A Modern Champion: Virginia Wright (1929–2020)

With a heavy heart, we share the news of the passing of Virginia Wright, a pillar of the SAM family. Virginia and her late husband Bagley played pivotal roles in the development, vibrancy, and accomplishments of the Seattle Art Museum for more than half a century. Beyond being generous contributors, the Wrights’ greatest impact on SAM is seen in the art of the collection and in the art shown. Virginia was among a very small group of people who, in the 1960s, pushed SAM to create its first modern and contemporary art program. Virginia and Bagley also contributed to the purchase of many important acquisitions over the years. Above all else, the Wrights amassed one of the most important collections of modern and contemporary art in the world (over 200 works), all purchased with SAM in mind as the collection’s eventual home. When the bulk of it came to SAM in 2014, forming the backbone of its modern and contemporary collection, SAM was transformed from a great institution into a truly remarkable one.

Earlier this month, Virginia said, “When I think about the future of the Wright Collection at SAM, I put my trust in the artists. I trust that future generations will value their work, that SAM will continue to provide meaningful access to it, and that the conversations that their work has inspired will continue.” We are honored by her faith in Seattle’s museum and, because of her support over the last 60 years, we are confident that we can live up to the legacy she established.

Born in Seattle and raised in British Columbia, Virginia went East for college and majored in art history. Out of college, she worked for Sidney Janis Gallery in Manhattan and began collecting art. Mark Rothko’s abstract painting Number 10 (1952) was one of her early, daring purchases and it is now part of SAM’s collection.

Virginia has been a SAM member since 1951. She began docent training in 1957 and led her first public tour in 1959. In 1959, the Wrights made their first-ever gift to SAM’s collection: Room with White Table (1953) by William Ward Corley. That year they also provided funding for SAM to acquire Winter’s Leaves of the Winter of 1944 (at the time titled Leaves Before Autumn Wind) by Morris Graves.

In 1964, she and a group of friends persuaded then-director Richard Fuller to let her start the Contemporary Art Council (CAC), a group of collectors at the museum. For the next decade, it functioned as the museum’s first modern art department. The CAC sponsored lectures and supported the first exhibitions of Op art and conceptual art in Seattle. It also brought the popular Andy Warhol Portraits exhibition to Seattle in 1976, among many other important exhibitions. Her role in bringing great art to the Seattle Art Museum also involved the curation of two solo exhibitions for Morris Louis (in 1967) and William Ivey (in 1975).

Virginia joined SAM’s board in 1960, making 2020 her 60th anniversary with the Seattle Art Museum. She temporarily stepped away in 1972 when her husband Bagley joined the Board and rejoined in 1982. She served as President of the Board from 1987–90. Virginia was President of SAM’s Board of Trustees from 1986–1992, years that coincided with the construction and opening of the downtown Robert Venturi building in 1991—the museum’s first major transformation since its opening in 1933 and a major shift in Seattle’s cultural life to downtown First Avenue (with the Symphony soon following).

In 1999, SAM mounted an exhibition of the Wright Collection (The Virginia and Bagley Wright Collection of Modern Art, March 4–May 9, 1999). The Wrights’ entire art collection—the largest single collection of modern and contemporary art in the region—has been gradually donated (and the balance of the collection promised) to the Seattle Art Museum. A significant portion of the collection came to the museum in 2014 when the Wrights’ private exhibition space closed.

When the Seattle Art Museum opened the Olympic Sculpture Park in 2007, many works from the Wrights’ collection were installed there, including Mark di Suvero’s Bunyon’s Chess (1965) and Schubert Sonata (1992), as well as works by Ellsworth Kelly, Tony Smith, Anthony Caro, and Roxy Paine.

SAM’s ongoing exhibition Big Picture: Art After 1945 draws from the Wrights’ transformative gift of over 100 works and is a reminder of their incredible generosity.

Virginia was an active board member up to the end of her life, regularly attending meetings and advising the museum in many important endeavors. About SAM Virginia said, “It’s always been the main arena. I never wanted to break off and start a museum. I wanted to push the museum we already had into being more responsive to contemporary art.” And SAM would like to acknowledge that she did just that, leaving an undeniable mark on the cultural landscape of the entire Pacific Northwest.

As Amada Cruz, SAM’s Illsley Ball Nordstrom Director and CEO, says, “Even having only been in Seattle for a short time, it’s clear that Virginia Wright’s impact on the city and on SAM is beyond measure. Her legacy, and that of her late husband Bagley, is seen in both the very walls and on the walls of the downtown museum, and it fills the Olympic Sculpture Park’s landscapes. I’m honored to have been able to know her and of her hopes for SAM’s continued future.”

Muse/News: Kismet at the Asian Art Museum, big stone hands, and bro-ramics

SAM News

The Seattle Asian Art Museum is now reopened, and we are still excited. Jennifer S. Li wrote about the “fresh and relevant” museum for ArtAsiaPacific.

“[The curators] orchestrated moments of kismet, discovery, and wonder, with space for visitors’ personal revelations as they interacted with the reinstallation.”

Eve M. Kahn has a lively and thorough look for Apollo Magazine of the reimagined museum.

And given Seattle’s complicated history of changing attitudes toward immigrants and visitors from the rest of the Pacific Rim, Foong [Ping, curator of Asian art] notes, ‘It’s very meaningful to have an Asian art museum in this city.’”

This week’s edition of Real Change features the Asian Art Museum, with this story from Kelly Knickerbocker.

“With the renovated building came an opportunity to start completely from scratch,” Foong said. “People kept asking, ‘Did you just go on holiday when the museum closed?’ It’s quite the opposite.”

The Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig often takes a look at what’s “Currently Hanging”; here she is on Faig Ahmed’s Oiling, which is now on view in Be/longing: Contemporary Asian Art.

Mayumi Tsutakawa wrote for the South Seattle Emerald about Gather, the Garden Court’s new LED-light installation, which was created by her son, Kenzan Tsutakawa-Chinn.

Local News

“Do Sh*t Alone,” says the Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig, recommending the joys of seeing art, movies, and music solo.

The Seattle Times’ Crystal Paul reviews Excluded, Inside the Lines, the Wing Luke’s exhibition on redlining and housing discrimination in Seattle that closes February 23.

Katie Kurtz interviews artist Dan Webb about his massive foray into stonework; his granite hands will soon grace Sound Transit’s Redmond Technology Station. Very cool visuals by Matt M. McKnight, too!

“They are my hands for a reason. Moving your boulder is a very personal subject and everybody’s got a boulder to move. It’s very literal,” Webb says.

Inter/National News

A look back for the #BongHive: Here’s Gary Indiana for Artforum in 2007, reflecting on the “Gogol in Seoul” sensibilities of director Bong Joon-ho.

The New York Times’ Elizabeth A. Harris reports on repercussions from the coronavirus hitting the art world.

Artnet’s Katie White from the frontlines of “bro-ramics”; apparently, Hollywood dudes are really into making ceramics? Of course, it’s a medium that has been dominated by women for centuries.  

“The popularity may wax and wane, but I don’t think we’ll return to anything like the material biases that existed in the late 20th century…and Seth Rogen will turn to underwater basket-weaving, eventually.”

And Finally

Cristofano Allori’s “breakup song” version of the oft-painted Judith and Holofernes.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: Jueqian Fang

Muse/News: We heart Asian art, keepers of the dream, and Parasite’s art

SAM News

The Seattle Asian Art Museum is officially reopen! Thank you to the thousands of people who streamed through the reimagined galleries at the free housewarming event last weekend. The museum starts regular hours on Wednesday, February 12.

“I felt freed, well, just to look”: Stefan Milne examines Boundless at the Asian Art Museum and The American War at ARTS at King Street Station, which both “explore how we see Asia.”

Seattle Refined shot a recent episode from the museum, including a fantastic segment with SAM curators Foong Ping and Xiaojin Wu (starts at :40).

And ParentMap’s JiaYing Grygiel has this charming look at the museum through the eyes of kids and families.

