph of a cereal factory fit in?

Born in Oregon in 1883, Cunningham moved with her parents to a communal farm in Port Angeles, Washington as a very young girl. In 1889, the family moved to Seattle creating their homestead in a forest atop Queen Anne Hill. She studied at the University of Washington, receiving a degree in chemistry. Her thesis was titled, “The Scientific Development of Photography,” and she had spent the latter half of her senior year studying the work and methods of Edward S. Curtis. Upon graduation, she was determined to make platinum prints (a photographic printing process using the metal, platinum) and secured a position working in Edward Curtis’s studio from 1907-1909. Although working in his studio, she rarely had contact with Curtis who was often away working on his monumental work, The North American Indian.[1] There she learned not only platinum printing, but also how to spot negatives, create studio portraiture, and run a studio.[2]

After a trip to Europe where she studied with Robert Luther, a renowned photochemist at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden, she returned to Seattle, established her own studio, and began to exhibit and become involved in the Seattle and national art scenes. She was involved with the Society of Seattle Artists, the Pictorial Photographers of America, and, importantly, the Seattle Fine Arts Society.[3] During her time with the Seattle Fine Arts Society, she met and married her artist husband, Roi Partridge, in 1915. A few years later the family (they now had three sons) moved to San Francisco, and then, in 1920, Partridge accepted a position at Mills College and the family moved to Oakland.

Before 1920, Cunningham was firmly part of the Pictorialist movement which had “succeeded in placing photography within the realm of art” and whose work was often associated with beauty and soft focus. The photographs of her husband at Mount Rainier are examples of her working in this style. However, by the late 1920s, Cunningham’s artistic photography had diverged completely from her soft-focus Pictorialist work, and was beginning to express a more fully formed Modernist vision, reducing nature and structures to their simplest shapes and forms.[4] It is during this period and into the 1930s that she becomes associated with the Precisionists, a group who were responding to the radical, industrial changes in the country and turning to machine forms and industrial landscapes as visual resources for their work.[5]

In 1928, living in Oakland, she photographed the Shredded Wheat Factory located at 14th and Union Streets. And, although the factory had been built more than a decade before Precisionism declared beauty in industrial forms, the surrounding community was already thinking about its modern, appealing look:

“Practically no complaint has been heard from nearby property-owners over the location of the million-dollar Oakland factory of the Shredded Wheat Co. on land bounded by Twelfth, Fourteenth, Poplar and Union Streets, in a strictly residential district. It is not expected that the proposed artistic buildings, surrounded by beautiful grounds will have a deteriorating effect on the value of residence holdings.”[6]

The beauty of the industrial landscape is captured in the sleek lines of the factory’s geometric towers and the shadows that extend from known and unknown subjects. And, by including an electrical/telephone poll and a Ford automobile, Cunningham reinforces other aspects of modern life. Other photographs of the site exist in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Imogen Cunningham Trust (here, here, and here). However, SAM’s Shredded Wheat Factory with Ford is unique in that it’s the only one in the Shredded Wheat Factory series where Cunningham includes a natural object—a tree—front and center within the composition.

In Celina Lunsford’s opening essay for the catalogue to the Imogen Cunningham exhibition at the Fundación Mapfre (Madrid) and Kulturhuset Stockholm, she recognizes: “Imogen Cunningham was a true artist: throughout her long life she embraced the diverse developments of photography and the liveliness of the changing time in which she lived.”[7] Shredded Wheat Factory with Ford, a work of Precisionism, along with Cunningham’s other photographs of various pictorial styles in SAM’s collection, clearly demonstrates her wide range, a lifetime commitment to developing her work, and importance as a pioneering American woman photographer from the West Coast.

– Traci Timmons, SAM Librarian

[1] Richard Lorenz, “A Life in Photography,” in Amy Rule, ed., Imogen Cunningham: Selected Texts and Bibliography (Oxford, UK: Clio Press Ltd., 1992) 1-3.
[2] Celina Lunsford, “Imogen Cunningham: Modernist and Visionary,” in Celina Lundsford et al., Imogen Cunningham (Madrid: Fundación Mapfre, 2012), 12.
[3] Lorenz, 3-5. The Seattle Fine Arts Society ultimately became the Seattle Art Museum.
[4] Lunsford, 30.
[5] Karen Tsujimoto, Images of America: Precisionist Painting and Modern Photography (San Francisco; Seattle: SFMOMA; University of Washington Press, 1982), 86.
[6] “Factory Invades a Residence Section” in The Oakland Tribune, June 7, 1914.
[7] Lunsford, 11.
Image: Shredded Wheat Factory with Ford, before 1929, Imogen Cunningham, gelatin silver print, 9 1/2 x 7 1/2 in., Gift of John H. Hauberg, 88.9 © (before 1929), 2009 Imogen Cunningham Trust

Greetings from the Institute of Empathy

Pam McClusky on May 16 2018

Greetings from the Institute of Empathy

The Institute is glad to announce that their installation of lessons is on view at Seattle Art Museum. Three Empathics now oversee the production of  transformative vapors and invite you to sit with them in Lessons from the Institute of Empathy in the Seattle Art Museum’s African Art galleries, to invigorate your mental clarity.

