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10 Surprising Facts about Artist Robert Colescott

Nina Dubinsky on Feb 24 2018

What do you know about the three artists in Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas? Take a minute to learn more about the people behind the paintings currently on view at SAM as we share 10 surprising facts about each of them. This month we’re focused on Robert Colescott. Colescott’s work is bold, colorful, often satirical, and packed with meaning.

Colescott’s parents were accomplished musicians who played jazz, blues, and classical music. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Colescott also had musical talent—growing up he played the drums and always kept a drum kit in his studio.
Despite painting and drawing from a young age, Colescott originally wanted to go into international relations. He decided to pursue his passion for art since he was told at the time there wouldn’t be a future for him in the field as an Black person.
Robert Colescott married five times.
Colescott was thrust into international spotlight as the first Black painter to have a solo exhibit at the Venice Biennale in Italy.
Robert Colescott’s older brother Warrington Colescott is an also an artist best known for his etchings.
Oski wow wow! Colescott graduated from the University of California, Berkeley where he received both his bachelors and masters.
A world traveler, Colescott spent an year in Paris at an atelier studying with artist Fernand Léger.
In the early 1950s, Colescott moved to Seattle and taught junior high school in the Seattle Public School District.
Colescott was a veteran—he volunteered to serve in the US Army after graduating High School in 1942 and fought in the 86th Blackhawk Division during World War II.
Colescott has five sons and a grandson. His grandson, Colescott Rubin, is also a jazz musician and played at the opening celebration of Figuring History in front of his grandfather’s painting, Les Demoiselles d’Alabama: Vestidas.

See Colescott’s work in person at the Seattle Art Museum. Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas will be on view until Sunday May 13!

– Nina Dubinsky, Social Media Coordinator

Image: Installation view Figuring History: Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas, 2018, at Seattle Art Museum. Photo: Natali Wiseman

Object of the Week: X

Elisabeth Smith on Feb 23 2018

Malcolm [X] . . . preferred to illuminate the bitter calculus of oppression, one in which a people had been forced to hand over their right to self-defense, a right enshrined in Western law and morality and taken as essential to American citizenship, in return for the civil rights that they had been promised a century earlier.

– Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Legacy of Malcolm X,” 2011

In this work by Brenna Youngblood, a nearly monochromatic black field is punctuated by intersecting white lines, forming an ‘X’ at the center. Engaging in the history of abstraction as well as photo-montage and collage, Youngblood weds vernacular modes of representation with the language of abstract painting.

Upon closer look, this black painting, titled X, is in fact full of definition and color: small specks of red, blue, and yellow appear ready to burst through the topography of the black surface. A trained photographer, Youngblood uses her experiences behind the lens to explore the intersections between image, illusion, and objecthood, often building up the surfaces of her canvases. In this context, the equally precise and messy ‘X’ acts as a spatial element—its white incisions accentuating the black ground. It also functions as an ‘X’—both a letter and symbol of negation—as well as a reference, and perhaps homage, to Civil Rights leader Malcolm X.

Within SAM’s contemporary galleries, this piece is on view just around the corner from Barnett Newman’s The Three. An exemplar painting by Newman, the black and white composition bears certain formal similarities to X, but more interesting is the way in which Newman considered the function of line in his work:

I think of a line as a thing that involves certain possibilities. It acts as a contour and moves in relation to a shape; it also acts as something that divides space. . . . I hope that my painting has the impact of giving someone, as it did me, the feeling of his own totality, of his own separateness, of his own individuality, and at the same time his connection to others, who are also separate.[1]

The New York School artist’s poetic interpretation adds even more meaning when thinking about the lines in Youngblood’s X—that the marks function, formally and emotionally, as both a dividing and uniting element in her work. With the title reference to Malcolm X, as well, the above message of possibility and hope takes on even more meaning in our current political climate—that despite our divisions, connection and unity is possible.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

[1] Barnett Newman, Selected Writings and Interviews (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), 257.

Image: X, 2015, Brenna Youngblood, paper and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 60 in., General Acquisition Fund, 2016.7.2 © Brenna Youngblood Courtesy the artist and Honor Fraser Gallery

Encountered in Orbit: Artists in Residence at Olympic Sculpture Park

Chelsea Werner-Jatzke on Feb 21 2018

“We look to a blue dot on our phones to locate ourselves,” Tia Kramer points out. “Orbiting Together offers a new way engage with unseen objects that make that technology possible. Through text messages we instruct participants to poetically enact gestures that respond to the function of the satellites orbiting overhead.” Orbing Together is the participatory experience of the current Olympic Sculpture Park artists in residence, Tia Kramer, Eric Olson, and Tamin Totzke. When you opt in to Orbiting Together you get texted instructions, or scores, on how to orient yourself to the space around you once or twice a day, wherever you are, at the same time as anyone else signed up, according to satellite movement over the park. The residency culminates in a final Art Encounter, a participatory experience and performance, at the Olympic Sculpture Park, Friday, February 23.

The functions and properties of the satellites triggering the text messages inform the scores you receive. Some of the messages are sent along with images and information on the satellite that sends them. When writing the scores, the artists are considering binaries. Both the binaries of computers that direct satellites across the skies above us as well as, “how to hold divergent concepts in your mind and body at the same time,” Kramer says.

The three artists in residence bring unique backgrounds to the project. Tamin Totzke, with an MFA in choreography, offers movement practices that inform the scores. Tia Kramer is a site-specific performance artist, educator, and social choreographer interested in gestures and actions of human connection in the everyday. Eric Olson uses his programming and technical skills to create participatory art practice and social engagement. They all consider the Art Encounter portion of their residency as making the irony of the project clear.

“We’re asking people to consider the somatics of our relationship to technology, while using technology to create connection,” Olson points out. Somatics is the making of meaning through intentional movement that allows you to perceive yourself and the world around you. While the project points out how we isolate ourselves from each other and our environments by referring to satellites thousands of miles away to tell us the name of the street we are on, it also uses cell phones and social media to prompt group actions.

Because it requires your phone to take part, the balance between documenting and experiencing is also an inherent tension to the project. Orbing Together is at once a chance to re-orient in space outside of your phone, while using your phone to facilitate that orientation. “We’re playing with parody. We’re using an ad agency technology to facilitate personal agency.” Eric Olson says.

By creating a database of all the satellites that move over Seattle daily (most pass over multiple times a day), tracking which zip codes they travel through, and using advertising technology that sends text messages, Orbiting Together is bridging space through simultaneity.

With people opted in across the world, the Olympic Sculpture Park becomes a location that people the world wide are orienting themselves by, while paying closer attention to their immediate surroundings. For the final Art Encounter at the Olympic Sculpture Park there will be a blend of visitor participation and performers in attendance. It will not be immediately apparent who is a performer and who is an audience member. The performers will create a complete presentation of the gestures that have been texted throughout the project. There’s still time to take part, text “TOGETHER” to “206 IN 01 SKY.” Also coming up this weekend is a send off celebration and artist tour of the Olympic Sculpture Park, Sunday February 25, 10:30 am–noon. Meet in PACCAR Pavilion to join the artists in residence for a tour of the park with inspired exercises.

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

Images: Jen Au, Nina Dubinsky, Jen Au

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

Seattle Art Museum on Feb 20 2018

SAM News

Figuring History is now! The New York Times included the exhibition among their “Week in Culture” highlights, calling it “flawless.”

Cultured Magazine shared this interview with Mickalene Thomas—along with stunning portraits of Mickalene and her partner Racquel Chevremont in the Figuring History galleries.

The Seattle Times’ coverage includes a video, photos, and full review; the video features interviews with SAM curator Catharina Manchanda and the artists Kerry James Marshall and Mickalene Thomas.

“Their work is brought together for the first time in a powerful, important exhibition that really must be experienced in person to get the full impact of these enormous, vibrant works.”

Following the unveiling last week of the official portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, SAM curator SAM curator Chiyo Ishikawa appeared on KING5’s New Day NW on Wednesday morning along with artist C. Davida Ingram to discuss the portraits.

Local News

Public art curator and author Nato Thompson has been named the artistic director of this year’s Seattle Art Fair; City Arts’ Margo Vansynghel spoke with Nato about his plans.

Crosscut’s Matt Mills McKnight interviewed Sifu David Leong, owner of Northwest Kung Fu Academy, about the art of lion dancing; he also captured photos of the team at last week’s Lunar New Year kickoff celebrations.

Emily Pothast of The Stranger reviews the Zohra Opoku show now on view at the Mariane Ibrahim Gallery.

“’When I see someone who is fully veiled, I’m always thinking about what’s underneath, and become curious about the person I don’t see,’ she says. ‘I tried different ways of veiling myself to create different versions of myself in a veiled situation.’”

Inter/National News

The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation awarded thirty artists a $20,000 Biennial Grant. Lots of SAM favorites included! Kerry James Marshall served on the jury; Titus Kaphar, Ebony G. Patterson, Sondra Perry, and Wendy Red Star were among the recipients.

Artnet takes a look at the MCA Denver’s show of works made by Jean-Michel Basquiat—and photos taken by roommate Alexis Adler—during a rambunctious year spent in an small apartment on East 12th Street.

Philip Kennicott of the Washington Post addresses the Hirshhorn’s decision to postpone a projection on its building exterior by Krzysztof Wodiczko that features a gun and a candle.

“One fundamental strategy of political art is to say: This ugly image is who we are, and then challenge the audience to deny that, in word and deed.”

