arts in Seattle Archives

Muse/News: Otherworldly Sculptures, a Complex Holiday, and an Uprising Anniversary

Rachel Eggers on Apr 19 2021

SAM News

Now on view on SAM: Dawn Cerny: Les Choses, the solo exhibition of the winner of the 2020 Betty Bowen Award. The Stranger and Crosscut both shared an early look of the artist’s intimate sculptures.

“…like something aliens might make if tasked with replicating a human abode by hand.”

Local News

Special to the Seattle Times, here’s Thomas May on “how Seattle Opera came to film its newest production at the Museum of Flight.”

Northwest Film Forum’s Vivian Hua for South Seattle Emerald on the Seattle Black Film Festival, which kicked off last Friday and closes April 26—plenty of time to tune in!

Juneteenth was named an official Washington State holiday on April 9, joining many other states and organizations (including SAM, for the first time last year) who already recognize the day. Crosscut invited author Clyde W. Ford to reflect on the “long and troubling” history of the holiday.

“W.E.B. DuBois described the time period of Juneteenth succinctly, ‘The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.’ Each of DuBois’ three moments are inextricably linked. We need a holiday that commemorates them all.”

Inter/National News

ARTnews’ Angelica Villa on Robert Colescott’s satirical painting, George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook (1975), which is “set to break [the] artist’s auction record” at Sotheby’s in May. The painting’s inclusion in SAM’s 2018 exhibition Figuring History is mentioned.

The New York Times’ Glenn Kenny on the “powerful medicine” of Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts, Jeffrey’s Wolf’s documentary on the artist.

April 19, 1943 was the first day of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Hyperallergic recognizes the anniversary with scholar Samantha Baskind’s reflections on the permanent exhibit devoted to the uprising at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and its complicated aims.

“I was conflicted about its sensationalizing the ghetto’s story through its persistently honorific presentation. But I now better understand why the museum indelibly impresses upon us, in a very public and influential instance, the reprieve of physical and spiritual resistance mounted in the sealed city within a city.”

And Finally

Takuji Yamashita, Esq.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Installation view of Dawn Cerny: Les Choses at Seattle Art Museum, 2021, photo: Nina Dubinsky.

Muse/News: Muholi recommended, radical love, and a new look at Basquiat

Rachel Eggers on Aug 5 2019

SAM News

Aesthetica makes five recommendations from around the world to see, including Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness at SAM.

Seattle Magazine is out with their list of the “21 Best Things To Do in Seattle in August 2019.” Remix at the Olympic Sculpture Park makes the cut.

Local News

The Seattle jazz scene has two sad losses to report: the closure of legendary club Tula’s at the end of September, and the retirement of Clarence Acox, Garfield High School’s jazz band director.

In addition to their booth-to-booth coverage of this past weekend’s Seattle Art Fair, Crosscut has pieces by Emily Pothast and Margo Vansynghel examining the various outcomes of the Fair on the local art scene.

The Big Art Weekend wouldn’t be complete without the incredible satellite events; here’s Gayle Clemans for the Seattle Times on the free festival:festival, which also took place over the weekend (SAM’s David Rue is one of the curators!).

“The festival will highlight ‘artist-driven portraits of identity,’ which will take many forms including visual art and performance, according to co-curator and dance artist David Rue. ‘We’re using this approach so that artists can provide a counterpoint to the dominant narrative told about people that look like them while celebrating the power of culturally responsive rigor.’”

Inter/National News

Baltimore is great city full of great people. And now this! Artnet reports that the Baltimore Museum of Art will dedicate “a year’s worth of exhibitions dedicated to female-identifying artists throughout 2020.”

“What Does Radical Love Look Like?” Hyperallergic’s Seph Rodney explores that question at the Ford Foundation Gallery’s latest show, featuring work by Athi-Patra Ruga, Lina Puerta, and Ebony G. Patterson.

The New York Times has a fascinating look Basquiat’s ‘Defacement’: The Untold Story at the Guggenheim; curated by Chaédria LaBouvier, the show centers on a painting that depicts the tragic death of a young Black artist.

‘”This is someone becoming — finding themselves, finding their voice, finding their practice,’ Ms. LaBouvier said. ‘I didn’t want to make him into a myth, or make him into a sort of trauma-porn story either. And I thought the best way to do that was to take a step back and let him speak for himself.’”

And Finally

Evergreen story.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Image: Installation view Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, Seattle Art Museum, 2019, photo: Natali Wiseman.

Stop and Smell the Flowers at SAM

Chelsea Werner-Jatzke on Mar 21 2019

If you have ever walked through Seattle Art Museum’s South Hall, you may have noticed the weekly rotation of beautiful flower arrangements adjacent to the camel sculptures. The flower endowment was created in remembrance of Ann M. Barwick by her husband Thomas Barwick and their children.

From grand peacock feathers in the summer, to miniature pumpkins in the fall, these arrangements light up the room year-round at the entrance of the museum. These flowers are a public declaration of Tom’s love and appreciation for Ann, nature, and SAM.

Ann was an active member of her local gardening and arts community. After raising her four children, Ann decided to pursue a second degree in art history. She began her career in the arts community, where she worked as a Trustee at the Henry Art Gallery and at the Seattle Art Museum. She became a leader in the arts in the city as well as in the state where she was the head of the Arts Committee for the Washington State Governor’s Mansion and the co-founder of the American Art Council of Seattle.

Make sure you take a second to smell the roses the next time you visit the museum!

– Emily Ji, Communications Intern

Photos: Nina Dubinsky

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

Nina Dubinsky on Dec 31 2018

SAM News

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

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

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

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

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

Local News

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

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

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

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

Inter/National News

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

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

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

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

And Finally

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

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

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

From Arts to Zoos: How You Can Make a Difference

Seattle Art Museum on Feb 12 2015

Did you know that communities with vibrant cultural organizations are more competitive for high paying jobs and high quality workers, and enjoy greater economic prosperity?

Studies show that students who are engaged in cultural activities excel in school and are more comfortable working in diverse communities. Science, heritage, and arts experiences advance education, enhance the economy, and enrich our quality of life.

SAM is part of the Cultural Access Washington (CAWA) coalition, an alliance of business, nonprofit, education, labor, and government leaders across the state who are proposing legislation to support cultural organizations in our communities.

Our goal is to increase access to cultural experiences (from performing arts organizations to science centers, museums, and zoos) for children and adults across Washington. CAWA legislation will be proposed in Olympia in early 2015 and if passed, counties will have the right to allocate locally collected sales taxes to support community access to cultural organizations.

If successful, sustainable funding will make cultural education programs widely available to students and residents, and school transportation will be provided to these experiences. Everyone will be able to experience and feel the positive benefits of cultural assets.

This will have a tremendous impact.

If you are in favor of allowing counties to control their own funding in regards to cultural organizations, please contact your local legislator and ask him or her to support CAWA.

Let’s give communities the ability to fund the creation and expansion of access to cultural organizations— from arts to zoos.

Not sure who your legislators are? Use the Washington State Legislator Finder!

Installation view of Dawn Cerny: Les Choses at Seattle Art Museum, 2021, photo: Nina Dubinsky.

Photos: Nina Dubinsky

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

Photo: Justin Gollmer