Better yet, you are also invited to step into their restorative pool and partake of a mosaic shower from above. A 10 minute power point given by a representative from the Institute, Aurelia Wallace, is also available to explain the lessons on view.

The Institute wants to thank everyone who sticks their necks out to facilitate their work, and suggested a poem full of empathy to honor their efforts.

– Pam McClusky, Curator of African and Oceanic Art

Images: Installation view Lessons from the Institute of Empathy, 2018, Seattle Art Museum, photos: Natali Wiseman

Muse/News: Basquiat on Film, Poetry on the Radio, and the Digital Hereafter

Rachel Eggers on May 15 2018

Muse/News: Basquiat on Film, Poetry on the Radio, and the Digital Hereafter

SAM News

The New York Times’ Glenn Kenny reviews Sara Driver’s new documentary on the young Basquiat. Boom for Real premieres at the Seattle Art Museum on May 18 in partnership with Northwest Film Forum.

“Basquiat’s art — raw, inventive, socially engaged — continues to speak to us even as the artist himself cannot. Near the end of the movie, one of Basquiat’s friends refers to him as ‘a true investigator.’ In Ms. Driver, the artist finds a kindred spirit, a fellow investigator who pays him proper and enthralling tribute.”

Jeffrey Gibson: Like a Hammer opened at the Denver Art Museum on Sunday; Cultured Magazine visits the artist’s studio to discuss his artistic goals and methods. Save the date: the exhibition opens at SAM on February 28, 2019.

“’It’s always been about using my personal narrative to complicate the popular notions of being queer, being gay, being Native American—any of these singular adjectives,’ says Gibson.”

Local News

The Seattle Times’ Moira Macdonald previews this year’s edition of the Seattle International Film Festival—and shares the colorful, analog way the massive schedule is built.

Seattle radio is beautiful this week: KEXP announces OCnotes as their new Sunday night DJ, playing soul, funk, and R&B, and KUOW launches #NewsPoet, which features PNW poets waxing about a news story.

The Station coffee shop on Beacon Hill has new digs, and in their old space across the street will be Estelita’s Library, a “justice-focused community bookstore and library” from UW professor Edwin Lindo.

“’You’ll find books on Latinx identity next to a book about Harriet Tubman, next to Karl Marx, next to a first edition John Steinbeck,’ he says, gesturing toward a packed shelf. Though some of the titles have Dewey Decimal stickers (‘They’re really hard to remove!’ he marvels), the books aren’t arranged in any particular order. Lindo hopes instead that people will make discoveries by proximity, or perhaps by suggestion from someone sitting at the next table.”

Inter/National News

Lessons From the Institute of Empathy artist Jacolby Satterwhite has a solo show at NYC’s Gavin Brown’s Enterprise; Blessed Avenue is a “mythical place created by the fantasies of cyborgs — possibly a digital hereafter.”

Artnet on a new grad program created by LACMA and Arizona State University that allows students to pursue studies while working at the museum—its purpose is to increase diversity in museum leadership, especially curation.

Donald Glover, AKA Childish Gambino, debuted the video “This is America” and everyone watched it (and watched it…); Interview Magazine spoke with the video’s choreographer, Sherrie Silver.

“The video is full of madness and reflects what’s going on in America and around the world right now. The kids and the choir are supposed to be the happy part of that, so there are two different worlds at the same time. Multiple parts of the video are meant to catch the viewer off-guard, with people smiling and enjoying themselves before it goes dark.”

And Finally

Hoping everyone had a wonderful Mother’s Day on Sunday: mothers, departed mothers, in-all-but-name mothers, unjustly absent mothers.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Object of the Week: Stone Pavement with Earth

Elisabeth Smith on May 11 2018

Object of the Week: Stone Pavement with Earth

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
– Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road

Imagine being blindfolded and asked to throw a dart at a map to determine the trajectory of an artist’s work, sending them virtually anywhere in the world. Your dart then sets in motion a series of events that drive the artist to choose a completely random site from which an artwork is fabricated. Now, imagine that this artist is not just one, but four people, and that the four collaborators are in fact a family. This ambitious project—titled World Series—was initiated by Boyle Family (Mark Boyle, Joan Hills, and their children Sebastian and Georgia Boyle) as part of their 1968 exhibition Journey to the Surface of the Earth.