And Finally

Nothing is more fun than scrolling through #WakandaForever.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

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

Object of the Week: Study for the Munich Olympic Games Poster

Elisabeth Smith on Feb 16 2018

I always loved running—it was something you could do by yourself and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs.

— Jesse Owens

One of 29 artists commissioned to design a poster for the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich, Jacob Lawrence chose to highlight the achievements of Black athletes.[1] In his Study for the Munich Olympic Games Poster, five runners, depicted in Lawrence’s characteristic graphic flatness, recall the figurative style of Greek vase painting—an apropos homage on the occasion of the Games of the XX Olympiad.

The iconic colors of the five interlocking Olympic rings—blue, yellow, black, green, and red—recur throughout the study, from batons and jerseys to shorts and shoes. Framed by the curvature of the track, the runners’ physicality and strength are difficult to ignore. Together, their musculature, movement, and form encapsulate the excitement and competitive finish of the relay—where gold, silver, and bronze are determined by mere tenths of seconds.

Known for his stylistic experimentation and depictions of African American life, Lawrence’s commission also has special importance within the context of the Civil Rights Movement and history of the modern Olympic Games. Created only four years after the 1968 Mexico City Summer Olympics, and on the occasion of the first Olympics held in Germany since 1936, his representation of Black athletes is especially meaningful.

In the 1968 Olympic Games, American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos respectively won the gold and bronze medals in the 200 meter race.[2] Upon climbing the podium, with the Star Spangled Banner playing behind them, both Smith and Carlos, donning black gloves, raised their right and left fists and bowed their heads—a symbol of protest and strength on an international stage.[3] Though interpreted by many as an explicit demonstration of Black Power, for Smith, it was a human rights salute: “It was a cry for freedom and human rights. We had to be seen because we couldn’t be heard.”[4]

Just 32 years earlier, in 1936, the Summer Olympics were held in Berlin. Though Germany had won the bid in 1931, prior to the rise of the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler’s rhetoric of white supremacy and antisemitism was already well established. For Hitler, the Olympics became a stage upon which Germany could prove his theories of racial superiority. It was within this Olympic setting—in which athletes of color and Jewish heritage were openly discriminated against—that Owens won four gold medals, set two world records, and came away the most successful athlete of that year’s games.

For Smith, Carlos, and Owens, these Olympic victories allowed them to transcend—and publically challenge—the political divisions and discrimination taking place in the United States and abroad. Similarly, Lawrence’s Study for the Munich Games Poster, depicting all Black athletes, is an important work that finds its place within this complicated history of the Olympic Games.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

[1] Other artists included Hans Hartung, Oskar Kokoschka, Pierre Soulages, David Hockney, and Josef Albers, to name just a few.

[2] Tommie Smith won the 200 meter race with a world-record time of 19.83 seconds.

[3] It is believed that Smith raised his right fist, and Carlos his left, to represent Black unity, forming “an arch of unity and power.” BBC News, “1968: Black athletes make silent protest,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/17/newsid_3535000/3535348.stm.

[4] Rick Campbell, “An Olympic moment—from 1968,” Houston Chronicle, August 5, 2008, http://blog.chron.com/40yearsafter/2008/08/an-olympic-moment-from-1968.

Images: Study for the Munich Olympic Games Poster, 1971, Jacob Lawrence, gouache on paper, 35 1/2 x 27 in., PONCHO, 79.31 © Jacob Lawrence. Tommie Smith (center) and John Carlos (right) extend gloved hands skyward during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner in Mexico City on October 16, 1968. Jesse Owens running at 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

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

Rachel Eggers on Feb 12 2018

SAM News

Last week, we announced the hiring of SAM’s first-ever Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Manish Engineer, who will oversee technology and digital efforts across the institution. Artdaily and Geekwire shared the news.

Figuring History artist Kerry James Marshall is this month’s cover story in Juxtapoz. Don’t miss their wide-ranging interview with him—plus their online story on SAM’s exhibition.

Local News

The Stranger’s Charles Mudede reviews Everyday Black at the Northwest African American Museum, which features a portrait that he calls “the masterpiece of the show” of SAM’s Public Programs Coordinator David Rue.

Capitol Hill Times reports on the efforts of The Friends of the Benson Trolleys, who hope to retrofit the abandoned vintage trolleys to run on Seattle’s streetcar line.

City Arts’ Margo Vansynghel sits down with Zhi Lin, whose incredible solo show about the 1885 forced expulsion of Chinese inhabitants from Tacoma is on view until February 18 at the Tacoma Art Museum.

“Originally, I wanted to create an old history painting with old buildings, tailors, saloons and so on. I decided not to. Instead, I re-staged the scene in a contemporary setting, with the light rail track, skyscrapers, traffic signage nearby. To say, we are repeating history. Literally.”

Inter/National News

I know we’re all ready for spring, but let’s just enjoy Hyperallergic’s collection of dreamy Instagrams taken during the recent snowstorm in Paris. Scroll and le sigh.

Artnet’s Javier Pes reports on the happenings at art fairs Salon Acme and Material in Mexico City; Everyday Poetics artist Fritzia Irízar is named one of seven memorable artists from Material.

Artnet’s Ben Davis focuses in on the merits of Basquiat’s Untitled, which is now on view at the Brooklyn Museum.

“Untitled (1982) is built to be what it has become, a high-energy icon that can spread easily as a media image. But at the same time it also whispers that it doesn’t want to be reduced to just that; it doesn’t just want to be looked at, it wants to be seen.”

And Finally

Meet Banda Didá, the all-female Brazilian drum group.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Souvenir I, 1997, Kerry James Marshall, acrylic, collage, and glitter on unstretched canvas, 108 x 157 in., Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Bernice and Kenneth Newberger Fund, 1997.73, © MCA Chicago, photo: Joe Ziolkowski.

Object of the Week: Untitled (Woman standing)

Elisabeth Smith on Feb 9 2018

Weems, desiring freedom while poised in the face of a troubling historical ground, beckons the viewer with the question: can you see me, which is not a matter of faculty but one of recognition.

– Adrienne Edwards, “Scenes of the Flesh: Thinking-Feeling Carrie Mae Weem’s Kitchen Table Series Twenty-Five Years On,” 2016

Untitled (Woman standing) is one of 20 carefully staged photographs in the Kitchen Table Series by Carrie Mae Weems. Focusing on the daily life and domestic space of a subject played by the artist, the photographs are often read as autobiographical. While self-representation is no doubt central to this body of work (loosely based on Weems’s own experiences), Untitled (Woman standing)—and the rest of the Kitchen Table Series—is a meditation on the way Black women are represented in American culture more broadly.

Together, the photographic series stages intimate scenes, all taking place around the kitchen table. Captured from the same vantage point, we see a range of quotidian moments: Weems’s character embracing—and being embraced by—her lover, playing cards with her daughters, seeking consolation from friends, and, every once in a while, by herself in moments of sadness, contemplation, happiness, pleasure, and, in this instance, confidence. The series represents the various roles she inhabits as a mother, friend, daughter, romantic partner, and sexual being.

Interested in systems of power and oppression, Weems mobilizes photography to challenge the medium’s assumed authenticity and explore its fictional possibilities, ultimately controlling the narrative she presents to viewers. And while Weems’s character is often the focus, she is never the sole subject of the composition—the evolution of her relationships is a central topic. In addition, curator Adrienne Edwards calls attention to the role the table plays in the series, addressing its presence as an important conceit:

Along with Weems, it [the kitchen table] is a recurring figure in the photographs. The table’s symbolic significance is a direct reference to the structures that shape and reinforce the intersection of the concepts of race, gender, and class that are at the center of Weems’s art.[1]

Throughout the series, the table acts as a witness to the cast of characters in the domestic space. Here, it is as if Weems, pressing down on the table surface, is pushing against its stability and order in an attempt to upend it. Similarly, the hanging lamp can be seen as a metaphor for illumination—shedding light on “fundamental issues concerning American society and culture and black women’s role in it”—while also pointing to another use for such a light: interrogation.[2]

In the words of the artist, “My responsibility as an artist is to work, to sing for my supper, to make art, beautiful and powerful, that adds and reveals; to beautify the mess of a messy world, to heal the sick and feed the helpless; to shout bravely from the rooftops and storm barricaded doors and voice the specificity of our historical moment.”[3]

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

[1] Adrienne Edwards, “Scenes of the Flesh: Thinking-Feeling Carrie Mae Weems’s Kitchen Table Series Twenty-Five Years On,” in Carrie Mae Weems: Kitchen Table Series (Bologna, Italy: Damiani, 2016), 10-11.

[2] Edwards, 14.

[3] Lauren Hansen, “Meet MacArthur Award Winner Carrie Mae Weems,” The Week, http://theweek.com/captured/459535/meet-macarthur-award-winner-carrie-mae-weems.

Untitled (Woman standing) from the “Kitchen Table” Series, 1990, Carrie Mae Weems, gelatin silver print, 28 1/4 x 28 1/4 in., Gift of Vascovitz Family, 2012.13.3, © Carrie Mae Weems. Clockwise from left: Untitled (Man and mirror), Untitled (Woman and phone), Untitled (Woman and daughter with children); Untitled (Woman playing solitaire) from the “Kitchen Table Series,” 1990, Carrie Mae Weems.

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

Rachel Eggers on Feb 5 2018

SAM News

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

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

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

Local News

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

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

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

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

Inter/National News

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

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

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

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

And Finally

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

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Photo: Robert Wade

Object of the Week: Money Tree

Elisabeth Smith on Feb 2 2018

In honor of Black History Month, Object of the Week will—throughout the month of February—highlight works by celebrated black artists in the SAM Collection.

