http://slog.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/ Seattle's #1 Weekly Newspaper. Covering Seattle news, politics, music, film, and arts; plus movie times, club calendars, restaurant listings, forums, blogs, and Savage Love. en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. editor@thestranger.com (The Stranger Editor) webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Sun, 19 May 2013 01:30:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/17/no-rain-for-you http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/17/no-rain-for-you Jen Graves <p>In the new <em>Rain Room</em> installation at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, there's a room where a big pretend storm is dumping hundreds of gallons of water per minute. None of this water will fall on you as you walk through it because sensors detect human bodies and give each one a 5-foot berth. Unless, that is, you wear a raincoat:</p> <blockquote><p>In order for the technology to work most effectively, visitors are discouraged from wearing dark, shiny, reflective fabrics, fabrics made of raincoat material, or skinny high heels.</p></blockquote> <p>I don't think I'd be able to go in there without hoping for a malfunction.</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/17/no-rain-for-you#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16792228&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/17/no-rain-for-you?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16792228&id=comments 8 Fri, 17 May 2013 11:09:59 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/16/mirrors-other-face http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/16/mirrors-other-face Jen Graves <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/72df/1368726362-ginny_and_doug.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/72df/1368726362-ginny_and_doug.jpg" alt="Ginny Ruffners painted glass sculpture of a water cycle on display inside Traver Gallery, with the rainy bars of Doug Aitkens video installation MIRROR running on the northern facade of Seattle Art Museum across the street." title="Ginny Ruffners painted glass sculpture of a water cycle on display inside Traver Gallery, with the rainy bars of Doug Aitkens video installation MIRROR running on the northern facade of Seattle Art Museum across the street." width="500" height="667" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit"></li><li class="imageCaption">Ginny Ruffner's painted glass sculpture of a water cycle on display inside Traver Gallery, with the rainy bars of Doug Aitken's video installation <em>MIRROR</em> running on the northern facade of Seattle Art Museum across the street.</li></ul></div></p> <p>I've been <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/03/26/i-went-to-a-big-spectacle-and-all-i-got-was-this-big-spectacle-sams-big-unveiling">vocally unmoved</a> by Doug Aitken's big new video installation on the facade of Seattle Art Museum, called <em>MIRROR</em>.</p> <p>But yesterday the rain was coming down outside, and I was visiting <a href="http://www.travergallery.com/gallery_artist_details/Ginny-Ruffner.aspx">the new exhibition at Traver Gallery by Ginny Ruffner</a>, the most exuberant and kindly artist who ever graced the grounds of this rainy city, and <strong>what you see above appeared before my eyes</strong>, and I was glad. I had forgotten that <em>MIRROR</em> is not limited to its more narrative/decorative/flashy displays on the western facade of SAM&#8212;it also turns the corner and extends into these skinny little rain bars best seen up inside Traver Gallery. It was a good moment.</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/16/mirrors-other-face#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16784913&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/16/mirrors-other-face?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16784913&id=comments 2 <em>MIRROR</em>'s Other Face Ginny Ruffner's painted glass sculpture of an entire water cycle inside Traver Gallery, with the rainy bars of Doug Aitken's installation <em>MIRROR</em> running on the northern facade of Seattle Art Museum across the street. Thu, 16 May 2013 10:47:18 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/16/bea-arthur-nude http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/16/bea-arthur-nude Jen Graves <p>All I can say is that <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/16/nude-bea-arthur-painting-by-john-currin-sells-christies-auction_n_3284898.html?utm_hp_ref=arts">Bea Arthur deserved better</a>.</p> <p>(h/t Todd)</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/16/bea-arthur-nude#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16784227&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/16/bea-arthur-nude?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16784227&id=comments 13 Thu, 16 May 2013 10:04:55 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/14/we-do-not-trust-photos-anymore http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/14/we-do-not-trust-photos-anymore Paul Constant <p><a href="http://mashable.com/2013/05/14/world-press-photo-fake/">Nina Frazier at Mashable</a> says that a controversy erupted over the Photo of the Year winner from the World Press Photo Foundation:</p> <blockquote><p>World Press Photo submitted the files for forensic review following controversy that spiraled from a blog post by image analyst Neal Krawetz, who alleged that the photo was actually a <strong>composite of three separate images</strong>. The story was later picked up by tech blog ExtremeTech.</p> <p>However, after carrying out its own investigation, World Press Photo said Krawetz's analysis is "deeply flawed."</p> <p>"It is clear that the published photo was retouched with respect to both global and local color and tone. Beyond this, however, we find no evidence of significant photo manipulation or compositing," two photo experts said in a World Press Photo statement released Tuesday.</p></blockquote> <p>Experts said that no pixel in the image, <a href="http://mashable.com/2013/05/14/world-press-photo-fake/">which is really quite striking</a>, was moved out of place, though the image did go through considerable lightening and darkening. It's getting easier and easier to manipulate photographs, and soon we'll be able to manipulate them on a granular level as soon as we take them&#8212;<a href="http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/14/scalado-remove-clears-up-your-photos-we-go-hands-on-video/">this product</a> was a real eye-opener for me. So at what point do photos become as untrustworthy as drawings? Are we ever going to reach that point? Are we already there?</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/14/we-do-not-trust-photos-anymore#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16765042&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Media Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/14/we-do-not-trust-photos-anymore?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16765042&id=comments 22 Tue, 14 May 2013 16:13:38 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/13/if-you-meet-the-buddha-on-the-road http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/13/if-you-meet-the-buddha-on-the-road Paul Constant <p>I don't know who's painting these portraits on the Burke-Gilman Trail, but I kind of like them.</p> <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/b60a/1368472744-imag3162.jpg" alt="IMAG3162.jpg" title="" width="500" height="282" /></div></p> <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:385px;"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/d9da/1368472775-imag3163.jpg" alt="IMAG3163.jpg" title="" width="373" height="661" /></div></p> <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:385px;"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/5815/1368472829-imag3165.jpg" alt="IMAG3165.jpg" title="" width="373" height="661" /></div></p> <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:385px;"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/05/13/1368472868-imag3166.jpg" alt="IMAG3166.jpg" title="" width="373" height="661" /></div></p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/13/if-you-meet-the-buddha-on-the-road#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16754170&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/13/if-you-meet-the-buddha-on-the-road?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16754170&id=comments 4 If You Meet the Buddha on the Road Mon, 13 May 2013 12:59:58 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/13/more-heartbreaking-twists-in-the-story-of-87-year-old-painter-david-byrd http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/13/more-heartbreaking-twists-in-the-story-of-87-year-old-painter-david-byrd Jen Graves <p><div class="blogImageRight" style="width:212px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/35d9/1368471041-byrd_making-bed-in-coal-country.49_web.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/35d9/1368471041-byrd_making-bed-in-coal-country.49_web.jpg" alt="Still not sold: Making Bed in Coal Country, 2002, oil on canvas, 20 by 24 inches." title="Still not sold: Making Bed in Coal Country, 2002, oil on canvas, 20 by 24 inches." width="200" height="163" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit">ALL IMAGES COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GREG KUCERA GALLERY</li><li class="imageCaption">Still not sold: <em>Making Bed in Coal Country</em>, 2002, oil on canvas, 20 by 24 inches.</li></ul></div>If you haven't seen the large exhibition of nearly 100 paintings, drawings, and sculptures by 87-year-old <strong>David Byrd</strong> at Greg Kucera Gallery&#8212;<a href="http://www.gregkucera.com/byrd.htm">up through Saturday</a>&#8212;<strong>you really need to go now</strong>, for several reasons tied to the following facts. (<a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/a-vast-empathy/Content?oid=16403014">Full review</a>.)</p> <p><strong>Fact one:</strong> This is Byrd's first commercial gallery show. Ever.</p> <p><strong>Fact two:</strong> This will be the last time for a long time that all this material will be seen together. <strong><em>Sixty-six of the pieces have sold</em></strong>.</p> <p><strong>Fact three</strong>: People aren't buying the paintings to match their sofas. The imagery is tough, most of it taken from the decades Byrd spent working quietly as an <a href="http://www.gregkucera.com/byrd_va-hospital.htm">orderly in a VA hospital mental ward</a>.</p> <p><strong>Littlest-known fact, fact four</strong>: <strong>The day before Byrd was supposed to fly out to Seattle</strong> from his central New York home for his big opening, he was diagnosed with lung cancer that had already spread to his brain. Now, he's undergone a few weeks of punishing radiation and decided to quit treatment, according to Kucera. (Byrd is not keeping it secret.) He may not have much strength to make art this year. But he already has future shows lined up that I hope he'll beat that thing long enough to celebrate (and many more), such as...