Local News

I Google this every Oscars season. Here’s a breakdown from the Seattle Times on those harder-to-understand categories.

The Stranger’s Charles Mudede on the work of Marisa Williamson, who has two shows on view in Seattle at SOIL Gallery and Jacob Lawrence Gallery.

Crosscut’s Margo Vansynghel on the new local documentary, Keepers of the Dream: Seattle Women Black Panthers, which premiered last Friday at Northwest Film Forum and will screen again on February 20.

“Women were critical to the survival of the organization,” [Robyn] Spencer says. “They were the movers, the shakers, the theorists, the thinkers, the organizers — they were keeping the party going.”

Inter/National News

Artist Beverly Pepper died this week at 97. Two of her works grace the Olympic Sculpture Park. Here’s Artnet’s obituary for the legendary sculptor.

Here’s Artnet on director Bong Joon-ho’s use of suseok, or “scholar’s rocks” in his Oscar-winning film Parasite.

The New York Times’ Roberta Smith on the late, Seattle-born painter Noah Davis, whose work is again on view in a “big, beautiful exhibition” at David Zwirner.

“Your eyes and mind enter them easily and roam through the different layers of brushwork and narrative suggestion. There’s an unexpected optimism to all this. The paintings also dwell in silence, slow us down and hypnotize.”

And Finally

Did you know that the Asian Art Museum will screen this film on February 26? Well, we will!

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: Jueqian Fang

Muse/News: The Asian Art Museum debuts, a conductor’s big moves, and exploring Material Art

SAM News

The Seattle Asian Art Museum reopens to the public this weekend with a free two-day celebration. 10,000 free tickets for the housewarming event have been claimed, but the museum reopens with regular hours on Wednesday, February 12.

SAM welcomed press to see the reimagined and reinstalled museum this week, and the coverage is everywhere, including The New York Times, The Seattle Times, The Art Newspaper, Architectural Digest, Vanguard, Puget Sound Business Journal, and more. Seattle Channel’s CityStream hosted a special edition with guest host Lori Mastukawa from inside the Asian Art Museum, interviewing SAM curators Foong Ping and Xiaojin Wu.

“The larger questions we’re asking for this reopening are, ‘Where is Asia? What is Asia?’” says Xiaojin Wu, the curator of Japanese and Korean art at the museum. “We’re showing how the borders are fluid throughout history.” –From The Art Newspaper

“When the Asian Art Museum opens on Saturday, the architects hope that previous visitors will see their museum in a new light. Says Amada Cruz, CEO and director of the Seattle Art Museum, ‘We could not be more excited to open the doors of the museum and welcome everyone back.’” –Elizabeth Fazzare, Architectural Digest

“With so much to see and contemplate in the Seattle Asian Art Museum, there needed to be space to let the mind wander into a void for a bit. The experience would not be complete without it. The curators and architects all should be commended for seeing through a new vision that will expand audience’s awareness of Asia, but also remind them that the human pursuit of beauty and the sublime is, indeed, timeless and boundless.” –T.s. Flock, Vanguard

Local News

Crosscut shares a story—and impressive footage—of Seattle Symphony’s new conductor, Thomas Dausgaard, who “feels the music in his hair.”

The Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig devotes a recent edition of “Currently Hanging” to Amerocco, one of the incredible pieces in Aaron Fowler: Into Existence, now on view at SAM downtown.

For Seattle Met, Charlie Lahud-Zahner visits the Sea Mar Museum of Chicano/a/Latino/a Culture, and finds catharsis.

“As a Latinx Seattleite often feeling like the last brown unicorn in the Ballard Trader Joe’s, and on the lookout for authentic representation, this south side museum is a godsend.”

Inter/National News

Have you checked out Artnet’s Art Angle Podcast? Here’s the latest episode, exploring “How the Art World Fell Under the Spell of the Occult.”

The New York Times’ Fabrice Robinet explores the international meetups TypeThursday, which brings together people who really care about fonts. A lot.

Jennifer Li reviews Allure of Matter for ArtAsiaPacific; the exhibition is now on view at LACMA and heads to SAM this summer.

“With works that emphasized the immaterial, or the breakdown of matter, the exhibition begged the question: how applicable is the term Material Art? It seems that at this early stage, the label may conjure more questions than answers.”

 And Finally

We Heart Asian Art.

Installation view of “Be/Longing: Contemporary Asian Art” at the Asian Art Museum, 2020, photo: Natali Wiseman.

Muse/News: The Asian Art Museum prepares, art preachers & martyrs, & #DollyPartonChallenge

SAM News

Check out this week’s edition of the International Examiner, with a special section on the Asian Art Museum that reopens on February 8. It includes articles on Be/longing, the building itself, the Gardner Center, a know-you-before-you-go for the opening weekend events, and a special thank-you from SAM. Articles on Boundless and the conservation center should hit online tomorrow—see everything in print now.

Farewell, Flesh and Blood. T.s. Flock of Vanguard had one last round-up of “grim highlights” from the exhibition that closed on Sunday. Up next downtown: John Akomfrah: Future History.  

Local News

Seattle Times’ Megan Burbank heads to Twisp to explore the artsy, the sustainable, and the inventive of its communities.

“Preacher of the arts”: Crosscut’s Margo Vansynghel interviews Raymond Tymas-Jones, president of Cornish College of the Arts, who has a bold plan for the institution’s future.

Margo also recently visited with the local performers who came together to form the Art Martyrs Relief Society.

“The concept of their endeavor . . . is simple: Put together one show a year with a kickass lineup, pay the performers royally, preach the gospel that working artists deserve a fair wage, have a damn good time and repeat.”

Inter/National News

Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle is now on view at the Peabody Essex Museum. Reviews landed from the Washington Post’s Sebastian Smee and the Boston Globe’s Murray Whyte. The exhibition travels to SAM next year.

Barack and Michelle are going on tour! Hyperallergic’s Hakim Bishara reports on the five-city tour of their official portraits by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, which kicks off in June 2021.

Bethan Ryder for the Guardian on projects around the world integrating museums and interactive learning experiences.

“After a long pause a nine-year-old said: ‘Objects have rights.’ The phrase has stuck. It captures both the need to conserve objects and to consider them as active participants in the museum experience.”

And Finally

Museums take the #DollyPartonChallenge. (SAM’s was the best).

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: Jueqian Fang

Muse/News: Gory and glorious at SAM, the Henry’s “big deal” curator, and when the museum is about to close

SAM News

“Absolutely nails its subject matter—and stabs it, too.” Vanguard Seattle’s T.s. Flock has an in-depth review of Flesh and Blood: Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum. The exhibition closes January 26!

In February, SAM reopens the doors of the Asian Art Museum. Galerie includes the opening on their list of “11 Major Art Museums Opening in 2020.” And The Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig shares “four things you should know” about the reimagined museum.

“You won’t want to miss these shows”: Artnet recommends 21 museum shows opening in 2020 across the US—including John Akomfrah: Future History, SAM’s major exhibition of video works by the internationally celebrated artist.

Local News

Seattle poet Sarah Galvin has an opinion piece in Crosscut that asks, “as the promise of affordability fades, can the magic of the mid-2000s be reclaimed?”

The Stranger’s Rich Smith has all the details on the Seattle Public Library’s announcement that it will no longer have overdue fees.

Gayle Clemans for the Seattle Times on In Plain Sight at the Henry Art Gallery, the first large-scale exhibition by senior curator Shamim Momin since joining the Henry in 2018.

“What does it mean to dig beyond that, to tell different stories in a different way — by whom and for whom? All of that is very present in the work that I do.”

 Inter/National News

Cecilia Alemani, the curator of New York’s High Line, has been named the curator of the next edition of the Venice Biennale.

Christopher Green for Art in America on Stretching the Canvas at the National Museum of the American Indian, a new long-term exhibition of modern paintings by Native artists.

Jason Farago of the New York Times on Trump’s threatening of Iranian cultural sites—“unambiguously, a war crime”—and the response from many in the museum field.

