Muse/News: Provoking Prints, Artful Trash, and Untold Stories

SAM News

“Visually astounding, thought-provoking.” That’s Kai Curry for NW Asian Weekly reviewing Renegade Edo and Paris: Japanese Prints and Toulouse-Lautrec, now on view at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. Get over to beautiful Volunteer Park to see these stunning prints!

And Amoako Boafo: Soul of Black Folks is on view at the Seattle Art Museum through September 10. Check out recent mentions in Seattle Medium, Crosscut, and Seattle Met

Have you gotten your tickets to SAM Remix yet? It’s this Friday! It’s The Ticket’s top pick.

Local News

Via Paul de Barros of the Seattle Times: “Peek inside KNKX’s new Seattle home by Pike Place Market.”

The Seattle Times’ Moira Macdonald brings you scenes from Sea-Meow

“More art, less trash”: Crosscut’s Scarlet Hansen on Seattle ReCreative and other area “creative reuse” centers.

“Seattle ReCreative operates like a thrift store for art supplies. The nonprofit receives donations from fine-art supplies to plastic straws, cutlery and beaded necklaces, all of which would otherwise end up in landfills.”

Inter/National News

Barry Schwabsky for Art in America: “Francoise Gilot Was More Than Picasso’s Muse—She Lived Life on Her Own Terms.”

Roslyn Sulcas for the New York Times on Koyo Kouoh’s rejuvenation of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (known as Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town.

Via Artnet’s Sarah Cascone: Check out the National Mall’s first outdoor public art show of sculptures. We want to see Wendy Red Star’s! (Hot tip: Her work is now on view in American Art: The Stories We Carry at SAM.

“‘The mall remains a symbol of our Democratic ideals as a nation. Beyond Granite: Pulling Together does not shy away from those aspects in our history that can be very hurtful to Americans. We must tell those untold stories fiercely,’ Charles Sams, director of National Park Service, said at the exhibition’s unveiling. ‘We are only stronger by our diversity. Without it, ecosystems collapse.’”

And Finally

“How to Support Maui Fire Victims from Seattle.”

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: Alborz Kamalizad.

Muse/News: Textile Messages, Gallery Futures, and Video Art

SAM News

It’s the final week for Ikat: A World of Compelling Cloth at the Seattle Art Museum! Crosscut’s Brangien Davis featured the show in her latest ArtSEA letter. 

“There are so many gorgeous garments and wall hangings here: indigo kimonos from Japan and multipatterned robes from Nigeria; astonishing cloth artworks from India, Uzbekistan and the Americas.”

We were thrilled to host Amity Addrisi and the whole crew at New Day NW recently at SAM. Check out the segment where José Carlos Diaz, Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art, takes Amity to some of the museum’s most beloved spots.

Puget Sound Business Journal names Northern Trust a Corporate Citizenship honoree for 2023; the firm; they share quotes from José Carlos Diaz and Amada Cruz, Illsley Ball Nordstrom Director and CEO, about their support of SAM.

Great minds think alike: Curiocity, Seattle’s Child, and Seattle Met all wrote up lists of the city’s best parks and bike trails, including mentions of Volunteer Park (home to the Seattle Asian Art Museum) and the Olympic Sculpture Park.

Local News

“A who’s who of the region’s arts and fashion community”: 425 Magazine’s Andrew Hoge on the Seattle Art Museum Supporters (SAMS) benefit at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, which featured a presentation of fashion designer Joseph Altuzarra’s fall collection.

Rachel Gallaher for Seattle Magazine speaks with artist and architect Iole Alessandrini, whose exhibition at SOIL Gallery—which closes this Saturday—iterates on projects held at the Olympic Sculpture Park.

Via Margo Vansynghel of the Seattle Times: “Two longtime and prominent pillars of the local art world, Linda Hodges and James Harris, announced this week they’re closing their namesake Seattle galleries.”

“‘Seattle has tremendous potential,’ Harris said. ‘Even though some of the old established people are retiring, or I’m moving away, I really feel that the visual cultural scene there is still going to flourish.’”