</p> <p><div class="blogImageLeft" style="width:212px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/2d9c/1368472219-byrd_filing-station-at-night.172_web.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/2d9c/1368472219-byrd_filing-station-at-night.172_web.jpg" alt="Still not sold: Filling Station at Night, 1997, oil on canvas, 20 by 24 inches" title="Still not sold: Filling Station at Night, 1997, oil on canvas, 20 by 24 inches" width="200" height="167" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit"></li><li class="imageCaption">Still not sold: <em>Filling Station at Night</em>, 1997, oil on canvas, 20 by 24 inches</li></ul></div><b>Fact five</b>: SUNY Oneonta is mounting a Byrd exhibition for November. Plus, New York gallery representation may be in the works.</p> <p>I'm posting here three of my favorite works in the show, none of which have sold. The Agway filling station especially reminds me of where I'm from in upstate New York, those dark roads and hard forms. And...</p> <p><b>Fact six, one for the nerds</b>: Byrd's early teacher in New York City, the French cubist <strong>Am&#233;d&#233;e Ozenfant, did a stint in Seattle</strong>! He taught at the University of Washington in 1938. Kucera: "I learned this from Virginia Wright over the weekend. After I told her that he also showed up in Richard Artschwager's obit in the NYT, he joked that maybe he was 'the Zelig of the art world.' Francine [Seders] suggested that he left France on several teaching stints, and probably came here at the invite of Walter Isaacs, then head of the U of W Art School. ...David was amused when Jody [Isaacson, Byrd's friend, neighbor, and fellow Kucera artist] told him this." </p> <p>On the jump I'm attaching the outlier painting in the show. <strong>There's nothing else like it in Byrd's whole body of work</strong>, as far as I can tell, and I think Ozenfant would have loved it. <strong>It's a portrait of his refrigerator</strong>. Next to it stands one of his sculptures, two segments of staircases stacked. (One of these sculptures is at Kucera.) It's called <em>Refrigerator with Ghost</em>, as if his art is haunting his domestic life, which clearly, it has been for all these years while he kept painting and painting and painting, but never showing or selling anything. The stiffness of it feels both funny and sad to me. It's so perfectly Byrdian-strange; he just went for it. He only made it in 2012. It makes me wish he could go on making art forever. </p> <p>It's still not sold. Byrd, who doesn't have family, says he's considering giving the money from his sales to a nonprofit that works <strong>to support psychiatric patients</strong>.</p> <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/05/13/1368471983-byrd_refrigerator-and-ghost.279_web.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/05/13/thumb-1368471983-byrd_refrigerator-and-ghost.279_web.jpg" alt="Refrigerator With Ghost, 2012, oil on canvas, 33 by 42 inches" title="Refrigerator With Ghost, 2012, oil on canvas, 33 by 42 inches" width="500" height="397" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit"></li><li class="imageCaption"><em>Refrigerator With Ghost</em>, 2012, oil on canvas, 33 by 42 inches</li></ul></div></p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/13/more-heartbreaking-twists-in-the-story-of-87-year-old-painter-david-byrd#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16753773&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/13/more-heartbreaking-twists-in-the-story-of-87-year-old-painter-david-byrd?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16753773&id=comments 4 More Heartbreaking Twists in the Story of 87-Year-Old Painter David Byrd Still not sold: <em>Making Bed in Coal Country</em>, 2002, oil on canvas, 20 by 24 inches. ALL IMAGES COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GREG KUCERA GALLERY Mon, 13 May 2013 12:11:10 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/10/suburban-impressionism-at-its-finest http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/10/suburban-impressionism-at-its-finest Jen Graves <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/2f94/1368201724-img_9839.jpeg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/2f94/1368201724-img_9839.jpeg" alt="Parked in Ballard last night." title="Parked in Ballard last night." width="500" height="375" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit"></li><li class="imageCaption">Parked in Ballard last night.</li></ul></div></p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/10/suburban-impressionism-at-its-finest#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16729207&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/10/suburban-impressionism-at-its-finest?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16729207&id=comments 10 Suburban Impressionism at its Finest Parked in Ballard last night. Fri, 10 May 2013 09:02:22 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/03/a-market-is-born-the-selling-of-gang-and-prison-photography http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/03/a-market-is-born-the-selling-of-gang-and-prison-photography Jen Graves <p>What a story by <a href="http://prisonphotography.org/pete-brook/">Pete Brook</a>, a Portland writer whose blog is on <a href="http://prisonphotography.org/">prison photography</a>. In a post yesterday, he tracked how a cache of 400 images shot by young, incarcerated gang members in 1980s Southern California made its way to an art fair where it sold for $45,000.</p> <p><a href="http://prisonphotography.org/2013/05/02/prison-yard-to-paris-photo-la-art-market-hustle-and-flow-puts-45k-price-tag-on-prison-polaroids/">It's a doozy</a>. </p> <p>Brook writes*:</p> <blockquote><p>If these images deserve a $45,000 price tag, they deserve a vast amount of research to uncover the stories behind them. Who knows if the (presumed) new owner has the intent or access to the research resources required?</p> <p>Along that same vein, here we identify a difference between the art market and the preservationists; between free trade capitalism and the efforts of museums, historians and academics; between those that trade rare items and those that are best equipped to do the research on rare items.</p> <p>Whether speculative or accurate, <strong>the $45,000 price is way beyond the reach of museums</strong>. Photography and art dealers who are limber by comparison to large, immobile museums are working the front lines of preservation.</p> <p>&#8220;Some might say that selling [images such as these] is exploitation, but a dealer&#8217;s willingness to monotize something like this is one form of cultural preservation,&#8221; argues [Myles] Haselhorst [owner of Ampersand Gallery and Fine Books in Portland, which originally acquired the collection at the Portland Postcard Show for a price in the low four figures, he said]. &#8220;If I had not been in a position to both see the collection&#8217;s significance and commodify it, albeit well below the final $45,000 mark, these photographs could have easily ended up in the trash.&#8221;</p></blockquote> <p>Prison polaroids are emerging online, <a href="http://prisonphotography.org/2012/02/09/prison-polaroids-emerging-online/">Brook also writes</a>. Many of the shots are taken <a href="http://www.theseamericans.com/prison/prison-collection-susanville-2/">in visiting rooms or with contraband cameras</a>. Then there's this Tumblr, <em>In Duplo</em>, where <a href="http://induplo.tumblr.com/<br />">mugshots are juxtaposed with Facebook portraits</a>.</p> <p>^{*Good on you, sir, for calling out Harper's Books dumb, offensive conflation of gangs and rap.</p> <p>Thanks to Jen Kagan for the tip.}</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/03/a-market-is-born-the-selling-of-gang-and-prison-photography#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16664201&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/03/a-market-is-born-the-selling-of-gang-and-prison-photography?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16664201&id=comments 4 Fri, 03 May 2013 13:31:26 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/03/hey-ladies-here-are-the-two-kinds-of-woman-you-can-be http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/03/hey-ladies-here-are-the-two-kinds-of-woman-you-can-be Anna Minard <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/b5ea/1367597107-magazines.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/b5ea/1367597107-magazines.jpg" alt="magazines.jpg" title="" width="500" height="375" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit">Anna Minard</li><li class="imageCaption"></li></ul></div></p> <p>On the left, we have Kim "Even My Armpits Are Fat!" Kardashian. (Let me pause for a moment and say: Like most women, I feel acutely aware of all the ways my body can fail to please others at any given moment, but dear lord, it has never occurred to me that you can have FAT ARMPITS.)</p> <p>On the right, we have Gwyneth "World's Most Beautiful Woman" Paltrow.</p> <p>There's no in between, really. It's either Ol' Fat Armpits McGee or Mrs. <a href="http://www.goop.com/about/whats-goop">Goop</a>. You choose.</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/03/hey-ladies-here-are-the-two-kinds-of-woman-you-can-be#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16663234&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> ??!! Media Visual Art The Ladies http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/03/hey-ladies-here-are-the-two-kinds-of-woman-you-can-be?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16663234&id=comments 29 Hey, Ladies, Here Are the Two Kinds of Woman You Can Be Anna Minard Fri, 03 May 2013 11:58:20 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/03/ten-years-ago-today-tacomas-art-museum-made-of-mist-opened http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/03/ten-years-ago-today-tacomas-art-museum-made-of-mist-opened Jen Graves <p>The dreamy New Mexico-based architect Antoine Predock <a href="http://www.tacomaartmuseum.org/Page.aspx?nid=25">always intended</a> his silvery Tacoma Art Museum to dissolve into the sky. It worked so well that some people actually had trouble finding the place.</p> <p><strong>I loved this "problem."</strong> TAM was the opposite of the modified-phallic, extroverted Museum of Glass just across the waterway. And they were a pair.</p> <p>Now, ten years later, Tacoma Art Museum is planning a big, heavy, earth-colored addition for <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/07/09/tacoma-art-museum-100-percent-bigger-100-percent-more-western&view=comments">its new Western art wing</a>. Like that whole endeavor, the success or failure will be in the execution. If Western art means cowboys, we're in trouble. If this earthiness turns up drab or imperious, likewise. This will be Tom Kundig's first completed museum. The renderings don't thrill me.