Goodbye, 2022: Looking Back on an Unforgettable Year at SAM

We’re closing out another amazing year at SAM and want to thank each and every one of you for your continued support over the last year as we connected art to life in new ways across the Pacific Northwest. From beach cleanups at the Olympic Sculpture Park, Summer at SAM, endless gallery tours, SAM Remix, new exhibitions and installations—including Frisson: The Richard E. Lang & Jane Lang Davis Collection, Imogen Cunningham: A Retrospective, Embodied Change: South Asian Art Across Time, Lauren Halsey, Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water, Indigenous Matrix: Northwest Women Printmakers, Beyond the Mountain: Contemporary Chinese Artists on the Classical Forms, Giacometti: Toward the Ultimate Figure, Anthony White: Limited Liability, American Art: The Stories We Carry, and Dawoud Bey & Carrie Mae Weems: In Dialogue—educational lectures series, community celebrations, and so much more, we couldn’t have done it without you. Browse the slideshow below for a recap of all the memories we’ve made with you this year.

Here’s to a happy and healthy 2023—cheers!

– Lily Hansen, SAM Marketing Content Creator

Photo Credits: Alborz Kamalizad, Chloe Collyer, L. Fried, and Natali Wiseman.

Muse/News: Art Immersion, Graffiti War, and Suits of Glass

SAM News

It’s the final week to see Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water! SAM’s spring special exhibition closes May 30. Don’t miss Teen Tix writer Stella Crouch on the exhibition that is “pushing the boundaries of what a single exhibit can be.”

“The exhibit is not limited by a certain medium, location, point of view, age, or history; rather, it embraces the duality of art forms to create an immersive experience. The multitude of forms the exhibit takes emphasizes the universal need for a healthy planet. Ultimately, the exhibit comments there is no place or person who will not be affected by climate change.”

And the Seattle Times gets you ready for warmer days with their summer guide. This season, SAM has you covered with the welcome return of Summer at SAM and SAM Remix at the Olympic Sculpture Park (stay tuned for lineup announcements!), a free day of programming celebrating the summer exhibition of sculptures by Alberto Giacometti, and our annual fundraiser with artist creations and a performance by Fly Moon Royalty.

Local News

Crosscut’s Margo Vansynghel with their weekly ArtSEA post; in it, she celebrates a week of positive arts news, including the rescue of the historic Columbia City Theater, art exhibitions worthy of a ferry ride, and a bevy of outdoor festivals coming up.

Seattle Met’s Zoe Sayler on the welcoming and very stylish roller skating scene in Seattle.

The Stranger’s Jas Keimig on “Seattle’s graffiti culture war.”

And so, the collaboration will continue. The more the City buffs, the more graffiti writers will tag, reserving their worst and sloppiest work for the places the City buffs the most, according to one artist. After all, who but a Buddhist would paint a masterpiece if they knew someone would wipe it away the next day?

Inter/National News

Via Jo Lawson-Tencred for Artnet: “Smell Experts Have Recreated Cleopatra’s Perfume.”

Sarah-Rose Sharp for Hyperallergic asks, “Did NASA Spot an ‘Alien Doorway’ on Mars?”

John Vincler for the New York Times on Nick Cave’s new public art project in the Times Square subway station.

“In the subway project, fur, sticks, hair extensions, sequins, buttons, embroidery, festive masks, and even birds and flowers are marvelously and convincingly realized through the glasswork fabricated by Franz Mayer of Munich.”

And Finally

Scallops love disco lights.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: Alborz Kamalizad.

Muse/News: Life Pockets, Dance Artists, and Explosive Joy

SAM News

Seattle Met’s Allison Williams with a “Guide to Tide Pooling and Beach Combing around Seattle”; she includes the Olympic Sculpture Park’s pocket beach among the best places to observe sea life. 

Curiocity points readers to “11 awesome free or cheap date ideas in Seattle this summer,” including a visit to SAM using the Seattle Public Library’s Museum Pass. Hint: Here’s a long list of discounts or free days for visiting the Seattle Art Museum and the Seattle Asian Art Museum. (The Olympic Sculpture Park is free to all, every day!)

Make that date a deep dive into Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water, SAM’s spring exhibition that closes May 30! Seattle Met includes it on their list of “things to do” this week

Local News

royal alley-barnes, interim director for the City of Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture, talks with KUOW’s Kim Malcolm about Hope Corps, a new program “to help put artists back to work.”

Converge Media shares the news that ARTE NOIR has named Jazmyn Scott its new executive director; the Black arts & culture space opens this summer in the Central District’s Midtown Square.

“Seattle was once a hub for contemporary dance. What happened?” Local journalist Marcie Sillman for Crosscut on the city’s long history of nurturing dance artists—and the challenges they’re facing right now.

“Even as pandemic restrictions ease and theaters and clubs start to re-open, choreographers like Graney, Gosti and many others are struggling to stay in Seattle. Graney charges that nobody at City Hall, or anywhere outside the dance community itself, seems concerned that artists are being priced out of the city. ‘There’s no one at the helm who has an interest in dance,’ Graney maintains. ‘People don’t care, they just don’t care.’”

Inter/National News

Emmanuel Balogun for Artnet: “6 Artists at the 2022 Venice Biennale Who Are Shifting the Way We Visualize the African Diaspora.”

ARTnews’ Angelica Villa on the record-setting sale of an Ernie Barnes painting, which sold at 80 times more than its estimate.

The New York Times’ Robin Pogrebin on Lauren Halsey’s new work now on view at David Kordansky Gallery. You can see her work at SAM through July 17!

“At a time when many Black artists are being recognized for figurative art, Halsey has been making large-scale sculptures and reliefs. And while her installations may allude to economic hardship, gentrification, or gang violence, they convey an explosive sense of joy.”

And Finally

Via the Seattle Times: “9 great hikes in WA for people with wheelchairs, canes, crutches or strollers.”

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Chloe Collyer.

Object of the Week: Kurtal

An azure blue circle becomes a stop sign in this canvas now on view in Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water at SAM through May 30. The circle is a jila, or sacred waterhole, in the Great Sandy Desert that you do not dare get too close to. Kurtal is the moral protector of this source of water and can be seen as a swirling black snake. In the painting, Kurtal has called in clouds which appear as horseshoe shapes set against the sky to unleash rain which enables dots of bush onions to grow around the waterhole.

Artist Ngilpirri Spider Snell was once part of a remarkable act of activist painting in 1997 when he joined 42 others to paint a giant canvas mapping all the waterholes and major features of their country around Lake Prinini. It became a document in an appeal for native title legislation and was presented to the Australian government in Canberra where Spider danced on it, wearing a headdress in the shape of a long rain cloud, and revealing his renowned position as a ceremonial dancer.  

For the next ten years, this canvas, called the Ngararra Canvas, traveled around Australia and Spider often appeared as part of the delegation to explain what features of the country were being claimed. 

By 2007, a Native Title settlement confirmed that what outsiders called “stories” were legal documents, and that paintings were evidence to prove land ownership. Soon thereafter, a major victory gave 80,000 kilometers of land back to its original owners. However, Kurtal’s site was not included, and Spider continued to agitate—taking his grandson back to visit Kurtal in 2015—a trip that became the centerpiece of a film whose clip gives a brief glimpse of his allegiance to the snake spirit and the enormous power he unleashed in the year before his death.

For an account from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation about how the large group painting became an activist force for legal change, this short segment follows the painting back to Lake Prinini with some of the painters in 2018.

– Pam McClusky, SAM Oliver E. and Pamela F. Cobb Curator of African Art

Image: Kurtal, 2005, Ngilpirri Spider Snell, (1930-2016), Australian Aboriginal, Wangkajungua People, Fitzroy Crossing, Kimberley, Western Australia, Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 83 7/8 x 59 13/18 inches (213 x 152 cm.), Gift of Margaret Levi and Robert Kaplan, 2019.20.14.

Muse/News: Sparks of Hope, Making Space, and Artist Robin Hoods

SAM News

“A must-see”: That’s Sophie Grossman of Seattle Met on Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water. She urges readers to visit the exhibition before it closes on May 30. 

