Muse/News: Museum Futures, Sea to City, and Everyday Excellence

SAM News

“Can you really compare these selfie stations to Seattle’s best cultural institutions?” Seattle Met’s Allison Williams takes a look at the new Museum of Illusions and compares their “edutainment” value to mission-driven institutions, speaking with José Carlos Diaz, SAM’s Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art, who isn’t mad at Insta moments. 

“‘I think in the future, we’re probably going to see more and more acceptance, or even embracing of, new ways of presenting art,’ Diaz says. ‘Real works, but then also something very immersive and very emotional.’”

Meot: Korean Art from the Frank Bayley Collection is charming visitors at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. Susan Kunimastu wrote about the exhibition for Preview Magazine, and Madeline Ewing checked out the galleries for SEAtoday. And don’t miss The Ticket’s look at the “very demure, very mindful” artwork on view.

Seattle Refined’s “Artist of the Week” is Troy Gua! Don’t miss their interview with this beloved SAM Gallery artist. 

Local News

Jas Keimig of South Seattle Emerald is back with another roundup of “Arts in the South End”; one of their picks is the Mouthwater Festival: A Disabled Dance Festival, and SAM is proud to host one of its performances, Grow Green Man, on October 5 and 6 at the Olympic Sculpture Park’s PACCAR Pavilion.

Margo Vansynghel of The Seattle Times selects “top Seattle art shows to see in fall 2024,” including some shows outside of the city that feature local artists.

Go with Rachel Gallaher for Seattle Magazine and “Dive into the Design Behind Seattle Aquarium’s New Ocean Pavilion.”

“‘The extraordinary thing about this site is that one edge of it is the Salish Sea, and the other is the urban center of Seattle,’ says Mark Reddington, a partner at LMN. The new 50,000-square-foot Ocean Pavilion, with its sweeping yellow Alaskan cedar-clad façade and nearly half-million gallon Reef ecosystem, houses 3,500 sustainably sourced tropical fish, invertebrates, and plants, representing more than 150 species.”

Inter/National News

Hurray for arts writers! Tessa Solomon for ARTnews reports on the 2024 winners of grants for visual arts journalists from the Rabkin Foundation: Greg Allen, Holland Cotter, Robin Givhan, Thomas Lawson, Siddhartha Mitter, Cassie Packard, TK Smith, and Emily Watlington.

Sarah Cascone for Artnet: “Tschabalala Self Lands a Colorful Ode to the Bodega at the Armory Show.” 

Via Nancy Princenthal for The New York Times’s Fall Arts Preview: “Amy Sherald, Brazen Optimist.”

“Unlike many members of her generation, she is resistant to depicting personal experience. Her sublimity is of the abstract kind: ‘The idea,’ as she puts it, ‘is of portraying everydayness as excellence.’”

And Finally

Watch “The Best of James Earl Jones.”

Photo: Chloe Collyer

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: Arts News from SAM, Seattle, and Beyond

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

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

SAM News

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

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

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

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

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

Local News

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

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

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

Inter/National News

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

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

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

 And Finally

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

– Rachel Eggers, SAM’s Manager of Public Relations

SAM Stories