</p> <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/639b/1367600939-rendering_-_west.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/639b/1367600939-rendering_-_west.jpg" alt="RENDERING_-_WEST.jpg" title="" width="500" height="272" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit">Courtesy Tacoma Art Museum and Tom Kundig</li><li class="imageCaption"></li></ul></div></p> <p>I'm curious about what's going on in the middle area, where there's that screen that extends down to street level. Its back leg will block part of the glorious view out the top floor of TAM. Will it bisect Mount Rainier? Please tell me it will not. Probably that's a dumb question. Nobody would let that happen. </p> <p>You can also see from the next rendering that the screen section creates <strong>a plaza where before there was only longing</strong>. Those <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/magazine/06fob-consumed-t.html?_r=0">figures-for-scale</a> almost look like they're enjoying a feeling akin to <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=kennedy+center+exterior&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=IvGDUbSHDKbMiQLBmYHYBA&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAQ&biw=994&bih=436">standing outside at the Kennedy Center</a> in DC, under that overhang with views to the water on one side and the street on the other&#8212;know what I mean? (The entrance always was the weakest moment of the building&#8212;its interior is a freaking wonder&#8212;and that was partly because the original design was "value-engineered" away, meaning they didn't raise enough money to make it happen.) Three cheers for a real entrance.</p> <p>But what's with the brownie with blinds?</p> <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/05/03/1367601577-rendering_-_southwest.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/05/03/thumb-1367601577-rendering_-_southwest.jpg" alt="RENDERING_-_SOUTHWEST.jpg" title="" width="500" height="272" /></a></div></p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/03/ten-years-ago-today-tacomas-art-museum-made-of-mist-opened#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16663731&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art Architecture http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/03/ten-years-ago-today-tacomas-art-museum-made-of-mist-opened?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16663731&id=comments 7 Ten Years Ago Today, Tacoma's Art Museum Made of Mist Opened Fri, 03 May 2013 10:20:40 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/03/currently-hanging-how-to-turn-700-perfect-spendable-dollars-into-nothing http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/03/currently-hanging-how-to-turn-700-perfect-spendable-dollars-into-nothing Jen Graves <p><div class="blogImageRight" style="width:212px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/1fc5/1367599708-img_0426.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/1fc5/1367599708-img_0426.jpg" alt="This is how Sean Johnson felt during the last election." title="This is how Sean Johnson felt during the last election." width="200" height="267" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit"></li><li class="imageCaption">This is how Sean Johnson felt during the last election.</li></ul></div>Sean M. Johnson needed 70,000 pennies, or $700 worth. What the Seattle artist had in mind was <strong>a pyramid-shaped sculpture, but with the top mostly sliced off</strong>, leaving only a gently rising base&#8212;a shape that gives the suggestion of building up to something but doesn't. Johnson had originally envisioned a full pyramid, but when he built a test model, he found the shape so recognizable that it shut his mind down&#8212;he just went, <em>Oh, right, pyramid</em>, and stopped looking. Instead, he wanted a shape that draws the eye and keeps it, that isn't a known quantity, so that trying to see it whole, you have to break it down and consider its parts, too. The pennies would be the only material. They'd rest on each other unattached, like loose shingles</p> <p>To get the pennies, he had to call ahead; it seems banks don't have vast penny populations just lying around. ...</p> <p>Isn't it funny how people distrust contemporary artists more than banks?</p> <p>Keep reading about this sculpture, the artist "honored" with redesigning the back of the American penny in 2010, and <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/05/03/1367599835-img_0427.jpg">this other sculpture that went crashing into the wall</a> when I was at the gallery recently, <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/cents-and-sensibility/Content?oid=16638106">here</a>.</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/03/currently-hanging-how-to-turn-700-perfect-spendable-dollars-into-nothing?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16663651&id=comments 0 <b>Currently Hanging</b>: How to Turn 700 Perfect Spendable Dollars Into Nothing This is how Sean Johnson felt during the last election. Fri, 03 May 2013 09:53:13 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/02/renoir-the-new-movie-better-than-renoir-the-painter http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/02/renoir-the-new-movie-better-than-renoir-the-painter Jen Graves <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/d4f8/1367448332-529_600_bf945_i10r.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/d4f8/1367448332-529_600_bf945_i10r.jpg" alt="Good lord, thats an awful painting. It lives at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia." title="Good lord, thats an awful painting. It lives at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia." width="500" height="409" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit">The Barnes Foundation</li><li class="imageCaption">Good lord, that's an awful painting. It lives at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.</li></ul></div></p> <p>As I've written before, Renoir painted fruit well, and he painted women. Problem is, he painted women like fruit. <a href="http://www.barnesfoundation.org/collections/art-collection/object/5670/bathers-baigneuses">Exhibit A</a> above. So I was none too excited by the prospect of reviewing <em>Renoir</em>, the new film. But! My <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/renoir-an-artful-film-about-a-wildly-uneven-artist/Content?oid=16657718">review</a>:</p> <blockquote><p>There would appear to be nothing promising in a film that takes place when Renoir is creating his late nudes on the sunny French Riviera: They are kitsch for repressed pervs. Renoir is one of the most uneven artists in the history of brush to canvas. But <em>Renoir</em>, this new feature film by Gilles Bourdos, is actually interesting. It begins with the death of his wife, and throughout, women are far <strong>more than pretty subjects for looking at</strong>. It&#8217;s 1915, the war is ongoing, and Renoir&#8217;s injured son Jean&#8212;the eventually famous film director&#8212;comes home to convalesce. He meets Renoir&#8217;s beautiful red-haired nude model, the woman who eventually becomes Jean&#8217;s leading actress and first wife. What happens onscreen involves dappled light, yes, and a hallowed painter, but also delicately, and in few words and not too much melodrama, raises the subjects of art&#8217;s place in wartime, the early tension between painting and cinema, and the power and variety of women despite their regular flattening into a crew of fleshy nudes. Yay for the closing credits, an encouragement to seek out the real-life films that feature said model, <strong>Catherine Hessling</strong>. She died an unknown; she&#8217;s less so now.</p></blockquote> <p>Here's a clip of Catherine Hessling. She just got such good roles! Um...</p> <p><div style="text-align:center;"><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hHbOX8wuvwY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/02/renoir-the-new-movie-better-than-renoir-the-painter#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16647462&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/02/renoir-the-new-movie-better-than-renoir-the-painter?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16647462&id=comments 0 <em>Renoir</em> the New Movie: Better Than Renoir the Painter? Good lord, that's an awful painting. It lives at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. The Barnes Foundation Thu, 02 May 2013 09:44:08 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/02/the-library-at-guantanamo http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/02/the-library-at-guantanamo Jen Graves <p>Prisoners are never free to go, even when they have been given release orders years ago, even when they are starving themselves to death.</p> <p>But they are free to read <em>Standup Paddling</em> magazine and play Angry Birds.</p> <p><a href="http://gitmobooks.tumblr.com/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews">Here's <em>New York Times</em> reporter Charlie Savage's blog entirely devoted to the library at Guantanamo</a>.</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/02/the-library-at-guantanamo#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16647135&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Crime Visual Art Books http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/02/the-library-at-guantanamo?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16647135&id=comments 3 Thu, 02 May 2013 07:28:14 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/01/art-in-a-van-man http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/01/art-in-a-van-man Jen Graves <p><div class="blogImageRight" style="width:212px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/05/01/1367446309-crusade1vert.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/05/01/thumb-1367446309-crusade1vert.jpg" alt="Its beautiful out and this woman is trying to give you some art. What are you going to do? Jennifer Schwartz was at Pike Place Market and Cal Anderson Park today. Next stop is Chicago." title="Its beautiful out and this woman is trying to give you some art. What are you going to do? Jennifer Schwartz was at Pike Place Market and Cal Anderson Park today. Next stop is Chicago." width="200" height="267" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit"></li><li class="imageCaption">It's beautiful out and this woman is trying to give you some art. What are you going to do? Jennifer Schwartz was at Pike Place Market and Cal Anderson Park today. Next stop is Chicago.</li></ul></div>Artists are always trying to get somebody to consider what they've made, even just for a <em>second</em>. (Have you listened to the second act of <a href="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/493/picture-show?act=2">this episode of This American Life</a>? You must.)