“I just got off the phone with her and there is an illness in Nan’s family and she has unfortunately had to cancel her Seattle itinerary. It will be rescheduled for later this year.”

That email came to me about a minute ago from Christian Quilici, EMP spokesperson. Goldin was scheduled to speak at Experience Music Project Thursday, accompanied by the West Coast premiere of her three-screen narrative work Sisters, Saints & Sibyls. According to Quilici, the plan is to reschedule the entire program for before the year is out.

How is EMP faring as an art museum?

DoubleTake, the exhibition at EMP that includes Goldin’s work and is the occasion of her coming, has been extended to Jan. 1, 2007. It is an interesting exhibition for two reasons: it is the first public showing of works (28 of them) from Paul Allen’s vaunted collection, and it is EMP’s first foray into art.

In the middle of the summer, in high season, Quilici reported that the show was seeing an average of 350-plus visitors each day in the DoubleTake gallery alone (not including the rest of the museum), and “we’re very pleased with those numbers.” (Last I was there, I sat through the intro movie alone and saw three other people in the gallery the entire time, but it was a weekday, and just before summer started. I’ve asked Quilici for updated numbers now that summer is over.)

EMP has so far declined to share attendance goals for the show. The release about the extension of the exhibition did not tout attendance numbers or make “by-popular-demand” claims. CEO Josi Callan simply remarked in a written statement, “We have had many members and educators ask us to keep the exhibition on view through the holiday period. This extension will afford even more visitors, members and school groups the opportunity to view these outstanding works of art.”

EMP has not yet decided whether to become a regular art museum as well as a rock-and-roll museum and a science fiction showplace, Quilici says. No further shows of Allen’s collection are in the works.

This is Goldin’s Stromboli at Dawn, Italy, 1996, from DoubleTake. Here’s my review of the show.