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  • Courtesy of the Hirshhorn

On display now at the Henry Art Gallery is German artist Wolfgang Laib's installation Pollen from Hazelnut (1995-96)—just a rectangle of glowing yellow-orange pollen spread onto the floor. (Here's a Youtube video of a Hirshhorn curator doing the job.)

But it manages to be far more than "just" anything. It's a chorus of color, and I've never heard of anyone coming out of seeing it disappointed. The Henry, which owns the work, has installed it as one half of an exhibition that takes place in two opposing rooms and includes only one other work of art. That other work of art is Winslow Homer's painting An Adirondack Lake (1870), a portrait of an environment dominated by a glowing sky at dusk.

Friday at 7 pm at the Henry, Seattle artist Sarah Bergmann will give a talk on "nature in the human age." She's the creator of the Pollinator Pathway,

...a plan to create a mile-long corridor of pollinator-friendly gardens in planting strips on Seattle’s Columbia Street between 12th and 29th avenues. Spanning one third of the city’s width, the project draws a line of plant life between two larger public green spaces, integrating ecological support into the urban grid. Part renegade park and part educational platform, the Pollinator Pathway bridges science, art, systems-thinking, urban planning and landscape design. Bergmann will share the project’s trajectory from her interest in the collapse of the honeybee to reimagining cities as conduits between farms and wilderness.

Tickets are $5. More on the Pollinator Pathway here. Hyperallergic's list of 8 Deadly Works of Art—including Laib's pollen pieces—here. And see details of Homer's painting, including his signature on what looks like the back, here.