</p> <p>"Can I interest you in some free art today?"</p> <p>That's the refrain of the five Seattle photographers stationed outside <strong>an aquamarine 1977 VW bus</strong> next to Cal Anderson Park this afternoon. Earlier they were at Pike Place Market, but they were asked to relocate by complaining vendors. No problem. <strong>Jennifer Schwartz</strong> packed up the bus and came up the hill to find another high-foot-traffic area. Seattle is one of 10 cities she's visiting on her <a href="http://crusadeforart.com/">Crusade for Art</a>, "a passion project," she calls it.</p> <p>In advance of her arrival, Schwartz picks five local photographers. Each brings 10 prints, all the same image. They ask people whether they want to stop and talk, people say yes or no (mostly no, but it's only 10 anyway), and if the people want the print after hearing about it, they can take one with them. The artists can exchange information with their new "collectors," if they want to.</p> <p>"Maybe somewhere down the road it will change the way they feel around art," she said, wearing sunglasses and jeans and acting as a street dealer who charges no fee and takes no cut.</p> <p>This is what she did rather than stationing herself at IKEA.</p> <p>"If I could stand at the register at every IKEA in the nation when people were up there buying their mass-produced tulip posters, and I could stop them and say, 'Hey, here's this original artwork and here's the artist,' <strong>I really feel that most people would choose the original</strong>," Schwartz said.</p> <p>Schwartz has <a href="http://www.jenniferschwartzgallery.com/">a gallery specializing in emerging photographers in Atlanta</a>. It's simple: Emerging artists need emerging collectors. "How do you find people that aren't looking for you?" she said. Crusade is how. She bought the bus on eBay and set out for two total months on the road (away from her husband and three children). Her next stop is Chicago.</p> <p><div class="blogImageLeft" style="width:212px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/05/01/1367446224-crusade2vert.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/05/01/thumb-1367446224-crusade2vert.jpg" alt="Seattle photographer Ray Rogers and her naked self-portrait in the mountains. For today, Jennifer Schwartz was her art dealer." title="Seattle photographer Ray Rogers and her naked self-portrait in the mountains. For today, Jennifer Schwartz was her art dealer." width="200" height="267" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit"></li><li class="imageCaption">Seattle photographer Ray Rogers and her naked self-portrait in the mountains. For today, Jennifer Schwartz was her art dealer.</li></ul></div>The Seattle artists featured included <a href="http://www.rebekahrocha.com/">Rebekah Rocha</a>, who brought a tintype of a dead bird (she's also working on a series of <strong>people in their backyards</strong>); <a href="http://lllarsenimages.com/">Larry Larsen</a>, a street shooter who's <strong>a retired boilermaker welder </strong>and therefore probably responsible for the light you're experiencing if you're sitting under one in Seattle right now; and Ray Rogers.</p> <p>Rogers brought along an image of a frolicking naked person in a white-out storm in the mountains. The figure is seen from behind, wearing snow boots and throwing up hands. The gender is not quite definite. Rogers explained it's a self-portrait she shot one day when she was all alone in the Cascades. As the snow came down, she turned a stump into a makeshift tripod and let loose. The portrait has a certain something.</p> <p>"Making self-portraits with a camera has helped me to see myself with totally different eyes," Rogers said brightly, giving <strong>her thoroughly lovable two-minute artist lecture</strong> at this pop-up shop. "It's so much different from seeing yourself in a mirror."</p> <p>Art, ladies and gentlemen. Come and get it.</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/01/art-in-a-van-man#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16646906&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/01/art-in-a-van-man?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16646906&id=comments 0 Art in a Van, Man It's beautiful out, and this woman is trying to give you some free art. Jennifer Schwartz is seen here at Pike Place Market an hour ago. The Stranger Wed, 01 May 2013 15:24:49 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/27/16608705-birds-with-plans-lost-children-and-degrees-of-separation http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/27/16608705-birds-with-plans-lost-children-and-degrees-of-separation Jen Graves <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/cd9a/1367084292-img_0438.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/cd9a/1367084292-img_0438.jpg" alt="Sean M. Johnsons portrait of a lost child, made out of nails hammered into drywall and based on the photograph from an FBI poster, is at LxWxH Gallery in Georgetown." title="Sean M. Johnsons portrait of a lost child, made out of nails hammered into drywall and based on the photograph from an FBI poster, is at LxWxH Gallery in Georgetown." width="500" height="667" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit"></li><li class="imageCaption">Sean M. Johnson's portrait of a lost child, made out of nails hammered into drywall and based on the photograph from an FBI poster, is <a href="http://www.lengthbywidthbyheight.com/">at LxWxH Gallery in Georgetown</a>.</li></ul></div></p> <p>How real is the theory of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation">six degrees of separation</a> between every human? Is there a similar separation between birds in murmurations? (<a href="http://kottke.org/13/02/the-dance-of-a-murmuration-of-starlings">Spectacular video of starlings</a>.) And what about the separation between humans and other animals? Can humans convincingly imitate birds? How much of what we do is "natural," and how much "cultural"&#8212;because, isn't culture natural? </p> <p>I'm thinking about all this because of three seemingly unrelated art exhibitions in Seattle right now. One: <strong>Sean M. Johnson's <em>Pieces of a Whole</em></strong> at LxWxH, up <a href="http://www.lengthbywidthbyheight.com/">through May 4</a>. Two: <strong>Cass Nevada's <em>Release</em> at Shift</strong>, just <a href="http://www.shiftstudio.org/">up through today</a>. Three: <strong>Joseph Gregory Rossano's <em>Whitewashed</em></strong> at CoCA, which opened on Earth Day this past Monday and is <a href="http://www.cocaseattle.org/exhibitions.html">up through July 19</a>.</p> <p><div class="blogImageLeft" style="width:212px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/d7c3/1367085414-img_0363.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/d7c3/1367085414-img_0363.jpg" alt="Cass Nevada at Shift." title="Cass Nevada at Shift." width="200" height="267" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit"></li><li class="imageCaption">Cass Nevada at Shift.</li></ul></div>Nevada, fascinated by the murmurations of birds, painted similar swoops and storms across a series of found naval maps on the walls at Shift. Jackson Pollock famously said he didn't paint nature because he <em>was</em> nature. Nevada's pieces seem to test the theory that a painter's physical outbursts reflect something <strong>more authentic or "natural"</strong> than predetermined artistic creations made from detailed plans or sketches. Some of her paintings do seem to capture that perfect of-the-moment energy in their marks; others feel more forced, like imitations of impulses. What exactly are the differences? That's harder to say.</p> <p>At LxWxH, Johnson's portraits of lost children are murmurations, too. The nails are hammered in at varying depths, forming an undulating surface (and creating the effect of shading you'd see if this were a pencil drawing). <strong>The surface has its own rhythm.</strong> But it's premeditated. The pencil lines the artist set down to guide his hammering are still visible.</p> <p><div class="blogImageRight" style="width:212px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/4533/1367085875-img_0445.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/4533/1367085875-img_0445.jpg" alt="IMG_0445.jpg" title="" width="200" height="267" /></a></div>There's another connection between Nevada's paintings and Johnson's portraits: the question of closeness versus aloneness. The nails in Johnson's portrait hang together like the birds, forming a society. But <strong>the fact of a stolen child</strong> is a rip in that fabric. It feels so awful that it threatens to tear everything apart. Does one wrong move by a bird ever cause them all to come crashing into each other and out of the sky?</p> <p>Rossano's exhibition <em>Whitewashed</em> is a demonstration of his admiration and respect for extinct and nearly-extinct animals, including tigers, basking sharks, and polar bears&#8212;his feeling of closeness with them. <strong>Why does he identify?</strong> Why do any of us?</p> <p><div class="blogImageLeft" style="width:212px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/04/27/1367086655-img_0378.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/04/27/thumb-1367086655-img_0378.jpg" alt="One of Rossanos boxes contains this unexplained archival photograph of a tiger in a lab." title="One of Rossanos boxes contains this unexplained archival photograph of a tiger in a lab." width="200" height="267" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit"></li><li class="imageCaption">One of Rossano's boxes contains this unexplained archival photograph of a tiger in a lab.</li></ul></div>Rossano invites visitors to explore his white "kinetic specimen boxes," sculptures, and videos.The white boxes are drawers in which Rossano has placed photographs, DNA charts, paintings, animal skins, related found advertisements and objects. Behind all the whiteness, and whitewashing, as the title implies, there's a proliferation of information&#8212;Rossano even commissioned a scientist to write an essay about each animal he profiles. The act of opening the drawer brings <strong>a surprise each time</strong>. It's the surprise of facing something you kind of recognize, and kind of can't.</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/27/16608705-birds-with-plans-lost-children-and-degrees-of-separation#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16608705&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/27/16608705-birds-with-plans-lost-children-and-degrees-of-separation?