“Murdering one person, or a hundred people, is not enough for some; murdering history delivers another kind of damage.”

 And Finally

Too real.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: Jen Au.

SAM Connects Community to Gallery Spaces

SAM’s Community Gallery has been displaying work from artists of all ages located throughout Washington State for over a decade. Shows featuring photography, mixed media, sewing and textile arts, ceramics, and 2-D and 3-D mixed media have filled this space over the years. Youth, SAM staff and volunteers, community organizations, nonprofits supporting arts programming, and schools and classes have had their art displayed on the ground floor of SAM’s downtown location, serving as a colorful reminder of creativity and community building.

2019 staff art show

Before I worked at SAM, I installed a show in the Community Gallery representing a multitude of different artists who connected with the Yesler Terrace community and beyond. It brought many community members to SAM for the first time and the artists involved in the show expressed the feeling of importance that came with having their work displayed in the museum.

With the beginning of a new decade, SAM is taking a new approach to the Community Gallery. We are working to show art from communities and artists who are underrepresented in the museum world due to systematic oppression. We are looking for artwork by and for artists of color, queer artists, disabled artists, youth and elderly artists, immigrant and refugee
communities, and low-income artists.

Naramore award ceremony, May 2019

We now have a simple application that outlines our equity goals for the space and how the Community Gallery can be used. Take a look at our call for art to learn more and apply to hang your community’s artwork downtown at SAM.

We are also adding more Community Gallery space in a city where art spaces are becoming more and more tenuous. The renovation and expansion of the Seattle Asian Art Museum created a new, additional Community Gallery space. Once it opens in February, the Asian Art Museum Community Gallery will feature works by and for the Asian Pacific Islander community in Seattle throughout its inaugural year.

We’ll also be curating our first youth-focused gallery space downtown, featuring a Teen Arts Group-curated exhibition of youth artists for its premiere show. SAM is always working to extend and expand the accessibility and connections within our community and the updated Community Gallery guidelines are one way we can’t wait to share with you!

– Jenn Charoni, SAM Public Engagement Associate

Photos: Jen Au & Natali Wiseman

Muse/News: Majesty at SAM, beyond Bollywood at MOHAI, and stories of Asia

SAM News

“Magisterial and filled with drama”: The Wall Street Journal’s Judith Dobrzynski explores Jusepe de Ribera’s Saint Jerome in the paper’s “Masterpiece” column; you can see the incredible painting at SAM in Flesh and Blood: Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum, on view through January 26.

“The wrinkles on his face, his palms and his right heel are visible, as are the toenails on his forward foot. His setting may be remote, but this Jerome is a real human being.”

The Seattle Times’ Brendan Kiley has “5 Seattle-area arts events to look forward to in 2020” and leads with the Asian Art Museum reopening.

In case you missed it: The Seattle Times’ December 21 print edition featured photojournalist Alan Berner’s behind-the-scenes look at the Do Ho Suh installation in progress with Liz Brown

David Carrier for Hyperallergic on the “endlessly inventive” Jörg Immendorff, whose solo show is now on view in Madrid; his Café Deutschland 38. Parteitag, just added to SAM’s collection in honor of Kim Rorschach, is now on view. 

Local News

Crosscut’s Margo Vansynghel on the new art installations at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport that will be giving the airport a first-class upgrade.

It’s Hot Toddy time, declares the Stranger’s Rich Smith.

Sharmila Mukherjee for the Seattle Times reviews Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation, on view at MOHAI through January 26.

“The most compelling aspect of the show is its focus on faces. Radiant faces loom out from images on the walls. At a time when immigrants are being described as dangerous, faceless people, these faces ask visitors to pause and look.”

Inter/National News

Artnet’s Sarah Cascone rounds up all the artworks now entering the public domain.

Hannah Brown for Vox on the year in protests—and the art that inspired and was inspired by them.

The New York Times’ Will Heinrich reviews the Brooklyn Museum’s reinstallation of its Chinese and Japanese collections, calling it “5,000 Years of Asian Art in 1 Single, Thrilling Conversation.”

“Redesigning an American museum’s Asian wing is no mean feat. How to convey the very real throughlines that make terms as broad as ‘Chinese art’ and ‘Japanese art’ meaningful, while also doing justice to the staggering variety of these ancient, and hugely populous, cultures?”

And Finally

Elena Ferrante, Beyoncé, and emoji: The Atlantic’s Culture desk takes on the pop culture of the 2010s.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Saint Jerome, 1626, Jusepe de Ribera, Spanish, 1591–1652, oil on canvas, 105 1/8 × 64 9/16 in., Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte

Muse/News: The art of Mingei, Kusama lost and found, and background

SAM News

The Crosscut team features chill events that will help you escape the hubbub of the holidays, including a silent disco party, a bonsai solstice, and a new SAM installation of elevated craftworks, Exceptionally Ordinary: Mingei 1920–2020.

The Seattle Review of Books is asking local luminaries, “if you could give everyone in Seattle one book as a gift this holiday season, what book would you choose and why?” Here are selections from Amada Cruz, SAM’s Illsley Ball Nordstrom Director and CEO.

Local News

After 40 years, the Pike Place newsstand is closing. Your final chance to buy a magazine, a pack of gum, or a tote is December 31.

Moira Macdonald and Bethany Jean Clement of the Seattle Times take their “Dinner at a Movie” series to the ballet. Mentioned: mouse cookies, orange-flame tutus, and all the adorable children in bows.

Go see Paul Rucker’s Forever at Greg Kucera before it closes on Saturday. The Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig wrote about this “compelling” show of 15 “commemorative stamps” that feature the faces of Civil Rights-era figures.

“While remembering people like Pratt or Mississippi activist Medgar Evers by erecting a bronze statue or naming a park after them is also meaningful and important, there’s something about the domesticity and “everyday-ness” of a face on a stamp that’s just as appealing. It carries emotional power.”

Inter/National News

Researchers from University College London (UCL) studying aging found that “people who engaged in the arts more frequently had a 31% lower risk of dying early when compared to those who didn’t.”

The “inside-out” trend continues: Nina Siegal for the New York Times on Rotterdam’s Boijmans van Beuningen Museum and its forthcoming “Depot,” which will house completely open-to-the-public collection storage.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum found four small paintings by Yayoi Kusama in a manila envelope. Can you imagine?!

“I got an email saying ‘You need to come look at this right now!’” said [Melissa] Ho in a phone conversation.

And Finally

Whatever you celebrate, don’t forget your background singers.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Installation view Exceptionally Ordinary: Mingei 1920–2020, Seattle Art Museum, 2019, photo: Nina Dubinsky.

The Kimerly Rorschach Fund for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

In September 2019, Kimerly Rorschach, SAM’s Illsley Ball Nordstrom Director and CEO, retired after seven years of leading the institution and an illustrious 25-year career in the arts. When Rorschach joined SAM in November 2012, she set her sights on creating a schedule of exhibitions and programs for the museum’s three locations that was compelling and timely and that would resonate with a rapidly growing and diversifying Seattle community. 

During her tenure, equity and inclusion also became top priorities. As part of a commitment to building racial equity, addressing institutional racism, and bringing forth real change, she led the museum’s participation in Turning Commitment into Action, a cohort led and funded by the Office of Arts & Culture in partnership with Office for Civil Rights in 2015. After taking part in this important cohort, SAM established a staff leadership team dedicated to these efforts, and hired Priya Frank as Associate Director for Community Programs in the museum’s Education department and also appointed her the founding chair of the newly established Equity Team.

Beginning in 2016, SAM established racial equity training for the staff, volunteers, docent corps, and Board of Trustees. The museum also created special exhibition advisory committees to ensure that diverse community voices are part of the exhibition, programming, and marketing planning processes. Equity was added to the museum’s official values statement and integrated into the institution’s strategic plan, which guides all departments’ goals. The Emerging Arts Leader internship was also established, a paid internship aimed at candidates who are underrepresented in the museum field. These are just some of the ongoing efforts that Rorschach led the museum in pursuing.

