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Thursday, March 5, 2009

Visual Art Tacoma Is A Great Place to See Art Right Now

Posted by Jen Graves on Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 3:57 PM

At Tacoma Art Museum is the Northwest Biennial, which is important but drab and drafty. You can see the opposite of that show's conservatism at two other Tacoma locations: Kittredge Gallery at the University of Puget Sound, where Jeffry Mitchell has a roomful of loose, vibrant, all-new installations (save one), and Helm Gallery, where Eli Hanson and Joey Piecuch have a funny and fabulous show that includes bits of brick from Ted Bundy's house (the artists got the address from Ann Rule's book), moonshine being made illegally right in the gallery on the art pedestals, and a Weider 245 weightlifting machine.

Reviews of these two newer shows will come out next week; at some point I'll post the images I shot of Mitchell installing and making his work at the last minute.

But I also want to call out an exhibition of exquisite Mexican political prints by Arturo Garcia Bustos and Rina Lazo in the Kittredge room adjoining Mitchell's installation. These are (top, then bottom) La Carga contra el Pueblo (The Charge Against the People), from 1968, by Bustos; and Lazo's portrait of the women's shower in prison (she was put in prison herself for the crime of supporting the 1968 student movement). Click to enlarge.

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Mmm, woodcut. Woodcuts make me all sticky.

Posted by leek on March 5, 2009 at 8:39 PM

I'm not a fan of political art, but that top print is really nice. Great perspective. '68 was a pretty horrible year all around, but especially for Mexicans.

Posted by Fnarf on March 6, 2009 at 9:26 AM