You’ll walk away from these collected works sobered, perhaps, but buoyed by a spark of hope. If humans are capable of all this beauty and devastation, you might muse, what else could we accomplish? What visions for our planet, and our future as a species, could we realize?

London-based magazine New Scientist features the exhibition and how the artworks “bring water’s myriad meanings to life.” And art critic Susan Platt’s review of the exhibition appeared on Art Access. 

This not to-be-missed exhibition immerses, enchants, warns, and finally, hopes to inspire us to action. A video at the end, ‘Water Protectors,’ asks artists, activists, leaders, and scientists, to answer the question ‘What can people do to honor and protect water?’ We must all ask ourselves that question.”

KNKX rounds up ways to celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month; the Seattle Asian Art Museum is on the list. 

And finally, a big thank you to the readers of 425 Magazine, who named SAM their favorite museum in the magazine’s reader poll!

Local News

Crosscut’s Brangien Davis devotes the bulk of her recent ArtSEA column to profiling Seattle author Angela Garbes, whose new book on motherhood and labor, “a blend of memoir, research and social commentary,” has just landed on bookshelves.

South Seattle Emerald shares an opinion piece from the Duwamish Tribal Council: “It’s 167 years past time to restore recognition of the Duwamish tribe.”

Via Grace Gorenflo of the Seattle Times: the City of Seattle’s Cultural Space Agency has made its first real estate purchase, parenting with Cultivate South Park on a 32,000 square foot area that will become a community-owned cultural space.

“For more than a century, Richter said, South Park residents have been unable to influence what happens in their own neighborhood, and El Barrio is a step to change that. ‘My hope for South Park is whatever South Park hopes for itself,’ he said. ‘The mission phrase that Coté brought to all of this is that the neighborhood should own the neighborhood. And implied in that ownership is control and agency.’”

Inter/National News

Via Katya Kazakina for Artnet: “An Ethereal Blue Warhol Marilyn Goes for $195 Million at Christie’s, Becoming the Second-Priciest Work Ever Sold at Auction.”

“A Sculptor’s Search for Humanity”: Lance Esplund for the Wall Street Journal on the Alberto Giacometti exhibition now on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art and heading to SAM this summer

Emily Watlington of Art in America on ways that artists are addressing the problems of inequity inherent in the art market and turning them to their—and their communities’—advantage, including Lauren Halsey, whose community-centered work is on view at SAM through July 17.

“I find myself equally inspired by artists putting their money where their mouth is, and moved by how they address immediate needs while carving space for long-term dreaming at the same time, balancing the practical and the ideal rather than choosing between the two. Each of these artists exemplifies a compelling degree of integrity; each refuses to plead powerlessness or sweep the contradictions under the rug. Can the institutions they work with keep up?”

And Finally

Celebrate and get familiar with the work of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize winners.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Chloe Collyer.

Muse/News: Examining Water, City Blocks, and Taurus Artists

SAM News

The annual Museums section of the New York Times landed yesterday, with stories from the field and exhibition round-ups. Ted Loos included SAM’s current exhibition, Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water, on their list of exhibitions on view this spring and summer across the country. Also mentioned: the major Alberto Giacometti exhibition now on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art and headed to SAM this summer!

“[The works] range from comforting, more familiar depictions from the 19th century—like an Albert Bierstadt beach painting and a Hiroshige woodblock print of a whirlpool—to challenging contemporary works that examine water as an endangered or desecrated resource.”

Alison Sutcliffe of Tinybeans has a list of “10 Fantastic Activities to Make Your Mother’s Day Special,” including taking the mom and mom-figure in your life to a museum! At SAM, you can gift a visit (or membership!) and grab brunch at MARKET. As always, entry for kids 14 and under is free.

It’s May! Celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with this list from Tinybeans of 19 Asian American-owned businesses and organizations to support, including the Seattle Asian Art Museum (and our friends at The Wing Luke!). 

And finally, never stop learning: Jing Culture & Commerce interviews Jason Porter, SAM’s Kayla Skinner Deputy Director for Education and Public Engagement, and his co-writer Mary Kay Cunningham about their new book, Museum Education for Today’s Audiences

“‘We see museum educators on the frontlines addressing urgent social issues, acknowledging historical inequalities in museums, innovating for accessibility, and leveraging partnerships with communities to maintain their relevance in a changing world,’ say Cunningham and Porter of the work currently being done.”

Local News

A five-minute listen: Kim Malcolm of KUOW interviewing Amanda Ong of the South Seattle Emerald on spring arts events to look forward to.

The Stranger’s Jas Keimig reports the announcement from Cornish College of the Arts, who has named this year’s Neddy Award winners, Myron Curry and Priscilla Dobler Dzul.

Don’t miss the Seattle Times’ new special project, “This City Block,” which takes the “powerful corner” of 23rd and Union as its first subject. Wrap-around coverage from their team includes stories on Arté Noir, Wa Na Wari, Communion, and so much more.

“What can we learn from This City Block? ‘The lesson of 23rd and Union is that there’s a way,’ [K. Wyking] Garrett said.”

Inter/National News

The New York Times and other outlets report that “Ukraine says Russia looted ancient gold artifacts from a museum,” just one heist among the many examples of damage and destruction to cultural sites.

Via Artforum: “A Diego Rivera mural that was in danger of being sold to help fund the shrunken endowment of its owner, the beleaguered San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), will instead be restored, thanks to a $200,000 grant issued for the purpose by the Mellon Foundation.”

Artnet talks to Bri Luna, AKA Hoodwitch, about “How to Critique the Art of a Taurus Without Getting in a Brawl.” (SAM has an unnervingly high number among our ranks!)

“Tauruses have a love of texture and color and just a fine eye for detail and luxury. Those are things that bleed into our aesthetic as artists.”

And Finally

A worthy Twitter thread: “MY BACKYARD’S BIGGEST NIGHT.”

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Chloe Collyer.

SAM Shop Gift Guide: Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day! Don’t wait until the last minute to buy all of the moms and moms-to-be in your life a gift. Surprise them with a something meaningful and locally made from SAM Shop! At SAM Shop, you’ll find uncommon objects, contemporary design for your home, jewelry by local artists, and more. Read below for five gift ideas that you can buy in store or online today. Plus, stop by the shop at our downtown location or at the Seattle Asian Art Museum this Mother’s Day weekend to get a free copy of Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstract Variations with any purchase. Can’t make it to the shop in person? Browse our digital catalogue for even more locally made and crafted gifts and select priority shipping or curbside pickup to make sure your items are delivered in time for Mother’s Day. Questions? Call the shop during business hours at 206.654.3120. As always, SAM members receive 10% on all online and in store purchases.

Ocean Sole Animal Sculptures
$18–$124
Available In Store Only

Rhinos, giraffes, lions, turtles, and more—your mom will love one of these friendly animals made from washed up flip flops retrieved from the beaches of waterways in Kenya. With their animal-inspired creations, Ocean Sole recycles over one ton of styrofoam per month and saves over five hundred trees per year. Plus, 10–15% of all profits go to organizing beach cleanups, providing vocational and educational programming, and stepping up conservation efforts in Kenya. Discover the full collection of animal friends and learn more about how your Ocean Sole purchase gives back to low-income communities in Kenya in store at SAM Shop.

Artistic Creations by Marita Dingus
$60–$400
Available In Store Only

“I consider myself an African-American Feminist and environmental artist. My approach to producing art is environmentally and politically infused: neither waste humanity nor the gifts of nature.” – Marita Dingus

An in-store exclusive, Seattle-born artist Marita Dingus is a mixed-media sculptor who works primarily with discarded materials to create beautiful and one-of-a-kind artistic creations. Drawing inspiration from the African Diaspora, the discarded materials she uses represent how people of African descent were used and discarded as slaves but still managed to repurpose themselves and thrive in our hostile world. Choose from a diverse selection of handmade earrings and necklaces, or take a trip to SAM Gallery and inquire about purchasing one of her artworks for sale.

Art & Design Books
Prices Vary
Available Online & In Store

SAM Shop is your one-stop-shop for all your unique art-related book needs. Choose from coloring books, cook books, biographies, architecture books or history books and invite your mom to explore the inner workings of the art world. Interested in learning more about current and past special exhibitions at SAM? Pick up your mom an exhibition catalogue documenting the stories and artworks behind Frisson: The Richard E. Lang and Jane Lang Davis Collection, Barbara Earl Thomas: The Geography of Innocence, Imogen Cunningham: A Retrospective, Monet at Étretat, Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park: A Place for Art, Environment, and an Open Mind, and more.