In honor of Rorschach’s extraordinary vision in guiding the museum’s dedication to equity work, the SAM Board of Trustees, along with friends of Rorschach, have created an endowment that establishes permanent funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at SAM. The Kimerly Rorschach Fund for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion helps ensure that these efforts will continue at the museum and paves the way for SAM to be a leader in this crucial area of the arts.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: Scott Areman

Muse/News: Café con leche, Kenny G, and ancient art discovered in Sulawesi

SAM News

Amada Cruz, SAM’s Illsley Ball Nordstrom Director and CEO, was interviewed by Puget Sound Business Journal. She shared her vision for museums, her morning routine of café con leche and public radio, and other fun facts.

“We should think of museums as civic spaces where all kinds of people can meet, convene, have a shared experience and celebrate our shared humanities. That’s more important now than ever.”

“She speaks five languages — ‘three of them badly.’”

How’s your holiday shopping going? The Seattle Times recently shared their Holiday Gift Guide; among their recommendations for gifts for men is a SAM Shop-exclusive, a Seattle edition of the chic reusable water bottle, Phil the Bottle.

Local News

Crosscut’s Agueda Pacheco Flores interviewed Kenny G. Enough said.

“The Terminal 86 Grain Facility Is Hideous. It Must Be Painted” declares Gregory Scruggs in the Stranger. He argues that the facility near the Olympic Sculpture Park is the only “loose end” in the plan for the downtown waterfront.

The Seattle Times’ Scott Greenstone on Collaboration on Canvas, a new show at CORE Gallery, an exhibition of collaborative paintings by homeless people, social workers, and volunteers.

“It was community, and a bunch of women sharing space and time, and doing something together,” Giller said. “It was different every time, but it was always a good feeling.”

Inter/National News

From Artforum’s December print edition, here are 34 artists reflecting on their favorite exhibitions and events of 2019—including Natalie Ball on Guadalupe Maravilla and Judy Chicago on John Akomfrah’s Vertigo Sea.

Artnet’s Katie White on Homage to the Great Latin-American Masters at Houston’s Art of the World Gallery; the exhibition explores the complexity of classifying borderless Latin American art.

An archaeological study of dozens of caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi has turned up visionary examples of art—perhaps the oldest known figurative art made by modern humans.

“Scrambling up a fig tree vine, he found his way into a small grotto. Its far wall bore a panel, painted with a red ocher pigment. When Aubert saw it, he was astounded. ‘I thought, wow, it’s like a whole scene,’ he says. ‘You’ve got humans, or maybe half-human half-animals, hunting or capturing these animals … it was just amazing.’”

And Finally

The Cloud Appreciation Society.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: Natali Wiseman

Muse/News: New art at SAM, a lavender palette, and Donald Byrd’s America

SAM News

Two installations debut at SAM this week:

Susan Delson previews Exceptionally Ordinary: Mingei 1920–2020 for the Wall Street Journal, interviewing curator Xiaojin Wu about the movement’s “intimate beauty of honest craft.” The show opens on Saturday.

Aaron Fowler: Into Existence “gleefully disrupts standard boundaries between painting and sculpture,” says Seattle Met, recommending the solo show of the 2019 Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence Prize-winner as one of the “Top Things to Do This December.” The show opens on Friday.

Local News

Seattle Met’s cover story for December is “The 30 Women Who Shaped Seattle,” including women with connections to SAM such as Guendolen Carkeek Plestcheeff and Zoë Dusanne.

Crosscut’s Agueda Pacheco Flores reports on the Snoqualmie Tribe’s acquisition of Eighth Generation; it was announced concurrent with Governor Inslee’s proclamation of Native Arts Week in Washington State.

The Seattle Times’ Brendan Kiley reviews The Lavender Palette, a new exhibition at Cascadia Art Museum curated by David Martin. It features early- to mid-20th-century gay and lesbian artists from the Pacific Northwest.

“Honestly, I wanted to avenge them,” Martin said. “At Cascadia, you will never see wall text that says ‘Morris Graves and his close friend’ like a lot of museums do — even in New York and Los Angeles, even in Seattle. No. Here you will always see ‘Morris Graves and his boyfriend’ or ‘and his partner.’

Inter/National News

Artnet’s Taylor Defoe reports: The four artists nominated for the 2019 Turner Prize—Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Helen Cammock, Oscar Murillo, and Tai Shani—will receive the award as a collective, at their request.

Artsy gives us a look at Mickalene Thomas’ celebratory new show, Better Nights, at The Bass in Miami Beach, replete with her signature installations and the work of her fellow artists.

“Can Dance Make a More Just America? Donald Byrd Is Working on It” is the fantastic headline in this New York Times profile of choreographer Donald Byrd, timed to the exhibition at the Frye Art Museum.

“Despite the proliferation of dance in museums over the past decade, exhibitions focused on the work of a single living choreographer remain rare. The America That Is to Be presents an in-depth portrait of a bold, enigmatic artist.”

And Finally

Scrolling the deep sea.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Derion, 2018, hot tub cover, wood, children’s cotton and nylon coats, cotton balls, enamel paint, acrylic paint, broken mirrors, theater seats, concrete cement, 115 x 95 x 28 in. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer. Image courtesy of the artist © Aaron Fowler.

Muse/News: Judith reigns at SAM, The Stranger gets lured, and Denise Murrell joins the Met

SAM News

Location, location: LUXE Interiors + Design offers this preview of the ‘smartly revamped” Asian Art Museum, and the downtown museum gets some love in Conde Nast Traveler.

Last week, Gina Siciliano—the author I Know What I Am: The True Story of Artemisia Gentileschi—gave a My Favorite Things tour at SAM, and Crosscut’s Brangien Davis recommended it in last week’s “Things to Do”. If you missed it, don’t despair: there’s still plenty of time to experience Gentileschi’s masterpiece, now on view in Flesh and Blood: Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum.

Local News

The Seattle Times’ Paul de Barros on Seattle jazz club The Penthouse, which presented A-list performers in the ’60s. Now, archival recordings from the club will be released on November 29.

Real Change’s Lisa Edge on the mixed-media work of Jite Agbro; her work Deserving is on view at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art (BIMA).

The Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig on Lure at MadArt, a structure-sculpture by Dream the Combine and local artist-engineer Clayton Binkley that “explore[s] the body in relationship to space, light, and environment.”

“Within the piece, I was more mindful of my steps because of the way the mesh was ever so slippery beneath my boot. I became aware of a slight unease at being so close to a skylight I’d admired from the concrete floor below.”

Inter/National News

Paul Laster writes about Do Ho Suh’s work for White Hot magazine, including past presentations at SAM and his theme of displacement. The artist’s Some/One will be a centerpiece of Be/longing at the Asian Art Museum.

Here’s Max Duron of ARTnews on the hiring of Denise Murrell as associate curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Murrell’s work will overlap the modern & contemporary and European painting departments.

Theaster Gates speaks with André Wheeler of the Guardian about his preservation of neglected Black cultural objects, including the gazebo under which 12-year-old Tamir Rice was murdered in Cleveland.

“From our conversation, Gates seems to envision a city-sanctioned and -funded memorial. ‘I want to believe that the city is open to it,” he said. “I believe Samaria has the right to ask the city to receive this sacred space.’”

And Finally

Shirin Neshat’s artistic inspirations.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Photo ©Tim Griffith

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.

Muse/News: The body in art, Seahawks posters, and your right to vote

SAM News

Have you seen Flesh and Blood: Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum? Here’s art historian and critic Gayle Clemans for the Seattle Times, tracing the exhibition’s exploration of the human body as an artistic vessel.

“Throughout the exhibition, we are reminded of how art — much like a pitcher of wine or a human body within the paintings — is a vessel for meaning and message. Gender, race, class, age, ability and size play roles in communicating these meanings, in ways that feel historically remote, intimately resonant or disappointingly familiar.”