Walk through Harlem any given day and you will see David Hammons’ work. The work he does for people who cannot go to SoHo and gallery-hop. The people that he knows. The people he comes from. Bottles stuck on top of bare branches protruding from the ground. From vacant lots and cracks and crevices in the sidewalk. Hammons transforms them. Creates visual music and something to smile about in an environment that doesn’t offer a lot in the way of jokes.

— Dawoud Bey, “David Hammons: Purely and Artist,” 1982

David Hammons is often described as an elusive figure, an artist who has openly rebuked and skirted the art world, despite his successes within it.[1] A master of materials and the meanings they carry, Hammons deftly reworks objects—often found or discarded—in novel ways, representing Black experience through symbol and metaphor, “physically composed from the material elements of his experience.”[2] As Hammons once put it: “outrageously magical things happen when you mess around with a symbol.”[3] Well, when he messes around with a symbol.

Working outside traditional arts institutions, Hammons imbues his sculptures, installations, photography, and performance with potent signifiers mined from materials grounded in Black urban life. Take, for example, the tree pictured here: pierced with a circular band, the trunk becomes a sculptural object whose form and tongue-in-cheek title, Money Tree, obliquely reference a basketball hoop. Despite the endless wealth to which the title alludes, the rather barren scene warrants a more nuanced interpretation.

For Hammons, basketball—a sport dominated by Black athletes—is not a guarantee of economic success, but rather acts as both a “foil and object of devotion” in Black communities.[4] Though speaking specifically to a 1983 piece titled Higher Goals (pictured below), a sculptural work that also mobilizes basketball as metaphor, Hammons’ own words can provide some insight:

It’s an anti-basketball sculpture. Basketball has become a problem in the black community because kids aren’t getting an education. They’re pawns in someone else’s game…. It means you should have higher goals in life than basketball.[5]

Treated with equal parts empathy and irony, Money Tree acknowledges the reality that, for many Black communities, basketball is regarded as an opportunity to excel within a society whose systems unfairly work against people of color. In a country that deeply reveres professional sports and its athletes, basketball is thus seen as an avenue to success. Yet, Money Tree also undercuts this very notion, simultaneously functioning as a cautionary tale and pointed commentary on race and class in America.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

[1] In the essay “Wreaking Havoc on the Signified: David Hammons,” Coco Fusco articulates: “No account of Hammons’ art is entirely devoid of references to his streetwise, resolutely anti-elitist persona. He has become infamous for his acerbic appraisals of high art, and his willed cultivation of a split between a black interpretative community to which he directs his messages, and a now admiring (once indifferent) white art world he loves to snub, tease and confuse.” Coco Fusco, “Wreaking Havoc on the Signified: David Hammons,” Frieze, May 7, 1995, https://frieze.com/article/wreaking-havoc-signified.

[2] Kellie Jones, “The Structure of Myth and the Potency of Magic,” in David Hammons: Rousing the Rubble (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991), 16.

[3] Holland Cotter, “David Hammons Is Still Messing With What Art Means,” The New York Times, March 24, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/arts/design/david-hammons-is-still-messing-with-what-art-means.html.

[4] Franklin Sirmans, “Searching for Mr. Hammons,” in David Hammons: Selected Works (New York: Zwirner & Wirth, 2006), np.

[5] David Hammons quoted by Douglas C. McGill, “Hammons’ Visual Music,” in The New York Times, July 18, 1986, section 3, p. 15. Image: Higher Goals, 1983, fifty-five foot tall basketball poles, 121st Street and Frederick Douglas Boulevard, Harlem.

Image: Money Tree, 1992, David Hammons, gelatin silver photograph, 16 1/2 x 11 in., Gift of Greg Kucera and Larry Yocom, 97.77, © David Hammons. Higher Goals, 1983, David Hammons, 55′ tall basketball poles, 121st Street and Frederick Douglas Boulevard, Harlem. Photo: Dawoud Bey. © David Hammons

Community Gallery: The Voices of a City

Seattle Art Museum on Jan 31 2018

The Community Gallery at the Seattle Art Museum showcases art that builds and supports community through allowing youth to have a voice and a place to share their vision. The Community Gallery is located on the first floor of the Seattle Art Museum and is currently showing The Voices of the City in partnership with Seattle Parks and Recreation. Jose’s embroidered artwork, pictured above, is an example of the Tenango technique that Isabel Mirales, our blog contributor, discusses below. Visit the Community Gallery through February 4 to see and hear more from these voices of our city.

Bordados Tenango de Hidalgo

On my last visit to Mexico, my country of origin. I visited a town in the state of Guanajuato called “La Valenciana.” Walking between the streets I found some women embroidering—the color of their blankets caught my attention and I started a conversation with them. While talking with them, I imagined how interesting and important it would be for my children in the Before and After School Program, to show them a little of their country through this embroidery, since many of them do not have or did not have the opportunity to travel to their parents’ home country and where their roots come from.

En mi última visita por México, mi país de origen. Visité un pueblo en el estado de Guanajuato llamado “La Valenciana” caminando entre las calles encontré a unas mujeres bordando. El colorido de sus mantas me llamó tanto la atención y comence una coversación con ellas. Mientras conversaba con ellas imaginaba lo interesante e importante que seria para mis niños en el Programa de Antes y Despues de la Escuala mostrarles un poco de su país a través de éstos bordados, ya que muchos de ellos no tienen o no an tenido la oportunidad de viajar al país de origen de sus padres y de dónde vienen sus raices.

And so, starts our adventure!

Y asi, comienzo nuestra aventura!

Mexico really is a country of colors, and under this emblem some women of the Otomí-tepehua region dedicate their life to spending their eyes and their hands creating true works of textile art. The Tenangos are a mosaic of colors that when shaped in a blanket, they become a gift that we all wish to have at home.

México realmente es un país de colores, y bajo este distintivo unas mujeres de la región otomí – tepehua dedican su vida a gastar la vista y sus manos para crear verdaderas obras de arte textil; los Tenangos son un mosaico de colores que al ser plasmados en una manta, se convierten en un regalo que todos deseamos tener en casa.

Within the wide range of crafts that are manifested in Mexico, the technique of textiles cannot be forgotten and the famous embroidery at Tenango de Doria in the state of Hidalgo, are an example of a great number of designs out of the mind of those embroiderers who spend every day sewing a new work to dress from a table.

Dentro de la gran gama de artesanía que se manifiestan en México, no puede faltar la técnica de los textiles; y los famosos bordados en Tenango de Doria en el estado de Hidalgo, son un ejemplo de una gran cantidad de diseños salidos de la mente de aquellas bordadoras que pasan todos los días cosiendo a pulso un nueva obra para vestir desde una mesa.

The different designs of Tenangos have been recognized around the world and this gives them an international prestige, “With a beautiful Tenango you will see this garment, no matter where come from.”

Los distintos diseños de los Tenangos han sido reconocidos en todo el mundo y esto les da un prestigio internacional, “Con un Tenango bella te verás con esta prenda, no importa de dónde vengas”.

There are about 400 women in this population who are dedicated to translating what their mind dictates, there is no pattern to follow, only a set of rural figures that can be human, natural or floral and with that colorful touch in blue, green, yellow or red.

Son alrededor de 400 mujeres en esta población quienes se dedican a plasmar lo que su mente les dicta, no hay un patrón a seguir, sólo un conjunto de figuras rurales que pueden ser humanas, naturales o florales y con ese toque colorido en azul, verde, amarillo o rojo.

These masters of the needle demonstrate their talent in white fabrics like linen, blanket, silk, cotton, and other textures in timeframes that can range from weeks to months.

Estas maestras de la aguja demuestran su talento en telas blancas como lino, manta, seda, algodón, y demás texturas en plazos que van de semanas a meses.

Not all the colorful figures are on a white background: they are also made under a black cloth with white or gold embroidery, perhaps yellow backgrounds with red embroidery, and other beautiful combinations that, thanks to their unique designs, put the buyer in a true dilemma of whether to wear a traditional tenango or one that matches more with a room or some piece of their house.

No todas las figuras coloridas van en un fondo blanco, también se hacen bajo una tela negra con bordados blancos o dorados, quizá fondos amarillos con bordados rojos, y otras hermosas combinaciones que–gracias a sus diseños irrepetibles-ponen al comprador en un verdadero dilema de si llevar un tenango tradicional o uno que combine más con la sala o alguna pieza de la casa.

The truth is that a wall is worth putting a work of art on, and a Tenango is that. At the moment, there are exclusive hotels decorating luxurious spaces that give that “Mexican” touch in the decoration.

Lo cierto es que una pared vale la pena poner una obra de arte y un Tenango es eso. Actualmente hay hoteles exclusivos decorando espacios lujosos que le dan ese toque “mexicano” en la decoración.

Horses, birds, deer, daisies, rabbits, trees, dogs, children, donkeys, armadillos, bulls, tulips, dragonflies, fish, hens and other elements of nature perfectly combine with grecas and some other indigenous symbols.

Caballos, pájaros, venados, margaritas, conejos, árboles, perros, niños, burros, armadillos, toros, tulipanes, libélulas, peces, gallinas y demás elementos de la naturaleza combinan perfectamente con grecas y algunos otros símbolos prehispánicos.

Together, they are the perfect canvas that harmonizes the culture and life of the community in different important events like marriage, harvest, some parties, birth and other moments of Otomí-tepehua life.