Pocket Sprites
$20–$65
Available Online & In Store

Portland artisan Beth Grimsrud loves to sew and reconfigure cast-off materials into new forms. In 2003, she began using upcycled sweaters to make mittens, decorated with original appliqué designs. A one-woman operation, she puts her heart into each and every stitch. Each plush pocket sprite is carefully considered and individually designed, making each one-of-a-kind. Buy them online for $65 to get a set of three small sprites with a matching purse or visit in store at our downtown location to buy individual small and large sprites.

Orca Family Tote Bag
$18.95
Available Online & In Store

“I was raised in a way of life based on hunting, fishing, feasting, singing, dancing and visual arts.  Art has always been communicated as an expression of spirit to the connections to people and the ways of life.” – Paul Windsor

After your visit to Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water at SAM, surprise your mom with a locally printed orca 100% cotton tote bag by Haisla, Heiltsuk artist Paul Windsor. Playing off the themes explored in Our Blue Planet, help your loved ones cut down on their plastic use while supporting the work of a local Indigenous artist.

– Lily Hansen, SAM Marketing Content Creator

Images: Chloe Collyer.

Object of the Week: Oil Spill #5

One of the thrills of working on Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water was the chance to collaborate with my colleagues, Barbara Brotherton and Natalia Di Pietrantonio. Of the many outstanding photographs that emerged from a collection that Natalia was familiar with, Edward Burtynsky’s Oil Spill #5 is now on view with other efforts to document how our species is enacting the desecration of water.  Here is Burtynsky in his own words:

“When I first started photographing industry, it was out of a sense of awe at what we as a species were up to. Our achievements became a source of infinite possibilities. But time goes on, and that flush of wonder began to turn. The car that I drove cross-country began to represent not only freedom, but also something much more conflicted. I began to think about oil itself: as both the source of energy that makes everything possible, and as a source of dread, for its ongoing endangerment of our habitat.”

– Edward Burtynsky

This image is of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The colors of the red emergency vehicles, the orange flare of the well flame, and the arc of water sprays appear minuscule against the backdrop of a blackening sea. 

One of the agonies of curating is the need to reduce an artist’s corpus to a short paragraph, so I’d urge you to move on to hear from this artist to learn more about his process and intentions. Oil Spill #5 is part of a series he narrates in this video, Water—Where I Stand: A Behind the Scenes Look.

On April 12, 2022, Edward Burtynsky was awarded a SONY World Photography Award in London. In his acceptance speech, he spoke as the son of Ukrainian immigrants to Canada, and deferred his contribution to honor others, saying, “Photography is about light conquering darkness. And as we speak, Ukrainian photographers are conquering an unimaginable form of darkness. I can think of no more outstanding contribution to photography than that.” More about Ukrainian photographers that he is supporting can be found on his website.

– Pam McClusky, SAM Oliver E. and Pamela F. Cobb Curator of African Art

Image: Chloe Collyer.

Muse/News: Art for the Earth, Fair Reflections, and Venice Prizes

SAM News

Earth Day is every day! Get inspired to create change with Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water, now on view at SAM. Aesthetica Magazine features the exhibition on their list of “5 exhibitions for Earth Day” from around the world. So does the Stranger’s Everout list of things to do in Seattle for the important holiday. And Seattle Met includes the exhibition on their list of things to do in Seattle right now.

JiaYing Grygiel for ParentMap offers up “Best Things to Do With Kids on the Seattle Waterfront,” sharing fun secrets for a visit to the Olympic Sculpture Park (and very cute pictures of her kids zooming around sculptures!). 

“Every hour on the hour, a bell chimes and the Father and Son water fountain reverses. Take the walkway over the railroad tracks, where transportation-obsessed kids will love that you can watch train, car, plane, and boat traffic all from the same vantage point.”

Local News

Grace Gorenflo of the Seattle Times continues on the arts recovery beat, with recent stories on creative pandemic fundraising and this look at Mayor Bruce Harrell’s plan for the arts–and what arts leaders think

The Stranger’s Jas Keimig heads to the Henry Art Gallery’s new exhibition and reports back on “Finding Yourself Inside a Magma Slit.”

“How a 1962 art critic reviewed the Seattle World’s Fair”: Crosscut’s Brangien Davis looks back on the 60th anniversary of the Seattle World’s Fair and its “World of Art.” (She also shouts out some exhibitions to see for Earth Day, including Our Blue Planet at SAM.)

[Seattle Times art critic Ann G.] Todd was much more impressed with the Fine Art Pavilion’s exhibit of ‘Northwest Indian Art,’ curated by University of Washington anthropology professor and ethnobotanist Erna Gunther (who also served as director of what is now the Burke Museum). Previewing the show in the very first issue of ArtForum magazine (June 1962), Todd gushed, ‘It would be difficult to imagine more stunning proof of the expressive genius of the Northwest’s aboriginals.’”

Inter/National News

“5 Incredible Art Pieces From World-Class Contemporary Artists That Anyone Can Afford”: Jeff Miles for ARTnews with some very cool artist editions you can buy. Might we also recommend a visit to SAM Gallery and SAM Shop?

Tabitha Barber for the Art Newspaper reviews: “A new visual history of domestic service spanning 400 years examines the lives of those working within the home.”

Artnet reports back from the Venice Biennale: “Sonia Boyce and Simone Leigh Win Golden Lions at the Venice Biennale for Work Honoring the Visions of Black Women.”

“Both Boyce and Leigh were the first Black women to represent their nations at the 127-year-old biennale. They are also the first Black women to win Golden Lions… Asked about her plans after the award ceremony, Boyce told Artnet News, ‘I’m going to close the blinds, lie down, and cry for an hour.’”

And Finally

We would really like to be in one of these jazz clubs right now. 

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Natali Wiseman.

Muse/News: Poem to Water, Heartful Ukraine, and Woody’s Creations

SAM News

“Speak them out loud and they form a poem to water”: Art critic Susan Platt on the ten themes explored in Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water, now on view at SAM. And Seattle Met includes the exhibition on their list of things to do in Seattle right now.

“The exhibition…brings together different cultural expressions to demonstrate that water is our shared concern and necessary to our shared survival. In that way, the Indigenous voices are the most resonant in their respectful and deep understanding. But seeing their work and their voices placed among so many other cultures demonstrates the interconnectedness of everyone on the planet.”

Matthew Kangas for PREVIEW Magazine reviews Embodied Change: South Asian Art Across Time. “Teaches us about what we inherit”: Teen Tix writer Aamina Mughal also reviews the exhibition, now on view at the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

“This idea of dynamic identity and reclamation are echoed throughout Embodied Change and are told through the lens of the human body, specifically the female form. One thing that I believe unites these works is the burden of inheritance. There are certain things that we inherit through our heritage without us making the choice to do so. What we do choose, however, is how we carry this inheritance.”

Curiocity has “12 romantic spring date ideas in and around Seattle” that (obvs) includes a stroll through the art-filled Olympic Sculpture Park—or SAM just a mile down the road, if it’s raining! 

Local News

“Only 262 films?” Seattle Times’ Moira Macdonald interviews Seattle International Film Festival director Beth Barrett on what’s different at this year’s festival

The Stranger’s Jas Keimig on the launch of Seattle Restored, a series of pop-up storefront art installations from the City of Seattle. 

Crosscut’s Margo Vansynghel talks with artists Anastasia Babenko and Darya Husak about a solo show series featuring central and eastern European artists that took on even more relevance with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“We want to show the more soulful and heartful way of Ukraine. That it’s not destruction, that it’s not a ruin, that it’s actually a very rich and deep history that gets passed on and carried on through generations.” 

Inter/National News

Via Artnet’s Katie White: “Mr. Darcy’s Puffy White Undershirt From That Unforgettable ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Lake Scene Goes on View at Jane Austen’s House.”

Angelica Villa for ARTnews on a dumpster-diving new gallery show in New York featuring the mostly forgotten artist Francis Hines.

