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Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Currently Hanging

posted by on September 24 at 11:35 AM

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Chauney Peck's Love Seat (2008), vinyl on wall, 40 by 53 inches

At 4Culture. (Gallery site here. The show is only up through Friday, so get down there soon.)

Last week I posted a "Currently Hanging" about a promising young Seattle artist that turned into a heated debate about whether I'd left the artist high and dry by only referring obliquely to why I thought his work was promising. But! That will be followed up with a full review of his work in the paper coming out today, so stay tuned and leave your further comments on that story.

In the case of this artist, Chauney Peck, there isn't time for a full review in the paper. Her show closes Friday and I just got to see it yesterday (I'm sorry! I was out of town!). So I'll try to explain why I think she's also on the move.

When I first saw her work two years ago at SOIL (here's her web site, to look at some older work), it struck me as interesting but too light, too cute.

Her new work is darker in subject matter—mostly she's depicting piles of castoff stuff you might find on a sidewalk or in a temporary housing camp—and it's more of a technical highwire act. What I mean by that is that she's not using three dimensions, only the very thin layering of strips of vinyl, so the tension is heightened between flat abstract patterns (think Matisse's cutouts meet Whiting Tennis's anthropomorphic architecture) and the illusion that the objects are actually fat and taking up space.

What really excites me, though, is the change in tone, from sweet to aware-that-there's-a-housing-crisis-going-on. You can't look at these things without thinking of the sorry state of the country, about the fact that it's only in times of great crisis that we recognize that, for some people, crisis is a constant state. Here's a perfect piece of contemporary patriotism, titled Flagship:

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I hope I'm describing this well. With the tone shift (those faint, non-cartoonish stains on the right arm of the love seat are an indicator of that shift, for example) comes another profound change in Peck's work: She often depicts a tent or a blanket covering something up. When the work was overly endearing, I didn't think much about what might be under the blankets or behind the tarps. But in this show, you do worry about what's under there. A couple more images on the jump.

Continue reading "Currently Hanging" »

That Mural Right by Our Offices

posted by on September 24 at 11:14 AM

It looks like the doodlings of a teenager who recently discovered LSD.

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But it’s clearly inspired by these:

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Jen Graves was more thoughtful about the work.

THE BRINK!

posted by on September 24 at 10:49 AM

The Henry Art Gallery announced today that it is finally getting in the game of giving awards to deserving regional artists! Seattle Art Museum has the Betty Bowen, Portland Art Museum has the Contemporary Northwest Art Awards, Tacoma Art Museum hosts the Neddys—and now, finally, the Henry Art Gallery will have The Brink Award.

It will be awarded every two years to an artist in Washington, Oregon, or British Columbia (the only sensical regional identity, as I've written before) and come with $12,500, a solo exhibition, and an acquisition of work.

This is the first big announcement since the arrival of new director Sylvia Wolf, and it's great news. The first winner will be announced April 17, 2009. Press release on the jump.

Now the only question is: What will the trophy look like? (Charles, this one is for you.)

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Continue reading "THE BRINK!" »

"Tables for One"

posted by on September 24 at 10:02 AM

"Tables for One" is the title of Peter Schjeldahl's essay in this week's New Yorker on the single-minded painter Giorgio Morandi, on the occasion of an exhibition of his paintings at the Metropolitan. Reading the essay is going to be your pleasure, I promise. I wish I could be this clear and poetic and total.

On closer inspection, I discovered how strange the painting was, how the objects seemed to be fighting for each other's space. One could not determine their size or location....

The ambiguity of "size or location" is key to Morandi's indelible modernity. It's as if he had set out, time and again, to nail down the whatness of his objects but couldn't get beyond the preliminary matter of their whereness. (He didn't much value the things in themselves. Photographs show that some were slathered or, in the case of clear glass bottles, filled with pigments—they were dedicated to painting the way animals are raised for food.) Morandi was free of the organizing prejudice of perspective. Go look at a Cezanne after seeing this show [Morandi at the Metropolitan Museum of Art]. It will seem old-fashioned. ...