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16608705&id=comments 6 Birds with Plans, Lost Children, and Degrees of Separation Sean M. Johnson's portrait of a lost child, made out of nails hammered into drywall and based on the photograph from an FBI poster, is <a href="http://www.lengthbywidthbyheight.com/">at LxWxH Gallery in Georgetown</a>. Sat, 27 Apr 2013 11:18:21 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/26/who-could-resist-this-email-from-a-daughter-promoting-her-elderly-moms-erotic-art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/26/who-could-resist-this-email-from-a-daughter-promoting-her-elderly-moms-erotic-art Jen Graves <p>Meet <a href="http://www.bettysanderartist.com/">Betty Sander</a>. I got this email from her daughter, Shaw Sander:</p> <blockquote><p>I imagine our information sent on Betty Sander&#8217;s &#8220;<strong>Psychedelic Phantasm</strong>&#8221; show was overlooked in the email slush pile, but we very much want you quality folks at <em>The Stranger</em> to know about this incredible work. Now on display in the hall gallery on <strong>Broadway Market&#8217;s quiet 2nd floor, the show runs through May 23rd, 2013</strong>.<br /> (<em>Though this show is family-friendly abstract acrylics on paper, she is most famous for her <strong>full-frontal eye-popping high color male nudes</strong>. We&#8217;re seeking a Capitol Hill venue for those, if you have suggestions!</em>)<br /> <br /> Originally based in the Midwest, Ms. Sander&#8217;s six-decade resume extends from Chicago&#8217;s radical art scene to permanent display status at Indiana University&#8217;s <strong>Kinsey Sex Institute</strong>. <br /> After her <strong>PNW debut at the 2012 Seattle Erotic Art Festival</strong>, Betty Sander&#8217;s intricately detailed sensual eye candy has commanded a cult-like following for her bold psychedelic style. <br /> Creator of delicate pencil and crayon life forms, rich landscapes, psychedelic wild abstracts and textured collages, <strong>octogenarian</strong> Betty Sander&#8217;s infamy includes her masterpiece embellishing Richard Avedon Beatles&#8217; <em>White Album</em> photographs entitled &#8220;Beatle Bijou.&#8221; Elaborate and visually sensual, Betty Sander creates lush vibrant color-bursts undulating through her work, filling the eyes with concentric layers of unbelievable beauty. <br /> She also <strong>plays 12-string Dobro guitar</strong>, holds a Master&#8217;s from the University of Chicago, effortlessly reads Greek and Latin, <strong>tilled a forty-acre Rodale organic farm</strong>, managed a folk-music coffeehouse in the turbulent 1960&#8217;s and raised three daughters, of which I am one.</p></blockquote> <p>Ladies and gentlemen, Betty Sander. </p> <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:484px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/766e/1366939261-_mg_1373.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/766e/1366939261-_mg_1373.jpg" alt="One of Betty Sanders many nudes." title="One of Betty Sanders many nudes." width="472" height="640" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit">Courtesy of the artist</li><li class="imageCaption">One of <a href="http://www.bettysanderartist.com/galleries.php">Betty Sander's many nudes</a>.</li></ul></div></p> <p>See the art next time you shop at <a href="http://www.shopbroadwaymarket.com/">Broadway Market</a>.</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/26/who-could-resist-this-email-from-a-daughter-promoting-her-elderly-moms-erotic-art#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16593098&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/26/who-could-resist-this-email-from-a-daughter-promoting-her-elderly-moms-erotic-art?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16593098&id=comments 4 Who Could Resist This Email From A Daughter Promoting Her Elderly Mom's Erotic Art? One of <a href="http://www.bettysanderartist.com/galleries.php">Betty Sander's many nudes</a>. Courtesy of the artist Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:40:23 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/26/in-seattle-summer-never-really-arrives http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/26/in-seattle-summer-never-really-arrives Jen Graves <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/8ffe/1366938471-img_0272.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/8ffe/1366938471-img_0272.jpg" alt="A detail from the row of painted postcards in Ruth Marie Tomlinsons installation Lost Long at Jack Straw New Media Gallery." title="A detail from the row of painted postcards in Ruth Marie Tomlinsons installation Lost Long at Jack Straw New Media Gallery." width="500" height="375" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit"></li><li class="imageCaption">A detail from the row of painted postcards in Ruth Marie Tomlinson's installation <em>Lost Long</em> at Jack Straw New Media Gallery.</li></ul></div></p> <p>It's in a small enclosed room steps away from the traffic of Roosevelt Way, with one brick wall, two long cloudy windows, and a dumb thin black carpet laid down in squares. <strong>I've been to this place before</strong>: It's a gallery, the Jack Straw New Media Gallery, and a couple of months ago it gained a glassy lobby&#8212;you used to have to ring a doorbell then walk down a dim hallway to enter it, which could not have been a less fortuitous beginning. When the gallery door closes behind me this time, I have traveled someplace new. There are <strong>sounds</strong>: empty playground swings clanging against metal poles, a female voice reading weather conditions ("cloudless, windless"), distant thunder and dripping rain. A continuous line of white pins along the white walls outlines a mountain range, ringing me into a valley. In the center there's a low long <strong>table that glows</strong>.</p> <p><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/you-are-in-montana/Content?oid=16572878">Continue reading >></a></p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/26/in-seattle-summer-never-really-arrives?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16593089&id=comments 0 In Seattle, Summer Never Really Arrives A detail from the row of postcards in Ruth Marie Tomlinson's installation <em>Lost Long</em> at Jack Straw New Media Gallery. Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:16:43 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/25/currently-hanging-the-pulp-the-timber-and-the-democracy http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/25/currently-hanging-the-pulp-the-timber-and-the-democracy Jen Graves <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/c3a1/1366915608-img_0312.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/c3a1/1366915608-img_0312.jpg" alt="IMG_0312.JPG" title="" width="500" height="375" /></a></div></p> <p>You still have a minute to see <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Event?event=16422418"><em>Polari</em></a> at True Love Art Gallery, the group exhibition that's the visual-art component of <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/mo-wave-is-the-queer-festival-youve-been-waiting-for/Content?oid=16454074">the marvelous musical 'Mo-Wave festival</a>. The show contains multitudes, even if those multitudes are a little overly dudey. I came away with a few favorite works. One is by <strong>Adam Boehmer</strong> who, if I'm not mistaken, is also the singer-songwriter of one of the lead musical acts from 'Mo-Wave, <a href="http://tenderfootmusic.bandcamp.com/">Tenderfoot</a>. He created the collaged portrait of subdued timbertown homoeroticism you see above. (My apologies for the inadequate photo with reflecting fluorescent lights, or maybe it adds a layer of imagining that this vision of history is actually hanging in a wood-paneled conference room somewhere, some den of sexual repression.) Boehmer nestled zones of crumpled magazine pornography on an archival aerial view of the Puget Sound Pulp &amp; Timber company. The land itself is writhing, surrounded by all these hard lots of industry.</p> <p>Then there's <em>The Democracy of Assholes</em>, a classically balanced, perfectly sanctified dirty/clean geometry of public-restroom silver and gold by <strong>Davida Ingram</strong>.</p> <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/7f0d/1366916830-img_0301.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/7f0d/1366916830-img_0301.jpg" alt="IMG_0301.JPG" title="" width="500" height="375" /></a></div></p> <p>Don't miss <strong>Kelly O's balls</strong>, a watercolor by I-don't-know-who referring to <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/04/25/1366916958-img_0303.jpg">a sexually explicit Akio Takamori sculpture dream</a>, and a tarted-up marionette of Yves St. Laurent by Davora M. Lindner. More <a href="http://www.trueloveart.com/2013/04/04/mo-wave-presents-polari/">here</a>.</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/25/currently-hanging-the-pulp-the-timber-and-the-democracy#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16590510&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/25/currently-hanging-the-pulp-the-timber-and-the-democracy?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16590510&id=comments 1 <b>Currently Hanging</b>: The Pulp, the Timber, and the Democracy Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:12:34 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/25/the-photography-out-of-bangladesh-today http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/25/the-photography-out-of-bangladesh-today Jen Graves <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/92f5/1366912126-jp-bangladesh1-articlelarge.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/92f5/1366912126-jp-bangladesh1-articlelarge.jpg" alt="This photograph, by A.M. Ahad of the Associated Press, ran with todays New York Times story about the garment factory collapse." title="This photograph, by A.M. Ahad of the Associated Press, ran with todays New York Times story about the garment factory collapse." width="500" height="333" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit"></li><li class="imageCaption">This photograph, by A.M. Ahad of the Associated Press, ran with today's <em>New York Times</em> story about the garment factory collapse.</li></ul></div></p> <p>There's just something about this photograph by A.M. Ahad of the Associated Press that I can't stop thinking about this morning. It ran with the <em>New York Times</em> piece about <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/world/asia/bangladesh-building-collapse.html">the building collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh, yesterday afternoon</a>, when more than a hundred people were killed even though inspectors had already warned that the place was unsound. <strong>Bosses told workers to come to their stations anyway</strong>.</p> <p>The way the people look so tiny, the way they file out and balance on that ridge of rubble, something about the angling&#8212;it all feels like a trick of Photoshop or a staged image with figurines, like it can't be real. It captures perfectly the dread of getting any closer.