Muse/News: Art News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond
Welcome to our newest blog series, Muse/News—your weekly recap of what’s happening in art news at the Seattle Art Museum and across the world. Check back Mondays for updates on the artists and events making headlines around the world. With the Seattle Art Fair come and gone over the weekend, there’s plenty to digest and our PR Manager, Rachel Eggers delivers the scoop here in a perfect bite size. Enjoy!
All was fair in the city this past week as the Seattle Art Fair breezed into town for the third year in a row. What initially seemed an ambitious experiment is quickly becoming a welcome mainstay of the Seattle cultural calendar.
SAM News
Chiyo Ishikawa, SAM’s Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art and Curator of European Painting and Sculpture (phew!) has been named Best Curator in Seattle Weekly’s annual readers’ poll. We’re glad everyone loves her as much as we do. Congrats, Chiyo!
Loved this substantial dive into the tensions of “selfie obliteration” in the Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors exhibition by Erin Langner for ARCADE.
“…Kusama’s inclination to control and present her own image in the 1960s seems well ahead of its time. Accepting the way images are consumed, she chose to control the construction, proliferation, and obliteration of hers rather than allowing someone else to do so. Some of her true self was left out in the fiction of the performance. But, she also ensured the performance was conveyed the way she envisioned it. To this end, maybe taking selfies, in an Infinity Mirror Room or elsewhere, can have meaning when done with similar intent—when they give us the chance to perform and let go of ourselves at the same time.”
Local News
Emily Pothast of the Stranger offered compelling thoughts on the fair and offered her five don’t-miss highlights.
SAM staff got out and about this weekend; check out tips for the Seattle Art Fair from SAM’s Chiyo Ishikawa in Crosscut and David Rue in CityArts.
Michael Upchurch of the Seattle Times recently reviewed the Henry show on local sculptor Doris Totten Chase (looks groovy!).
Inter/National News
Are you “here for the right reasons”? The New York Times visits a rose-filled one-night show. After the recent casting call here, maybe we’ll see a Seattleite embark on the “journey” next season (ugh, you know you’ll watch again).
Artist Julie Mehretu, represented in SAM’s collection, is working on a monumental commission for the San Francisco MoMA; her paintings “are trying to make sense of where we are in our country right now.”
“What should one do when faced with images of violence?” That’s the question writer and critical theorist Sarah Sentilles took up this week for the New Yorker. She appears tonight at Elliott Bay Book Company to discuss her new book, Draw Your Weapons.
– Rachel Eggers, Manager of Public Relations