It is, no doubt, an involved process that led to the creation of the pictured piece, Stone Pavement with Earth (1973–77). Upon arriving at the selected location—chosen at random by friends and visitors to the 1968 exhibition—this specific six-by-six foot site was determined by throwing a carpenter’s right angle and seeing where it landed. From there, Boyle Family cordoned off the area and recorded it with resin and paints, incorporating whatever material and visual information was on the site—in this case: York stone, earth, and other debris (my favorite area is the footprint). The work evades clear definition. Situated somewhere between painting and sculpture, it also flirts with photography in the way it accurately documents the topography of its original location, a mix of the natural and the man-made. Add to this the performative, experiential, and democratic element of the World Series project, and you can perhaps see why Boyle Family is celebrated for their unique combination of Dada, Fluxus, and conceptual strategies.1

Ultimately, what begins as a chance encounter turns into an attempt to objectively capture and represent the world as-it-is. I know what you’re thinking and, yes, it is an impossible task, but a task, I believe, that is willfully impossible. Exactly 1,000 random sites were selected for World Series—some more accessible and likely to be recorded than others; however, this quasi-scientific project, as David Thompson suggests, is less about highlighting the infinite scope of our world, and more about “the limits of man’s capacity to see it.”2 Presenting viewers with largescale fragments of our environment, Boyle Family takes on ideas of assemblage and the readymade, turning the very world in which we live into art. We just have to look closely.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

1 For more on the art historical contextualization of Boyle Family, I recommend: Chris Townsend, “Mark Boyle and Joan Hills at the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague,” British Art Studies, Issue 3 (Summer 2016), http://www.britishartstudies.ac.uk/issues/issue-index/issue-3/boyle-1970.
2 David Thompson, “Afterword,” in Beyond Image: Boyle Family (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1986), 53.
Image: Stone Pavement with Earth, 1973 – 77, Boyle Family, stone, earth, and fiberglass, 72 1/16 x 72 1/16 in., Purchased with funds from the Contemporary Arts Council and Contemporary Acquisition fund, 78.34 © Artist or Artist’s Estate

My Favorite Things: DJ Riz Rollins & Choreographer Donald Byrd

Chelsea Werner-Jatzke on May 10 2018

“The painting is delightful but the content of it is not.” – Donald Byrd

If you missed seeing Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas, or if you just can’t enough of these artists—don’t fret! We’ve got works by Robert Colescott and Kerry James Marshall from SAM’s collection on view in our third floor galleries! KEXP DJ Riz Rollins and Executive Artistic Director Donald Byrd have shared some thoughts on these paintings with us. Look through the eyes of these opinionated individuals and continue to consider the questions and lessons that Figuring History explored.

“. . . I think this individual is prescient. Which means he has a sense of something deeper . . . .” – Riz Rollins

Muse/News: Basquiat Unpacked, Public Poetics, and The Magic of The Shirelles

Rachel Eggers on May 7 2018

Muse/News: Basquiat Unpacked, Public Poetics, and The Magic of The Shirelles

SAM News

The latest episode of Seattle Channel’s ArtZone features their interview with curator Catharina Manchanda about Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled.

Artsy debuts their “Vanguard” series, recognizing influential contemporary artists at various points in their careers. Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence Prize-winner Sondra Perry is included among the “newly established”—artists at “crucial tipping points in their careers.”

Los Angeles-based magazine Riot Material reviews Figuring History, in advance of its closing on May 13.

“Figuring History is as visually stunning as it is historically significant. For Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall and Mickalene Thomas, the show is validation that they succeeded in their passionate quest to make themselves visible. These artists matter and their art will be a beacon for us all, for those who write the histories and create the shows and for those are able to see themselves represented in museums for perhaps the first time.”

Local News

Seattle Times has the first look at the Nordic Museum as it prepares for its grand opening this weekend.

The Stranger staff picks their top 15 art shows in Pioneer Square for the month of May.

City Art’s Margo Vansynghel reviews A LONE, a series of 10 public artworks across the city co-curated by Vignettes and Gramma Poetry.