Juntos, son el lienzo perfecto que armoniza la cultura y la vida de la comunidad en distintos eventos importantes como el matrimonio, la cosecha, algunas fiestas, el nacimiento y otros momentos de la vida otomí-tepehua.

– Isabel Mireles, Childcare Provider, South Park School-Age Care Program

Photos: Natali Wiseman

A Tireless Advocate: Nancy Alvord (1922–2017)

Seattle Art Museum on Jan 30 2018

The Seattle Art Museum has a long-held motto: We are all in this together! Presenting great art and inspiring programs takes a dedicated team, tireless volunteers, and passionate supporters. Each time I hear these words, I think about my dear friend, Nancy Delaney Alvord, who passed away in December.

Nancy thought about the people behind the scenes. Shortly after moving to Seattle in the early 1960s with her husband Ellsworth C. “Buster” Alvord, Nancy began her SAM service as a volunteer. After becoming a Trustee a decade later, she created a Volunteer Committee—giving those who contribute their time a voice at the table. She also played a major role in establishing and funding SAM’s annual Volunteer Soiree and staff holiday party; a chance to thank the people who work so hard to make SAM’s programs possible.

Always thinking of the bigger picture, it was Nancy who first convinced the SAM Board to adopt an aggressive membership recruitment program, knowing that great museums need the support of their communities to thrive. This paved the way for SAM’s move downtown in 1991 and a membership base which now includes over 50,000 local households. And it was at Nancy’s home in 1985, where a group of women first gathered to create the Seattle Art Museum Supporters (SAMS)—an organization that has raised nearly $7M to support exhibitions and educational programs.

Together with Buster, Nancy was an instrumental supporter of every major SAM initiative, from the first remodel of the Seattle Asian Art Museum in 1974 (where the boardroom is named in their honor); to the move downtown and its later expansion. In appreciation for her decades of commitment, Nancy was both awarded the Dorothy C. Malone Volunteer Award, and ultimately named an Honorary Trustee, a lifetime designation.

Outside of SAM, countless organizations were the beneficiaries of Nancy’s time and incredible generosity. She broke barriers becoming the first woman elected President of the Seattle Repertory Theater board; she was a Founding Director of the University of Washington Foundation; fueled by her interest in psychology, she founded the local chapter of the C.G. Jung Society; and she was a strong supporter of the ACLU.

At SAM, and throughout our community, we will all miss our friend—our champion—Nancy Alvord.

– Elizabeth Hedreen, SAM Honorary Trustee

Photo: Nancy Alvord, photo courtesy of the Alvord family.

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

Rachel Eggers on Jan 29 2018

SAM News

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

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

Local News

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

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

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

Inter/National News

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

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

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

And Finally

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

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

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

Object of the Week: Chop Plate

Elisabeth Smith on Jan 26 2018

When you think of Rockwell Kent, Herman Melville’s 1930 edition of Moby Dick might first come to mind, as his illustrations for the great American novel are, for many, as beloved as the story of the whale itself. A celebrated draughtsman, printmaker, author, and explorer, Kent’s highly stylized brand of social realism was reproduced in many contexts, and has since become inextricable from the American visual culture of the 1930s and 40s. The artist’s prolific output is difficult to summarize, but a large majority of his work depicts human figures set against the natural world—compositions informed by his interest in transcendentalist philosophy.

Also a self-proclaimed pacifist and socialist, Kent’s political leanings often imbued his work with a proletarian sentiment: images of the working class transitioning from an agrarian to industrial society. With this in mind, Kent’s predilection for working in mediums that saw mass production and widespread distribution—such as bookplates, book jackets, prints, advertisements, and posters—might also explain his willingness to work with California-based Vernon Kilns on designs for a line of dinnerware, perhaps the most utilitarian of the aforementioned objects.

Adapted from the illustrations Kent created for his 1935 book titled Salamina, a chronicle of his life and travels while in Greenland, this hand-tinted chop plate (a round platter) focuses our attention on the strong, kneeling body of a beautiful young woman: Salamina.[1] Rendered with Kent’s characteristic graphic sensibility, her body and surrounding landscape are comprised of geometric highlights and shadows. In the middle ground, between her feet and the mountains behind her—colorful triangles of blue, yellow, and brown—are an adobe-style house and bird’s nest. While these details are suggestive of the American Southwest, they are likely of Greenland (during the summer, of course) and present a romanticized portrait of both a person and a place, basking in golden hour light. With the addition of the doves and flowers, it evinces an air of nostalgia for a time when human beings lived in harmony with the natural world.

Unfortunately for Kent, this line of dinnerware (as well as two others made for Vernon Kilns) is a lesser-known aspect of his career. Due to its short production span and the fallout resulting from the artist’s outspoken political views, many people are unaware of the series and Kent’s contributions to the American decorative arts.[2]

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

Image: Chop plate, 1939, Rockwell Kent, ceramic with hand-tinted decoration, 1 x 13 7/8 in., Decorative Arts Purchase Fund and General Acquisition Fund, 98.37

[1] Salamina, Kent’s housekeeper and romantic companion while living in Greenland, is understood as the model for this work, after which the dinnerware set is named.

[2] During the McCarthy era, Kent was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1953 to clarify his political views and associations. Though he denied being a member of the Communist Party, his reputation plummeted; the subsequent blacklisting resulted in decreased sales, exhibitions, and overall popularity.

Boundaries of Belonging with the Gardner Center

sarahl on Jan 25 2018

Debating critical issues over immigration and refugee issues, and the security of national borders in the US can escalate quickly or quickly become tiresome. But, through inquiry, SAM’s Gardner Center offers an alternative way of engaging with, and thinking about, global events that impact us all. The Saturday University Lecture Series beginning this week, is a chance to reflect and discuss how some of these issues manifest around the world. Six outstanding speakers will consider various ways that national borders and other boundaries are created, maintained, and crossed in different parts of Asia in the winter lecture series, Boundaries of Belonging.

Two major events of the mid-20th century that resulted in new national borders—between India and Pakistan, and the formation of North and South Korea—still have resonance in international tensions. Our first speaker, David Gilmartin, looks at the Partition of India and Pakistan in terms of dividing the Indus River Basin, which was then the site of the world’s largest integrated river irrigation system. Next up is the DMZ that separated the members of so many families between North and South Korea. Suk-Young Kim considers that heavily militarized border as a site of intense emotion over the conflicting bonds of family and nation, and discusses various forms of border crossing.

Meanwhile in the Philippines, President Duterte has declared war on marginalized communities within their own nation. While most Filipinos are removed from the violence, Vicente Rafael discusses the work of photojournalists who aim to bring national and international attention to the victims of this “drug war.”

In a comparison of the treatment of Koreans living in Japan and Japanese Americans in the US during World War II, Tak Fujitani uncovers how both governments recruited among these communities for military service as their duty to the nation, while at the same time denying them full rights.

How to imagine a refugee camp of over 650,000 Rohingya people in Bangladesh? Azeem Ibrahim shares his research conducted over several visits to Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Our final speaker, Lucinda Ramberg, considers issues of religion, caste and gender among a Buddhist community in South India.

Join us and consider the many questions raised during the Saturday University Lecture Series. Tickets are still available to the series and individual lecture tickets are sold at the door, day-of.

– Sarah Loudon, Director, Gardner Center for Asian Art and Ideas

Photo: NASA

Japanese Photobooks from the Collection of Chris Harris, Part 4

Traci Timmons on Jan 24 2018

This is the fourth in a series of posts about an extraordinary photobook collection donated to the McCaw Foundation Library for Asian Art by collector, Chris Harris. Photobooks are photography-illustrated books which may or may not include additional text. The photography drives the content, rather than being supplemental to the written word. Often handmade, self-printed, or published in limited editions, these books are considered works of art themselves.

Rough Edges, Hard Life
Photographer Daisuke Yokota shares his distinctive interpretation of people and places in two photobooks which were donated by Chris Harris to the McCaw Foundation Library. Urban life can be a hard place with sharp edges, yet people navigating them can retain some softness. Yokota shows us his haunting perspective of this paradox in his photobooks Immerse (Akina, 2015) and Linger (Akina, 2014).

Texture and Composition
In Immerse, Yokota explores the interplay of unexpected textures and startling vulnerability.

Cover of Immerse by Daisuke Yokota

Images like these take on an abstract quality, creating the evocative tone of Yakota’s work. Color and composition enhance a coincidence of defenselessness with a suggestive boldness.

Immerse by Daisuke Yokota

Form without Fabrication
Daisuke Yokota’s hand-bound photobook, Linger, contains images as unpretentious and stark as the cover itself.

Cover of Linger by Daisuke Yokota

In Linger, Yokata continues to explore the interplay of texture and form. Images of intimate poses and private spaces convey a sense of softness within a hardened world. Grainy and startling, these images hint at a complicated way of life, asking more questions than they answer. Simple and fascinatingly disturbing, the photographs in Linger are a rich, sometimes perplexing, observation of humanity’s adaptation to life in modern settings.

Linger by Daisuke Yokota

These photobooks are available for consultation at the Dorothy Stimson Bullitt Library at the Seattle Art Museum downtown by appointment while the Asian Art Museum at Volunteer Park is undergoing renovation. When the Asian Art Museum and the McCaw Foundation Library reopen, the photobooks will be available there as an ongoing resource.

– Kate Nack, Library Volunteer, McCaw Foundation Library for Asian Art

Photos: Natali Wiseman.