“Extraordinary Monuments to the Mundane”: The New York Times’ T Magazine profiles sculptor Woody De Othello as he looks forward to his inclusion in the Whitney Biennial. As we’ve shared in the past, a sculpture by this rising art world star was recently acquired by SAM for its collection and will go on view later this year. 

“As if the result of a solo game of exquisite corpse, these composite creatures are oddly proportioned and at turns alluring and unsettling. Thus, Othello highlights the thrum of spirituality he finds in everyday environments.”

And Finally

A figure skater’s gold medal-worthy first pitch

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Natali Wiseman.

Celebrate Earth Day with SAM!

Looking for more ways to learn about our local and global environments following your visit to Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water at SAM? Although Earth Day may only officially be celebrated on Friday, April 22, organizations across the Pacific Northwest are holding events throughout April which honor our planet, give back to our local communities, and inspire movement in the outdoors. From beach cleanups and virtual educational lectures to in-person celebrations and runs of varying distances, read below to find just a few of the many earth-focused events taking place this month.

FRI APRIL 15

HERE | Helping Each-Other Remember Earth
5:30 – 10 PM
The Collective Seattle

HERE is an evening of spoken word, song, and tabling from local organizations centered around social and climate justice. Presented by U Productions, Hearth Revial, Abbey Arts, and The Collective, this one-night-only is intended to spark inspiration, connect people to new ways of plugging in, and build community around actively embodying our values. Hosted by singer-songwriter, percussionist, and teaching artist Shireen Amini, this Earth celebration will include stories and poetry from Nikkita Oliver, The People’s Echo, Verbal Oasis, Lennee Reid, Paul Chiyokten Wagner.

SAT APRIL 16

Earth Day Run
9 AM
Magnuson Park

Start your morning right by participating in Seattle’s Earth Day Run on Saturday, April 16! Run or walk any of the many race distances while supporting the environment. Each race finisher—no matter the distance—will receive a native sapling tree to take home and will have a tree planted at the park in their honor at the tree hugger station. A Magnuson Park gardener will also be in attendance to answer all questions you may have about native plants and starting your own garden. Plus, organizers will be hosting a shoe drive, so don’t forget to bring your old running shoes to donate to Africa via the More Foundation Group.

FRI APRIL 22

Black Earth Day
2 – 7:30 PM
YES Farm!

Join the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle (ULMS) in celebrating Black Earth Day at YES Farm. Free and open to everyone in Seattle’s Black community, the event will feature gardening activities for all ages, and healthy meals cooked up by local Black vendors. Stop by the event to pick up a green cleaning kit to take home and learn about public health and housing resources offered by ULMS and other community organizations.

SAT APRIL 23

Washington Coast Cleanup
9 AM – 12 PM
Washington State Coast

Three times per year, Washington Coast Savers teams up with the Washington Clean Coast Alliance to conduct coordinated beach cleanups along the outer coast of Washington and into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Dating back to 2007, these annual cleanups have a long and productive history of cleaning the entire Washington State coast. Choose from a number of locations across the state and help keep our beaches clean!

Earth Day at McCollum Park
9 – 11 AM
McCollum Park

Spring has sprung! Give back to the beautiful Earth we live on by helping restore 935 acres of forested parkland in Snohomish County across the next 20 years. At McCollum Park, volunteers will help clear some of the colonizing weeds like blackberry, holly, and english ivy throughout the 78-acre park of forest and wetland.

SUN APRIL 24

Earth Day at Harvey Manning Park
9 AM – 12 PM
Harvey Manning Park

Issaquah’s parks are in need of volunteers interested in spending time in nature while helping improve forest health. By 2039, city officials hope to have restored 1,540 acres of forestland, but can’t do it without your help! This Earth Day, sign up to help rid Harvey Manning Park of pesky weed species and plant native species which will thrive for years to come.

ONGOING

King County: Easy Being Green

Earth Day isn’t limited to just one day per year! King County offers online gardening tips and tricks, interactive quizzes, and a continuously-updated list of outdoor volunteer events and workshops taking place throughout the county that inspire action for environmental conservation, restoration, and stewardship. Not sure where to start in creating your own backyard garden or how to safely dispose of hazardous waste? Check here!

– Lily Hansen, SAM Marketing Content Creator

Image: Natali Wiseman.

Object of the Week: Circle Blue

By the time De Wain Valentine moved to Los Angeles in 1965, the artist was already working with plastics. He had been introduced to them by his junior high shop teacher after the then-recent military declassification of the material following World War II and had been working with them on a small-scale ever since. Now in California, Valentine began sharing his experiences while working as a part-time faculty member at UCLA.

Having spent most of his life until that point in Colorado, Valentine has explained how the move influenced his art: “In Colorado, you don’t notice the sky so much because it’s crystal clear: always blue and always so beautiful.” In fact, the Latin name for the Colorado state flower is coerulea, which translates to “sky blue.” But as Valentine continued in a 2011 interview with the Getty Conservation Institute, “you can’t see [the sky in Colorado], so you always forget about it. But the sky in LA is very different: You can really see that—the smog and the fog.”1

For folks from the California coast, the “fog” is really the marine layer, a coastal air mass, usually occurring in the morning, which creates overcast skies that “burn off” around noon. The smog, however, especially in 1960s Los Angeles, was not only something you really could see, but threatened its own weather in the region. A front-page news report in the Los Angeles Times from October 1964 notes that “[s]weltering temperatures helped produce another blanket of smog over the Los Angeles basin Tuesday and touched off lightning storms which started at least three fires in the mountains.” In the next column over, a weather brief states “Light to moderate smog today.”2

Valentine is quoted saying that his extensive series of large-scale polyester resin sculptures are “all about the sea and the sky” and that being in Los Angeles allowed him to see “a new avenue to make sculpture that was completely atmospheric or like a chunk of the ocean cut out.”3 The translucent circles, columns, curved slabs, and sometimes UFO-shaped disks, come in a wide array of colors, from warm rose and orange to more New Age-y lavenders and turquoise, and many are several feet tall or wide. For example, his massive Gray Column (1975–76), made with black pigment that grows transparent and smoky as it tapers at the top, is an impressive 12 feet, like a slab carved from a smog-filled sky. 

Circle Blue, with its cerulean gradient, however, is the work that most clearly evokes the ocean and sky, and, with its round shape, the planet. Like the other tall translucent sculptures, Circle Blue is made from a proprietary blend of polyester resin. Working with the manufacturer Hastings Plastics in Santa Monica, California, Valentine produced Valentine MasKast Resin in 1966 that, unlike previous polyester resins, could be used to create large, thick objects cast in a single-pour rather than in thin layers, without cracking or overheating. 

After polyester resin’s initial use in the military and aerospace arenas, the cheap, sturdy, and durable material was quickly adopted by the automotive and maritime industries, but also used for small common objects like buttons and bowling ball cores. Polyester resin has a highly complex chemical structure that requires “curing” to transform the liquid resin to a solid. This part of the production process is probably the most toxic, as the most common agent used for curing is styrene, which the National Toxicology Program of the US Department of Health and Human Services has listed as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.”4 Polyester resin is also a plastic, and therefore made from fossil fuels. 

Despite the material’s industrial applications, Valentine never really outsourced the production of his sculptures to a fabricator, a common practice for artists using industrial materials, including his peers in the Light and Space movement and in other Minimal Art groups. Pictures of him and his studio assistants clad in PPE (personal protective equipment) show the very hands-on process taken: weeks of sanding and buffing with hand-held machines usually found in an auto-body shop. Citing health concerns, Valentine later turned to using glass for some of his sculptures, but mainly so he could install his works outside: UV light and the potential for surface scratches could destroy the polyester resin sculptures.5 What the material afforded him, however, was a way to examine not just the surface of sculpture, but the (light and) space in between. “[T]he interior of the sculpture is so essential.”6

Reflecting on Circle Blue’s origins in 1960s and 70s Southern California’s smog, sea spray, and glittering oceans against today’s heightened climate crisis, the piece becomes not just an imaginative chunk of the sky, but also a transparent, precious, and conflicting sample of our world. It is both beautiful and a little toxic, strong but also fragile. At almost six feet in diameter, we can see ourselves in its surface, but we also see in and beyond it. Now on view in Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water at SAM, Circle Blue—in addition to many other works on display—prompts questions about our relationship to the planet: How might we preserve a chunk of the sea or sky today? How might we look beyond today and imagine our blue planet in the future? 