Seattle Magazine’s Gavin Borchert writes up an exciting new SAM commission; Carpe Fin, a “Haida manga” mural by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, is now on view downtown.

“The mural conveys a vitally timely moral—a warning about the dangers of human disconnection from the natural world.”

Casey Arguelles Gregory of The Eye offers this peek inside SAM’s conservation lab and the work of Nicholas Dorman and Geneva Griswold.

“Conservators approach art from a unique vantage point, intimately located between science, art, and museum politics. ‘We’re kind of in an ivory tower, but we’re looking at the front line.’ Nicholas Dorman explains.”

Local News

Lisa Edge of Real Change reviews Iconic Black Women: Ain’t I a Woman, now on view at the Northwest African American Museum.

Brangien Davis of Crosscut on the new series of Seahawks game-day posters designed by local artists—the proceeds fund art education in Seattle schools.

And Crosscut’s Agueda Pacheco Flores visits the Sea Mar Museum of Chicano/a/Latino/a Culture, which is now open.

“The new museum draws attention to an often overlooked slice of Washington state history, which includes major Mexican American contributions to agriculture, railroad transportation and civil rights. It also breaks ground as the first museum in the Pacific Northwest to highlight the Mexican American experience in this region.”

Inter/National News

The Los Angeles Times shares the news that Sandra Jackson-Dumont of the Met—and formerly of SAM!—heads to LA as the new director and CEO of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

Also in California: Fires. Artnet traces the threats to the Getty Museum and Charles M. Schulz Museum.

The New York Times’ Robin Pogrebin on a new Bill Traylor show at David Zwirner, with proceeds mostly going toward the Harlem Children’s Zone.

“’There is something terribly natural, terribly right, about having the Bill Traylor collection turn into money for his progeny,’ he added, referring to the Zone’s students. ‘I think he would have been — or he is — delighted about that. And I am, too.’”

And Finally

Don’t forget to vote!

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

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

Muse/News: Mirrors in art, Kusama’s parade, and the pumpkin

SAM News

Flesh and Blood: Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum continues to wow. Ashley Nelson reviews the exhibition for Seattle University’s Spectator, calling it “a treat for the art enthusiasts and novices alike.” And the Seattle Times includes it on their list “the hottest events” in November.

Here’s London-based magazine Elephant on the symbolism of mirrors in contemporary art, with Zanele Muholi’s self-portrait Bona, Charlottesville, 2015 as a jumping-off point. See it at SAM before it closes November 3.

Local News

Tantri Wija for the Seattle Times with “unusual things to do” for Halloween if you’re too cool for trick-or-treating.

Who made that portrait of Earl, though? Real Change reports on the return of Earl Lancaster’s landmark barbershop to the “powerful corner” of 23rd and Union.

The Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig reviews Robert William’s The Father of Exponential Imagination, now on view at the Bellevue Arts Museum.

“A technically skilled draftsman, Williams’s works are often psychedelic, depicting an alternate, surreal reality. Jaws unhinge so that the tongue can become a sort of beast to ride, Tarzan-like men wrestle with aliens, and hungry spirits reach toward burgers covered in demons.”

Inter/National News

There will be a Yayoi Kusama-designed balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this year called Love Flies Up to the Sky. Yes.

The US Army announced this week a new reserve group of curators, conservators, and archaeologists—yes, like the Monuments Men and Women—charged with protecting cultural heritage in the Middle East.

Lee Lawrence for the Wall Street Journal on the Brooklyn Museum’s overhauled galleries of Chinese and Japanese art; other thematic presentations, including at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, are mentioned.

“As difficult as it can be to trace the stories and power plays behind objects, presenting a permanent collection involves the even more daunting task balancing what curators want to say with what they can, given the strengths and weaknesses of their museums’ holdings. One current trend is to structure displays thematically. When the Seattle Asian Art Museum reopens in February 2020, for example, its installation will use works from different times and places to explore such common concerns as identity and worship.”

And Finally

It’s a Halloween tradition! Once again, here’s The Pumpkin Dance.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

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

Muse/News: SAM gets “radiantly weird,” street stickers, and active landscapes

SAM News

“The show feels like it’s tilted toward some uncanny vision of classical art. In doing so it serves as fine reminder of how much our memories and connotations of periods can get distilled down to a few images.” –Stefan Milne, Seattle Met

“For all their intense realism, the works also show some seriously freaky scenes, both mythological and biblical.” —Brangien Davis, Crosscut

“. . . the unwieldy greens of El Greco, the soft, cloudlike skin of a Titian figure, and all around badassery of Artemisia Gentileschi.” —Jasmyne Keimig, The Stranger

“A stroke of paint seems to connect the viewer across time to the artist, dead now for hundreds of years.” —Sierra Stella, UW’s The Daily

The Seattle press corps seems adequately disturbed/enchanted by SAM’s major fall show, Flesh and Blood: Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum, which opened last week. Come see the “radiantly weird” show for yourself.

Local News

The Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig adds another beat to her watch: stickers. This time, she finds the Dalí-inspired, the public-transportation-celebrating, and more.

The 2019 Washington State Book Award winners were announced last Saturday, including Joy McCullough for “Blood Water Paint,” her YA novel in verse about Artemisia Gentileschi.

Crosscut’s Agueda Pacheco Flores visits Where Beauty Lies at the Wing Luke, which questions, explores, and celebrates ideas of Asian American beauty.

“Visitors are encouraged to be reflective, and not just by looking in mirrors. People can write down an insecurity on a triangular strip of paper and throw it into a faux fire pit that has a dim orange light at the center. The papers don’t burn, but together resemble flames.”

Inter/National News

The New York Times’ Jillian Steinhauer reviews the modest Betye Saar show at the new MoMA—“dismayingly, the first show the institution has ever devoted to Ms. Saar.”

Artnet’s Javier Pes on Pre-Raphaelite Sisters, London’s National Portrait Gallery’s revisionist show that puts the sisterhood of the British art movement in the foreground.

Cultured Magazine talks with Teresita Fernández, whose mid-career survey—co-curated by SAM’s own Amada Cruz!—opens at the Pérez Art Museum Miami today.

“Her idea of landscape is, in fact, ‘not passive at all. It’s very deliberate and strategized. Even our ideas about what places are—place names, borders and what’s visible—they’re such powerful tools to control how we think of ourselves in relation to land and to place.’”

And Finally

Remembering Elijah Cummings through his most powerful speeches.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

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

Muse/News: SAM opens up, the Burke goes “inside out,” and art history’s blind spots

SAM News

Recently, SAM announced that the Asian Art Museum will reopen to the public on February 8, 2020. Curbed Seattle and NW Asian Weekly both wrote about the building project, which “gives the historic building both a home of its own and a stronger connection to the park around it.”

Local News

Last week, city council candidates appeared at Town Hall to talk arts policy. The Stranger’s Rich Smith—and candidate Alex Pedersen’s “art tie”—were there.

Dinosaurs, but make it fashion: Seattle Met presents their fall fashion editorial set amongst the new digs (get it?) of the Burke Museum.

And the Seattle Times has wrap-around coverage on the new Burke, including a story from Brendan Kiley, photos, video, and graphics to get you ready to explore.

“This Burke, director Julie K. Stein says, isn’t just a new museum. It’s a new breed of museum, imagined and designed with the incantation ‘inside-out.’”

Inter/National News

Fred Armisen is an art aficionado. No, really! Hyperallergic explores his segments on Late Night with Seth Meyers in which he shares his knowledge of literally “every painting that has ever been painted.”

Here’s the New York Times’ Roberta Smith on the new Roy DeCarava retrospective at David Zwirner; his photographs, she says, “constantly flip between visual fact and a metaphor for difference of all kinds.”

In Artforum’s October issue, Emmelyn Butterfield-Rosen reflects on the recent exhibitions Posing Modernity and Black Models, together “one of the most consequential events to take place in the field of nineteenth-century art in Euro-America in recent decades.”