Infinitely refined, Morandi never succumbs to elegance. ... That's because the exigencies of rendering—tiny slippages between eye and hand—constituted, for him, a permanent emergency, requiring incessant adjustment. (Rose petals may jam up like large people competing to pass through a small door.) He did not have a style. He had a signature: "Morandi," written large, often, to broadcast that a picture had done all it could.

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Still-Life, 1951

Morandi, Schjeldahl writes, "has never been a popular artist and never will be" because he "engages the world one solitary viewer at a time." His monkish devotion to the still-life is another reason why.

I'm always fascinated by artists who spend their entire lives working within incredibly small parameters. In the Northwest, geometric abstractionist Mary Henry is one of these people.

Another one is Denzil Hurley, a Barbados-born painter who spends his days and nights making subtle marks, getting them just right. And for what? How does he decide when they are right? What drives him to keep doing this year after year? Maybe it's time to ask him.

His paintings are here.


Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Currently Tanking

posted by on September 23 at 2:34 PM

More art apropos of our tanking economy:

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Derek Albeck's Group Fall (2008), acrylic and ink on paper, 40 by 30 inches (framed)

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Derek Albeck's Delirium (2008), serigraph and acrylic on panel, 37 by 37 inches

At BLVD. (Gallery site here.)

Well, ALL RIGHT!: Alex Ross Wins the MacArthur

posted by on September 23 at 1:25 PM

alexross.jpgLest I seem to be all grouse and no love for today's MacArthur winners, let me heap some heavy affection on New Yorker music writer Alex Ross, who stands up for all the right things in art music (and again) and whose terrific 2007 book, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century has its own free audio guide here, on which any music lover of any kind and at any level can lose many, many, many hours.

(Not only all this, but Ross has been incredibly generous: A few years ago he loaded up an iPod for the charity auction Strangercrombie. Somebody is walking around here with a certifiably genius playlist.)

Illustration by Kyle T. Webster

Well, All Right: Tara Donovan Wins the MacArthur

posted by on September 23 at 11:31 AM

This year's MacArthur Genius from the art world is New Yorker Tara Donovan, someone whose work I've never been able to get too thrilled about. (Greg Kucera Gallery showed some of it last year.)

It's not that I don't see how intriguing it can be. Here's a 2000 ink drawing that leads the way stylistically into one of her signature assemblages made of everyday materials (this one is Scotch tape, from 2002).

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It's just that her art strikes me as a deeply conservative project in some ways—it takes messy excess (hundreds of rolls of printer paper or thousands of buttons, for instance) and tidies it and elevates it into the world of pretty abstractions and references to natural forms like coral reefs. The implications are occasionally tense—as in a perfect 2001 stack of shattered tempered glass held together only by friction and gravity—but as often the installations are little more than blandly reassuring. I guess their restraint feels to me like a light form of denial or very refined escapism. It leaves me wanting.

This is just to say that I find Donovan's work worthy of attention but not exactly in the R&D department of the art world, as a winner of $500,000 ought to be. I'm hoping for more next time.


Monday, September 22, 2008

Of Murals and Men

posted by on September 22 at 10:30 AM

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That photograph, by Levi Clark, is a detail of the Monique Lofts mural project (which first appeared on Slog here, and then later, in a discussion of the ghost signage here). More photos and a short video are here.

The mural's almost finished. It's sort of like a Technicolor version of Superman's Fortress of Solitude. It also reinforces the fashion for the crystals (okay, okay, polyhedrons) in art these days.

This morning on my way to work I asked NKO and Joe, who've been spending 14-hour days on the mural in order to finish by the time they have to return the equipment: why the crystals? The intention was to use a visual language reminiscent of graffiti but not imitating it (after all, this mural is sanctioned), they said.

Another reason: these shapes are easy to buff. The piece has already been tagged twice.

The "opening" party for the mural will be October 11 from 3-7 pm at Grey Gallery and in the street.


Friday, September 19, 2008

Shorpy

posted by on September 19 at 11:32 PM

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I'm currently obsessed with this endlessly awesome blog called Shorpy, which features beautiful, high-res photographs from 1900-1950.

