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: Vital Traditions, CID Santas, and Zen Mona Lisa

SAM News

At the close of Native American Heritage Month in November, Megan D. Robinson for Art & Object highlighted “10 Must-See Artworks by Indigenous American Artists at the Seattle Art Museum.” 

“Works by contemporary artists are displayed with older historic pieces, creating a visual dialogue that continues throughout the museum…This gives a sense of cultural continuity and showcases the vitality of Indigenous arts and crafts—the very real living tradition of artistic creation in the Native community—while placing it firmly within the greater realm of worldwide arts and culture movements.”

Hannah Mwangi visits Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence for Seattle University’s Spectator, speaking with fellow visitors about their impressions of the exhibition. And Seattle Met includes the exhibition on its list of Things to Do, calling out the free docent tours available every Saturday and Sunday through the run of the show, which closes after January 21.

And Smithsonian Magazine writes up the “expansive” Calder: In Motion, The Shirley Family Collection exhibition.

Local News

“ArtSEA: Seattle is brimming with holiday shows”: Crosscut’s Brangien Davis has you covered—in rhyme, no less!—with a poetic round-up of holiday happenings.

Here’s even more festive recommendations, including into the South End, from Jas Keimig of South Seattle Emerald.

Tat Bellamy-Walker of The Seattle Times on the two new Santa Clauses who will be at the Chinatown International District’s Wing Luke Museum for its annual CID Santa photo day.

‘We know that’s what creates goodness,’ [Wing Luke Executive Director Joël] Barraquiel Tan said. ‘We know that’s really what true public safety looks like — when we’re all here together on a regular basis. So, if an Asian American Santa is the clarion call for that, let it be that. We need joy at this time.’”

Inter/National News

Brian Boucher of Artnet brings you “12 Famous Artists Offer Life Advice.”

ArtReview is out with its annual Power 100 list. Catch up on what it means, how they decide, and who made the list.

Via Will Heinrich for The New York Times: The “Zen Mona Lisa” makes a “once-in-a-lifetime trip” to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco for three weeks only.

“An irregular lineup of five orbs, with a sixth in front, absent any background or context and rendered only in tones of gray, the piece, approximately a foot square, exemplifies the kind of stark simplicity and attunement to nature that Americans found so bracing in Zen. It also illustrates just about any Buddhist concept you would care to name.”

And Finally

Via Seattle Met: “Christmas Lights Road Trips in Washington.”

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: Chloe Collyer.

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