“Dealing with themes such as gentrification and the mass media’s (biased) coverage of the events in Charlottesville, the works in A LONE blend poetry and visual art and speak to the intricacies of being alone in a big city full of people. ‘You’re alone together,’ Stinson says. ‘That’s kind of a fascinating thing.’”

Inter/National News

The fun we’re not having at Frieze: Roberta Smith of the New York Times goes on the hunt for “artistic gems” at the annual art fair. (There’s a shout-out to Everyday Poetics artist Sonia Gomes!)

The American Antiquarian Society has digitized 225 photographs of Native people; taken decades before Edward S. Curtis began his project, these photos “represent the chapter one of the photographic history of Native people.”

The Baltimore Museum of Art has an “absolutely transformative” plan for their collection: deaccessioning works by artists such as Andy Warhol, Franz Kline, and Robert Rauschenberg in order to acquire works by contemporary artists who are women and artists of color.

“’The decision to do this rests very strongly on my commitment to rewrite the postwar canon,’ Bedford told artnet News. And while institutions sell art to fund new acquisitions every so often, the BMA’s latest deaccession stands out. ‘To state it explicitly and act on it with discipline—there is no question that is an unusual and radical act to take,’ Bedford says.”

And Finally

I will still love them tomorrow—and forever. The New Yorker’s Elon Green interviews Beverly Lee of The Shirelles about a “magical ten seconds” of the legendary group.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Photo: Installation view of Basquiat—Untitled at Seattle Art Museum, 2018, photo: Natali Wiseman.

Object of the Week: Swamps West of Nyrripi

Elisabeth Smith on May 4 2018

Object of the Week: Swamps West of Nyrripi

Home is often hard to define, and even harder to depict. It can be a place where our childhood myths and memories reside, a more present-tense sense of community, or, perhaps, a place linked to a specific person. In Swamps West of Nyrripi (My Father’s Country) by Australian artist Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri, the concept of home is represented through a language of symbolic abstraction.

Beautifully irregular red ovals punctuate the variegated surface of the canvas. From afar, the undulating patches of light and dark gray appear as cross hatching, but closer inspection reveals that this is an optical effect—the background is in fact black, with meticulously placed white dots inside and around the red contours. These imperfect and lopsided ovals, stacked precariously one on top of the other, can also be read from an aerial perspective, and thus take on a more topographical or map-like quality.

For Napaltjarri, these ovals signify abundant areas of water—such as swamps and lakes—that are found throughout the region of her father’s homeland, a sacred Warlpiri territory. The white dots, too, carry symbolic meaning: they represent the dry earth cracking as water evaporates. On a more spiritual level, the artist’s act of painting honors the sacred power of the watersnake who resides in the region, and acts as the custodian of the area’s lakes and swampland. The presence and absence of water are environmental conditions constantly in tension, but Napaltjarri manages to find the harmony in such oppositional forces.

Swamps West of Nyrripi (My Father’s Country) is featured in the new exhibition Walkabout: The Art of Dorothy Napangardi, in conversation with work by another Australian artist, Dorothy Napangardi, whose meticulous paintings are similarly connected to her homeland, the Tanami Desert region, and the specificity of that place. With their intricate dotting and abstract patterns, these large-scale paintings are even more awe-inspiring in person.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

Image: Swamps West of Nyrripi (My Father’s Country), 2006, Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri, acrylic on Belgian linen, 46 × 60 in., Gift of Agatha and Stephen Luczo, 2017.1.3 © Artist or Artist’s Estate

A Lasting Echo: Barney Ebsworth (1934–2018)

Chelsea Werner-Jatzke on May 1 2018

A Lasting Echo: Barney Ebsworth (1934–2018)

Seattle and the nation have lost a great businessman, arts patron, and collector. The Seattle Art Museum community was saddened by the news that longtime museum Trustee, Barney A. Ebsworth passed away on April 9. Barney was one of the top art collectors in the country, a supporter and advocate for great art, and a generous philanthropist.

Collecting became a way of life for Barney as he focused on great works worthy of a museum. He honed his eye for art by visiting the Louvre museum in Paris every weekend when he was stationed with the army in France during the 1950s. With works from Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Marsden Hartley, to Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Jasper Johns, Barney built one of the most significant collections of American Modernism in the world. In a 2009 article, he said:

“Before I bought a picture, I wanted to know two things: do I really understand this artist, and do I know where he or she was really best in his or her career? If I don’t, I probably shouldn’t be buying. So it’s been a lifetime study.”