Inter/National News

Via the New York Times: “Can You Spot the Dog Hidden in This Picasso Painting?

NPR reports on the Supreme Court ruling against The Andy Warhol Foundation in a copyright infringement case over “fair use” of artworks

Artforum’s May cover story: Tina Rivers Ryan on Signals: How Video Transformed the World, now on view at the Museum of Modern Art.

“It helps us see ‘video art’ as something that was shaped by television—a technology and medium that was also the site of a novel public sphere—and that, like television itself, is now transitioning into a new form.”

And Finally

Heaven’s receptionist.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: Alborz Kamalizad.

Muse/News: Inclusive Art, Writing Spots, and Alma’s Energy

SAM News

Monet at Étretat is still on Seattle Met’s list of “things to do in Seattle.” Get your tickets now!

. . . And save the date for fall 2022, when SAM will debut its reinstalled American art galleries following a collaborative curation process with artists, advisors, and interns. KIRO’s Graham Johnson spotlights the project, interviewing Theresa Papanikolas, SAM’s Ann M. Barwick Curator of American Art, and Inye Wokoma, one of the three artists taking part. It’s part of their recurring series “Western Washington Gets Real.”

Local News

The Seattle Times’ Meghan Burbank reports on the recent arts forum featuring many of the mayoral candidates for the city outlining their platforms for the culture sector.

Here’s Andy Chia in the UW Daily with an installment of the history/ecology series, “Between Two Pines”; he writes about several examples of public art in Seattle green spaces, including the Noguchi sculpture and the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park.

In one of her last stories for the Stranger (what a loss!), Nathalie Graham writes about The Seattle Twitter Account Realizing the Dream of the Perfect Writing Spot.”

“In his posts, he included descriptions of the writing spot, its coordinates, and a little review of what the writer could expect. The UPS Waterfall Park in Pioneer Square, for instance, is loud. Some holey tables require something thick to write on. The tables in Westlake Park come with the ‘buzz of downtown’ and shade depending on the time of day. . . . However, his most popular post is a picnic table in a grove at Volunteer Park.”

Inter/National News

The Strange Joy of Watching the Police Drop a Picasso”: Sophie Haigney in the New York Times Magazine.

“Curator and Museum Trustee Isolde Brielmaier Has Been Named Deputy Director at the New Museum,” reports Artnet’s Eileen Kinsella.

ARTnews’ Alex Greenberger on Alma Thomas, whose vibrant abstractions are on view in a new traveling survey.

“In 1976, she made her most ambitious work, a 13-foot-long painting called Red Azaleas Singing and Dancing Rock and Roll Music…When it debuted in 1976 at New York’s Martha Jackson Gallery, critics were floored. Thomas herself was, too. ‘Do you see that painting?’ she once said of Red Azaleas. ‘Look at it move. That’s energy and I’m the one who put it there…I transform energy with these old limbs of mine.’”

And Finally

“Scary. Really, really, really scary. Did I mention it was scary?”

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: Stephanie Fink

Muse/News: Paintings in the flesh, tiny doors, and art-loving Cookie Monster

SAM News

Flesh and Blood: Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum was featured in the most recent issue of the Stranger; in her piece, Jasmyne Keimig zooms in on the “gruesome beheading” depicted in Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith and Holofernes.

“And there’s something else about being close to it, the actual object, which Gentileschi made with her own hands, just as Judith carried out Holofernes’s death with her hands. A Google image search doesn’t cut it. The power of the painting—and the perspective given through it—must be experienced in the flesh.” 

And local journalist Greg Scruggs previewed the Asian Art Museum project for architecture outlet Metropolis.

“There’s a lot that the visitor can’t see that is just as important: all the infrastructure that makes this historic jewel a thoroughly modern museum, equipped to safely display delicate artworks,” [SAM Director and CEO Amada] Cruz said. “The reimagined building will allow us to better fulfill our mission to connect visitors to the art and cultures of Asia.” 