Thought you should know.

Currently Hanging

posted by on September 19 at 10:17 AM

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Matt Browning's Another Sport (2008), yarn from baseballs, cedar, staples; 6 by 9 by 1 inches

At Crawl Space. (Gallery site here.)

It doesn't look like much at first, maybe a scrap of carpet cut out and mounted on the wall as if it were a painting, apparently stretched over an armature the way a canvas might be. Is it some kind of low-rent hipster take on abstract painting?

It isn't. It's made of yarn from baseballs. The artist carefully knitted this little thing. You wouldn't know he has a background in fiber arts from the rest of his show, full of smart, post-minimalistic, rough-living sculptures—a miniature ski jump that doubles as a limp dick, a beer shot-gunning machine that looks like some sort of birdhouse. The whole thing is really worth seeing, not just this one. This is a young artist to watch.


Thursday, September 18, 2008

Ruffles and Ripoffs

posted by on September 18 at 3:29 PM

In late 2006, the Anthropologie store in downtown Seattle had this great wall design. The soaring, two-story wall at the back of the store was covered in layers—layers upon layers upon layers—of brown paper, folded and crumpled like the elaborately draped fabrics of the store's expensive dresses. When you looked at the wall, you thought: Looks like earth. Like the sedimentary layers of a geological cross-section. Like Anthropologie is in the grip of a force of nature.

The design wasn't in any of Anthropologie's other stores, the manager told me in a phone interview yesterday: "Everybody gets their unique twist. Nobody had a wall like us."

But in 2005, two East Coast artists named Wade Kavanaugh and Stephen Nguyen did have a wall like that. They created it.

They say Anthropologie stole it.

The visual documentation is damning. In May 2005 at the Portland, Maine nonprofit art space The Map Room, Kavanaugh and Nguyen covered the walls with brown paper and called their installation Striped Canary on the Subterranean Horizon. The Map Room is embedded in a hillside, and the artists wanted to "reveal" the earth behind the walls.

"Armed with nothing but brown Kraft paper and staples, Wade Kavanaugh and Stephen B. Nguyen transformed the [gallery] into a space both familiar and foreign," Sculpture magazine touted in its April 2006 issue. The magazine featured two full-color photographs with the story.

Months later, that very design appeared in the clothing retail store. When the artists heard about it, in October 2006, they contacted a prominent copyright attorney, John Koegel (Jeff Koons's lawyer), who made no headway with Anthropologie and had to tell the artists that, unfortunately, they had no further recourse, artist Kavanaugh said yesterday in an interview at Suyama Space in Seattle, where he currently has a solo show.

"We had no rights because the piece that we did was in a nonprofit context," he said—but if Striped Canary on the Subterranean Horizon had worn a pricetag and shown in a commercial gallery (or if the artists had applied formally through the copyright office for their nonprofit temporary installation), the artists could sue for copyright infringement.

The manager at Anthropologie this week told me I'd have to talk to corporate (the "visual merchandising team" at "our home office") in order to find out more. In response to my query, public relations director Sarah Goodstein sent me an email that avoided specifics even though I'd asked about the wall in downtown Seattle in 2006. "Although [our designers] look to the outside world for inspiration, including other artists, their display installations are original," Goodstein wrote. "If an artist approached Anthropologie, however, regarding perceived use of their work we would be sensitive to their concerns."

So, Anthropologie: Where's your sensitivity now?

Here are the images, first Striped Canary on the Subterranean Horizon and then the wall in Anthropologie:

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Here's an interview with artist Wade Kavanaugh about the issue:








Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Upper Playground Opening A Store in Seattle

posted by on September 16 at 2:00 PM

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Munk One: Kids, from UP's online store

Like this? There'll be more where that came from in Seattle soon.

The street-art apparel-and-art joint is opening up its seventh national location in the U District. Grand opening this Friday from 5-10 pm.

Press release on the jump.