Fortunately for all, Barney was exceptional in his study, and from the start he was committed to sharing his remarkable collection with others. In 1996, SAM first showed paintings from the Ebsworth Collection as part of a traveling exhibition. At the time, Barney was still living in his hometown of St. Louis where he had founded numerous travel companies including INTRAV, Royal Cruise Line, and Clipper Cruise Line. In addition to businesses in real estate and venture capital, he was the angel investor in Build A Bear Workshop.

In the summer of 2000, SAM welcomed Twentieth Century American Art: The Ebsworth Collection, a major exhibition organized by the National Gallery of Art. It was the first chance for Seattle to see the collection in its entirety and before the year was out, Barney joined SAM’s Board of Trustees.

As a member of SAM’s board, Barney brought a wealth of experience. He served as a dedicated Trustee of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Saint Louis Art Museum, and Honolulu Museum of Art. He was also a member of the Trustees Council and Co-Chairman of the Collectors Committee at the National Gallery of Art. At SAM, Barney was as an officer; an active member of the Committee on Collections; and served as co-chair of the 75th Anniversary Acquisitions Committee. He was a generous contributor to our major campaigns, including SAM Transformation—for which the museum named its double-height gallery in his honor—and most recently the Fund for Special Exhibitions. He gifted or pledged many works of art to SAM and helped with the purchase of many others. Of course, Seattleites may know him best for his gift of the monumental sculpture Echo, Jaume Plensa’s four-story head, serenely looking out towards the Olympic Mountains from the Olympic Sculpture Park.

Barney Ebsworth had a fun sense of style, a quick wit and loved telling jokes. Nothing brought him more joy than traveling with his family, and introducing someone to a new place or introducing them to art. SAM mourns the loss of a great friend, but Seattle will continue to cherish Barney’s generosity and the art he championed that enriches our city’s culture.

Image: Bettina Hansen  / The Seattle Times

A Civic Leader: Brooks Geer Ragen

Chelsea Werner-Jatzke on May 1 2018

A Civic Leader: Brooks Geer Ragen

When Brooks Ragen moved to Seattle in 1961, our cultural community was in its formative years. The anchor organizations we know today only grew through the commitment of dedicated leaders and civic-minded citizens, people like Brooks Geer Ragen. From his business ventures to his board service at SAM and other major organizations throughout Seattle, Brooks approached these undertakings with the same philosophy: to make our community stronger. It is with a heavy heart that we share the news of Brooks’s passing on April 15.

Brooks was a SAM Trustee for over 25 years, a time of incredible growth and expansion for the museum. He joined the Board in 1992 and served as Vice President from 1996 to 1998. He served as President from 1998 to 2000, and as Chairman from 2000 to 2001. Brooks’s dedication to his causes was unparalleled, and his work ethic incomparable.

As Board President and as Board Chairman, he used his business acumen and endless energy to expertly guide SAM through the planning phases in advance of the SAM Transformation campaign, creating the Olympic Sculpture Park and expanding our downtown museum, both of which have continued to shape our city and museum. Most recently, Brooks served as a member of our Seattle Asian Art Museum Campaign Committee, once again providing his invaluable insights as we undertake this next major civic project.

His advice and expertise have been instrumental on so many of SAM’s committees, including among others Finance and Investment; Audit and Real Estate; Executive and Governance; Corporate Relations and Succession planning. Brooks and his wife, SAM Docent Laureate Susie Ragen, created the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Film and Education Endowment, which provides key support to the museum’s renowned film program, and countless educational programs for people of all ages.

Beyond SAM, Brooks embraced roles of civic service for over 50 years. He served as board president of many Seattle institutions, including ACT Theatre, The Bush School, The Seattle Foundation, UW Medicine, and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. He also served on the boards of the Washington chapter of the Nature Conservancy, the Bloedel Reserve and The High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon. The philanthropy of Brooks and Susie has established endowments and scholarships at institutions all over the country.

Within all his successes and a long career—he never retired—Brooks Ragen was always kind and gracious, and never pretentious. Approachable, intelligent, and always determined, Brooks was the very definition of a civic leader. Seattle is a stronger community because of Brooks Ragen, and he will be greatly missed.

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

Rachel Eggers on Apr 30 2018

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

SAM News

In honor of World Book Day, Culture Type recommends reading an exhibition catalogue; among the picks is the catalogue for Figuring History (only two weeks left to see it!).

“Few have the opportunity to travel around the country to view all of the important and compelling museum exhibitions featuring work by African American artists. While there is no substitute for seeing art in person, exhibition catalogs are the next best thing.”

The solo exhibition of the 2017 Betty Bowen Award winner is now on view! Margo Vansynghel of City Arts interviewed the artist for this feature story.