</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/25/the-photography-out-of-bangladesh-today#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16590127&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> News Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/25/the-photography-out-of-bangladesh-today?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16590127&id=comments 9 The Photography Out of Bangladesh Today This photograph, by A.M. Ahad of the Associated Press, ran with today's <em>New York Times</em> story about the garment factory collapse. Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:21:58 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/25/the-arrest-of-a-chihuly-trafficker http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/25/the-arrest-of-a-chihuly-trafficker Jen Graves <p>This morning, a 35-year-old man in Renton&#8212;Michael Little&#8212;was picked up for <strong>trafficking on eBay in fake Chihuly paintings and glass pieces</strong>, according to a DOJ announcement just now. He'll have his first appearance in court today at 1:30, and he could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.</p> <p>If the accusations are true, I wonder: <strong>Were they good forgeries?</strong> Chihuly has expert glassblowers fabricating his pieces, and he employs at least one man who specializes in making his splattery paintings. Who made these forgeries? Little himself? Or was he just the trafficker?</p> <p>From the DOJ: </p> <blockquote><p>MICHAEL LITTLE was arrested this morning following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement&#8217;s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). ...</p> <p>According to the criminal complaint filed in the case, in 2011 and 2012, LITTLE offered for sale or sold various pieces of glass art and paintings that he represented were the work of Dale Chihuly. LITTLE marketed the works via eBay. The artworks bore a signature that appeared to be Chihuly&#8217;s and LITTLE provided paperwork that he said authenticated the pieces as the work of Dale Chihuly. However, an expert in Chihuly&#8217;s work examined the pieces at the request of the purchaser and determined they were fakes. The papers that were supposed to authenticate the works were also allegedly forged.</p></blockquote> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/25/the-arrest-of-a-chihuly-trafficker#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16589816&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Crime Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/25/the-arrest-of-a-chihuly-trafficker?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16589816&id=comments 16 Thu, 25 Apr 2013 10:27:03 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/23/currently-hanging-old-game-well-played-drunken-crusty-ab-exing-by-ron-ehrlich http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/23/currently-hanging-old-game-well-played-drunken-crusty-ab-exing-by-ron-ehrlich Jen Graves <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/af9d/1366740998-toltsd.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/af9d/1366740998-toltsd.jpg" alt="Untitled, oil and wax on wood, 30 by 30 inches, at Abmeyer + Wood Fine Art." title="Untitled, oil and wax on wood, 30 by 30 inches, at Abmeyer + Wood Fine Art." width="500" height="510" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit">Courtesy Abmeyer + Wood</li><li class="imageCaption"><em>Untitled</em>, oil and wax on wood, 30 by 30 inches, at Abmeyer + Wood Fine Art.</li></ul></div></p> <p>I'm not usually in the mood for rehashed abstract expressionism, but this time, it's well done, by Rhode Island artist <strong>Ron Ehrlich</strong>, <a href="http://www.abmeyerwood.com/index.cfm">at Abmeyer + Wood Fine Art on Second Avenue</a>. Ehrlich thinks of each of the paintings in his recent series of <em>Drunken Horses</em> as a self-portrait, and they're majestic and sorry-looking at the same time, their legs splayed and their surfaces drippy and built up out of plaster and oil paint and wood and wax. They're up <strong>through Thursday</strong>.</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/23/currently-hanging-old-game-well-played-drunken-crusty-ab-exing-by-ron-ehrlich#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16569603&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/23/currently-hanging-old-game-well-played-drunken-crusty-ab-exing-by-ron-ehrlich?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16569603&id=comments 0 <b>Currently Hanging</b>: Old Game Well-Played (Drunken Crusty Ab-Exing by Ron Ehrlich) <em>Untitled</em>, oil and wax on wood, 30 by 30 inches, at Abmeyer + Wood Fine Art. Courtesy Abmeyer + Wood Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:12:28 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/23/sudden-moves-after-15-years-roq-la-rue-relocates-to-pioneer-square http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/23/sudden-moves-after-15-years-roq-la-rue-relocates-to-pioneer-square Jen Graves <p><div class="blogImageRight" style="width:212px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/e0e2/1366740074-roq_photo.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/e0e2/1366740074-roq_photo.jpg" alt="THE NEW ROQ LA RUE Buildout underway as we speak." title="THE NEW ROQ LA RUE Buildout underway as we speak." width="200" height="267" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit">Courtesy Roq La Rue Gallery</li><li class="imageCaption">THE NEW ROQ LA RUE Buildout underway as we speak.</li></ul></div>After 15 years in the Belltown neighborhood, <a href="http://www.roqlarue.com/">Roq La Rue Gallery</a> will be joining the Pioneer Square crowd. Roq owner Kirsten Anderson found out about three weeks ago that her landlord needed the space for a more lucrative use. <strong>No hard feelings</strong>, she emailed: "I can't really blame them, I was getting a real good deal on rent."</p> <p>But she was a little panicked, looking for a new place. The very next day she found one: a magically airy place that's <strong>"very gallery-esque already," with 15-foot ceilings</strong>, at 532 First Avenue South (near King Street, which is one block south of Jackson). In addition to the white cube of the main gallery area, she's creating an upstairs "project room" for smaller exhibitions.</p> <p>"Excited about this transition happening right on the eve of Roq La Rue's <strong>15th anniversary</strong>, we decided to get the gallery properly built out as fast as possible and host our May show in the new exhibition space," Anderson wrote. </p> <p>The <strong>grand opening is May 2</strong>, First Thursday Art Walk, with an exhibition by local painter <strong>Stacey Rozich</strong>.</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/23/sudden-moves-after-15-years-roq-la-rue-relocates-to-pioneer-square#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16569520&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/23/sudden-moves-after-15-years-roq-la-rue-relocates-to-pioneer-square?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16569520&id=comments 2 Sudden Moves: After 15 Years, Roq La Rue Relocates to Pioneer Square Buildout underway at the new Roq La Rue Gallery in Pioneer Square. Courtesy Roq La Rue Gallery Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:03:32 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/23/the-batty-nanomolecular-paintings-of-shane-hope http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/23/the-batty-nanomolecular-paintings-of-shane-hope Jen Graves <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/86d6/1366732521-1.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/86d6/1366732521-1.jpg" alt="These are all details of Shane Hopes paintings, on display at Winkleman Gallery in Chelsea, New York." title="These are all details of Shane Hopes paintings, on display at Winkleman Gallery in Chelsea, New York." width="500" height="667" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit"></li><li class="imageCaption">These are all details of Shane Hope's paintings, on display at Winkleman Gallery in Chelsea, New York.</li></ul></div></p> <p>Visiting New York two weeks ago, I wandered into <a href="http://www.winkleman.com/exhibitions/782">the great gallery of Ed Winkleman and found the works of Shane Hope</a>.</p> <p>The hype of Hope is strong.</p> <p>He <strong>creates his own 3D printers</strong> to make his boggling works, about which:</p> <blockquote><p>Accelerating progress in nanometer-scale science and technology continues to expand the toolkit with which we can eventually assemble things from the atom up. This will potentially give rise to <strong>nearly costless systems for controlling the structure of matter itself</strong>.</p></blockquote> <p><div class="blogImageLeft" style="width:212px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/b28d/1366733037-2.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/b28d/1366733037-2.jpg" alt="2.jpg" title="" width="200" height="267" /></a></div>People! Occupy matter!</p> <p>The statement about Hope's exhibition grows more byzantine and absurd as it progresses, in a hilarious mirroring of what happens when you fall into the batty surfaces of the works.</p> <blockquote><p>Forever optimistic, Hope puts forth these pieces as plans for playborground ball pits of pure operationality all about an atomic admin access-privs picturesque.</p></blockquote> <p><div class="blogImageRight" style="width:212px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/648a/1366734105-3.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/648a/1366734105-3.jpg" alt="3.jpg" title="" width="200" height="267" /></a></div>The writing's a perfect nerd companion to the paintings, which share the quality of being simultaneously sexy and amazing, and not too serious. They're pretty marvelous. </p> <blockquote><p>In Hope&#8217;s own words, &#8220;So run this, for here&#8217;s how you in the form of pathetic-prophetic techno-poetics for reals forge future&#8217;s futures: nano-nonobjective-oriented ontographic scribblin&#8217; on scriptable-scalable species-tool-beings... metacompetitive metabolisms of <strong>things-executin&#8217;-things-executin&#8217;-things-executin&#8217;-things</strong>&#8230;&#8221;</p></blockquote> <p>Got it. The gallery web site is <a href="http://www.winkleman.com/exhibitions/782">here</a>, and more pictures are on the jump.</p> <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/04/23/1366734423-4.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/04/23/thumb-1366734423-4.jpg" alt="4.jpg" title="" width="500" height="667" /></a></div></p> <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/04/23/1366734182-white.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/04/23/thumb-1366734182-white.jpg" alt="white.jpg" title="" width="500" height="667" /></a></div></p> <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/04/23/1366734224-corner.