Local News

Gabriel Campanario, AKA Seattle Sketcher, finds the most recent “tiny door” from street artist Mows510, along the Fremont Bridge.

Margo Vansynghel debuts as an official Crosscut writer covering arts and culture with this look at the pushback from some in the film community to Seattle City Hall’s new “creative economy” strategy.

The Stranger’s Rich Smith reviews Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Locally Sourced, which closed this past weekend. He mostly loved it.

“It was all a liiiiittle on the corny side, I must admit, but it was hard not to get swept up in this impressive celebration of our green-gothic corner of the world.”

Inter/National News

The Feminist Art Coalition will “promote feminist art exhibitions, performances, and programs around the country ahead of the 2020 presidential election.” SAM is participating in this online effort.

ARTnews announced that Ashley James has been hired as associate curator of contemporary art at the Guggenheim Museum. She is the first Black curator hired to the museum’s staff.

French-Chinese cultural collaborations continue with the announcement of a new museum opening in Beijing in 2020, focusing on Picasso and Giacometti.

“[An earlier show] also unveiled an important new body of research revealing an unknown relationship between the two artists, who first met in the early 1930s and, despite having a 20-year age difference, formed a strong bond, writing to each other often about their artistic creations and arguing over the return of realism after World War II.”

And Finally

Cookie Monster is . . . one of us.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Installation view Flesh and Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum, Seattle Art Museum, 2019, photo: Natali Wiseman.

How Picasso Brought Masks to Europe and Left the Masquerade Behind

Throughout the 20th century, vast collections of African masks made their way into foreign lands and are now on display as the heads of missing bodies. Masks are constantly seen in museums and galleries, on eBay, and at sidewalk sales. In this dislocated state, African masks have sometimes found themselves cast in roles that are shockingly counter to their original intent.

One example is Pablo Picasso’s work Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907; Museum of Modern Art, New York), a painting lauded as one of the catalysts in 20th-century art. Pablo Picasso’s decision to take the features of African masks and place them on two naked women was revolutionary, the first step in the radical transformation of space and volume that would become Cubism.

One wonders what would have happened if Picasso hadn’t separated the masks from the masquerade. What if, instead, a full masquerade had come to Paris? For the sake of speculation, let’s imagine the visit of a Dan masquerader from the Ivory Coast, known as a Ge, whose masks were common in French collections. Drummers and singers would escort the Ge masquerader as he moved quickly through the streets to Picasso’s studio. He would have donned a massive costume of raffia grasses, feathers, and fur accents to underscore that he was not from any normal human realm but from the sacred forests. Bells and drums, shouts and songs would contribute to the blur of fast-moving activity that halted in front of the artist’s door.

Pounding to be let in, the Ge would speak in a grave and distorted voice, while a translator would shout a demand to open the door. Picasso would be pushed aside as the Ge entered the room, and pandemonium would break out as African eyes beheld masks like their own were depicted atop the naked bodies of two women with pale skin.

With outrage and confusion spreading, everyone would turn to gauge the reaction of the Ge, the supreme authority. He would stop and stare, then order everyone except Picasso and the translator to leave the studio. The Ge would then sit on the group and gesture for Picasso to sit nearby as he explained a few things.

First: no mask was ever to be worn by a woman, and most definitely not a naked woman in the middle of a room with other naked women. Defying all proper behavior, this breach of etiquette required immediate correction, so songs and offerings for women would be prescribed.

The Ge would ask Picasso why he put masks on such women and who they were. Picasso might bring up difficulties with the women in his life, and how he’d been looking at pictures of masks in books and at a museum, then had collected a postcard of naked women from a place called Dahomey, marveling at their sleek bodies but also worrying about the diseases circulating in the bordellos of Paris.