Continue reading "Upper Playground Opening A Store in Seattle" »

The Finalists

posted by on September 16 at 1:00 PM

It's a time of awards, I tell you. Because I just got back from vacation and am late with everything, you probably already know this, but Seattle Art Museum last week announced its five finalists for this year's $15,000 Betty Bowen Award: Wynne Greenwood, Nicholas Nyland, Eric Elliott, Isaac Layman, and Alexis Pike. (All but Pike, of Portland, are from Seattle.)

Guess which one I'm rooting for? You?

Oh, and while we're at it, Stranger stories take comments now. (There's a good argument here.) I want to hear some challenges to my Visual Art Genius Shortlist, which just came out last week: Susie Lee, Oscar and Eli, Gretchen Bennett, Jeffry Mitchell. Love them? Hate them?

Water View

posted by on September 16 at 12:00 PM

For most of my vacation in remote Maine last week, I saw only the occasional loon and the insides of books. But I had one final afternoon in Boston, so I zipped between the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a dimly lit palace of strange and wonderful excess (leather walls! this unbelievable silver-skinned-virgin death by Fra Angelico! this ostrich! giant empty frames where Rembrandts were stolen and haven't been recovered!) and the new, super-contemporary Institute of Contemporary Art, overlooking the harbor and designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

At the ICA, half of the galleries were closed for installation, and the art that was in the other half was just okay. What I'd really come for anyway was the architecture, in particular the somewhat irritatingly named Mediatheque, a gem of a room in the museum that leans over the harbor.

First, though, back at the creaky Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, I stood and stared at this:

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It's Titian's Europa, a huge, rather amazing thing with two scary and toothy fish in the water at the bottom. What's so great about the painting is Titian's refusal to give you Europa's response to her abduction by Zeus-in-disguise. Her arm is flung over her face so you can't see it. Copies of this painting by other artists give it away: either she's ecstatic or she's terrified. But Titian plays it close, which gives the painting even more unsettling power. When the Boston Globe surveyed city museum directors, they overwhelmingly declared this Boston's most important work of art.

Then there's the ICA Mediatheque, a room you enter from the top. It has bleacher-like seats, equipped with computers for visitors to use (to watch videos, or look at more information about the shows, or see student artworks online). The bleachers descend toward the large window that leans out over the water. It's a vertiginous lean, providing a view of the water but no view of sky or land or anything else unless you get closer to the window.

In this photo of the building, the Mediatheque is the room under the overhang that looks like it has descended like an old-time tape deck waiting for a tape to be inserted. (How odd that it reminds me of such old technology; I'm sure this isn't what they had in mind.)

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When you walk into the room at the top of the bleachers, this is what you see in front of you:

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It's a dizzying vision, like being in an underwater room, a room in which gravity has shifted.

Or like looking down on the water as you're being swept up away from it—like what Europa might have seen, minus the computers.

Currently Hanging

posted by on September 16 at 11:00 AM

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Sean M. Johnson's Family Portrait (2008), couch and Scotch tape

At Howard House. (Gallery site here.)

When I see this, I see the Brooklyn Bridge (especially Stella's mightily straining thing). The next thought seems obvious: that family relationships are feats of engineering involving barely sufficient materials. I don't mind that it's obvious. I like it, and it's true, and in the room with it, I can feel the whole thing about to fall.

Opportunists for Obama

posted by on September 16 at 10:00 AM

Ugh. Another artist opportunist anointed.

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Rice for Art

posted by on September 16 at 9:09 AM

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And you are...

This game is GREAT and it is good. I just happily lost 10 minutes in it. (How much rice is 3320 grains?)


Monday, September 15, 2008

The McCain and the Manipulator

posted by on September 15 at 4:49 PM

Jill Greenberg is the LA-based photographer who made news in 2006 for her series End Times, large portraits of violently bawling childrenshe'd given them candy, and then abruptly taken it away—meant to represent her response to the Bush administration.

Anyone who knows Greenberg's work knows she likes to cause a stir.

And here's a new one! The Atlantic hired her to shoot McCain for its October cover, and in the studio she pulled the photographic rug out from under him: She shot him in lighting conditions that made him look even creepier, older, and scarier than normal. She refused to do touchups.