SAM Gallery Artists on Seattle: Jason Gouliard, Patty Haller, and Anna Macrae

Chelsea Werner-Jatzke on Jan 23 2018

What does it mean to be local in a city that is rapidly growing? This month hear from two of SAM Gallery’s newest artists whose work is on view in New Art, New Artists through February 5. One of these artists transplanted to Seattle four years ago and the other comes from a family that has lived here for four generations. Hear how Seattle influences the creative output of these artists and then come see work by some of SAM Gallery’s newest regional artists in all their complexity, interest, and beauty, regardless of where they are from.

Jason Gouliard

Having moved from Austin, Texas to the Pacific Northwest four years ago to pursue a career in the tech industry, I wouldn’t say that my work is specifically inspired by Seattle—Though I do try to create work that is as complex and layered as the city I now call home. My paintings explore the intersection between abstraction and meaning. Abstract assemblages with recognizable reference points. I think of them as earnest attempts at condensing rich, complex subject matter down to drips of paint through juxtaposing traditional abstract expressionist painting methods with cartography, proofreader’s marks, and amateur roadside museum techniques of display, classification, and critique.

Patty Haller

I’m a fourth generation Seattleite, most comfortable in a mossy wet forest in the fog, on a darkening late-November afternoon, even. My paintings explore complexity in the forest, analyzing the layers of plant growth we see all around us in the Pacific Northwest. I have a studio at Magnuson Park where I’m surrounded by soccer families, dog walkers, and artists. Every day I see people doing healthy things together, and I truly appreciate how Seattle values this. Showing at SAM Gallery only amplifies my pride of place. It’s a hub for art lovers. I’m meeting new people and enjoying Seattle’s active social media community. I love that our SAM Gallery show coincided with Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect, whose work is an enduring influence on me. I remember seeing an image of Helga Testorf in a book in my Nathan Hale High School art class. Helga’s braids! I couldn’t get enough. Last week I looked so closely at Wyeth’s brushwork I nearly broke the barrier that would set off an alarm. I should be more careful, but I just love the art that much. Resources like SAM help me to dream of the paintings I’ll make next.

Anna Macrae

We emigrated to Seattle from England in 2001. My new environment certainly changed my art making—from small realist watercolor paintings, to large bold abstract renderings. I feel that shift was largely due to scale, for a start the walls are so much bigger here, and I can move a 48 x 60″ canvas in my car! Seattle embodies an abundance of extremes and contradictions that generates a rich influence and narrative for art making. From a very young age I had always made, played, and explored. I feel this has continued to be present in my art practice. I have always allowed myself the freedom of discovery through “mistakes”. For me, there are no wrong choices when making art, I trust in my intuition and value those unexpected awkward marks that can only present themselves when you truly surrender to the process.

Images: Act V, Romeo & Juliet Abstract, Jason Gouliard, paint and mixed media on paper under plexiglass, 12 x 24 in. Fort Casey Big Data, Patty Haller oil on panel, 36 x 24 in. Follow your lead, 2017, Anna Macrae, oil and mixed medium, 48 x 48 in.

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

Rachel Eggers on Jan 22 2018

SAM News

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

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

Local News

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

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

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

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

Inter/National News

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

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

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

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

And Finally

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

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Photo: Natali Wiseman

Object of the Week: Mask Okpesu Umuruma (Frighten Children)

Elisabeth Smith on Jan 19 2018

If your social media feeds were anything like mine this past week, they were full of artful (and not-so-artful) selfies matched with portrait doppelgängers in museums around the world. Thanks to the Google Arts & Culture app, the public is now able to see their best selfies instantly paired with paintings in over 1,200 museum collections.

What fascinates me about the viral popularity of this app is its simplicity—that one’s photographic likeness with a historical subject can generate such universal entertainment. But what is it that we seek to learn about ourselves through this mediated experience? Or, perhaps this activity is less about self-realization than it is a performative gesture allowing us to—however momentarily—embody the identity of someone other than ourselves.

Though markedly different, this performative and participatory impulse lies at the heart of many masquerades that take place in African communities. Such events vary dramatically from village to village, but masquerades incorporate masks, costumes, sound, and performance to explore human nature, spirituality, and social relationships. This notion of masking and disguise allows performers to distance themselves from both player and audience, an escapism facilitated by activated personification. This Okpesu Umuruma mask by Nigerian artist Chukwu Okoro, with its asymmetrical and contorted features, is meant to frighten children—its very presence a symbol and cautionary tale of greed and self-interest. (I wonder what they would have to say about selfies . . . ) Worn during the Afikpo play known as Okumpka, the mask becomes just one of a large cast of characters that satirically expose the actions—both good and bad—of members in the Afikpo community.

No doubt the history of masquerade is a long one, with contemporary examples taking place on occasions such as Halloween, Día de Muertos, Purim, Mardi Gras—the list goes on. The Google Arts & Culture app, a by-product of the selfie age in which we currently live, underscores the degree to which self-interest drives much of our digital lives these days. In fact, I wonder if these activities, in which so many of us participate, point to a deeper desire for truly shared experiences such as masquerades and parades—activities which require an active and communal participation in person.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

Image: Mask Okpesu Umuruma (Frighten Children), 1960, Chukwu Okoro, Mgbom village, Afikpo, wood with raffia backing, pigment, 10 x 5 3/4 x 5 1/2 in., Gift of Simon Ottenberg, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum, 2005.50 © Chukwu Okoro

Japanese Photobooks from the Collection of Chris Harris, Part 3

Traci Timmons on Jan 18 2018

This is the third in a series of posts about an extraordinary photobook collection donated to the McCaw Foundation Library for Asian Art by collector, Chris Harris. Photobooks are photography-illustrated books which may or may not include additional text. The photography drives the content, rather than being supplemental to the written word. Often handmade, self-printed, or published in limited editions, these books are often considered works of art themselves.

People and Places in Dissonance
Continuing our exploration of the Harris collection of photobooks in the McCaw Foundation Library’s holdings, two photobooks in the collection bear witness to the lasting effects of human technological constructs on forest and farmland in rural Japan.

Ruin and Regeneration
Places can change in an instant, and for all time.

Mushrooms from the Forest 2011 by Takashi Homma

Mushrooms from the Forest 2011 by Takashi Homma (Blind Gallery, 2014), present a serene yet evocative pictorial commentary on life in Fukushima prefecture after the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear disaster.

Page from <em>Mushrooms from the Forest 2011</em> by Takashi Homma

Page from Mushrooms from the Forest 2011 by Takashi Homma

Foraging for wild mushrooms in the forests of Fukushima was once a common pastime for many people in the region. Many species grow robustly throughout the microclimates within the forests. Due to dangerous levels of radiation, foraging and ingestion of these plentiful fungi has been banned indefinitely. Still, the mushrooms themselves appear to flourish, even in the face of invisible, widespread, pervasive, sometimes invisible devastation.

Preservation vs. Progress
In the early 1960s, the Haneda Airport, or Tokyo International Airport, was struggling to support an ever-increasing volume of jet traffic. The growing number of flights—and the noise that accompanied the new jet engines that powered them—caused the Japanese transport ministry to seek an alternative location for a new high-capacity international airport.

A large farming area near the village of Sanrizuka, in Chiba Prefecture, was selected for the development plan. Construction of the Narita International Airport began in the late 1960s. This endeavor forever altered the abundant pastoral quality of life that had thrived there for generations.

<em> Sanrizuka Plegaria A Un Labrador (Sanrizuka: Kitai Kazuo shashinshu)</em> by Kazuo Kitai

Sanrizuka Plegaria A Un Labrador (Sanrizuka: Kitai Kazuo shashinshu) by Kazuo Kitai

Sanrizuka Plegaria A Un Labrador (Sanrizuka: Kitai Kazuo shashinshu) by Kazuo Kitai (Waizu Shuppan, 2000), is a beautiful photobook that honors Sanrizuka’s traditional rich rural lifestyle, the bountiful agricultural landscape, and documents the protest to save it.

Page from <em> Sanrizuka Plegaria A Un Labrador (Sanrizuka: Kitai Kazuo shashinshu)</em> by Kazuo Kitai

Page from Sanrizuka Plegaria A Un Labrador (Sanrizuka: Kitai Kazuo shashinshu) by Kazuo Kitai

The decision to build the airport on top of the agricultural land was opposed for years by a group of residents and ideological activists. However, construction went forward and what was once farmland eventually became an airport. This photobook poignantly honors the struggle of the people of Sanrizuka and the beauty of the agricultural lifestyle and land they hoped to preserve.

– Kate Nack, Library Volunteer, McCaw Foundation Library for Asian Art

Photos: Natali Wiseman.

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

Rachel Eggers on Jan 16 2018

SAM News

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

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

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

Local News

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

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

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

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

Inter/National News

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

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

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

And Finally

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

— Rachel Eggers,

Object of the Week: Veronica Smith, Phillip Hunter Jr., and Kent Carrington, at the City of St. Jude staging area, March 25th, 1965

Chelsea Werner-Jatzke on Jan 12 2018

The concepts contained in words like ‘freedom’, ‘justice’, ‘democracy’ are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply.

– James Baldwin, “The Crusade of Indignation,” The Nation, July 7, 1956

This black and white photograph, taken by photojournalist Dan Budnick in 1965, is one of a series that Budnick had hoped to publish in a Life magazine photo-essay. Taken during critical events of the civil rights movement, the photographic series captures such moments as the 1958 Youth March for Integrated Schools, the 1963 March on Washington, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech delivered that same day.

