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

Rachel Eggers on Sep 25 2017

SAM News

Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect was featured in the Seattle Times’ fall arts preview among the visual arts recommendations.

“This major career survey of the American artist who bucked every ‘-ism’ of the late 20th century to follow his own distinctive path in figurative art looks like a stunner. SAM curator Patricia Junker has assembled 110 works by Wyeth for the show and written an impressive-looking catalog that digs deep into the accomplishments of the painter on the 100th anniversary of his birth.”

And Seattle Met’s October print edition recommends In Retrospect as one of their picks for the month, noting the “profound emotional stakes underneath all the quotidian realism” found in Wyeth’s work.

The Seattle Times film critic Moira Macdonald previews the upcoming 40th edition of our film noir series, the longest-running in the world. SAM’s own Greg Olson is interviewed.

“’These films have so much charisma, so much dark, wicked glamour to the way the stories are told and visualized,’ said SAM film curator Greg Olson, who has curated the series since its beginnings in the mid-70s. ‘It’s kind of intoxicating.’”

Local News

Seattle Weekly’s Minh Nguyen reviews the “luminous, underrated” media art of Doris Totten Chase, now on view at the Henry.

Now at the Frye: Three photomedia collections from three different artists. Seattle Met has the details on these “unmissable” exhibitions.

Ferry over soon to the Women in Photography exhibition at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, says Crosscut. It closes there October 1.

Inter/National News

artnet News on the amicus brief signed by over 100 arts institutions that supports overturning Trump’s immigration ban; SAM signed on when it was filed several months ago.

Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas artist Kerry James Marshall is everywhere! Here’s ARTnews on his upcoming mural for the Chicago Cultural Center with portraits of 20 women who’ve influenced the city, including Oprah and Gwendolyn Brooks.

Recent things that have been inspired by Andrew Wyeth: An accessory line’s lookbook, an indie film that premiered at TIFF, and Darren Aronofsky’s latest, mother!. Something’s in the water.

And Finally

My Best Friend™ Tracee Ellis Ross answers Vogue’s 73—yes, 73—questions and is DELIGHTFUL.

—Rachel Eggers, Public Relations Manager

Photo: Natali Wiseman.

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

Rachel Eggers on Sep 18 2017

SAM News

Thump! For me, fall officially starts when I hear the New York Times fall arts preview being delivered. Featured in the visual arts listings was SAM’s exhibition opening in February, Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas—alongside a BIG image in the print edition (long live print).

Last Friday, SAM announced that Molly Vaughan is the winner of the 2017 Betty Bowen Award; The Stranger and Seattle Gay Scene shared the news. Deborah Lawrence and Ko Kirk Yamahira also won Special Recognition Awards. Join us for a free award ceremony honoring all the winners on Thursday, November 9 at the Seattle Art Museum. Vaughan’s installation premieres at SAM on April 21, 2018.

SAM Gallery’s latest show at TASTE, Immaculate Disaster Series by Troy Gua, was highlighted in City Arts.

Local News

UW’s School of Art + Art History + Design and the Jacob Lawrence Gallery announced this week that artist C. Davida Ingram is the recipient of the 2018 Jacob Lawrence Legacy Residency. Go, Davida!

This fall, the Office of Arts & Culture brings you the Seattle Center Sculpture Walk, featuring eight temporary installations—including one from our recent Emerging Arts Leader Intern, Kalina Chung. Go, Kalina!

Here’s critic Mary Ann Gwinn on Barbara Johns’ new book on artist Takuichi Fujii, who painted throughout his incarceration in Minidoka; his work will also be in an upcoming exhibition at the Washington State History Museum.

Inter/National News

Hyperallergic on We the People, now on view at the M in Minneapolis, featuring “pieces that grapple not only with American identity but with an all-out call for revolution.” Molly Vaughan is one of the exhibition’s artists (hey, we know her!).

Could be that first bit of fall chill in the air, but I enjoyed this Artnet article—inspired by a show on view at Bowdoin College Museum of Art—on the art historical roots of memento mori.

Ezra Jack Keats’s bestselling children’s book The Snowy Day has charmed generations—and now its hero, Peter, will be featured on U.S. Postal Service Forever stamps.

And Finally

Crayola debuted “Bluetiful,” its new hue inspired by chemist Mas Subramanian’s accidental pigment discovery. Bliss out on the magic of crayon-creation with this Sesame Street throwback.

—Rachel Eggers, SAM’s Public Relations Manager

Photo: Courtesy of Molly Vaughan.