Then, after the magazine selected the image it wanted to use—which is fairly normal-looking,if stark, except for the red irises—Greenberg had some wild fun with the rest of the images on her own web site.

The furious editor's note from the Atlantic is here. It calls her work "manipulated and dishonest."

Well, her web site isn't called "Manipulator," and located at www.manipulator.com, for nothing. And might I provide a visual reminder of End Times for those at the Atlantic who (is there any other possible motivation here?) deliberately chose a photographer who A. despises everything related to George Bush and the contemporary Republican machine, and B. does the same thing with her images that John Heartfield did during the rise of Nazi Germany?

Hello?

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The Rapture Index by Greenberg, part of End Times

My feelings are mixed about Greenberg's actual images. I like the one on the Atlantic cover. It's only lightly cold, but undoubtedly so.

Politically speaking, the crude satire on her web site (McCain with blood dripping from his fangs, etc) is good, right? Isn't this what diehard leftists haven't done? We haven't fought. We haven't taken shots. We've been reasonable. Lot of good that's done us.

But in artistic terms, the satire is shocking and then immediately dull and a little embarrassing. I like having the mental picture of a horrible, bloody, violent, hateful John McCain in my head—too often he's been depicted as a softie and a sweetie, but anybody who will choose Sarah Palin for a running mate would clearly eat his own child alive to get ahead—and I also like the image that's on the site's home page (caption: "I'll have my girl kill Roe v. Wade").

But Greenberg could have done any of it in Photoshop. What did she gain by being in the room with him? Oh, right: publicity.

At least it's publicity for a cause I support: Defeat that McCain character. He really is shady.

I guess she's just saying that from one woman who's afraid to another. I can understand that.

But Is It Art?

posted by on September 15 at 8:58 AM

Dunno. But I hope it's true...

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...'cuz if it is, man, I'm gonna live forever.

Via Local Ephemera.


Friday, September 5, 2008

I Am Going on Vacation

posted by on September 5 at 4:00 PM

On this vacation, which lasts the entirety of next week, there is no phone, no internet, and no TV. Therefore, you, Slog, will be free of me!

I'll be back to torment you with my "art critic ways" bright and early on Monday, September 15.

And Now Please Enjoy

posted by on September 5 at 9:56 AM

"Amazing Body Art from the 2008 World Bodypainting Festival in Daegu, South Korea."

(Thank you Scott!)

The Cuts at the Frye

posted by on September 5 at 9:41 AM

On Wednesday night I posted a quick note about the Frye Art Museum's elimination of the education programs of Yoko Ott. Now I have the full story.

Facing a potential deficit of $266,000 on a $4 million annual operating budget, the Frye announced to Ott and to the rest of the museum staff on Wednesday that Ott's position, manager of youth and community outreach, would have to be cut (and Ott's programs shut down) in order to balance the budget.

The decision was not a reflection of Ott's performance on the job, said museum director Midge Bowman.

"We sweated over this," Bowman said. "What is lost is Yoko's spirit."

Ott, who joined the museum in 2006, is one of three managers in the education department, which is overseen by education director Jill Rullkoetter (formerly of Seattle Art Museum). The other two managers handle programs for adults and for younger children; Ott was in charge of teens and community partnerships.

But Bowman is right: what the museum has given up is far more than a demographic. Ott is known through the city—and beyond—for her innovative, thoughtful ideas. What the other managers in the Frye's education department do is important; it's also highly conventional (organize K-12 school tours and oversee lectures and studio classes for adults, for instance). That's the stuff of every education department in every museum in the country.

Ott was trying to go further.

Her SHFT teen studio program provided an introduction to the ideas behind contemporary art. In response to every exhibition in the galleries, Ott would invite an active, working artist in the city to develop a class that would engage teens in the same issues as those in the exhibition, and then their work would result in an exhibition on the publicly viewed walls of the education wing at the Frye.

