Trenton Doyle Hancock Archives

Muse/News: Ikat Adventures, Building News, and Wiley’s Chapel

Rachel Eggers on Mar 20 2023

SAM News

Every week, KUOW reporter Mike Davis shares his “adventures in art.” Last week, he spoke with Kim Malcolm about some recommendations, including Ikat: A World of Compelling Cloth, SAM’s exhibition of textiles now on view.

“…whisks you away from the world of fast-fashion into a global tour of fabric art and textiles.”

Spring fever is here! Seattle’s Child shares the “best Seattle parks for playgrounds, beaches, views or nature,” including the Olympic Sculpture Park.

“Wander the zig-zagging pathways and contemplate monumental sculptures while the life of the city and the harbor goes on around you.”

Local News

Ikat was also recommended in The Stranger’s Art + Performance (A+P) magazine, which makes its triumphant return to glorious print! Catch up with its stories and listings online or find it near you and get some newsprint on ya.

Nimra Ahmad for Crosscut profiles “six Seattle programs for young performing artists.”

In her second story for the Seattle Times, Margo Vansynghel gets the story on the recent purchase of the Seven Seas building (AKA the Lusty Lady building) right across the street from SAM. What will its future be?

“[Entrepreneur Andrew] Conru said his purchase of the building, which sits across from the Seattle Art Museum, was informed by his love for the city, the building and its history. ‘I go to SAM,’ he said, ‘and then you look across the street, and that building just cries out for help … I’m like, ‘Well, how can I help?’”

Inter/National News

Via Artdaily: “Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and adidas Basketball announce CAMH COURT, the first-ever playable basketball court in an art museum, commissioned and designed by Houston-based artist Trenton Doyle Hancock.”

Artnet’s Katie White deep dives on Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s famed portrait of Marie Antoinette. Good prep for the new PBS series!

Via Dionne Searcey for the New York Times: “Kehinde Wiley’s New Exhibition Is a Chapel for Mourning.”

“The exhibition by Wiley…embraces a solemn vibe: dark and almost chapel-like with bright lights on individual pieces. Viewers can fill out response cards to write about the exhibit, which also will have multiple exits for anyone who needs a break.”

And Finally

RIP, Lance Reddick.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: Chloe Collyer.

Muse/News: SAM on the syllabus, Indigenous authors, and fashion under quarantine

Rachel Eggers on Oct 5 2020

SAM News

Seattle Times food writer Jackie Varriano opens the syllabus on legendary restaurant Canlis and their new “community college,” a series of programs to support the restaurant as well as FareStart. Among the “core curriculum,” PE classes, and top-notch cafeteria food, look out for SAM curator Catharina Manchanda’s talk on SAM’s fall exhibitions——featuring collector Virginia Wright and artists Barbara Earl Thomas—on Wednesday, October 21.

Local News

Special to the Seattle Times, Seattle Public Library’s David Wright has recommendations for seven audiobooks by Indigenous authors; a good idea any time, it’s especially resonant in time for Indigenous Peoples’ Day next Monday.

What’s “Currently Hanging”: Inside Out by Marela Zacarías at MadArt. Well, almost hanging. The Stranger’s Jasmyne Keimig caught a glimpse of the in-progress work—a “mesh temple to the Aztec goddess Cihuacoatl, who provides strength to women during childbirth”—which opens October 15.

For her weekly editor’s letter, Crosscut’s Brangien Davis recommends some visual art to see, some Bruce Lee philosophy to consider, and some dancing from Whim W’Him created with the fraught times in mind.

“For a moment, maybe only mentally, they escape to the beach and do somersaults on wet sand. It’s a good reminder during these fraught days to take a breath, dance around the block, put a houseplant on your head.”

Inter/National News

BOMB Magazine’s fall 2020 issue is out; the visual arts section features an interview with Trenton Doyle Hancock—whose work has graced the Olympic Sculpture Park’s PACCAR Pavilion—about his forthcoming graphic novel, which expands the artist’s narrative universe.

A 25-minute listen: Hyperallergic editor-in-chief Hrag Vartanian interviews National Gallery of Art director Kaywin Feldman on the controversial decision to delay the international tour of a Philip Guston retrospective.

Artnet’s Melissa Smith looks at artist residencies established by high-profile Black artists, including Titus Kaphar, and how they’re reshaping the art world.

“Residencies like Kaphar’s provide young artists an environment outside of art school—where the proportion of Black students (and faculty) still generally maxes out in the single digits—to hone their craft while not second-guessing their worth. ‘It’s just really draining to try to change it all on your own time when really all you want to do is focus on your work,’ says Tajh Rust, a former Black Rock fellow and Yale School of Art alum.”

And Finally

For Seattle Met, boutique owner Adria Garcia interrogates the necessity of fashion under quarantine.

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: Amada Cruz

Last Call for Color

Seattle Art Museum on Feb 29 2012

Time is running out to bring your collection of lids in to the Olympic Sculpture Park!

In Trenton Doyle Hancock’s wildly fictitious narrative, color is the source of salvation to a race of creatures who are seeking spiritual nourishment. For his installation, A Better Promise, Hancock playfully encourages you to pour color into his work by bringing plastic tops in all colors. The plastic caps add a whole spectrum of light into the installation and, for Hancock they “are in a way the surrogates for the color salvation.” As the artist has said, this installation “has to do with hope, color, connecting with people, connecting with community.” And you all have shown that he’s definitely connected with this community. Read More

A Call to Color

Seattle Art Museum on Jul 5 2011

If you haven’t been to the Olympic Sculpture Park lately, you should go. Not only is it summer in the park but Trenton Doyle Hancock’s, A Better Promise—an art installation in the PACCAR Pavilion—is especially mesmerizing and animated when the bright sunshine manages to peek out of the clouds and shine into the pavilion. Ironically, this is partly because of its numerous colorful raindrops but partly it’s because of the giant vitrines full of plastic lids that sit below the installation.

As part of the work, Hancock issues a “call to color” by encouraging visitors to bring their own morsels of color—in the form of plastic bottle caps—to the park and drop them into the work of art. Nine large-scale “earthbound” vitrines have been placed on the floor in front of the hand sculpture. On the face of each of these nine containers, there is a teardrop cut-out where plastic bottle caps can be deposited by color. Visitors are encouraged to bring plastic bottle caps ranging in all shapes and sizes from detergent bottles, to clear water bottles to the black and white caps from drink bottles.

May Highlights for SAM Downtown, Seattle Asian Art Museum and Olympic Sculpture Park

Seattle Art Museum on Apr 29 2011

Want to get updates on SAM program and events delivered to your inbox? Click here now to subscribe to SAM’s enewsletter. Here’s a message from SAM Director Derrick Cartwright from our May 2011 enewsletter highlighting some of the best SAM’s three sites have to offer.