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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Robert Storr Coming to Seattle

posted by on October 31 at 10:00 AM

Jim Dine’s not the only one making a visit in the next few months.

Robert Storr is a dean of the art world. He’s a gifted writer. A painter. Held the top curatorial job at MoMA for a decade before becoming head of Yale’s fancypants School of Art. This summer, he directed the Venice Biennale.

For his efforts in Venice, he was roundly criticized, especially for his central exhibition, Think With the Senses, Feel With the Mind, and rightly so.

The show felt stale and disjointed, with an emphasis on blue-chippers like Gerhard Richter, Robert Ryman, Elizabeth Murray, Ellsworth Kelly, Susan Rothenberg, and with every artist given a separate space. Things sat silent, strangely anesthetized, and unfortunately, the real fun was had in the 76 national pavilions outside the main show, and in other shows around the city. (The best total rundown is at Richard Lacayo’s Looking Around blog for Time magazine).

Kim Jones (“Mudman”) was in one of those quiet corners of Storr’s biennale show, and Storr’s visit to Seattle coincides with the close of Jones’s retrospective at the Henry Art Gallery.

Storr will be at UW’s Kane Hall Thursday, January 10, at 7 pm. Cost is $15 general, $12 students/seniors; 616-9894.

Correction: What a dumb mistake. Storr was never the chief curator at MoMA; he was a senior curator under Kirk Varnedoe. I’m reading Varnedoe’s “Pictures of Nothing” now. Duh.

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