“I don’t want to only talk about myself,” Vaughan says when we meet to talk about the Betty Bowen Award and the associated show. “The project is about raising awareness about what’s happening: Last year was the most dangerous year on record for trans people, and specifically for womxn of color. Over 92 percent of trans people killed are trans people of color. That intersectionality is important.”

In her recurring series Art of Our City, Marcie Sillman of KUOW features dancer, Renaissance man, and SAM public programs coordinator David Rue (I really hope you didn’t miss him perform last week in Dani Tirrell’s Black Bois).

My older brother was in a production of “Into the Woods.” He was in 6th grade or something like that, but it was the first time I saw the curtain rise to expose this world of the imagination and I was like, “Oh my god! This is what I should be doing! This is it!’

Local News

Seattle Times food writer Bethany Jean Clement reviews Oh, You STILL Work There?, The Factory’s recent show about artists working in the service industry.

Carla Bell for Crosscut interviews ChrisTiana ObeySumner, Seattle Opera’s first social impact consultant; they will work to “encourage more access to communities of color.”

City Art’s Margo Vansynghel on Photographic Center Northwest’s current show on the deep visual legacy of the Black Panther Party, curated by Michelle Dunn Marsh and Negarra Kudumu.

“The Black Panthers were very aware of the power of imagery and of the effects of repetition,” Kudumu says. “The key markers and unifying aesthetic were always present, as a constant reminder of who they were and what they stood for.”

Inter/National News

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice—“the first public museum and memorial to the victims of racial terror in the US”—opened last week in Montgomery, Alabama. The New York Times’ Campbell Robertson has an unmissable look at this extraordinary new institution.

The Institute for Contemporary Art has opened in Richmond, Virginia. Hyperallergic’s Amanda Dalla Villa Adams visits their inaugural exhibition, Declaration, featuring artists such as Deb Sokolow, Titus Kaphar, and Paul Rucker.

Artsy’s Tess Thackara on the “must-see” exhibition of sculpture by the late Jack Whitten, now on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

“They were talismans and memorials; expressions of reverence to his ancestors; objects intended to create hope and to keep his family safe. They bring African and European cultural pasts together, rejecting the binaries of West and non-West. Indeed, they represent something like a loose roadmap for the future of humanity, offering some clues for how we might face the twin threats of technological and ecological crisis.”

And Finally

RIP to Bob Dorough, who has passed away at 94. I will always be grateful for your undeniably funky earworms that made learning magical.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Photo: Natali Wiseman

Object of the Week: The People Work

Elisabeth Smith on Apr 27 2018

Object of the Week: The People Work

But American workers did contribute at least one lasting legacy to the international movement for working-class liberation…. That holiday is May Day, not Labor Day.

– Jonah Walters, Jacobin, 2015

May Day’s origins go as far back as the ancient world, where it was a festival celebrating spring, but more recently has become a day to honor workers and the labor movement. Although the United States officially observes Labor Day in September, May Day remains a day of international significance whose beginnings can be traced back to Chicago’s Haymarket riot of 1886.

In this lithograph by Benton Spruance circa 1935, titled The People Work: Noon, the artist captures the bustling and dynamic energy of New York City at noon. One of a series of four prints by the artist, each print captures a moment in the day: Morning, Noon, Evening, and Night. In Noon, it as if we see a play in two simultaneous acts. On the bottom level, construction workers take a break from their digging and hammering to eat lunch. Sitting and standing in small groups—surrounded by I-beams, ladders, and an excavator—this moment of respite is at odds with the scene above. With an energy akin to Pike Place Market at lunchtime, the street-level scene is replete with traffic and crowds of people donning suits and dresses. The few individuals not in a rush lean over the railing to view the construction site below.

Widely considered the artist’s most successful and ambitious series, “they [The People Work] present a wealth of scenes and imagery, tied together in space and in simultaneity by various witty and ingenious devices.”[1] Indeed, by dividing Noon into sections, we are privy to the kinds of work—and leisure—that are vital to our daily lives, as well as the imagined identities of the city’s inhabitants.

