Muse/News: Monet at the Seaside, Art in Person, and White House Walls

SAM News

Seattle Times photojournalist Alan Berner snaps the member preview of SAM’s “refreshing” exhibition, Monet at Étretat, which opens to the public this Thursday. The focused exhibition features paintings from the famous artist’s sojourns to the seaside village; you can practically feel the sea spray. Come inside and cool off with art!

The exhibition is also featured on the Stranger’s list of “biggest in-person festivals and events” for summer 2021.

“An ingenuous feat of urban planning”: Lonely Planet highlights the Olympic Sculpture Park as one of the “best things to do with kids in Seattle.”

Local News

In her latest ArtSEA post, Crosscut’s Brangien Davis talks about the AIDS Memorial Pathway, a new show at Photographic Center Northwest, and a new composition by Ahamefule J. Oluo.

Gemma Alexander for the Seattle Times on “how Seattle Opera became one of few companies nationwide to pull off an all-digital season.”

“From the must-see to the weird and wonderful”: Gayle Clemans for the Seattle Times returns to “On View,” spotlighting three art shows to see in Seattle.

“There’s nothing like seeing art in the flesh. It can stir the senses, feed the mind and heal the soul. And with more people vaccinated, it’s a wonderful time to go see art in person.”

Inter/National News

“Art historians have discovered a long-lost painting by Rembrandt van Rijn in Rome”, reports Artnet’s Sarah Cascone. It fell off a wall and was taken in for repairs, leading to the discovery of who painted it.

The New York Times’ Robin Pogrebin on Antwaun Sargent’s first show as a director at Gagosian; also, here’s GQ with a report on the opening’s impressive style.

Each new administration puts their own touch on “The People’s House,” John Anderson of the Washington Post details some of the new works of art the Bidens have or will include on the walls of the White House.

“The works the Bidens have hung on the walls thus far reflect a running theme with the first family: a deep connection to their personal history.”

And Finally

Wesley Morris (ahem, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Wesley Morris!) on Questlove’s new documentary, Summer of Soul.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Waves at the Manneporte, ca. 1885, Claude Monet, French, 1840–1926, oil on canvas, 29 × 36 ½ in., North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, Gift of Ann and Jim Goodnight, 2016.8.5, image courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of Art

Juneteenth: A Rededication to Freedom

“Words of Emancipation didn’t arrive until the middle of June so they called it Juneteenth. So that was it, the night of Juneteenth celebration, his mind went on. The celebration of a gaudy illusion.

―Ralph Ellison, “Juneteenth”

Two and half years. 400 years. 8 minutes and 46 seconds.

Two and a half years. That’s how much time passed between January 1, 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all enslaved people in the Confederacy, and June 19, 1865, when the Union Army’s Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas and announced the end of both the Civil War and slavery. (The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, formally abolishing slavery in the United States, would not be fully ratified until December 6, 1865.)

On that June night, celebrations broke out. Historian Elizabeth Hayes Turner documents an heir recalling, “…my daddy told me that they whooped and hollered and bored holes in trees with augers and stopped it up with [gun]powder and light and that would be their blast for the celebration.” Juneteenth was celebrated the following year, and among many other emancipation holidays, has endured. Local traditions feature everything from readings, lectures, songs, voter registration efforts, cookouts, street fairs, rodeos, and more. It’s a day to reflect on the promises of freedom and the bloody costs of its continuous delay. It’s a day to celebrate the genius of Black joy and resilience. It’s a day to gather at the table and eat delicious food.

400 years. 2019 marked the 400th year since enslaved Africans arrived in what would become the United States. And in 2020, eight minutes and 46 seconds——the amount of time a police officer named Derek Chauvin kneeled on the neck of George Floyd, killing him—has set off an uprising against the present and past of racism in America. On the eve of the 155th celebration of Juneteenth, a different future again seems possible.

Juneteenth is not currently a federal holiday, but it is commemorated or observed in most states and the District of Columbia. In Washington State, the holiday was officially recognized in 2007, and a bill (HB 2312)  to make it a legal state holiday, proposed by Representative Melanie Morgan, is currently in front of the state legislature. The Seattle Art Museum is happy to announce that it has instituted Juneteenth as an official paid holiday for its employees, as a gesture within its broader commitment to creating racial equity and structural change within its walls. On this holiday, we encourage SAM staff to commemorate this inflection point in American history, as we live through another.

SUGGESTED EVENTS

BLKFREEDOM.org: Juneteenth digital commemoration
Presented by six Black museums and historical institutions, including Northwest African American Museum (NAAM)

Juneteenth Freedom March & Celebration
Led by King County Equity Now from DeCharlene’s Boutique to Jimi Hendrix Park

Juneteenth Week 2020
Presented by Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, Black Lives Matter – Seattle/King County, Tabor 100 and FW Black Collective.

Juneteenth: Ijeoma Oluo in conversation with Ahamefule Oluo
Live webcast hosted by King County Library System

Miss Juneteenth
Film directed by Channing Godfrey Peoples and starring Nicole Beharie

FURTHER RESOURCES

Juneteenth.com
Resource site founded by Cliff Robinson in 1997

Seattle Public Library Juneteenth Resources
A community-generated list of books and other media

King County Library System Reading List
A great list of reads for all ages

Nicole Taylor for the New York Times with reflections from Black chefs
Including James Beard award-winning chef Eduardo Jordan of Seattle

Chef Lazarus Lynch in the Washington Post
Shares his complicated feelings on the holiday

SAM Stories