– Mia C. Ferm, Project Manager, SAM Historic Media Collection

1 Tom Learner, Rachel Rivenc and Emma Richardson, “From Start to Finish: De Wain Valentine’s Gray Column” (Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute, 2011), 7.

2 “Heat, Smog, Lighting and Fires Pile Up Southland Weather Woes,” Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, CA), Oct 7, 1964.

3 Tom Learner, Rachel Rivenc and Emma Richardson, “From Start to Finish: De Wain Valentine’s Gray Column” (Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute, 2011), 7.

4 National Toxicology Program, “Report on Carcinogens, Fifteenth Edition” (report, Research Triangle Park, NC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, 2021).

5 Dorothy Newmark and Dewain Valentine, “An Interview with Dewain Valentine, Sculptor of Plastic,” Leonardo 4, no. 4 (1971). 

6 Tom Learner, Rachel Rivenc and Emma Richardson, “From Start to Finish: De Wain Valentine’s Gray Column” (Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute, 2011), 12.

Image: Natali Wiseman.

Our Blue Planet: Five Quick Questions with Claude Zervas

Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water documents the stories and histories of water in our world. Pulling exclusively from local loans and works in SAM’s permanent collection, the expansive exhibition features paintings, sculptures, textiles, and multimedia works by over 70 artists from around the world. Over the next 10 weeks, we’ll be talking with some of the contemporary artists involved with the exhibition about their artwork and the importance of water in their lives.

Born in 1963, Claude Zervas is best known for his light and video installations focusing on the topography and topology of the Pacific Northwest. In the 1980s, Claude attended Western Washington University to pursue a degree in geology and moved to Paris, France following his graduation. Although he spent many years working as a software engineer, Claude eventually decided to return to Washington and fully commit to his art practice and art production. Discover the story behind Claude’s 2005 sculpture, Nooksack, now on view in Our Blue Planet at SAM below.

1. What is your name and where are you currently based?

My name is Claude Zervas and I am based just outside of Bellingham, Washington.

2. What is the title of your artwork and how does it fit in with the themes explored in Our Blue Planet?

The title of my work is Nooksack. It’s a part of SAM’s permanent collection and has previously been on view in a couple of exhibitions at the museum. When piecing Our Blue Planet together, I think the curators thought to include my work because of its connection to one of our local waters. After deciding to include my work, I worked a bit with SAM’s conservation team to give the sculpture new life. We had to replace all of the lamps which proved difficult because the tiny little fluorescent bulbs I used are now, more or less, obsolete technology. Back in the day, they were used in scanners and back light for video displays but they’re not used so much anymore and are getting harder to find. But, I really like the delicate and thin light that they put out—nothing else really puts out that kind of light.

3. What thoughts, ideas, and/or perspectives do you want visitors to take away from your artwork in Our Blue Planet?

Nooksack stems from this really personal relationship to the Nooksack River that I had as a kid growing up near the water. And for some reason, as an adult, I still feel a kinship to it. I’m not totally sure why, but it’s a beautiful river. And this piece is an ode to the river based on my memory of it and acts as a sort of ‘thank you’ to it. In seeing my work, I want visitors to consider the bodies of water which exist around us and thank them for all that they do for us.

4. What other artworks in the exhibition stood out to you?

All of the works in this exhibition are incredible, but what really stood out to me was a quote I saw on the floor of the exhibition by Abby Yates. I don’t know why her words so deeply affected me, but they did. Just to see a voice representing the Nooksack people and the river I care about so much was a beautiful experience.

5. How do art and activism intersect? Why do you think it’s important for museums like SAM to curate exhibitions around environmental and societal issues such as water?

I’m not much of an activist but I think we can all agree on the importance of water on Earth. It’s hard to overstate considering we’re 90% water and without it we’d all be dead. It’s essential for us to continuously investigate and discuss the role it plays in our lives. Overall, I’m just pleased SAM thought it important to publicly acknowledge and highlight the various ways water impacts all of our lives—and I’m honored they decided to include my work in the exhibition.

– Lily Hansen, SAM Marketing Content Creator

Images: L. Fried & Natali Wiseman.

Muse/News: Kusama Memories, Glass in Tacoma, and Giacometti’s Secrets

SAM News

Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water ripples at SAM! Seattle Met includes the exhibition on their list of things to do in Seattle right now.

Seattle Met’s Zoe Sayler rounds up “10 Mother’s Day Gifts for Your Mom Friends,” including the SAM Shop exclusive “NO” tote by artist Tariqa Waters. 

Via Eater Seattle: Shubert Ho’s restaurants—including MARKET Seattle at SAM—are donating 10% of sales on select days to World Central Kitchen, an organization “that’s helping provide hot meals to Ukrainians suffering from the Russian invasion of their country.”

And here’s Artnet’s Eileen Kinsella on the many complexities of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Rooms; Catharina Manchanda, SAM’s Jon & Mary Shirley Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art, was among the art world voices sharing their experiences showing these works–including before the blockbuster editions. 

“Like some great works of art, the Infinity Rooms were not immediately and universally appreciated. Manchanda recalled visiting one at the Whitney Museum (which also owns one) as part of a biennial more than two decades ago, while she was a student in New York. ‘The biennials were always crowded, but I was the only person in line wanting to see it. There was no interest whatsoever.’”

Local News

Via Crosscut’s Brangien Davis: “Remembering Seattle print artist and muralist Kristen Ramirez.”

The Stranger’s Charles Mudede on the “world-class” Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley.

“Ever seen Cheetos made of glass?” The Seattle Times’ Jerald Pierce asking the tough questions–this one about Tacoma Art Museum’s show of glass art by the youth of Hilltop Artists.

“Those who have been through the Hilltop program have seen its ability to teach students invaluable teamwork and leadership skills, with one person taking the lead as a gaffer (who will lift the molten glass) and one or two assistants helping to shape that glass into whatever the gaffer is working on. Keith equated it to a sort of dance, where everyone needs to learn their part and anticipate the moves and needs of others.”

Inter/National News

Art & Object pours out a slideshow of “10 Wineries that Every Art Lover Should Visit.”

Angelica Villa for ARTnews reports: “$30 M. Phillip Guston Painting Could Set Auction Record Amid Long-Awaited Retrospective.”  Hot tip: You can see two Guston paintings, made more than 20 years apart, in Frisson: The Richard E. Lang and Jane Lang Davis Collection in SAM’s galleries.  

“America may finally be ready for Alberto Giacometti’s uncompromising art”: The Washington Post’s Sebastian Smee on the Giacometti traveling retrospective that just debuted at the Cleveland Museum of Art–and heads to SAM this summer!

“But it’s only when you stand in front of them, or in some way stand with them (from the side or directly behind can be just as effective) and focus in on them that they give up their devastating secret (which is also your secret and mine): that we’re alone, that no one else knows what’s in our heads and that we will cease to exist.”

And Finally

Capturing murmurations.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Natali Wiseman.

Object of the Week: Sea Bear

At first glance, this might look like a typical trophy head found in a mountain lodge, but Sherry Markovitz has turned the conventional idea of a hunting trophy on its head in the creation of Sea Bear.

“I am after beauty, with an edge of uncertainty, vulnerability, and power,” she says of her artistic process. “I use animal metaphors to explore issues of intimacy, closeness, and separation.”1 Sea Bear’s tranquil and inquisitive stare is a powerful celebration of peace and gentleness, highlighting a species historically honored as a dynamic part of a balanced ecosystem.

As the subject matter of countless forms of creative expression, polar bears may have appeared in art as early as 17,000 years ago in the Paleolithic cave of Ekain in the Basque Country of Northern Spain. Below, two outlines resembling an adult and juvenile can be seen on the ceiling. Their elongated bodies look remarkably like polar bears. Perhaps they drifted south with pack ice off the coast of England during the icier years rounding out the Pleistocene.2 What we can be sure of is that they’ve been depicted in art and lore ever since.