“Murrell achieved something more profound, and more challenging, than archival ‘discovery.’ Her exhibition placed the past blindnesses of art history on very public view, making devastatingly clear the remedial nature of the lesson in seeing required by this discipline—a lesson that could be encapsulated in a question as elementary as: Tell me, class, how many figures are in this picture?”

And Finally

I keep thinking about this squirrel.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: © Tim Griffith

Muse/News: Reimagined museums, reflective art, and the many rhythms of Cuba

SAM News

Last week, SAM announced that the Asian Art Museum will reopen to the public on February 8 and 9 with two free 12-hour days of programming, reflecting the 12 themes of the dramatically reimagined collection. The Seattle Times broke the news.

Natalie Ball: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Snake is reviewed by Bean Gilsdorf in Art in America. It’s also the cover story in this week’s edition of Real Change, with a feature review by Lisa Edge inside.

“Ball’s creations are freighted with symbolic messages, composed in a language that conjures both ancestral tradition and contemporary identity.”

“While audiences may not understand all the references she’s included, she wants them to connect with it emotionally. ‘I want them to feel it,’ Ball said. ‘I want it to pull or tug.’”

Building bridges! Centering joy! Priya Frank, SAM’s Associate Director for Community Programs, is one of Puget Sound Business Journal’s annual “40 Under 40” leaders.

Local News

Last week, we shared coverage of an internal battle at Intiman Theatre. This week, the organization has agreed on a plan for its future.

Seattle Met’s Stefan Milne has some thoughts on the five gallery shows to see this month.

The Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig gets reflective in Carrie Yamaoka’s recto/verso at the Henry Art Gallery.

“It’s representation in the purest of senses, in that you can literally see yourself in her work—not an abstracted label of your body, say, or your identity, but your body and your identity.”

Inter/National News

The new MoMA opens on October 21, and press have had their sneak peek. Here’s thoughts from the New York Times and Vulture; CBS Sunday Morning will visit this week.

Can he collect it? Yes he can! Artsy chats with Q-Tip about his art collection, now on view at Bonham’s in New York.

It’s one of those beautiful New York Times interactives, this time taking us on a road trip across the many rhythms of Cuba.

“Cuban music is often described as a tree, with various primary roots that supply life for many branches. But separating the island’s music into distinct genres is an inherently flawed task — they intertwine and cross.”

And Finally

A swan song (or 10) from Jessye Norman.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Muse/News: Baroque drama, soap bubbles, and Colescott’s good trouble

SAM News

Are you ready for DRAMA? SAM’s trailer for the major fall exhibition is here in all its glory. Flesh and Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum opens October 17; both Seattle Met and Seattle Magazine recommend it.

Jeffrey Gibson, whose solo show Like a Hammer graced SAM’s walls earlier this year, is officially a genius. He, along with 25 other noteworthy doers, was named a MacArthur Fellow last week. Congrats, Jeffrey!

Local News

The Seattle Times’ Brendan Kiley reports on the conflict within Intiman Theatre between the board and staff, as the organization again comes under threat. The Stranger’s Rich Smith also reported on the rumblings.

The Frye just opened three new shows. Seattle Met’s Stefan Milne loved Pierre Leguillon: Arbus Bonus, calling it “direct, elegant, inquisitive, multitudinous.”

And the Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig loved Unsettling Femininity, their first thematic show from the founding collection that explores male and female gazes—and one ensorcelling soap bubble—amid newly lavender walls.

“It’ll last forever. It’s been here since before my grandparents were born and will be here for longer than my grandchildren. This bubble with outlast my life as a symbol of how my own life is fleeting. Amongst all that oil paint!”

Inter/National News

GRAY Magazine’s Tiffany Jow on Andrea D’Aquino’s new collage book on Ruth Asawa, which explores the artist’s fascinating personal history. It’s directed at readers age 5-8—but I think you’ll want a copy, too.

Reggie Ugwu of the New York Times reports on last week’s unveiling in Times Square of Kehinde Wiley’s bronze sculpture Rumors of War, of a man and “the horse he rode in on, from a previous century, perhaps, or was it a future one?”

Artnet’s Taylor Dafoe reviews Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott, now on view in Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center. Lowery Stokes Sims and co-curators grapple with his amazing work—and his underappreciated status.

“He misbehaved,” she explains matter-of-factly. “He did not conform to any of the canonical ideas about painting, about depictions, about points of view—he just misbehaved and we’re all better for it.”

And Finally

It’s been a month. Farewell, September.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Atalanta and Hippomenes, ca. 1620–1625, Guido Reni, Italian, 1575–1642, oil on canvas, 75 9/16 x 103 15/16 in., Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte.

Muse/News: Physicality at SAM, labs at the new Burke, and the wonder of Beverly Pepper

SAM News

Fall arts previews continue hitting newsstands! The New York Times and The Seattle Times both recommend our major fall exhibition, Flesh and Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum.

“. . . physicality will be on full, glorious display at the Seattle Art Museum.”

Artnet and In Other Words released their findings and features on the representation of women in the art world. SAM was one of 26 prominent American museums to share data about their acquisitions and exhibitions. The takeaway? While all museums claim greater attention to women artists, “just 11 percent of all acquisitions and 14 percent of exhibitions over the past decade were of work by female artists.”

Local News

Don’t miss the Seattle Times’ full fall arts coverage—which recommends getting out of the house to experience art, with recommendations for music, theater, books, and more.

Crosscut’s Samantha Allen asks what’s lost when a city defined by its beloved neon signs makes the shift to LED.

Press got to visit the new Burke Museum recently. Seattle Met’s Stefan Milne wasn’t overly impressed with the mastodon and T-rex skulls, but loved the labs.

“All over the museum—sometimes behind glass, but also out in the open—you see people doing the actual work of keeping natural history and science alive.”

Inter/National News

Artsy is out with its “Vanguard” list for 2019, with their picks for artists who are “emerging,” “newly established,” and “getting their due”—including SAM favorites Jeffrey Gibson, Ebony G. Patterson, and Jacolby Satterwhite.

Here’s Artnet on a weathered oil painting depicting Saint Jerome that turned out to be by Anthony van Dyck. Art collector Albert B. Roberts picked it up at an auction for $600; it’s now on view at the Albany Institute of History & Art.

Megan O’Grady for the New York Times Style Magazine on Beverly Pepper, the sculptor whose Persephone Unbound and Perre’s Ventaglio III grace the Olympic Sculpture Park.

“Public art can sometimes feel ponderously corporate or impersonal, but the unroofed splendor of Pepper’s site-specific works can prompt unexpectedly potent encounters . . . They are framing devices for wonderment.”

And Finally

A Friday for the future.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Danae, 1544–45, Titian, Italian, 1488/90–1576, oil on canvas, 34 15/16 x 44 3/4 in., Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte.

Muse/News: Hot arts fall, recycled art, and the long climb of Betye

SAM News

Every week, Jasmyne Keimig of the Stranger looks closely at one artwork that’s “Currently Hanging.” Last week, she focused on Large Interior, W11 (after Watteau) by Lucian Freud, now on view at SAM as part of an iterative single-painting show honoring Paul Allen, A Cultural Legacy.

“There’s a stiltedness to the scene, a sense of uneasiness between the figures, that betrays a certain uncomfortable and strange family dynamic.” 

Out goes hot girl summer, in comes hot arts fall. Seattle Magazine’s fall arts preview recommends Flesh and Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum, the “throbbingly dramatic” major exhibition opening October 17.

Local News

Gallery watch! Jasmyne Keimig shares the good news on Slog: the J. Rinehart Gallery officially has “a physical space, baby.”

Real Change’s Lisa Edge talks with Osa Elaiho, whose work is included in a group show at Columbia City Gallery. Music and family are what inspire the artist’s mixed-media paintings.

What a dump: Crosscut’s Brangien Davis visits the Recology CleanScapes recycling facility and meets its two current artists-in-residence.