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/04/23/thumb-1366734224-corner.jpg" alt="corner.jpg" title="" width="500" height="667" /></a></div></p> <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/04/23/1366734339-honeycomb.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/04/23/thumb-1366734339-honeycomb.jpg" alt="honeycomb.jpg" title="" width="500" height="667" /></a></div></p> <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/04/23/1366734386-5.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/04/23/thumb-1366734386-5.jpg" alt="5.jpg" title="" width="500" height="667" /></a></div></p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/23/the-batty-nanomolecular-paintings-of-shane-hope#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16568737&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art Nerd http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/23/the-batty-nanomolecular-paintings-of-shane-hope?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16568737&id=comments 9 The Batty Nanomolecular Paintings of Shane Hope These are all details of Shane Hope's paintings, on display at Winkleman Gallery in Chelsea, New York. Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:27:27 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/19/the-great-music-writer-ann-powers-nick-drakes-voice-and-the-big-eyed-shepherd-girl-at-the-frye http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/19/the-great-music-writer-ann-powers-nick-drakes-voice-and-the-big-eyed-shepherd-girl-at-the-frye Jen Graves <p>Ann Powers begins, "<a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/04/18/177772898/what-nick-drake-taught-me-about-art-and-love">It was in Seattle's Frye Art Museum that I first found endless love with a work of art</a>."</p> <p>Here she is, Ann's first art love, <strong>this little girl</strong> who "more educated art lovers would have considered utterly sentimental." Who was yours?</p> <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:294px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/5e1f/1366398126-shepherdess_lg.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/5e1f/1366398126-shepherdess_lg.jpg" alt="William Bouguereau, 1881." title="William Bouguereau, 1881." width="282" height="432" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit">Courtesy Frye Art Museum</li><li class="imageCaption">William Bouguereau, 1881.</li></ul></div></p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/19/the-great-music-writer-ann-powers-nick-drakes-voice-and-the-big-eyed-shepherd-girl-at-the-frye#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16536198&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Music Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/19/the-great-music-writer-ann-powers-nick-drakes-voice-and-the-big-eyed-shepherd-girl-at-the-frye?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16536198&id=comments 10 The Great Music Writer Ann Powers, Nick Drake's Voice, and the Big-Eyed Shepherd Girl at the Frye William Bouguereau, 1881. Courtesy Frye Art Museum Fri, 19 Apr 2013 12:48:51 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/19/when-the-news-is-exhausting http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/19/when-the-news-is-exhausting Jen Graves <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/3227/1366397573-984x588-oqjln6uuvdtuhasl.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/3227/1366397573-984x588-oqjln6uuvdtuhasl.jpg" alt="984x588-OqJLn6uuVdtUhASl.jpg" title="" width="500" height="410" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit">Courtesy the artist</li><li class="imageCaption"></li></ul></div></p> <p>This painting, <em>When Will It End</em>, is by Joe Wardwell, who lays rock lyrics over 19th-century Hudson River School-like painted imagery. He lives and teaches near Boston, he studied at Boston University and the University of Washington, and he currently has an exhibition of perfectly exhausted paintings, <a href="http://proledrift.com/"><em>As We Go Up We Go Down</em>, at Prole Drift</a> in the International District. His web site is <a href="http://joewardwell.com/home.html">here</a>.</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/19/when-the-news-is-exhausting#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16536180&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/19/when-the-news-is-exhausting?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16536180&id=comments 2 When the News Is Exhausting Courtesy the artist Fri, 19 Apr 2013 11:53:56 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/18/thursday-morning-news-what-a-mess http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/18/thursday-morning-news-what-a-mess Jen Graves <p><b><em>Boston Globe</em> Says Authorities Have "Clear Video Images of Two Suspects"</b>: <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/18/authorities-have-clear-video-images-two-suspects/YejgNWAcmChcx2lUXigs5I/story.html">Here's the story</a>. But the only thing that seems clear, if you didn't know this already, is that reading the <em>New York Post</em> will <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-boehlert/this-is-bad-even-for-the-_b_3101237.html">rot your mind</a>.</p> <p><b>Explosion at a Fertilizer Plant in Waco</b>: <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/17/fertilizer-plant-in-texas-town-explodes">Paul posted video earlier</a>. Still not known <a href="http://www.wacotrib.com/a/update-explosion-at-west-plant-injures-firefighters/article_51082f25-3238-5c50-9d12-3f11bafcf352.html">how many dead and injured</a>, estimates are between 5 and 15 dead.</p> <p><b>Sinkhole Swallows Three Cars</b>: <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-sinkhole-swallows-3-cars-20130418,0,4497819.story">In southeast Chicago</a>.</p> <p><b>Widespread Flooding in Chicago Area</b>: <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/18/travel/weather/index.html?hpt=hp_t3">Crazy weather throughout the Midwest</a>.</p> <p><b>How Brittney Griner, WNBA's No. 1 Pick, Talks Simply and Gracefully</b>: <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1608609-brittney-griner-opens-up-about-her-sexuality?hpt=hp_t3">About "Being one that's out."</a></p> <p><b>Musharraf Flees to His Luxury Home</b>: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/18/pakistan-former-president-musharraf-court-arrest">In the middle of the court case against him, just after being told his bail would not be extended</a>. </p> <p><b>To Recap</b>: <a href="http://www.ctmirror.org/story/19736/gun-control-bills-set-die-congress">Newtown parents watched the gun bill die in a display of corruption that's surprising even for the bought-and-sold-by-the-gun-lobby Senate yesterday</a>.</p> <p><b>American Jobs</b>: <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/18/news/economy/suburbs-jobs/index.html?hpt=hp_t3">Moving to the suburbs</a>.</p> <p><b>North Korea Will Only Talk</b>: If apologies are issued for all acts of provocation against them, <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2013/04/201341883956213774.html">and other demands</a>.</p> <p><b>What's red and gooey?</b>: <a href="http://blogs.seattletimes.com/fieldnotes/2013/04/18/elwha-river-reborn-red-beautiful-clouds-of-goo-explained/">The Elwha River</a>.</p> <p><b>Woman Accused of Murder in Kitsap County</b>: <a href="http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/04/18/2562466/charge-wa-woman-promoted-prostitution.html">Also accused of co-pimping from jail</a>.</p> <p><b>Greek Strawberry Farmer Opens Fire</b>: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22198699">On Bangladeshi migrant workers who asked for their salaries to be paid</a>. Meanwhile, children in Greece: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/world/europe/more-children-in-greece-start-to-go-hungry.html?hp&_r=0">going hungry</a>.</p> <p><b>The Private Photographer of Public Enemy</b>: <a href="http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/public-enemys-private-photographer/?hp">Ernie Paniccioli</a>.</p> <p><b>Twitter's New Service</b>: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22199692">#Music</a>.</p> <p>I believe this is a morning for the glass harmonica. </p> <p><div style="text-align:center;"><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/U_WROD35aeU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/18/thursday-morning-news-what-a-mess#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16526366&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/18/thursday-morning-news-what-a-mess?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16526366&id=comments 22 Thu, 18 Apr 2013 07:58:22 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/16/fracked-video-art-north-dakota-and-susie-lee http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/16/fracked-video-art-north-dakota-and-susie-lee Jen Graves <p><div style="text-align:center;"><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/63868173?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0&amp;color=808080" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/63868173">boom.</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user5665017">Susie Lee</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p></div></p> <p>Even if you are familiar with Seattle-based artist <a href="http://www.susiejlee.com/index.html">Susie J. Lee</a>&#8212;she won the Stranger Genius Award in 2010, she was celebrated at Portland Art Museum in 2011, she has exhibited and collaborated across this country, in Europe, and in Korea&#8212;you may not know that she grew up in Grand Forks, North Dakota.</p> <p>And like most Geniuses, Lee is <em>always</em> working on something you don't know about. </p> <p>It turns out Lee has been in North Dakota for the better part of a month, making art that now constitutes her first solo exhibition in her home state. It opened this past Sunday at the North Dakota Museum of Art in Grand Forks, and it's called <a href="http://www.ndmoa.org/exhibitions-current"><em>Split Open</em></a>, in a reference both to the splitting psychological experience of returning to one's home after a long absence, and to the freezing, fractured physical landscape of North Dakota itself, which is currently being <strong>fracked so hard that more oil is coming out of the ground every day than can be trucked away</strong>.</p> <p>Lee went right into the heart of that fracked land to make this new work&#8212;in planes, in cars, in bars. She took along as videographer another Seattle artist, the excellent Rodrigo Valenzuela. (He currently has a solo very much worth seeing, called <em>(in)habit</em>, <a href="http://www.blindfoldgallery.com/index.php?/exhibitions2013/aprrodrigo/">at Blindfold Gallery</a>.)