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

Rachel Eggers on Sep 11 2017

As of today, Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors is closed! What a wild ride the last few months have been during this blockbuster exhibition. Now we’re looking ahead to Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect and so is the press. Take a gander at this past week’s press clippings, hand selected by SAM’s PR Manager.

*Clutches Yayoi Kusama exhibition catalogue and cries while Boyz II Men’s “End of the Road” plays*

SAM News

Seattle Times photographer Alan Berner visited during the final days of Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors and filed this dot-filled send-off. Don’t miss the cameo from our mascot, Sammy the Camel. (Why a camel? Here’s the scoop.)

SAM lands on the celebrity news beat: When Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and singer Ciara had a date night at SAM after we’d closed, the news hit Page Six, W Magazine, Artnet, Ebony, Yahoo, Daily Mail, Entertainment Tonight, Jet, and HuffPo.

Love this Seattle Times RAVE for SAM staff: A visitor lauds our “daily, herculean efforts” during the Kusama run. We couldn’t have done it without our awesome visitors!

Seattle Magazine’s September print edition features our Andrew Wyeth retrospective among their picks for “Fall’s Most Buzzworthy Arts and Culture Events.”

“’The goal was to show that this unrelenting realist evolved and changed, sometimes quite dramatically, over time,’ Junker says. ‘If you think you know Wyeth’s art from the examples we see reproduced and hanging in the well-known museums, I feel certain you will come away from this exhibition totally surprised.’”

Local News

The Seattle Times reports on The Grocery, a new “cutting-edge” arts center in a former—you guessed it—grocery store in Beacon Hill.

Also in the neighborhood: Artist Ari Glass unveiled a new installation at Beacon Hill’s Art Deco building Pacific Tower, featuring his signature gold leaf and mica elements.

This should be an amazing show: The Stranger’s A&P features the sculpture of Humaira Abid, coming soon to a solo show at Bellevue Arts Museum.

Inter/National News

The journey continues for the home of Rosa Parks, recently shipped to Berlin and restored by an American artist. The house now has a ticket back home to the US—with an uncertain future ahead.

Poet John Ashbery died on Sunday at the age of 90; did you know he was also a collage artist, who made his solo debut as a professional at the age of 81?

Pierre Bergé, longtime business partner of Yves Saint Laurent, died Friday at the age of 86. We were honored to share his legacy during Yves Saint Laurent: The Perfection of Style.

And Finally

The art of eating: Artsy with seven recipes from artists, including—wait for it—avocado toast (by Salvador Dalí, of course).

– Rachel Eggers, SAM’s Manager of Public Relations

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

Rachel Eggers on Sep 5 2017

All the news that’s fit to blog about. See what SAM’s PR Manager, Rachel Eggers, has been reading to find out what’s happening inside the museum and around the art world.

SAM News

For Crosscut, artist and writer Don Fels asks the question: “What has made Yayoi Kusama the hottest ticket in Seattle?” Don’t miss the fun time lapse video from the lines outside the museum (if only they had gone that fast!).

“It’s very fitting, almost willfully symbolic, that people are talking with one another as they stand together outside. She couldn’t have engineered delivery of her message better if she had tried, or maybe she’s been working at that very accomplishment all these years.”

Last week, SAM announced the five artists selected as finalists for the 2017 Betty Bowen Award, which honors a Northwest artist for their original, exceptional, and compelling work. The Stranger shared the news, along with Hyperallergic, Artnet, Artdaily, and The Skanner. Stay tuned for the announcement of the winner in mid-September—and for the winner’s solo show at SAM in April 2018.

Last week’s glorious Sculptured Dance event at the Olympic Sculpture Park was everywhere; dance writer Sandra Kurtz previewed it for Seattle Weekly:

“With the audience close enough to see the dust that those sneakers kick up and hear the slap of hands as they clasp in a fast turn (not to mention the mountains in the background), we get a fresh sense of a vital art form.”

The Stranger, Seattle Met and Crosscut also recommended the event; for those who missed it, helpful Instagrammers captured a bit of the evening’s magic.

Local News

Where’d You Go, Cate Blanchett? She and director Richard Linklater were spotted filming their adaptation of a famous Seattle book at the Central Library this week.

Coming soon to the airwaves of Rainier Valley: KVRU 105.7 FM, a low-power FM station serving the community.

The Mayor’s Arts Award winners were announced last week; CityArts reported from the sunny ceremony at Seattle Center.