“Just as WALL-E surfs the garbage heaps for treasures to take home — a bobblehead dog toy, a golden trophy, a hinged ring box — artists in residence roam the space with an eye out for intriguing items — a toy gun, a set of new knives, the detritus from an entire bachelorette party.”

Inter/National News

Artnet’s Taylor Defoe profiles Ivory Coast-based artist Laetitia Ky, who “makes unbelievably inventive sculptures with her hair.”

Following the devastation of Hurricane Dorian on the Bahamas, the Pérez Art Museum Miami and partners are collecting urgently needed supplies.

The New York Times’ Holland Cotter on the long, viable career—and sudden spotlight, with two major museum solo shows this fall—of Betye Saar.

“Because it’s about time!” she says. “I’ve had to wait till I’m practically 100.”

And Finally

Here’s a way to donate to those affected by Hurricane Dorian.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Large Interior, W11 (after Watteau), 1981–1983, Lucian Freud, British, 1922–2011, oil on canvas, 73 x 78 in., Paul G. Allen Family Collection, © The Lucian Freud Archive/Bridgeman Images.

Muse/News: SAM award news, the Space Needle is a she, and Dr. Seuss at the museum

SAM News

Last week, SAM announced the finalists for this year’s Betty Bowen Award: Andrea Joyce Heimer, Anthony Hudson, Adair Rutledge, Lynne Siefert, and Anthony White.

The solo exhibition of the 2018 winner, Natalie Ball, was reviewed in Art & Object.

“Subverting tropes about Native American identity and art by repurposing familiar materials, Ball points out the absurdity of our assumptions.”

Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness is on regal display on the cover of this week’s Real Change; inside, don’t miss Lisa Edge’s review of the installation.

“Let’s have positive images of ourselves that are done with love,” said Muholi. “Let us consume this self-love because our forefathers, our foremothers that came before us never had the opportunity to speak for themselves.”

Local News

“The Space Needle is a she.” Crosscut’s Brangien Davis on a documentary exploring the hidden history of Seattle’s iconic landmark: its shape may have been inspired by a Black dancer named Syvilla Fort.

The City’s Art Beat Blog has a recap of the recent Creative Advantage Arts Partner Summer Institute, held at SAM; this year’s theme was “exploring the local.”

The Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig goes home to Wa Na Wari, reviewing the center’s newest show featuring work by several artists, including Nastassja Swift’s video of masked dancers.

“Swift’s video, no more than 10 minutes long, grapples with the concept of home, being home, having a home, feeling at home in one’s body and community. In that way, it fits well at Wa Na Wari. Where do we belong?

Inter/National News

Artforum reports that Werner Kramarsky passed away this week at the age of 93; a formidable collector, he donated 25 drawings to SAM over the years.

Artnet’s Ben Davis takes a look at Dia:Beacon’s new permanent gallery dedicated to Sam Gilliam and his signature “drape” paintings.

The New York Times’ Guy Trebay attends the 16th annual edition of the influential and popular International Folk Art Market, which explodes the art-world schism between fine art and craft.

“It comes out of nowhere, out of nothing,” he added. “There’s not a tradition for it. It’s just some guy saying, ‘I want to make this thing.”

And Finally

Double Dr. Seuss news: Oh, the museums you’ll go!

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Installation view of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Snake” at Seattle Art Museum, 2019, photo: Natali Wiseman.

Muse/News: Layerless freedom, #JayDoodles, and Art Boys

SAM News

In honor of Pacific Northwest Black Pride, Crystal Paul, Erika Schultz, and Corinne Chin of The Seattle Times presents a multimedia story exploring identity and freedom with 10 Black, queer Seattleites.

In a related story, they recreated an intimate conversation that Black, queer artists recently had with Zanele Muholi, talking through their reactions to the SAM show, Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness.

Here’s Gregory Scruggs for the Stranger, interviewing Brazilian artist Regina Silveira about her Olympic Sculpture Park site-specific installation Octopus Wrap, the goal of art, and the relative concrete jungles of Seattle and São Paulo.

Seattle Met’s September issue has hit newsstands. Their fall arts preview leads with a story on the new directors at SAM, the Symphony, and the Opera—and their visions for the future. SAM’s new director Amada Cruz starts in mid-September!

“The tradition of art museums is that they’re closed off repositories of precious works of art,” [Cruz] says. “How do we open ourselves up so that museums can become part of everybody’s daily life?”

Local News

The Seattle Times’ Alan Berner captured some terrific shots (as usual) of an installation happening at the Burke Museum: a huge mural by artist RYAN! Feddersen.

Watch this Crosscut video featuring cool footage of the viaduct “unmaking” and a conversation with architect David Miller about the future of the waterfront.

#JayDoodles: It’s a thing. SAM’s own Chiyo Ishikawa is among the art-world heavies offering their takes on Governor Jay Inslee’s lighthearted artistic practice in this Seattle Times story.

“The figure in the boat could represent his campaign: Rowing against the stream!”

Inter/National News

The MCA Denver has named Nora Burnett Abrams its new director, reports the New York Times. She’s been a curator at the museum for the last 10 years.

Alex Needham, an arts editor at the Guardian, tweeted this week that curators shouldn’t be named in show reviews. Artnet’s Naomi Rea reports on the ensuing Twitter storm.

Artnet’s Caroline Goldstein reports on the ABC casting notice that may bring so-called Art Boys to network television.

“The dashing Art Boy, on the other hand, is more of a rosé and tapas type. Who doesn’t want to watch a show about him?”

And Finally

Happy birthday, Dorothy Parker.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Installation view “Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness,” Seattle Art Museum, 2019.



Muse/News: A radical age, imagined futures, and refugee stories

SAM News

The Stranger’s Philosopher-In-Residence Charles Mudede reviews Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts & Crafts Movement, describing the historical context for what makes it radical.

“The humans of our times are so used to kitsch. But for the Victorians, it was completely new. It was radical. This is the mind-set the exhibit wants us to enter: one that had no past, only the future. The Victorian age is the cradle of our post-post-postmodern times.”

“Why see one sculpture when you can see nine acres of them?” Business Insider on popular US tourist traps and where to go instead—like SAM’s Olympic Sculpture Park.

Local News

Crosscut’s Misha Berson on “The Bar Plays,” two plays set in bars presented in a real-life “venerable gathering place,” Washington Hall.

The Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig visits Juventino Aranda’s show at Greg Kucera, In Dreams I Once Believed There Was a Future, which features enlarged and edited pages from Little Golden Books.

Real Change’s Lisa Edge on the “Black celestial sovereignty” in the work of Robert Pruitt; his solo show is now on view at Koplin Del Rio gallery.

“The thing that we’re living under doesn’t seem to be working for us, so maybe we need to imagine a new thing,” said Pruitt. “Myth, science fiction, all of that is a way to kind of for me to think about another kind of way of living.”

Inter/National News

Just asking: should we maybe have left these where they were? Artnet reports on the “array of amulets, gems, and lucky charms” found at Pompeii that researchers believe belonged to a female sorcerer.

Now on view at DC’s National Gallery of Art: The Life of Animals in Japanese Art, featuring “300 works drawn from 66 Japanese institutions and 30 American collections” that are all about animals (!).

“Poignant, solemn and utterly shaming”: The New York Times’ Jason Farago reviews The Warmth of Other Suns, a thematic exhibition on the global refugee crisis at the Philips Collection.

“Together they outline a more fraught view of the art of the last century, in which the refugee is not an outsider looking in, but a central actor in the writing of a global culture. ‘Refugees,’ Arendt wrote in 1943, ‘represent the vanguard of their peoples — if they keep their identity.’”

And Finally

One solution for the sad lunch break.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Installation view Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts & Crafts Movement, Seattle Art Museum, 2019.

Muse/News: Supporting change, learning a city by foot, and farewells to Toni Morrison

SAM News

SAM director and CEO Kimerly Rorschach shared the museum’s position on proposed changes to Washington State’s overtime rules. These changes are long overdue, and SAM has been a leader in implementing adjustments. However, a slower ramp-up would be more sustainable for non-profits.