Among the shared spiritual beliefs of the Inuit, polar bears are a living representation of resilience and determination, imbued with souls and regarded as brothers in a time when we did not take pre-eminence over other animals. Nanook, an almost man-like master of bears decided if hunters deserved success in their endeavors or punishment for violating taboos.3

This bear, crafted of wood, beads, shells, fabric, paint, and papier-mâché, is the culmination of intertwined memories and experiences the artist had with nature and her loved ones.

“Emotionally, Sea Bear is circular, all the stuff on it is traceable to significant walks. Walks with my mother in Florida, walks in Port Townsend with Peter (during which time her son Jake was conceived), walks alone to find the ‘root’ pieces at Discovery Park. Walking on the beach is such a drifting and wonderful activity.”4

From a distance, Sea Bear offers up the impression of a familiar creature. Its intricate and subtle beadwork appears at first to be deceptively monochromatic. A step closer, however, reveals an otherworldly figure clad in the ocean’s bounty emerges. The beads are revealed to be six or seven shades of color, like gentle eddies of ermine pebbles undulating over sand. The eye is drawn towards the shadows cast by exhibition lighting on the bear’s outstretched neck and jaw, flowing into the sinuous curves of its pelagic collar.

“I see the ‘collar’ as directional—the wood shape and the bear shape working in tandem was the key (formally) on this one. I think the large pearls pulled the shape back to the bear. It’s funny, as I get further away from a piece, it is, in fact, the abstract concerns that remain the most visible to me.”5

Seattle is treasured for the water which surrounds it. From Lake Washington, fed by so many vital creeks and rivers, to the misty solitude of salt-scoured beaches along the Olympic Peninsula. Water inexorably affects our physical and cultural landscapes, it sustains and determines our way of life, and shapes our histories slowly over time like glaciers carving mountains.  Sea Bear is an opportunity to reconnect to this life-giving force, to step outside of our immediate reality and transport us to the shores of our minds choosing where we can know the peace of our own walk along the water’s edge.

See this work on view now in Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water at our downtown location through May 30.

– Danelle Jay, SAM Curatorial Division Coordinator

1 Sherry Markovitz, quoted in 50 Northwest Artists: A critical  Selection of Painters and Sculptors Working in the Pacific Northwest, ed. Bruce Geunther, San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1983, pages 80–81.

2 Digitized interior of Ekain, courtesy of the Society of Sciences Aranzadi.

3 C.R. Harrington, The Evolution of Arctic Marine Mammals, ed. A. Berta, Ecological Applications, Volume 18, Issue sp2, 2008, pages S23–S40.

4 Sherry Markovitz, Channel 7 News, Linda Farris Gallery, Seattle, 1992.

5 Sherry Markovitz, letter to Vicki Halper, August 14, 1991.

Image: Sea Bear, 1990, Sherry Markovitz, wood, beads, shells, fabric, paint, papier mâché, 25 x 17 x 29 in., Gift of Terry Hunziker, 90.3, © Sherry Markovitz.

Our Blue Planet: Five Quick Questions with Ken Workman

Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water documents the stories and histories of water in our world. Pulling exclusively from local loans and works in SAM’s permanent collection, the expansive exhibition features paintings, sculptures, textiles, and multimedia works by over 70 artists from around the world. Over the next 10 weeks, we’ll be talking with some of the contemporary artists involved with the exhibition about their artwork and the importance of water in their lives.

Born and raised in Seattle, Ken Workman is a member of the Duwamish Tribe, the first people of Seattle, and the fifth generation great-grandson of Chief Seattle. A former Systems and Data Analyst at Boeing, Ken previously served as a Duwamish Tribal Council member and Duwamish Tribal Services President. He also currently sits on the board of two non-profit organizations, the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition and the Southwest Seattle Historical Society. Read below to learn about Ken’s involvement in Our Blue Planet.

1. What is your name and where are you currently based?

My name is Ken Workman and I live in West Seattle.

2. What is the title of your artwork and how does it fit in with the themes explored in Our Blue Planet?

I serve as the introductory speaker for Our Blue Planet. The curators of this exhibition reached out and asked if I would say a few words in my native language, Lushootseed, and welcome people onto this land. In the video, I welcome everyone to the area, to the museum, and into the galleries in my native language—and I was honored to be asked to do it.

3. What thoughts, ideas, and/or perspectives do you want visitors to take away from your artwork in Our Blue Planet?

For so long, the Duwamish people weren’t allowed to speak our language on our land. Being a part of this exhibition, and being given the opportunity to speak Lushootseed publicly, is very special to me. I consider it an honor any time I am able to share our ancestral sounds with the public. What I think is most important in watching this introductory video is hearing my voice and my language. Water is such a broad topic which affects every community and person in the world, so I want visitors to learn about and understand the Duwamish people’s relationship to water while I speak in my community’s native language.

4. What other artworks in the exhibition stood out to you?

The one that really caught my eye was Tracy Rector’s Clearwater: People of the Salish Sea. She uses a combination of audio recordings and visual media to tell the story of the annual Canoe Journey, an inter-tribal event from Alaska to Oregon that celebrates the return of traditional canoe culture and water protection. In watching the video, what I realized was that I was actually a part of it! In addition to the drumming and native songs playing in the background, I suddenly heard my own voice and remembered that Tracy had asked record me speaking in Lushootseed many years ago. When I first watched the film, I was a bit surprised to hear my voice as I didn’t know I was a part of it but it was wonderful to discover that Tracy had included me in her work.

5. How do art and activism intersect? Why do you think it’s important for museums like SAM to curate exhibitions around environmental and societal issues such as water?

It’s important for us to recognize the importance of our natural resources. Around the world, potable water is in short supply. Our glaciers—in the Alps and here in America—are melting and our access to drinking water is shrinking. Bringing attention to these issues, like Our Blue Planet does so well, is more important than ever. Through experiences like these, I hope people will wake up and think more about using and conserving limited resources like these.

– Lily Hansen, SAM Marketing Manager

Photo: Beau Garreau.

Muse/News: Water Reading, a Hotel Museum, and Border Perspectives

SAM News

Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water is now overflowing at SAM! Seattle Met includes the exhibition on their list of things to do in Seattle right now. Also, the wonderful librarians at Seattle Public Library created a reading list related to the themes of Our Blue Planet. Speaking of SPL: Curiocity shared that the Seattle Art Museum and the Seattle Asian Art Museum are among the new partners for its Museum Pass program

Dan Allen for NBC Out has “13 LGBTQ art shows worth traveling for this spring,” including SAM’s solo exhibition for Knight | Lawrence Prize-winner Lauren Halsey

Seattle’s Child matches up 27 children’s books with local outings; SAM is recommended alongside My Museum by Joanne Liu as a way to introduce “the idea of how art shows up in our daily lives.”

Local News

The Stranger’s Jas Keimig visits Great Jones Gallery, the new Capitol Hill venture from Timothy Rysdyke and Leah St. Lawrence.

Robert Horton for Crosscut on documentarian Jean Walkinshaw, who “finally gets her due” with an online archive.

Sierra Starks for the Seattle Times reports that the Panama Hotel, already a historic landmark, may be on its way to becoming a museum. This story is a part of “A1 Revisited,” a new series that interrogates their past coverage of events; they begin with their 1942 coverage of the forced removal of Japanese Americans from Bainbridge Island.

“I think the hotel [as a museum] has the opportunity to somehow unveil or interpret the former Japantown area and the vibrancy that it used to have, leading all the way up to 1942,” [Karen] Yoshitomi said. “It provides the stage for all these other stories to be told.”

Inter/National News

Artnet’s Sarah Cascone with “10 Essential New Books on Women Artists to Add to Your Bookshelf Now.”

The Art Newspaper is out with its annual report on attendance figures and trends for museums across the world.

The New York Times’ Siddhartha Mitter heads to the US-Mexico border to meet with the curators and artists of the forthcoming annual survey of American art, the Whitney Biennial. 

“To look at American art — and thus America — they sensed there was value in stepping just outside. The generative alchemy of a border town might offer clues for fresh thinking about other divisions: between racial or gender categories, the material and the spiritual worlds, the living and the dead.”