</p> <p>She wrote:</p> <blockquote><p>We spent ten days in the northwest corner of North Dakota. We flew over the Badlands; we drove for miles on Highway 2 and 1084; we explored a drilling rig; <strong>we ate our meals and stayed at a man camp</strong>; we played pool and drank beer in Stanley with a drilling crew; we saw the flares, the mud, the towns, and all that everyone talks about. On one side is <strong>dusty congestion, then vast emptiness</strong>. There is unpredictable traffic and relentless motion and sound. There is a both feeling of urgency and also a geological sense of time.</p></blockquote> <p><strong>The earth itself seems to groan</strong> in <a href="http://vimeo.com/63444585"><em>Giantess</em></a>, another 7-minute video from the exhibition. I don't know where the sound came from on either of these, but I'd like to.</p> <p>I salute Lee for doing more than just sending a bunch of pre-cooked work to her hometown and making an appearance for the opening. Instead, she dug into these places that are unrecognizable from the way they were when she was growing up around them, capturing <strong>the glimmery oil burbling and sliding</strong> down a wall of earth, and the wind from the traffic ruffling the feathers of the roadkill, and the infinite train with its reassuring rhythm. Is this romanticism? What were those man camps and bars like for Lee?</p> <p>I wish I could get over to see the full show, but I don't think I'm going to be able to make it before <strong>it closes May 26</strong>. If anyone's there, please <a href="mailto:jgraves@thestranger.com">send me a note and tell me what you see</a>.</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/16/fracked-video-art-north-dakota-and-susie-lee#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16505876&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/16/fracked-video-art-north-dakota-and-susie-lee?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16505876&id=comments 1 Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:01:06 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/15/doing-aerobics-in-front-of-priceless-paintings http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/15/doing-aerobics-in-front-of-priceless-paintings Jen Graves <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/b17e/1366049924-img_0047.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/b17e/1366049924-img_0047.jpg" alt="MODERN LOVE Aerobics and abstraction." title="MODERN LOVE Aerobics and abstraction." width="500" height="375" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit">The Stranger</li><li class="imageCaption">MODERN LOVE Aerobics and abstraction.</li></ul></div></p> <p>Last week I returned to my hometown of Albany, New York, where I love to visit the really stunning <a href="https://online.ogs.ny.gov/curatorial/artcollection/default.asp">Empire State Art Collection</a> <strong>hidden underground</strong>, beneath the Empire State Plaza and one of my favorite buildings in the world, <a href="http://www.theegg.org/about">the Egg</a>. It's a public art collection.</p> <p><div class="blogImageRight" style="width:162px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/dfcc/1366050454-img_0049.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/dfcc/1366050454-img_0049.jpg" alt="Lunging to Louis." title="Lunging to Louis." width="150" height="200" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit"></li><li class="imageCaption">Lunging to Louis.</li></ul></div>I say that it's stunning because of pieces like <a href="https://online.ogs.ny.gov/curatorial/artcollection/detail.asp?PictureID=31">this Bontecou</a>. (Which I couldn't find out this time around, by the way. Did I miss it or was it taking a rest in storage?) Or <a href="https://online.ogs.ny.gov/curatorial/artcollection/detail.asp?PictureID=99">this Morris Louis</a>. Or <a href="https://online.ogs.ny.gov/curatorial/artcollection/detail.asp?PictureID=75">this 90-foot Al Held</a>. Or <a href="https://online.ogs.ny.gov/curatorial/artcollection/detail.asp?PictureID=85">this Ellsworth Kelly</a>. Or <a href="https://online.ogs.ny.gov/curatorial/artcollection/detail.asp?PictureID=21">this Anuszkiewicz</a>. I've written about the collection before, <a href="http://blogs.artinfo.com/modernartnotes/2007/12/page/5/">here</a>, but part of what's worth pointing out repeatedly is that this collection was assembled starting in 1966, and it consisted of 92 <em>new</em> works. These were not tried-and-true purchases. The state bought adventurously.</p> <p>It's also stunning because nobody seems to remember that it's there. Last week, when I asked a guard for the fastest way to get down to the art from the New York State History Museum entrances, <strong>he told me there isn't any art down there</strong>.</p> <p>Then there was the aerobics class.</p> <p>It was in the Corning Tower Concourse Lobby. And it was pumping.</p> <p>This is not the same place it was five years ago, when I visited the Corning Tower Concourse Lobby. Back then, it was Homeland Security central, a place for metal detection and metal detection only. I had to make phone calls to officials and flash badges and receive passes just to get back behind the security desk to glimpse the paintings for five minutes, after which point I was whisked away.</p> <p><div class="blogImageLeft" style="width:162px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/04/15/1366050775-img_0052.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/04/15/thumb-1366050775-img_0052.jpg" alt="Flexing to Frankenthaler." title="Flexing to Frankenthaler." width="150" height="200" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit"></li><li class="imageCaption">Flexing to Frankenthaler.</li></ul></div>Now aerobics were taking pumping place in front of the Morris Louis, <strong>the 1952 Jackson Pollock that was once in a fire</strong> (<a href="https://online.ogs.ny.gov/curatorial/artcollection/detail.asp?PictureID=210">this image of it</a> is way too brown&#8212;the yellows and reds are actually electric, almost garish), the <a href="https://online.ogs.ny.gov/curatorial/artcollection/detail.asp?PictureID=155">dark Rothko</a>, <a href="https://online.ogs.ny.gov/curatorial/artcollection/detail.asp?PictureID=115">the Joan Mitchell</a>, the unusually light-and-spacious <a href="https://online.ogs.ny.gov/curatorial/artcollection/detail.asp?PictureID=189">Clyfford Still</a> (pictured at top, hanging to the right of the Louis), the <a href="https://online.ogs.ny.gov/curatorial/artcollection/detail.asp?PictureID=65">glowing Gottlieb</a>.</p> <p>Freedom fitness! The terrorists have not won.</p> <p>The only question left is: Which abstract artist is the best for your heart rate?</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/15/doing-aerobics-in-front-of-priceless-paintings#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16500496&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/15/doing-aerobics-in-front-of-priceless-paintings?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16500496&id=comments 2 Doing Aerobics in Front of Priceless Paintings MODERN LOVE Aerobics and abstraction. The Stranger Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:38:39 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/11/how-best-to-describe-this-painting http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/11/how-best-to-describe-this-painting Dominic Holden <p>Jen is out this week, so I'm filling in on the visual art beat&#8212;how hard could it be? I'm already stumped. Look at this, uh, <em>lovely piece</em> that's been haunting me from window of Super Genius Tattoo:</p> <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/a1d4/1365704747-super_genius_painting.jpg" alt="super_genius_painting.jpg" title="" width="500" height="428" /></div></p> <p>So many thoughts&#8212;so few words.</p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/11/how-best-to-describe-this-painting#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16473626&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/11/how-best-to-describe-this-painting?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16473626&id=comments 17 How Best to Describe this Painting? Thu, 11 Apr 2013 11:27:40 -0700 The Stranger http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/03/amor-muerte-hector-salamanca http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/03/amor-muerte-hector-salamanca Jen Graves <p><div class="blogImageRight" style="width:212px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/04/03/1365022936-goya-32040-detail.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2013/04/03/1365022936-goya-32040-detail.jpg" alt="The humanity! Goya." title="The humanity! Goya." width="200" height="286" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit">Courtesy of Davidson Galleries</li><li class="imageCaption">The humanity! Goya.</li></ul></div>Art Walk in Pioneer Square is tomorrow night.</p> <p>You've got <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/a-vast-empathy/Content?oid=16403014">David Byrd at Greg Kucera</a>.</p> <p><a href="http://www.davidsongalleries.com/artists/goya/goya.php">Goya's <em>Los Caprichos</em> at Davidson</a>.</p> <p>The birds of <a href="http://www.ggibsongallery.com/">Justin Gibbens at G. Gibson</a> (with other artists, too, including Maija Fiebig and Joann Verburg).</p> <p><strong>Matt Sellars, fresh out of the desert</strong>, <a href="http://www.platformgallery.com/">at Platform</a>.</p> <p>One of Sellars's carved wood pieces is called <em>Hector Salamanca</em>. I sincerely hope it's based on <a href="http://breakingbad.wikia.com/wiki/Hector_%22Tio%22_Salamanca">this <em>Breaking Bad</em> character</a>. Elsewhere in the exhibition are carvings reminiscent of bleached and picked-clean bones, and <strong>a life-size shack with mysterious contents</strong>. Sellars writes in his artist statement that the desert is a "resource of emptiness" for "those who seek to occupy this void." Here's a detail from the shack/video installation:</p> <p><div class="blogImageCenter" style="width:512px;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/e99b/1365022582-formation-11.jpg" class="zoomable"><img src="http://www.thestranger.com/binary/e99b/1365022582-formation-11.jpg" alt="Matt Sellars" title="Matt Sellars" width="500" height="334" /></a><ul><li class="imageCredit">Courtesy the artist and Platform Gallery</li><li class="imageCaption">Matt Sellars</li></ul></div></p> <p>[ <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/03/amor-muerte-hector-salamanca#comments">Comment on this story</a> ]</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16408181&amp;id=comments">Subscribe to the comments on this story</a> ]</p> Visual Art http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/03/amor-muerte-hector-salamanca?show=comments#readerComments http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Rss.xml?oid=16408181&id=comments 1 Amor, muerte, Hector Salamanca Preston Singletary (with Alan Fulle) at Traver Gallery. Courtesy the artist and Traver Gallery Wed, 03 Apr 2013 14:03:47 -0700 The Stranger