This image in particular depicts three young activists—Veronica Smith, Phillip Hunter, Jr., and Kent Carrington—holding the American flag while participating in the famous five-day march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Led by Dr. King, the march protested the discriminatory laws suppressing black voters’ rights in the South and would eventually lead to the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act. Stoic, calm, and courageous, Smith, Hunter, and Carrington are engulfed in a sea of stars and stripes—symbols of the freedom and equality for which they were fighting. The flags, acting as a visual barrier separating them from their fellow marchers, can perhaps be read as a metaphor for the segregation these activists sought to end.

While the civil rights movement often conjures struggles faced in the past, Dr. King’s call for racial equity, social justice, and religious tolerance is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago. Progress has no doubt been made since the 1960s, but it is also important to acknowledge that the fight against racism—in all its insidious and systemic forms—is not a past but current event. Many of us will celebrate Dr. King’s legacy by observing his birthday on Monday, January 15, but our individual efforts to achieve equal rights—for all marginalized communities—is an ongoing project that transcends a single day.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

Image: Veronica Smith, Phillip Hunter Jr., and Kent Carrington, at the City of St. Jude staging area, March 25th, 1965, 1965, Dan Budnik, Gelatin silver photograph, 14 x 11 in., Gift of Getty Images, 2000.43, © Artist or Artist’s Estate

Japanese Photobooks from the Collection of Chris Harris, Part 2

Traci Timmons on Jan 11 2018

This is the second in a series of posts about an extraordinary photobook collection donated to the McCaw Foundation Library for Asian Art by collector, Chris Harris. Photobooks are photography-illustrated books which may or may not include additional text. The photography drives the content, rather than being supplemental to the written word. Often handmade, self-printed, or published in limited editions, these books are often considered works of art themselves.

People and Places in Harmony
Part of the Aomori Prefecture, Tsugaru is found at the far north of Japan’s main island of Honshu. The Sea of Japan meets its western shore, while the Pacific Ocean is to the east. Surrounded by water, this mountainous area is beautiful, remote, and endurably peaceful.

Map showing the Tsugaru Strait (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Japan, access 8/9/17)

Two of the photobooks from the Harris collection give us glimpses of captivating people and places in Tsugaru.

Rugged, Deep, Delicate
Tsugaru: Shi, Bun, Shashinshu by Yojiro Ishizaka and Kojima Ichiro (Izu Photo Museum, 2014) opens a window that allows us to view everyday life in Tsugaru. The images that reach out from these pages convey the at-home attitude and the quiet sense of belonging expressed by the people who live in this vast, remote landscape.

Tsugaru: Shi, Bun, Shashinshu by Yojiro Ishizaka

These stunning images capture the sense of eternal clarity that suffuses the landscape and the people of Tsugaru. This masterful work depicts people living in harmony within the natural world, using images that are artistically compelling and evocative.

Tsugaru: Shi, Bun, Shashinshu by Yojiro Ishizaka

Integrity and Integration
Masako Tomiya’s Tsugaru (self-published, 2013) is a study of individualists adapting to a beautiful, rugged world. The unique character of the landscape and people of Tsugaru is captured beautifully in this collection of black and white photographs.

Tsugaru by Masako Tomiya

It celebrates the majesty of the rugged rural terrain, whipped by fierce wind and snow in the winter, then bathed in summer’s balmy breezes. The people who live there are portrayed as the resourceful individuals they are, living life in tune with the call of the natural world.

Tsugaru by Masako Tomiya

– Kate Nack, Library Volunteer, McCaw Foundation Library for Asian Art

Photos: Natali Wiseman.

Wyeth’s Cast of Characters: Christina Olson

Chelsea Werner-Jatzke on Jan 9 2018

One day I came in and saw [Christina] on the back door step in the late afternoon. She had finished all her work in the kitchen and there she was sitting quietly, with a far-off look to the sea. At the time, I thought she looked like a wounded seagull with her bony arms, slightly long hair back over her shoulder, and strange shadows of her cast on the side of the weathered door, which had this white porcelain knob on it. ―Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Wyeth met Christina Olson through his wife Betsy and first painted her in 1947. He would paint Christina every summer in Cushing, Maine for the next 20 years until her death in January, 1968. As Betsy explains it, “The key to the Olson pictures is Andy’s relationship with Christina—absolutely at ease with him.” Christina Olson, a New-England native, refused a wheelchair for much of her life, despite being without the use of her legs. Rather, she used her upper body to pull herself through the fields and house where she lived and worked. Her tenacity and intelligence captivated Andrew Wyeth and their friendship blossomed easily.

I think one’s art goes as far and as deep as one’s love goes. I see no reason for painting but that. If I have anything to offer, it is my emotional contact with the place where I live and the people I do. – Andrew Wyeth

Even in death, Andrew continued to draw inspiration from Christina through her house and the objects that had defined her. Wyeth considered this painting of the two entrances to her home a double portrait of the siblings, Alvaro and Christina Olson. When first introduced to the Olson siblings, Andrew was initially taken with Alvaro and painted his portrait before he become focused on the indomitable Christina. Alvaro died on Christmas night, 1967, and Christina, without him, died only weeks later. The house and remnants left abandoned in their wake struck Wyeth as symbolic of the lives they lived—the shadowy Alvaro, who only posed for Wyeth once and remained always in the background as Wyeth painted in the Olson house; and, by contrast, the brilliant, captivating Christina.

The challenge to me was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless . . . limited physically but by no means spiritually. – Andrew Wyeth

Anna Christina is Wyeth’s last portrait of Christina Olson. She died only months after the tempera was completed. The trusting relationship of artist and model is evident: Christina confronts the artist and the viewer completely unselfconsciously, and Wyeth returns the favor with unflinching honesty and respect. “A powerful face with a great deal of fortitude. The Quality of a Medici head,” Wyeth described his friend. He painted Christina against an open doorway filled by a milky gray rectangle of fog that had enshrouded the house for weeks.

This drybrush is intended to be a portrait of the Olson house both outside and inside. Outside is total fragility. Inside is full of secrets. There’s Christina sitting in the kitchen, on the left, and everything’s in there—the stove, the geraniums, the buckets, and the trash. I had to overdo it here and reveal all the secrets. I like to paint in places that are not too nice. ― Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Wyeth saw the world around him resounding with hidden meaning. Occasionally considered a magical realist for his emphasis on the inner life of objects such as the stove or the bucket in this painting, Wyeth was certainly a storyteller. His paintings can be seen as stills in a moving image—the story of Christina’s Olson’s life surrounding her and continuing right outside the open door of her kitchen.

This curtain that had been lying there stale for year began slowly to rise, and the birds crocheted on it began to move. My hair about stood on end. – Andrew Wyeth

Christina Olson was a muse for Andrew Wyeth that helped launch his career. As a subject she is forever seated due to the degenerative disease that made her a paraplegic, but in Wyeth’s paintings, the figure of Christina stands out, singular and strong in the stories of Wyeth’s characters. See Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect before it closes, January 15.

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

Images: Christina Olson, 1947, Andrew Wyeth, American, 1917–2009, tempera on hardboard panel, 33 x 25 in., Myron Kunin Collection of American Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota, © 2017 Andrew Wyeth / Artist Rights Society (ARS). Alvaro and Christina, 1968, Andrew Wyeth, American, 1917–2009, watercolor on paper, 22 ½ x 28 ¾ in., Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine, Museum Purchase, 1969, © 2017 Andrew Wyeth / Artist Rights Society. Installation views of Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect at Seattle Art Museum, 2017. Photos by Natali Wiseman.

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

Rachel Eggers on Jan 8 2018

SAM News

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

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

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

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

Local News

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

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

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

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

Inter/National News

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

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

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

And Finally

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

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Courtesy of Photofest.

Object of the Week: Ostrich

Elisabeth Smith on Jan 5 2018

Today—January 5—is National Bird Day. Established to raise awareness of the issues affecting avian populations around the world, National Bird Day brings public attention to the welfare of birds living in captivity, bird breeding mills, and other such topics.

In the spirit of this feathered holiday, we highlight an engraving by French printmaker Simon Charles Miger, titled Ostrich. Created at the turn of the 19th century, this print was published in La Menagerie du Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle—a scholarly work that surveyed and catalogued various animal species on display at the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France.

The 1801 engraving depicts an ostrich, with its long limbs and feathered body, strutting across a landscape reminiscent of the bird’s native Africa. Rendered in profile, the bird occupies the majority of the composition, making clear Miger’s interest in foregrounding its anatomical likeness.

While La Menagerie indeed illustrates animals who were at the time living in captivity, its production points to important advances made during the Enlightenment, a time when European interest in the natural world grew significantly. Like other artist-naturalists John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson, Miger made important contributions to our understanding of the natural world, producing works that supported the then-burgeoning conservation movement.

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

Image: Ostrich, 1801, Simon Charles Miger, engraving, 17 5/16 x 12 3/16 in., Gift of an anonymous donor, 70.55

Focus on an Artist’s Book: La Cité des Animaux by Lynn Skordal

Traci Timmons on Jan 4 2018

Real Places That Don’t Exist: La Cité des Animaux

In Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect, we see how Wyeth masterfully conveys a sense of place, constructing a certain reality or vision of landscapes, domestic spaces, and people of rural Pennsylvania and the coastal villages of Maine. For the Dorothy Stimson Bullitt Library‘s current book installation, we examine an artist’s book that also conveys a sense of place, one that is carefully constructed yet imagined.