In response, the Ge might offer practical advice about how to manage relationships and to seek alliances with spirits that would inspire joy instead of dark fears. He could also explain that masks were not to be bought and sold; instead, they were intended to initiate visitations from beings who would emerge from the forests to contribute their wisdom in times of confusion.
Days and weeks might pass as the Ge transferred aspects from the system of thought from the Côte d’Ivoire. It was his role to teach younger men ways to operate in the world, and he would have found Picasso’s troubled mind in need of adjustment. To alleviate some of the artist’s perplexity about life, the Ge would recommend that he consider attending a school convened in the forest, where he would learn about his responsibilities as a young man, how to survive in difficult circumstances, what it takes to manage a family, when and how to show respect for women, the practical skills of life, and all about the art of performance as a means to express visions of human aspiration. Picasso would be offered a chance to immerse himself in a masquerade that was a school, a system, and an overriding ideal.

Instead of this full-bodied experience, Picasso invented his own approach to African masks and sculptures. Masks became heads without any voice or body. They became voiceless ambassadors, who were often cast as characters in other’s artistic fantasies.

Admittedly, exporting an entire masquerade is difficult and can be inappropriate at times. Masquerades are intensely local, requiring special staging developed within communities that invest massive time and effort in them, often in deepest secrecy. They rely on collaborations among a multitude of talented artists who devote their creativity to performers whose identities are concealed, and transporting this cast and crew is not easy.

Artists today in the United States and across the globe are working with new interpretations of disguises that play out in creative ways. They are using digital mediums to bring masquerades into places where they have never been before, and creating new meanings as they empower new actors—such as women—to participate. They adapt iconography from multiple cultures and influences, weaving together inspiration from their family’s varied histories, the far-flung cities and rural areas in which they’ve lived, and artistic traditions from across the globe.

It’s a heady mixture of inspiring havoc. It’s a moving, whirling parade that invites us to respond—to take up or take off our own daily disguises and participate.

This is an edited excerpt of the essay, “Meet Me Where the Masks Are Alive and the Spirits Roam Free,” written by Pamela McClusky, Curator of African and Oceanic Art for the Seattle Art Museum. The essay is included in the exhibition guide, Disguise: Masks & Global African Art.

Disguise: Masks & Global African Art is on view at the Seattle Art Museum. See this dynamic unfixed exhibition before it departs for the Fowler Museum at UCLA in Los Angeles on September 7.

Winning, SAM style

The Seattle Art Museum won first prize in the 2011 American Association of Museums Publications Design Competition for our “Kurt” exhibition poster designed by SAM graphic designer Rebecca Nickels.

While a certain actor’s career took a nosedive, SAM won a number of awards recognizing the outstanding work of our Communications team.

American Association of Museums Publications Design Competition
May 2011

  • Posters category: KURT poster
    First Prize
  • Educational Resources category: SAM Kids Events Campaign
    Honorable mention
  • Invitations category: PICASSO Suite of Invitations
    Honorable mention Read More

Picasso Exhibition Generated $66 million Economic Impact in Washington State

The recent exhibition, Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris, generated an estimated $66 million in economic impact for Washington State, of which $58 million was generated in King County, according to an economic impact study commissioned by SAM.

The study, prepared by University of Washington professor William B. Beyers, clearly demonstrates that a major arts event can stimulate the economy in multiple ways. The critically acclaimed exhibition was on view October 8, 2010 -January 17, 2011, and ranks as the most highly attended show in the history of SAM Downtown, attracting 405,000 visitors including nearly 20,000 school children and boosting the museum’s membership to an all time high of more than 48,000 households.

Get more details:

SAM’s Mobile Engagement Strategies for Picasso Get Positive Review

Jay Holcomb from local mobile marketing agency Knovolo discusses how SAM incorporated mobile into the Picasso exhibition experience with Microsoft Tag and a mobile website. Read his entire review at http://sh0w.me/mobile-at-SAM

Did you use your mobile phone to access information about the Picasso exhibition? If so, what did you think? Do you want SAM to create more ways to interact with the museum using your phone?

Our Summer with SAM

This summer, two very bright and curious high school seniors helped out in the museum’s curatorial division. Milo and Henry spent their summer helping organize our object records, and researching several works in the SAM collection. Here, they write about their experience.
 
SAM Stories