Though Spruance’s juxtaposition of work and relaxation might appear straightforward, it is important to remember that the universal eight-hour workday is an element of our modern workweek, and a hard-fought battle at that. In fact, it was not until 1938 that Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), limiting our workweeks to 40 hours. And while Spruance may not have intentionally broken his series into a structure resembling the slogan of the Eight-Hour Movement–“eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, and eight hours for what you will”—it’s an important reminder this May Day.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

[1] Carl Zigrosser, The Artist in America (New York: Knopf, 1942), 87.
Image: The People Work: Noon, ca. 1935, Benton Spruance, lithograph, 14 x 19 in., Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 38.37 © Benton Spruance

Poet Morgan Parker on Mickalene Thomas, Beyonce, and Figuring History

Chelsea Werner-Jatzke on Apr 26 2018

Poet Morgan Parker on Mickalene Thomas, Beyonce, and Figuring History

As National Poetry Month comes to a close, if you’re not sure what to read, visit the library inside of the exhibition Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas, closing May 13. While there you’ll notice a book of poetry by Morgan Parker titled There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé (Tin House, 2017). It’s a recent favorite read of this particular copywriter and the cover of the first edition (now sold out) featured a Mickalene Thomas artwork. More importantly, within the pages of this smart, irreverent, and deeply personal collection of poetry is a piece inspired by Thomas, reprinted below! Morgan Parker simultaneously brings great depth to listening to Drake and immense weight to racial discrimination as she fearlessly invokes generations of social injustices within her powerful and playful prose. Parker stopped by the exhibition while visiting Seattle and shared some thoughts on Figuring History as well!

We Don’t Know When We Were Opened (Or, The Origin of the Universe)
after Mickalene Thomas

By Morgan Parker

A sip of liquor from a creek. Saturday syndicated
Good Times, bare legs, colors draped like
an afterthought. We    bright enough to blind you.
Dear anyone, dear high-heel metronome, white
noise, hush us, shhhhh, hush us. We’re artisinal
crafts, rare gems, bed of leafy bush you call
us           superfood. Jeweled lips, we’re rich
We’re everyone. We have ideas and vaginas,
history and clothes and a mother. Portrait-ready
American blues. Palm trees and back issues
of JET, pink lotion, gin on ice, zebras, fig lipstick.
One day we learned to migrate. One day we studied
Mamma making her face. Bright new brown, scent of Nana
and cinnamon. Shadows of husbands and vineyards,
records curated to our allure, incense, unconcern.
Champagne is how the Xanax goes down, royal blue
reigning. We’re begging anyone not to forget
we’re turned on with control. We better homes and gardens.
We real grown. We garden of soiled panties.
We low hum of satisfaction. We is is is is is is is is
touch, touch, shine, a little taste. You’re gonna
give us the love we need.

SAM: Reading We Don’t Know When We Were Opened there’s a lot of assonance that creates repetition and fragmentation that feels to me like a sonic equivalent to Mickalene’s visual fragmentation. What in Thomas’ work inspired you and this poem, formally or thematically?

Morgan Parker: I’ve always loved Mickalene’s work, for the glitter and the color and the attention and the audaciousness. Her work is a celebration, and it’s also a politically intentional decolonization of the art history canon. She builds new worlds and revels in those worlds. I wanted my poem to reflect her work and add to it, translate it in my own words.

How do you think the persona poem and the way that Mickalene Thomas casts her models as art historical figures and tropes relate? Mickalene’s figures are looking right at you and this alters their role—makes them dimensional, such as in a painting like Tamika sur une chaise longue avec Monet. Where do you think that same dimension lives persona poems?

God I love this painting. I like to think of all my first-person poems as playing with dimensionality. I’m interested in using the singular figure, or voice, to call up cultural figureheads and historical tropes. Persona poems are an extension of that—they have two first-person speakers.

What stuck with you from your visit to the exhibition? Any lingering or new thoughts?

Kerry James Marshall’s Souvenir I always makes me cry. It was also fantastic to see Robert Colescott’s work in person, as I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. I love the way it engages stereotypes and recasts history so playfully and comically. In a different way than Mickalene, there’s trickery in acknowledging the audience’s gaze—that’s something I’ll be thinking over for a while.

 

Morgan Parker is the author of There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé and Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night. In 2019, a third collection of poems, Magical Negro, will be published by Tin House, and a young adult novel will be published with Delacorte Press. Her debut book of nonfiction will be released in 2020 by OneWorld. Parker is the recipient of a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, winner of a Pushcart Prize, and a Cave Canem graduate fellow. She is the creator and host of Reparations, Live! at the Ace Hotel. With Tommy Pico, she co-curates the Poets with Attitude (PWA) reading series, and with Angel Nafis, she is The Other Black Girl Collective. She lives in Los Angeles.

– Chelsea Werner-Jatzke, Content Strategist & Social Media Manager

Images: Photo courtesy of Morgan Parker. Photo by Nina Dubinsky. Video: Tamika sur une chaise longue avec Monet, 2012, Mickalene Thomas, Sydney & Walda Besthoff, Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong, © Mickalene Thomas. Photo courtesy of Morgan Parker.