Inter/National News

MoMA curator Sarah Suzuki and illustrator Ellen Weinstein teamed up to create a children’s book starring Kusama as the heroine.

Prepare for the film/art connections to be explored in Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect with this Artsy round-up of 17 artists and the films that influenced them.

The perfection of style: The New York Times files this inspiring slideshow of street style from the recent Afropunk Festival in Brooklyn.

And Finally

The project that’s achieving “a sense of shared destiny and common civic purpose” with one of my favorite things: LISTS.

– Rachel Eggers, Manager of Public Relations

Image: A pop-up performance during Summer at SAM by The Purple Lemonade Collective during Sculptured Dance at the Olympic Sculpture Park on August 31, 2017. Photo: Robert Wade.

Muse/News: Arts news from SAM, Seattle, and beyond – August 28

Rachel Eggers on Aug 28 2017

We love keeping an eye on contemporary artists once featured at SAM as they continue to make their mark. Also this week: dancing + statues + late Seattle summer.

SAM News

With the departure of Thomas Campbell at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and calls for the first woman director to be hired, Artnet names 11 woman art museum directors who could take on the job, including a familiar name.

“Go expecting a bit of a squish—and have a wonderful Seattle summer evening,” says the Seattle Times’ Moira Macdonald about this Thursday’s Sculptured Dance event.

Artsy highlights eight artists who are revealing the radical possibilities in knitting and crocheting—including Haegue Yang from SAM’s 2015 exhibition, Paradox of Place: Contemporary Korean Art.

Here’s Hyperallergic on the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art exhibition Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today, the first US exhibition of abstract art created exclusively by women of color; SAM’s 2015 Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence Prize-winner Brenna Youngblood is included.

Local News

The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture announced last week that funding has been increased for its Cultural Facilities Fund, which supports capital projects for arts and cultural organizations (hurray!).

Inter/National News

Jets to Marfa! This October, Solange will perform in Marfa, Texas, in front of Donald Judd’s “15 Untitled Works in Concrete.”

Now streaming on Netflix: Kino Lorber’s collection “The Pioneers of African-American Cinema.” Learn more and watch a video about the restoration process.

Artnet collects the thoughts of 12 art historians and scholars on the debate over what to do with Confederate monuments.

And Finally

Put my thing down, flip it, and reverse it: A Portsmouth, Virginia resident has an idea for his town’s Confederate monument: replace it with one of Portsmouth native Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott.

– Rachel Eggers, Manager of Public Relations

Image: A visitor takes in Haegue Yang’s Female Natives series in Paradox of Place: Contemporary Korean Art, Photo: Mark Woods.

Muse/News: Arts news from SAM, Seattle, and beyond

Rachel Eggers on Aug 21 2017

Let’s get to it! Here’s Rachel Eggers, SAM’s PR Manager with your weekly round up of the art news you need to read.

SAM News

#InfiniteKusama, indeed: The New York Times reports that Yayoi Kusama will open her own museum in the Shinjuku neighborhood of Tokyo; SAM’s exhibition is mentioned.

“Winter is always,” says Forbes, as they reference Game of Thrones and feature a gallery of chilly images from SAM’s upcoming Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect.

“Surprises abound. Historically, Wyeth’s style was called mechanical and unremarkable, but this does not seem so of the diaphanous curtains in the windows of his houses, or the feathers he captures floating in the air on a stormy day.”

Here’s Artsy on the resurgence of shamanic practices in contemporary art; Saya Woolfalk, whose ChimaTEK: Virtual Chimeric Space from SAM’s Disguise exhibition was recently acquired for the SAM collection, is included.

Local News

“…a joyful and awkward water ballet titled ‘Ankle Deep’ in the kiddie wading pool at Volunteer Park.” How local artist Briar Bates wanted her death commemorated.

In the Seattle Weekly, comic artist Tatiana Gill illustrates the life of Seattle civil rights legend Reverend Dr. Samuel B. McKinney (now 90 years old!).

The Seattle Times reviews exhibitions in Tacoma and Auburn featuring work by Northwest Coast indigenous artists.

Inter/National News

All 16 of the artists, authors, performers, and architects on the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities resigned last Friday in protest of Trump.

Canadian Art profiled Claudia Rankine and a recent lecture she gave in Banff on white supremacy in art and how institutions can respond to it.

Now on view at the Princeton University Art Museum: paintings by Howard Russell Butler (1856-1934) depicting solar eclipses before photography could capture them in detail.