Local News

Marcus Harrison Green of the Seattle Times on Blood Lines, Time Lines, Red Lines, the Warren Pope solo show now on view at NAAM that explores the city’s history of racist housing policies.

“Pulling a reverse Henry David Thoreau”: Crosscut’s Brangien Davis on Seattle Walk Report, the comic that explores the magic of the city by foot. Its anonymous creator will name herself soon!

With “Currently Hanging,” The Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig gets close to an artwork. Here, she visits a figurative gold sculpture by Casey Curran that echoes previous works by Anthony White and Tessa Hulls.

“The sculpture reminds me of The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa-meets-the-alien-from-Annihilation-meets-Rodin’s-Thinker. All things I love.”

Inter/National News

“The first Abstract Expressionist”: Who would you name? The Museum of Fine Arts Boston has a new exhibition that may answer that question.

DCist on the Phillips Collection’s new exhibition of 100 works by 75 artists on global displacement; director Klaus Ottmann calls it “the most ambitious exhibition the museum has ever undertaken.”

Author Toni Morrison died this week at the age of 88. This New York Times obituary celebrates her “luminous, incantatory prose resembling that of no other writer in English.”

“Ms. Morrison animated that reality in prose that rings with the cadences of black oral tradition. Her plots are dreamlike and nonlinear, spooling backward and forward in time as though characters bring the entire weight of history to bear on their every act.”

And Finally

Quiet As It’s Kept.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Installation view Jeffrey Gibson: Like a Hammer, Seattle Art Museum, 2019, photo: Natali Wiseman.

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

SAM News

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

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

Local News

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

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

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

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

Inter/National News

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

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

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

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

And Finally

Evergreen story.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

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

Muse/News: A legacy on view, Springfield in Tacoma, and blind spots

SAM News

 A Cultural Legacy: A Series of Paintings from the Paul G. Allen Family Collection is now on view at SAM. This iterative single-painting exhibition celebrates the legacy of Paul Allen. Artdaily, Artnet, Geekwire and Patch all shared the news.

The Seattle Times includes SAM show Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness on their “Look Ahead” list of recommendations for the month of August, calling their portraits “a soul-shaking experience.”

And Seattle Met recommends Remix, our “bona fide fete,” on their list of “13 Seattle Events to Catch This August.” Get your tickets now for another radical edition of our art-filled, body-moving, late-night out.

Local News

The Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig devotes the recent “Currently Hanging” post to Birmingham by Toyin Ojih Odutola, now on view at the Frye Art Museum.

The most recent edition of Crosscut’s arts newsletter by Brangien Davis includes a shout-out to the Seattle Arts Voter Guide, created by Seattle University students in a Public Policy and the Arts class.

Crosscut’s Agueda Pacheco Flores on the Tacoma Art Museum’s new exhibition, Bart at TAM, featuring over 150 cels of hand-drawn art from The Simpsons.

“The cels in the exhibit come from Heeter’s personal collection of more than 900 Simpsons animations, which he started collecting in the early ’90s. ‘I had a full head of hair when I started collecting and now it’s all gone,’ he says.”

Inter/National News

Read about 2017 Knight Lawrence Prize-winner Sondra Perry’s new show A Terrible Thing, “an institutional critique of MoCA Cleveland.”

Great news reported by Artnet’s Sarah Cascone: “A consortium of foundations … has bought the historic archives of Johnson Publishing, the Chicago-based company behind Ebony and Jet magazines.”

Don’t miss this conversation-starting New York Times piece by Elizabeth Méndez Berry and Chi-hui Yang that calls for more critics of color.

“…the spaces in media where national mythologies are articulated, debated and affirmed are still largely segregated. The conversation about our collective imagination has the same blind spots as our political discourse.”

And Finally

Keep an eye out for an 8-foot-tall yellow bird.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

Muse/News: Muholi’s gaze, disco photographs, and Space Age fashion

SAM News

Crosscut’s Brangien Davis reviews Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, saying the self-portraits “stare right back at you—and, unlike you, they don’t blink.”

“Throughout it all Muholi looks straight at us with those unflinching, wide-open eyes. ‘Yes?’ they seem to say. And also: ‘I see what you see when you see me.’”

Rainy Julys mean MOVIES. Have you been to our new film series, Comedy Gold from the American Cinema? Check out films every Thursday night recommended by Seattle Magazine and The Stranger, now through August 15.

Local News

The Stranger’s Dave Segal on the Nordic Museum’s exhibition of photography by Hasse Persson, who captured some of the most important political and cultural moments in America from 1968-1980—including shenanigans at Studio 54.

The Seattle Times’ Moira Macdonald goes to camp, checking out the Met’s latest fashion exhibition—and finding some resonances in MOHAI’s current show of Northwest style.

Farewell to Marvin Oliver, artist and professor emeritus at the University of Washington, who died this week at the age of 73.

“’We have lost an amazing mentor and elder in our community and his legacy will live on,’ Olsen said. ‘And those of us who understand his vision and mission to support the Native students and enhance the visibility of Native art and culture will make him and keep him proud and forge on with his legacy.’”

Inter/National News

Pictures worth a thousand (and more) frames: here’s Artsy on six films inspired by famous photographs.

Farewell to Philip G. Freelon, who was “arguably the most significant African-American architect in recent history.” He died recently at the age of 66.

Space seems to be on everyone’s mind. Enter the Brooklyn Museum, with their new retrospective Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion, full of his “youth-fueled modernism” aesthetic.

“They were garments that projected utility but were irresistibly sleek and sexily alienish; clinically pristine, yet sinuous—all the appeal of an Eero Saarinen Tulip chair, but made for the body.”

And Finally

So the trailer for CATS happened. The Internet had some feelings.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

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

Muse/News: Muholi arrives, an unlovable tree, and monuments to rad Women

SAM News

Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness is now on view at SAM, and it’s not to be missed. Here’s Elena Martinique for Widewalls and Victoria Valentine of Culture Type on the South African visual activist’s work.

Jasmyne Keimig of the Stranger offered this sneak peek; keep an eye out for her feature story on the show.

Outside suggests “11 Alternatives to Crowded Outdoor Instagram Spots,” with the sculpture park handily beating the gum wall.

Give a read to Casey Arguelles Gregory of The Eye’s post about what we do with problematic art; Claire Partington: Taking Tea at SAM is given as an example of how to respond.

“[The installation] creates a stunning dialogue between the historical ‘porcelain room’ and our modern attempt to reckon with the colonialism and institutional racism that necessitated the creation of these beautiful objects.”

Local News

The Stranger doesn’t like our city flag. They’re throwing a design contest for a new one (non-binding). (SAM tickets are among the prizes!)

Crosscut’s Brangien Davis on Beili Liu’s new show at MadArt, which addresses the global refugee crisis with clothing frozen in place by cement.

The Denny Substation has a sculpture called Transforest—apparently the tallest public art in the City—that the Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig calls “unlovable.”

“Obviously, Transforest can’t capture certain things about trees—their smell, the sound of leaves rustling in the wind, their sense of knowing. But as I stood underneath it, sweating under all that sun, trying to figure out this sculpture, I realized I was missing something simple, easily capture-able about trees—their shade.”

Inter/National News

Artforum reports on the ongoing controversy involving the proposed destruction of a mural at San Francisco’s George Washington High School; now 400 academics, writers, and artists have written an open letter opposing the plan.

Elsewhere in school murals: Dr. Maya Angelou is celebrated in over two dozen eye-catching murals throughout the campus of the Dr. Maya Angelou Community High School.

And elsewhere in rad women monuments: Zachary Small of Hyperallergic reports on the proposed monument on Roosevelt Island to the groundbreaking journalist Nellie Bly.

“Almost 132 years later, the intrepid reporter will return to the scene of the story that made her a hailed heroine of journalism as a permanent monument.”

And Finally

If you are not always eager to learn more about Bob Ross, then I just don’t know what to tell you.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Manager of Public Relations

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