Washington artist Lynn Skordal considers herself a “paperworker.” After retiring from a career as an attorney nearly ten years ago, she returned to an early love—art. She now focuses on collage, artists’ books, and small works on paper that she creates from her collection of books rescued from local thrift stores, old magazines, used paper scraps picked up off the sidewalk, stamps and images torn from envelopes, cuttings from formidable reference works, and old engravings removed from disintegrating books. Her work has been described as “an exploration of real places that don’t exist.”¹ One could certainly apply that idea to her thought-provoking artist’s book, La Cité des Animaux (Mercer Island, WA, 2011).

This unique, collaged, accordion-style artist’s book depicts “a parade of strange, whimsical animals creeping through a deserted white city under a chocolate sky.”² Mammals, reptiles, birds, eggs, and stylized and extinct creatures are set against deserted architectural backgrounds, enclosed on both ends by maps. The artist asks, who built the city? What is it for? Is this what will happen after humankind is gone?³

From Natural History to a New Reality

Skordal’s source material for La Cité des Animaux included several antique works. One was Locupletissimi rerum naturalium thesauri accurata descriptio et iconibus artificiosissimis expressio, per universam physices historiam (Accurate description of the very rich thesaurus of the principal and rarest natural objects . . . ). This elaborately engraved thesaurus of animal specimens was the creation of scientist and collector Albertus Seba (Dutch, 1665–1736). The initial volume of the work was published in 1734, with several volumes issued posthumously through 1765.

Seba’s work was derived from his own “cabinet of curiosities,” a notion Skordal seems to reclaim by pulling the animals from the format of the scientific natural history book and inserting them into a smaller, precious book form. Whereas Seba’s intent was to record and illustrate the natural world truthfully, Skordal uses Seba’s images to construct a new reality.

I was charmed by the idea of animals taking over spaces built by man, but with man long gone. That thought comforts and amuses me. [My work conveys] both a sense of place and a story. I like to create new little worlds where the usual rules may not apply, and where there is a little bit of magic or mystery at work–an alternate reality. The goal is always to startle, amuse, or provoke.⁴

To get a closer look at these works, or other works in our Book Arts Collection, make an appointment to visit the Bullitt Library. Appointments typically take place Monday–Friday, 10 am–4 pm.

– Traci Timmons, Librarian

¹Boxall, Scout. “Cut & Paste: Lynn Skordal.” The Daily Spread (July 5, 2013). https://dailyspreaddotcom.wordpress.com/2013/07/05/cut-paste-lynn-skordal/, accessed September 20, 2017.

²Email interview with artist, September 29, 2017.

³Ibid.

⁴Ibid.

Winter Light: The Films of Ingmar Bergman

Greg Olson on Jan 2 2018

Seattle Art Museum and the Nordic Heritage Museum celebrate the centennial of Swedish writer-director Ingmar Bergman (1907–2017), focusing on the mid-20th century decade when the world discovered one of the supreme masters of cinema. Bergman, the secular son of the Swedish Royal Court’s pastor, ponders the essential human questions. What gives life meaning? How do we find intimacy and love? Are we sustained beyond death? Bergman’s mesmerizing storytelling and family of superb actors answer with the eloquence of the human face. Films are in Swedish with English subtitles.

Jan 11: Summer With Monika (1952)
Bergman’s films often center on women, Monika (Harriet Andersson) being a well-known example. Monika and her boyfriend become lovers during an idyllic island summer. They’ve left their responsibilities behind, but what will happen when they return to Stockholm? In 35mm, 97 min.

Jan 18: Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)
With quicksilver wit and tenderness, Bergman invites us to a country house weekend, where the hostess (Eva Dahlbeck) has filled the rooms and lush grounds with former, present, and would-be lovers. Smiles inspired Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music. In 35mm, 108 min.

Jan 25: The Seventh Seal (1957)
A returning 14th-century knight (the majestic Max von Sydow) finds his homeland plagued by physical and moral corruption. When the figure of Death comes for him, he proposes playing a game of chess for his life, with a secret strategy in mind. In 35mm, 95 min.

Feb 1: Wild Strawberries (1957)
A patch of strawberries prompts an elderly professor (pioneering Swedish director-actor Victor Sjostrom) to movingly re-examine his life with his parents, his current family, and himself. There are painful truths to consider, but the fruit is sweet. In 35mm, 90 min.

Feb 8: The Magician (1958)
This dark Gothic comedy wonders if rationality alone can explain the mysteries of life. In the 1840s, a man of logic and science (Gunnar Bjornstrand) gets more than he bargained for when he challenges and provokes a traveling magician (Max von Sydow). In 35mm, 100 min.

Feb 22: The Virgin Spring (1960)
Inspired by a 14th-century ballad, this film portrays a world still under the sway of pagan folklore. A girl curses her half-sister, and the cursed one is murdered. When the father (Max von Sydow) discovers the culprits, his desire for vengeance makes him question his new Christian faith. Digital restoration, 88 min.

Mar 1: Through a Glass Darkly (1961)
On a remote island a young woman (Harriet Andersson) waits and waits to see God. Her husband (Max von Sydow) and her father are detached observers, but her brother is emotionally present, and will grow from their filial bond. Digital restoration, 91 min.

Mar 8: The Silence (1963)
A cool intellectual (Ingrid Thulin), her sensual sister (Gunnel Lindblom), and the sister’s young son arrive in a strange city, where they can’t understand what people are saying. Bergman presents the lack of communication as a modern hell, but the boy wanders as in a wonderland, perceiving traces of grown-up sexuality and death, and learning three words: spirit, anxiety, joy. Digital restoration, 96 min.

Mar 15: Persona (1966)
Bergman’s most tantalizing masterpiece is a meditation on the subjectivity of reality and the personas, the aspects of ourselves that we show the world, the characters that actors create. On a secluded island, a talkative nurse (Bibi Andersson) cares for an actress (Liv Ullmann) who’s retreated into muteness. They’re both blonde and beautiful, and somehow they begin to merge. Persona is a stunning, poetic summation of Bergman’s lifelong obsession with character and story. Digital restoration, 84 min.

Get your series tickets before they sell out!

Images: Summer with Monika, 1953, Hallmark Productions/Photofest. Persona, 1966, Lopert Pictures Corporation/Photofest.

Object of the Week: Nail Police

Elisabeth Smith on Dec 29 2017

New Year’s Eve ushers in and allows for all sorts of behavior. For some, it might be a night to reflect on the past year while making resolutions for the next, but for others it is a social occasion during which one can celebrate freely, throwing caution—and social mores—to the wind. This work by John Wesley, titled Nail Police, seems to be a proponent of the latter.

At first the work appears relatively benign, with a cartoon-like image of a woman drying toenail polish—a standard beauty routine. Upon closer look, Nail Police reveals more erotic undertones, and raises further questions: Why are there three feet instead of two? Is the woman pictured even painting toes at all? Is the painting in fact an adult fantasy rendered ambiguous?

One of Wesley’s many strengths as an artist is his ability to create images that are at once explicit and enigmatic. And, like his highly stylized paintings, Wesley has defied easy categorization throughout his career. His flat, graphic figures and distinctive color palate of periwinkle blue and pale pink often align him with artists who share a Pop sensibility, although Wesley associates his uncanny, dreamlike compositions with Surrealism. However, his painting style, which bears little trace of the human hand, has also been espoused by many Minimalist artists, most notably Donald Judd.

Interested in our mass consumption of media, Wesley regularly begins his paintings by tracing images from publications such as newspapers and fashion magazines—dogs, birds, women, and cartoon characters—which are then converted into gouaches and, ultimately, acrylic paintings. This process allows certain characteristics to be reduced to their most basic elements. Here, this can be seen in the contours of the woman’s feet, or the treatment of her full lips and eyelashes.

Regardless of how you might read this image, the last night of the year is as good a time as any to paint the town—and maybe even your toenails—red. However you celebrate, Happy New Year!

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

Image: Nail Police, 2002, John Wesley, Acrylic on canvas, 63 x 48 in. (160 x 121.9 cm), Gift of American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York and Hassam, Speicher, Betts and Symons Funds, 2004.90, © Artist or Artist’s Estate.

Japanese Photobooks from the Collection of Chris Harris, Part 1

Traci Timmons on Dec 27 2017

This is the first in a series of posts about an extraordinary photobook collection donated to the McCaw Foundation Library for Asian Art by collector, Chris Harris. Photobooks are photography-illustrated books which may or may not include additional text. The photography drives the content, rather than being supplemental to the written word. Often handmade, self-printed, or published in limited editions, these books are often considered works of art in themselves.

People, Places, and the Passing of Time
A recent donation of photobooks to the McCaw Foundation Library reminds us that all things are transitory. Chris Harris shares images with this generous and poignant gift from his personal collection of photobooks by important Japanese artists. These photobooks speak to us of family ties, of the natural world, and of ephemeral glimpses of urban life and landscapes. Focused mostly in Asian countries, these images are often haunting, sometimes playful, and entirely captivating.

Personal and Provocative
Love, time, and ties that bind.

The Red String by Yoshikatsu Fujii

People are the focus of The Red String by Yoshikatsu Fujii (Fujii, 2014). This rare, handmade, and self-published photobook tells the story of a family’s transitions and partial dissolution. Fujii shares his achingly personal and bittersweet family history in the form of a family album. The images in the album include the family posed in rural landscapes, cities, casual snapshots, and formal portraits; there are also drawings and handwritten notes in Kanji (transcribed to English) that also carry the voice of intimate moments—moments that are mundane, yet precious. The author reflects:

“. . . legend has it that a man and a woman who have a predestined encounter have had each other’s little fingers tied together by an invisible red string since the time they were born. Unfortunately, the red string tying my parents together either came untied, broke, or perhaps it was never even tied to begin with. But if the two had never met, I would never have been born into this world. If anything, you might say it is between parent and child that there is an unbreakable red string of fate.”
– The Red String by Yoshikatsu Fujii

Progression: Person and Place Over Time
A return to the old home town . . . or is it?