“While a Navy officer stood by with a stopwatch, Butler worked in 10- or 20-second blocks as he drew the outline of the corona, assessed the colors of the sky and moon, and sketched the contours of the gaseous prominences that bloomed from the eclipse’s edge. Only then did he begin to paint.”

“I don’t know that a person enjoys ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ so much as submits to it.” Celebrate today’s celestial event here.

– Rachel Eggers, Manager of Public Relations

Image: Laara Garcia performs in Saya Woolfalk’s installation ChimaTEK: Virtual Chimeric Space during SAM’s 2015 exhibition, Disguise: Masks and Global African Art.

Muse/News: Arts news from SAM, Seattle, and beyond

Rachel Eggers on Aug 15 2017

Another week, another story… Or try 10. Here’s Rachel Eggers, SAM’s PR Manager with your weekly round up of the art news you need to read.

SAM News

SAM’s Next Top Model: In a recent edition of the Seattle Times’ ShopNW, Kusama swag from SAM Shop was featured—and modeled by SAM’s Public Programs Coordinator, David Rue.

Following a visit to Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, Loney Abrams of Artspace leads a tour through each Infinity Mirror Room. SAM’s Jon and Mary Shirley Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Catharina Manchanda, shared some fascinating details about Kusama’s connections to Seattle.

“’Initially, she thought she wanted to go to Paris because up until World War II, Paris was the center of the art world,’ SAM’s curator Catharina Manchanda tells Artspace. But then, Kusama stumbled upon a painting by Georgia O’Keeffe—and everything changed. She went to the U.S. embassy in Tokyo, got a mailing address for O’Keeffe, and sent the artist a stack of drawings with a letter asking for advice on how to get to the United States. ‘At the same time, she also wrote to Kenneth Callahan, a member of the school of Northwest Modernists in Seattle,’ says Manchanda. ‘Luckily, Callahan wrote her back a welcoming letter and introduced her to Zoë Dusanne, an art dealer in Seattle who offered her an exhibition.’ So, Kusama moved to Seattle, and the rest is art history.”

Seattle Weekly profiles SAM’s three-times-a-year event Remix, now in its tenth year. Members of SAM’s Education department—Regan Pro, Philip Nadasdy, and David Rue—are quoted throughout along with choreographer Dani Tirrell, who presented excerpts from the forthcoming Black Bois in this edition:

“’My experience with SAM has been one that they are always pushing conversations forward,’ he told Seattle Weekly. ‘They bring in art and artists that are relevant to the times we live in. SAM does not shy away from things that may make people uncomfortable, and I think that is how they are able to engage with what is taking place in Seattle.’”

Local News

Seattle Times’ Gayle Clemans reviews the Frye’s current exhibition, Storme Webber | Casino: A Palimpsest, for which the artist aimed to “indigenize the gallery.”

ICYMI: Here was Emily Pothast’s Seattle Art Fair wrap-up in the Stranger earlier this week.

And here’s Margo Vansynghel for CityArts on BorderLands, on view through October 29 at King Street Station (go!).

“With such poetic, poignant offerings, BorderLands deals with nationalism, allegiance and resistance. The most arresting works on show tackle the flippant use of language—words often thrown around carelessly since last Nov. 8. What do these signifiers mean to the people who saw their land stolen, to the new arrivals in a nation of immigrants and, finally, to the art world? Some of the most impressive works on view—including Feddersen’s and Kahlon’s—ultimately question the enduring complicity in a system that feeds and sells us a too-easily digestible and unchallenged story about identity.”

Inter/National News

BuzzFeed News announced AM to DM, its new morning show to be livestreamed on Twitter. Hosted by Saeed Jones and Isaac Fitzgerald, you will need to watch it (ideally with avocado toast).

The New York Times’ Holland Cotter reviews the Pulitzer Arts Foundation’s Blue Black exhibition; curated by artist Glenn Ligon, it includes works by Kerry James Marshall, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and David Hammons (all represented in SAM’s collection).

A new study reveals that your Instagram “may hold clues to your mental health.” (Wait, was does excessive use of the Amaro filter mean??)

To those who fret about the state of arts journalism, I present TV’s catchiest theme song (I warned you) finally getting the deep dive it deserves.

– Rachel Eggers, Manager of Public Relations

Image: David Rue, SAM’s Public Programs Coordinator, is still in the running towards becoming SAM’s Next Top Model, photo: Natali Wiseman.

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

Rachel Eggers on Aug 7 2017

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

Photo: Chiyo Ishikawa, SAM’s Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art and Curator of European Painting and Sculpture, dresses the part while considering Kusama’s multiverse.