And Finally

Many things happened at the 2022 Oscars! Let’s…just look at the outfits.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Natali Wiseman.

Muse/News: Watery Art, Seattle Film Revives, and Giacometti in Cleveland

SAM News

Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water is now overflowing at SAM! Crosscut’s Brangien Davis highlighted the exhibition in her weekly ARTsea letter, noting that the museum is “sounding a seasonal call for nature appreciation—with an underlying message of urgency.” 

Legendary arts journalist Marcie Sillman of the DoubleXposure podcast appeared on KUOW for their Friday segment on arts and culture, recommending Our Blue Planet. It’s a short listen and a treat to hear Marcie back on KUOW. 

“The exhibit has everything from ancient Asian etchings to 19th-century romantic paintings to brand new work and video installations.”

And ArtfixDaily, Curiocity, and Seattle Met all highlighted the exhibition, on view now through May 30.

Via Capitol Hill Seattle: The façade of the Seattle Asian Art Museum was lit up this past weekend, hosting Enlightenment, a light installation show held in a show of solidarity with Ukraine.

Local News

The Stranger’s Jas Keimig has an exit interview with Emily Zimmerman, as the director of the University of Washington’s Jacob Lawrence Gallery heads to the University of Pennsylvania’s Arthur Ross Gallery.

The Seattle Times’ Grace Gorenflo on the effort by Seattle artists to purchase Inscape Arts, the historic Chinatown-International District building that houses artist studios. 

Crosscut’s Margo Vansynghel on Washington State’s new film tax incentive and movie studio, and what they could mean for Seattle’s film production opportunities.

With new ways to attract movie and TV producers, will Washington’s film industry get its big break?

Inter/National News

Artnet’s Katie White with a very welcome look at butterflies in art history.

A long read from Noema Magazine: “Over a hundred miles southeast of Los Angeles, alongside the Salton Sea, Bombay Beach is a stretch of mud and sand wracked by hazardous dust storms, trash-filled lots and the smell of fetid algae. Its shores are also home to a burgeoning, surrealist art hub.”

Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer reviews Alberto Giacometti: Toward the Ultimate Figure, now on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art and headed to SAM this summer

“Working in the decades between Hiroshima and the American buildup in the Vietnam War, Giacometti portrayed an emaciated, uprooted, and pock-marked humanity living in a world on the brink — a precarious state of existence at least partially reprised by the biggest land war in Europe since Hitler.”

And Finally

Just 20 minutes of Denzel Washington being the best.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: L. Fried.

Muse/News: Date at SAM, New Leader at Wing Luke, and Cultural Data Rescue

SAM News

We love art, and we love love: Thrillist rounded up their picks for “where to go on a date this spring in Seattle,” including “spend a rainy afternoon at Seattle Art Museum” and “go on a self-guided tour of Olympic Sculpture Park.” 

Lauren Halsey’s solo show at SAM in which she “brings together the ancient and contemporary to celebrate Black culture” is a “top pick” in the Stranger

Rosa Sittg-Bell of The Daily at UW interviews SAM curator Natalia Di Pietrantonio about Embodied Change: South Asian Art Across Time, now on view at the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

“I find the body an interesting repository for different changes,” Di Pietrantonio said. “Many artists are really thinking about … [the] emotion of the body and expanding the body as part of the landscape or rethinking the parameters of the body. I felt that the body and thinking about emotions was very important to connect to activism.”

And Seattle Met includes Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water on their list of “things to do in Seattle”; the special exhibition opens to the public this Friday at SAM.

Local News

The Seattle Times has you covered with “what you need to know about mask, vaccine rules at Seattle-area arts and music events.” SAM’s policies continue to align with public health guidelines.

Crosscut’s Brangien Davis commemorates the two-year anniversary of pandemic closures with a return to pandemic art walks, visiting a new ecological installation along the Duwamish River by Sarah Kavage.

Seattle Magazine shares the news that Joël Barraquiel Tan is the new executive director of Seattle’s Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience.

“To me, this opportunity comes in the middle of the pandemic, in the middle of API (Asian Pacific Islander) hate, you have January 6,” he says. “It is about ‘what are you going to do in this moment?’ The cultural capital, the social capital (of the Wing Luke) is the Batmobile. What is going to happen in the next year? It is going to take strong institutions like Wing to get through this.” 

Inter/National News

ARTnews reports: Opening this week at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is the latest site-specific installation commissioned annually for the museum’s rooftop; this year’s creation is by Lauren Halsey, whose work is also on view at SAM!

The New York Times’ Holland Cotter on Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast, a new show at the Metropolitan Museum organized around a single marble sculpture.

Via Artnet’s Sarah Cascone: “Ukrainian arts organizations are striving to protect the nation’s cultural heritage—including the websites and digital archives of its museums and libraries.”

“The new initiative Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online (SUCHO) has been working around the clock to back-up and preserve data and technology, all of which are threatened by the war.”

And Finally

Dial 1-800-PEP-TALK (actually, it’s 707-998-8410).

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Natali Wiseman.

Object of the Week: Distant Echoes of Dreams

What if you turned on the faucet in your bathroom or kitchen and no water flowed out? How far would you have to go to obtain enough water for your family’s needs for one day? How much do we take our immediate access to clean water for granted? 

Aida Muluneh was hired by an international organization, WaterAid, to help shed light on the extreme inequities in access to clean water. WaterAid has the statistics to make their case—working in 34 countries for the poorest and most marginalized people—who they have served since 1981.1 One water historian contends that, “the struggle to command increasingly scarce, usable water resources is set to shape the destinies of societies and the world order of the 21st century.”2

Called upon to be a truth teller, Muluneh created a series of twelve striking photographs that focus on the burden women bear in finding and carrying water. She set the stage for most of the photographs in an Ethiopian region called the Danakil Depression, one of the hottest and driest places on Earth. Its salt lakes and the air and gas from hot sulfur springs and boiling lava lakes accentuate the sense of being on another planet. In Distant Echoes of Dreams, women move across this primordial geography carrying water in clay pots tied to their backs. 

Star Shine, Moon Glow, 2018, Aida Muluneh, Archival digital photograph, 31 1/2 x 31 1/2 in.

I first saw Muluneh’s series in London and heard the artist speak about it, as you can too in this short segment. This photograph was just recently acquired into SAM’s collection and will be on view in Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water, opening March 18. The small image on your screen does not reveal the details, texture, and visceral impact of the Muluneh’s original work. Accompanying this image in SAM’s galleries will be a video that takes you to Ethiopia with the artist as she creates this indelible series.

Pam McClusky, SAM Oliver E. and Pamela F. Cobb Curator of African and Oceanic Art


1 https://www.wateraid.org/uk/media/striking-exhibition-from-afrofuturist-photographer-aida-muluneh-on-impact-of-unclean-water-on.

2 Water: the Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power and Civilization, by Steven Solomon, 2010, Harper and Collins, NYC, pg. 367.

Photo: Distant Echoes of Dreams, 2018, Aida Muluneh, Archival digital photograph, 31 1/2 x 31 1/2 in., General Acquisition Fund, 2021.40 © Artist or Artist’s Estate.

Muse/News: American Themes, Fannie’s Debut, and Witnessing History

SAM News

There’s only three weeks left before we close the shutter on Imogen Cunningham: A Retrospective, and a lot to look forward to in Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water, opening in March. But let’s look even further to October, when SAM will unveil its reinstalled American art galleries…

The project is guided by Theresa Papanikolas, Ann M. Barwick Curator of American Art, and it engages Indigenous artists Wendy Red Star and Nicholas Galanin as well as 11 paid advisors from the Seattle community. Papanikolas was interviewed for an article by Zachary Small for Artnet; in it, he explores several similar projects in the works across the country to reimagine the meanings of “American” art.

“‘Chronology is something that is imposed onto history,’ said Theresa Papanikolas, curator of American art at the Seattle Art Museum. ‘It gets to be a little deterministic.’ Papanikolas said that viewers can expect a very different kind of gallery experience. She is particularly excited for Red Star’s installation, which is still being completed but will ‘conjure ideas of portraiture, landscape, and Seattle’ while also ‘literally bringing Indigenous voices into the gallery.’”