10 Surprising Facts about Artist Kerry James Marshall

Nina Dubinsky on Apr 25 2018

10 Surprising Facts about Artist Kerry James Marshall

If you haven’t yet seen Kerry James Marshall’s glittery, figurative paintings in Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas, maybe these 10 surprising facts about him will pique your interest!

1. He is married to Stranger than Fiction actress Cheryl Lynn Bruce.

2. A master of many mediums—Marshall has made work in collage, drawing, murals, and even comic books.

3. Marshall created Rythm Mastr in reaction to the absence of black superheroes in comics growing up. His comic book series features black superheroes with powers derived from gods in the Yoruba pantheon.

4. The first time Marshall saw an original artwork was on a field trip to LACMA in the sixth grade.

5. Black social realist painter Charles White was a mentor to Marshall who considered seeing White’s studio for the first time “a life-altering experience.”

6. Marshall considered a career in children’s book illustration.

7. Ralph Ellison’s novel The Invisible Man inspired Marshall to make his painting Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of his Former Self.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BaUlbICD1qX/?taken-by=kerryjamesmarsh

8. Painted in 1980, two years after Marshall’s college graduation, Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self was the first painting he ever made of a Black figure.

9. Marshall received the MacArthur “Genius Grant,” for exceptional merit and creative works.

10. He knew in kindergarten he wanted to be an artist after his teacher Mary Hill showed the class a scrapbook full of greeting cards, pictures, and other imagery.

Don’t miss Marshall’s work in Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas. These three artists are shaped by distinctive historic events, unique in style, and united in questioning the narratives of history through Black experience. On view until Sunday May 13!

– Nina Dubinsky, Social Media Coordinator

Image: Installation view Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas, Seattle Art Museum, 2018, photo: Natali Wiseman.

SAM Gallery Artists on Seattle: Elizabeth Lopez & Dana Roberts

Chelsea Werner-Jatzke on Apr 24 2018

SAM Gallery Artists on Seattle: Elizabeth Lopez & Dana Roberts

Seattle and the surrounding area means many things to many people. Even among the artists whose work is on display in Inside Game at SAM Gallery, there are varied reactions to relocating here or living on the outskirts of this still slightly wild city. From the subdued silence of Seattle compared to Texas, to the striking shades of green crowding the San Juan Islands, the locale has a distinct impact on the inspirations and introspection of local artists. See for yourself with a visit to SAM Gallery to see work from the artists in Inside Game, on view through May 6.

Elizabeth Lopez

I remember when I first visited Seattle five years ago deciding if we wanted to live here, we arrived early to a restaurant, sitting with my back to the empty patio. After our two-hour lunch, I turned around to a patio packed with people, but it was still so quiet I was shocked. No hootin’ and hollerin’ like back in Texas. And that has been my experience here. Everyone keeps to themselves. Daily life on public transit everyone is silent. No nods hello from acquaintances on the street. This in turn magnifies the tons of daydreaming I do since I’m not talking. So the work I’ve made while in Seattle is very introspective. The result is from concentrated ideas that have been in my head like salt water taffy moving over and over, changing a little, but tracing an obsessive path in my brain. I always wait with anticipation to see how people will respond to my work, because these are my images based on ideas based on daydreams with vague appearances from things in my life. The artist community here has been super welcoming, so this is my attempt to connect with my other fellow Seattleites.

Dana Roberts

I live and paint in a rural outpost of Seattle—San Juan Island—where I have dwelt upon the same piece of land for over 35 years. Our house is in a clearing in the woods. Vegetation overflows around us: fir trees, cedars, alders, maples, willows, thickets of salmonberry and elderberry, wetland grasses, nettles.  Summer brings endless shades of green. In winter, we are presented with all sorts of bare branches crisscrossing, fallen limbs and trees, trees broken off and still standing. It is a cacophony of messy nature. There are no vistas: all is seen from a close-up viewpoint, all the edges, the complexity along those edges. Nothing stands out as a focal point. One never quite knows where to look. So, one just keeps looking, here, there, here again, eyes always in motion. The eye gathers all those disparate bits of vision, flickering, changing, moving, and somehow assembles them into a semblance of unity. These particular paintings of mine in Inside Game are exactly that way.

Images: Lambent Rabble, Elizabeth Lopez,  48 x 36 in., mixed media on canvas. Owl Light, Dana Roberts, 48.5 x 52 in., oil on linen.

 

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