Night Crawler by Takehiko Nakafuji

Tokyo is the place that we visit next with Night Crawler by Takehiko Nakafuji (Zen Foto Gallery, 2011). This is a collection of black and white photos of that city, captured during two significant periods of the artist’s life. The first series is comprised of gritty, sometimes eerie images taken in 1995. The street scenes and askew glances of the people in them share with us a youthful insider’s view of 1990s Tokyo.

Nakafuji returned over a decade later, in 2010, and generated a second series of photos. Even with the continuity provided by using black and white, gritty-grainy images for both time periods, it is evident that both the city and the artist have matured. It is the same city, the same artist . . . yet both are intrinsically, irrevocably transformed.

Night Crawler by Takehiko Nakafuji

These photobooks are available for consultation at the Dorothy Stimson Bullitt Library, downtown at the Seattle Art Museum downtown by appointment while the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park is undergoing renovation. When the Asian Art Museum and the McCaw Foundation Library reopen, the photobooks will be available there as an ongoing resource.

– Kate Nack, Library Volunteer, McCaw Foundation Library for Asian Art

Photos: Natali Wiseman.

Object of the Week: Wrapping cloth (furoshiki)

Elisabeth Smith on Dec 21 2017

A riddle for you: what do you call a beautifully woven, dyed object that reveals itself while concealing others? A multi-purpose Japanese textile known as furoshiki, of course! With origins in the early 17th century, furoshiki is used today for a variety of purposes, ranging from utilitarian to purely aesthetic. (Hint: it also functions as great gift wrap . . . )

Dating as far back as the Edo period in Japan (1603–1868), furoshiki was first used to keep together one’s personal belongings while bathing in public bath houses. Since then, furoshiki has expanded to wrap and carry just about anything. This wrapping cloth in particular was created through a process of indigo dyeing that involves the application of paste as a resist. To make the fan and rope design, the artist would have painted the resist directly onto the fabric, which would in turn block the penetration of indigo dye into its cotton fibers. Before each submersion, the paste would be reapplied in order to achieve the subtle and varying shades of blue seen here.

In addition to being a work of art in its own right, furoshiki falls within a larger tradition of tsutsumi, the Japanese art of wrapping and packaging. Employing a number of different materials and techniques, tsutsumi was meant to protect, and often transport, gifts in a simple and elegant manner; traditionally, an artfully wrapped gift was meant to be contemplated before being opened, if opened at all.

Beginning with a simple square of cloth, furoshiki can become any number of utilitarian (and reusable!) objects with a simple pleat, twist, or knot: a purse, a lunchbox, a bottle carrier, gift wrap—you name it. For a small sampling of its possible permutations and folded formats, just take a look at the graphic below. Christmas is in four days, so plenty of time to become furoshiki masters!

– Elisabeth Smith, Collections Coordinator

Image: Wrapping cloth (furoshiki), 1868-1912, Japanese, cotton, freehand paste-resist dyeing, 65 3/8 x 64 3/4 in., Gift of the Christensen Fund, 2001.500.

Image: Installation view Figuring History: Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas, 2018, at Seattle Art Museum. Photo: Natali Wiseman

Image: X, 2015, Brenna Youngblood, paper and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 60 in., General Acquisition Fund, 2016.7.2 © Brenna Youngblood Courtesy the artist and Honor Fraser Gallery

Images: Jen Au, Nina Dubinsky, Jen Au

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

[1] Other artists included Hans Hartung, Oskar Kokoschka, Pierre Soulages, David Hockney, and Josef Albers, to name just a few.

[2] Tommie Smith won the 200 meter race with a world-record time of 19.83 seconds.

[3] It is believed that Smith raised his right fist, and Carlos his left, to represent Black unity, forming “an arch of unity and power.” BBC News, “1968: Black athletes make silent protest,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/17/newsid_3535000/3535348.stm.

[4] Rick Campbell, “An Olympic moment—from 1968,” Houston Chronicle, August 5, 2008, http://blog.chron.com/40yearsafter/2008/08/an-olympic-moment-from-1968.

Image: Souvenir I, 1997, Kerry James Marshall, acrylic, collage, and glitter on unstretched canvas, 108 x 157 in., Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Bernice and Kenneth Newberger Fund, 1997.73, © MCA Chicago, photo: Joe Ziolkowski.

[1] Adrienne Edwards, “Scenes of the Flesh: Thinking-Feeling Carrie Mae Weems’s Kitchen Table Series Twenty-Five Years On,” in Carrie Mae Weems: Kitchen Table Series (Bologna, Italy: Damiani, 2016), 10-11.

[2] Edwards, 14.

[3] Lauren Hansen, “Meet MacArthur Award Winner Carrie Mae Weems,” The Week, http://theweek.com/captured/459535/meet-macarthur-award-winner-carrie-mae-weems.

Photo: Robert Wade

[2] Kellie Jones, “The Structure of Myth and the Potency of Magic,” in David Hammons: Rousing the Rubble (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991), 16.

[3] Holland Cotter, “David Hammons Is Still Messing With What Art Means,” The New York Times, March 24, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/arts/design/david-hammons-is-still-messing-with-what-art-means.html.

[4] Franklin Sirmans, “Searching for Mr. Hammons,” in David Hammons: Selected Works (New York: Zwirner & Wirth, 2006), np.

[5] David Hammons quoted by Douglas C. McGill, “Hammons’ Visual Music,” in The New York Times, July 18, 1986, section 3, p. 15. Image: Higher Goals, 1983, fifty-five foot tall basketball poles, 121st Street and Frederick Douglas Boulevard, Harlem.

Image: Money Tree, 1992, David Hammons, gelatin silver photograph, 16 1/2 x 11 in., Gift of Greg Kucera and Larry Yocom, 97.77, © David Hammons. Higher Goals, 1983, David Hammons, 55′ tall basketball poles, 121st Street and Frederick Douglas Boulevard, Harlem. Photo: Dawoud Bey. © David Hammons

Photos: Natali Wiseman

Photo: Nancy Alvord, photo courtesy of the Alvord family.

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

Image: Chop plate, 1939, Rockwell Kent, ceramic with hand-tinted decoration, 1 x 13 7/8 in., Decorative Arts Purchase Fund and General Acquisition Fund, 98.37

[1] Salamina, Kent’s housekeeper and romantic companion while living in Greenland, is understood as the model for this work, after which the dinnerware set is named.

Photo: NASA

Photos: Natali Wiseman.

Images: Act V, Romeo & Juliet Abstract, Jason Gouliard, paint and mixed media on paper under plexiglass, 12 x 24 in. Fort Casey Big Data, Patty Haller oil on panel, 36 x 24 in. Follow your lead, 2017, Anna Macrae, oil and mixed medium, 48 x 48 in.

Photo: Natali Wiseman

Image: Mask Okpesu Umuruma (Frighten Children), 1960, Chukwu Okoro, Mgbom village, Afikpo, wood with raffia backing, pigment, 10 x 5 3/4 x 5 1/2 in., Gift of Simon Ottenberg, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum, 2005.50 © Chukwu Okoro

Photos: Natali Wiseman.

Image: Veronica Smith, Phillip Hunter Jr., and Kent Carrington, at the City of St. Jude staging area, March 25th, 1965, 1965, Dan Budnik, Gelatin silver photograph, 14 x 11 in., Gift of Getty Images, 2000.43, © Artist or Artist’s Estate

Photos: Natali Wiseman.

I think one’s art goes as far and as deep as one’s love goes. I see no reason for painting but that. If I have anything to offer, it is my emotional contact with the place where I live and the people I do. – Andrew Wyeth

The challenge to me was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless . . . limited physically but by no means spiritually. – Andrew Wyeth

This curtain that had been lying there stale for year began slowly to rise, and the birds crocheted on it began to move. My hair about stood on end. – Andrew Wyeth

Image: Courtesy of Photofest.

Image: Ostrich, 1801, Simon Charles Miger, engraving, 17 5/16 x 12 3/16 in., Gift of an anonymous donor, 70.55

1 Boxall, Scout. “Cut & Paste: Lynn Skordal.” The Daily Spread (July 5, 2013). https://dailyspreaddotcom.wordpress.com/2013/07/05/cut-paste-lynn-skordal/, accessed September 20, 2017.

2 Email interview with artist, September 29, 2017.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

Images: Summer with Monika, 1953, Hallmark Productions/Photofest. Persona, 1966, Lopert Pictures Corporation/Photofest.

Image: Nail Police, 2002, John Wesley, Acrylic on canvas, 63 x 48 in. (160 x 121.9 cm), Gift of American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York and Hassam, Speicher, Betts and Symons Funds, 2004.90, © Artist or Artist’s Estate.

Photos: Natali Wiseman.

Image: Wrapping cloth (furoshiki), 1868-1912, Japanese, cotton, freehand paste-resist dyeing, 65 3/8 x 64 3/4 in., Gift of the Christensen Fund, 2001.500.

¹Boxall, Scout. “Cut & Paste: Lynn Skordal.” The Daily Spread (July 5, 2013). https://dailyspreaddotcom.wordpress.com/2013/07/05/cut-paste-lynn-skordal/, accessed September 20, 2017.

²Email interview with artist, September 29, 2017.

³Ibid.

⁴Ibid.