Local News

Emily Benson for High Country News on Evergreen, a new anthology of Northwest writings that’s notably “grim” and “gloomy.”

Allison Williams for Seattle Met with a deep dive on two “strange” interpretive museums in the Columbia Gorge.

Gemma Alexander for the Seattle Times on “Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer,”  playwright Cheryl L. West’s one-woman show now playing at Seattle Rep.

“I believe stories come along to show you something. This one encouraged me on my courage journey. Who would have known that it would happen during a time when we were all really looking for hope, when we were looking for that sort of resilience of spirit?” asks West. “She was such an inspiring woman. So the show asks the question, ‘What can we do at this point?’”

Inter/National News

Alex Greenberger for ARTnews reports: Interscope Records, LACMA Team Up for Show of Artworks Inspired by Music.”

Kristian Vistrup Madsen for Artforum on the debut in Dresden of a newly conserved painting by Johannes Vermeer; Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window now includes a painting of Cupid where once was a white wall.

Jillian Steinhauer for the New York Times on Arrivals, now on view at New York’s Katonah Museum of Art, yet another exhibition that grapples with American myths.

“At its best, ‘Arrivals’ offers the feeling of witnessing arguments or conversations between artists across place and time — and it makes you understand the stakes of those conversations.”

And Finally

Crosscut’s Knute Berger and Stephen Hegg with a video story on the “dogs that helped shape PNW history.”

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: Tim Aguero.

Object of the Week: Yakima River at Thorp, WA, January 17, 1980

Unlike summer, with its durational heat and drought, winter in the Pacific Northwest brings with it water—and lots of it. We’re only two weeks into 2022 and we’ve seen over six inches of rain already, thanks to a deluge of atmospheric rivers.1

With water as its subject, this photograph by Johsel Namkung (1919–2013)—taken almost exactly 42 years ago on January 17, 1980—focuses on the swirling, glistening eddies of the Yakima River. One can feel the temperature of the waters—once snowmelt—merely by looking at the image. Rocks and sediment visible through the river’s crystal-clear waters are in rhythmic balance with translucent currents of refracted light and bubbles.

With a background in classical music, studying at the Tokyo Conservatory of Music and later the University of Washington School of Music, Namkung possessed a penchant for visual composition as well. However, his studies of nature are more than mere documentation, they express “the impression of sound, music, emotion or philosophy.”2 In a 1989 interview he described his attraction to the “beauty in the lowly humble clumps of, or groups of plants, and weeds, and things like that. I think that is the essence or a component of a great nature.”3

Namkung’s work will be on view in the upcoming special exhibition, Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water, opening March 18 at our downtown location. Showcasing a diverse range of artists and practices, the exhibition examines water’s pleasures and perils, as well as its changing role in our lives.

– Elisabeth Smith, SAM Collections and Provenance Associate


1 Seattle Weather Blog, “2022 Rainfall,” https://www.seattleweatherblog.com/rain-stats/rainfall-2022/.

2 Delores Tarzan Ament, “Namkung, Johsel (1919-2013),” HistoryLink.org, March 3, 2003, https://www.historylink.org/File/5346.

3 Archives of American Art, “Oral history interview with Johsel Namkung, 1989 Oct. 5-1991 Feb. 25,” https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-johsel-namkung-12201#transcript.

Image: Yakima River at Thorp, WA, January 17, 1980, 1980, Johsel Namkung, Chromogenic digital laser print, 40 × 50 in., Gift of Barney A. Ebsworth, 2006.114 © Johsel Namkung.

Muse/News: Art of Folding, Artists in Storefronts, and Rembrandt’s Close-Up

SAM News

You’ve got just under a month to see Imogen Cunningham: A Retrospective, closing February 6 at SAM! Catch up on why this exhibition is a can’t-miss with KING5; curator Carrie Dedon recently appeared on both New Day NW and Evening Magazine to share her love for the photographer.

While you’re there, check out the collection galleries, including Folding Into Shape: Japanese Design and Crafts. The Seattle Times’ Jade Yamazaki Stewart recently visited the show, connecting the works on view with childhood memories of intricately wrapped onigiri.

“Folding, wrapping, layering, and weaving are part of some of life’s most important events in Japan: birth, marriage and death. At such significant times in one’s life, the care taken to fold, wrap and layer shows respect and consideration. This carefulness, and astounding craftsmanship, is on full display at the exhibition.”

And finally, here’s the Seattle Times’ list of “13 Seattle-area arts-and-culture events to look forward to in 2022.” Brendan Kiley recommends Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water, SAM’s next special exhibition that opens March 18.

Local News

Here’s Rain Embuscado for the Seattle Times on “Why ‘people have been craving’ Seattle’s First Thursday Art Walks.”

Margo Vansynghel of Crosscut floats to the Belltown studio housing Moth & Myth, a paper butterfly business creating beautiful swarms for customers and galleries.

Amanda Omg for South Seattle Emerald reports on the recent launch of Seattle Restored, a program from the City of Seattle “focused on activating vacant commercial storefronts in Downtown Seattle neighborhoods” that will “prioritize featuring BIPOC artists and entrepreneurs.” Applications are open and on a rolling basis, so get your idea in!

“This is so, so, so important for giving voice to people who might not have a voice in our society,” [Shunpike Executive Director Line] Sandsmark said. “I’ve been in many situations where I’ve been able to see how impactful the arts are in really supporting a healthy society. It’s a wonderful way to make the space available and accessible to people, to artists, who have lost so much space, who have been displaced because of gentrification, to focus on and create more opportunity for those who have had less opportunity in the past.”

Inter/National News

The lede from Artnet’s Sarah Cascone: “A year ago, before the smoke had fully cleared after a group of insurrectionists stormed the Capitol building, curators and historians were already grappling with the complicated question of how best to preserve the historical record.” Read the rest about the rapid-response collecting for January 6 artifacts.

Watch this space: ARTnews reports that a new biopic about the young Jean-Michel Basquiat is in the works, directed by Julius Onah and starring Kelvin Harrison, Jr.

Here’s the Associated Press on how a “new hi-tech photo brings Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’ up close.”

“The 717-gigapixel photo allows viewers to zoom in on Captain Frans Banninck Cocq and see how the 17th-century master put the tiniest of white dots in his eyes to give life to the painting’s main character. It also shows the minute cracks in his pupils, brought on by the passage of time.”

And Finally

A must-read: The New York Times’ Wesley Morris on Sidney Poitier.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: L. Fried.

Object of the Week: Nguzu Nguzu

News from Glasgow’s UN Climate Change conference is full of speeches, protests, and debate. Among all the words being spoken, dire predictions of rising sea levels and fresh water scarcity are two issues ringing bells at the museum as we prepare texts and concerns about an exhibition titled Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water to be featured next March. For those who want to augment the news, the exhibition aims to offer a multidimensional exploration based on selections from the museum’s permanent collection and other contemporary works that have been created to help us pause and consider how water is shaping our destiny on this planet. 

A face from the past is an example of art that leads to a haunting reality check. It’s a spirit who stares us down, with wide open eyes, while carefully holding a man’s head. Originally, this spirit was placed as the guardian of a canoe carrying up to 35 men into warfare, or on a quest to chase schools of bonito fish. The stare would have cut through the waves at the prow of the canoe and served to protect the canoe from enemies, difficult waters, or to help keep track of the silvery blue bonito who are known for their speed and unpredictability. Just as this face is adorned with exquisite patterns of shell inlay, so too was the entire canoe, which had towering prows and sterns. Moving into the 21st century, Solomon Islanders continue to create canoes that have guardian prows and vivid decoration that make for astonishing arrivals at festivals.  

However, another Solomon Island offers a tragic story, as seen in a recent BBC trip to the island of Kale. In it, we recognize how talk about the effects of rising sea levels is no longer abstract, but a lived reality.  Please stay tuned for more updates as we prepare our special exhibition for many diverse views of art devoted to water around the world.  

– Pam McClusky, Oliver E. and Pamela F. Cobb Curator of African and Oceanic Art

Image: Canoe prow figure (Nguzu Nguzu), 19th century, Melanesian, Wood, nautilus shell, 10 5/8 x 7 7/8 in., L: 5 in., Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company, 81.17.1443.

SAM Stories