Muse/News: Tremendous Hokusai, Indigenous Fashion, and a Gentileschi Revealed

SAM News

All that’s fit to print! SAM exhibitions were featured in the print editions of two Sunday newspapers:

Calder: In Motion, The Shirley Family Collection, which opens in the double-height galleries of November 8, was previewed by Tanya Mohn for the New York Times, who told the story of “giving the gift of Calder.”

“‘Because of Jon Shirley’s meticulous collecting,’ said José Carlos Diaz, curator of the show and deputy director for art at the museum, ‘we have representation of basically every type of work Calder did as a professional artist from the ’20s, all the way to his death in 1976. It helps us create one of the most important collections of the 20th century in Seattle.’”

And the just-opened Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence, from the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston was reviewed by Gemma Wilson of the Seattle Times, who offered “5 highlights of Seattle Art Museum’s tremendous new Hokusai exhibit.”

“Investigate these prints and you’ll notice the tiny details that give his work such a sense of dynamism: snow blowing in, a hat rolling away, water rushing under a bridge. ‘Landscapes so gorgeous they knocked people’s socks off,’ said [MFA Boston curator Sarah] Thompson.”

The dazzling Hokusai exhibition was also recommended by Mike Davis of KUOW, Charles Mudede of The Stranger, and Brangien Davis of Crosscut (who goes birding in this week’s edition of arts picks).

Local News

Via Margo Vansynghel of the Seattle Times: “Meet Gülgün Kayim, the new director of Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture.”

Jas Keimig for South Seattle Emerald on the launch of FILIPINOTOWN Magazine, “a new publication dedicated to highlighting the diversity and strength of the Filipino American community in Seattle.”

Fashion and culture writer Andrew Hoge with his first Seattle Times story on the Eighth Generation blanket that draped actor Lily Gladstone on the cover of British Vogue. (There’s a callback to SAM’s 2018 Double Exposure exhibition.)

“A cover feature is an impressive milestone for any brand. For Eighth Generation, however, it’s an essential step in the company’s mission to flip the narrative on consuming Indigenous culture and art.”

Inter/National News

Hilarie Sheets for the New York Times on the transfer of a five-ton sculpture by Richard Lippold from Lincoln Center to La Guardia Airport.

Elena Goukassian of the Art Newspaper on Ann Philbin’s retirement from The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles after 25 years as its director.

Sarah Cascone of Artnet on how a female nude by Artemisia Gentileschi, once “prudishly censored by heavy drapes of blue,” is now restored by digital imaging technology

“…restoration scientists went over the painting—which curators removed from the ceiling for the first time in its history—with a fine toothed comb, examining every nanometer and every thin layer of paint.”

And Finally

The New Yorker’s Sasha Frere-Jones on Ryuichi Sakamoto.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: Chloe Collyer.

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

SAM News

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

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

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

Local News

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

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

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

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

Inter/National News

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

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

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

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

And Finally

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

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Image: Chloe Collyer.

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

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

SAM News

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

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

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

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

Local News

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

Inter/National News

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

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

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

And Finally

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

– Rachel Eggers, Manager of Public Relations

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