Artist Gretchen Bennett, for instance, taught a sampling and storytelling class in conjunction with Dario Robleto's exhibition Alloy of Love; in preparation for the upcoming Napoleon on the Nile and Empire exhibitions, artist Susie Lee taught a geocaching class that revolved around exploring the city on assignments from artists (Steve Roden of L.A., James Coupe of Seattle, and Charles Labelle of New York all contributed assignments for the students), and using the city itself as an art medium. This fall, Stranger Genius Award winner Wynne Greenwood was scheduled to teach a video class called "Video and the Self-Governed Self." But that has been canceled.

Ott's other main program was Friday at the Frye, which on the surface was simply an opening night for the exhibitions. But actually, it was an interdisciplinary event curated by Ott in conjunction with—again—artists from around the city. Through that program, Ott brought artists and organizations into the Frye for collaborations, including Book-It Repertory Theatre, Richard Hugo House, Slide Rule (independent animators), Kristen Rask (DIY crafter), food critic and restaurateur Donna Moodie, KEXP, On the Boards, Zoe Scofield and Juniper Shuey (a team of dance and visual artists), Arts Corp, 11th Hour Productions (slam poets). She was working on an upcoming collaboration with Stranger Genius winners Seattle School.

Her projects were technologically savvy, tracked on YouTube and networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. Her newest idea, which was to be implemented this fall, was to turn the museum into an interactive gaming site during the exhibition Empire.

What Ott did was not the bread-and-butter of the museum's education department—it was what made the museum's education department interesting and unique.

"She's one of my two favorite arts educators in this country," said San Antonio-based artist Robleto. "Education departments at museums really are the frontline of arts education in this country, and what she was doing was amazing."

In particular, he praised the way Ott's programs connected teens with professional artists, and rewarded them with the life-changing experience of showing work in a public, art venue as opposed to a school hallway.

"I got a lot out of those classes," said Tacha Stolz. "I'm not kidding. I really, really learned a lot. It was the gateway for how I feel about the arts. It made me want to go to First Thursday [Artwalk] or want to go and see other exhibitions at other museums."

That wasn't all, though.

"Those classes changed my course of direction," Stolz said. "They inspired me to do what I'm doing today."

Stolz just finished her first week at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She says she never would have gone into art if all she'd known was the high-school art classes she took at the International Community School in Kirkland and Lake Washington High School in Seattle.

"For me, art is really about conceptualizing and thinking and creating art from your own thought and concept and being able to use whatever means to create," Stolz said. "In high school art, you draw a grid, you look at a picture, and you draw what you see. That's not how you learn how to draw. You have to really learn to see and then learn how to create, and it's all about process. I felt like at the Frye, you go through this class, but then they tell you you can make whatever you want out of whatever medium, and they give you the tools you need to do that with. If you want to do something with tagging, they'll go into depth about tagging. Talking with Dario Robleto about his artwork was a really good experience. It's really, really meaningful to have those experiences."

In her first week, Stolz already feels ahead of her fellow students: "Since I've been here going to these slide shows at school of artists our teachers are looking at, like, those slides come up and I know where that's coming from: I've seen those exhibits, whereas most students don't get to see that and they only know a couple pieces by the masters but they would never be able to recognize different periods, because everything is always so focused on iconic art rather than just art."

Ott, who also curates Seattle University's gallery at the Lee Center on Capitol Hill, spent six years curating critically acclaimed and popular shows at Bumbershoot before going to the Frye. Bumbershoot, also in a belt-tightening move, did not replace Ott's position after she left.

"I kind of feel like I'm reliving a little bit of that heartbreak," Ott said in a phone interview Thursday. "I guess I need to do some soul-searching. I'm going, huh, how much do I believe in the nonprofit arts sector? Is it time for a career change?"

To develop SHFT at the Frye, Ott studied models for teen programs at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh.

"I wanted to look at what programs don't exist for teens, and then build that program, putting at the heart of it not just the professional working artist like Susie and Gretchen and Susan [Robb, another Stranger Genius who taught a sound art class] and Dario, but actually creating a platform for teens and believing that these are the future artists, and that we really wanted to support and mentor critical thinking and introduce a conceptual framework to them," Ott said. "In my mind, it was like, you [the Frye] have embraced being risky for so long, couldn't you have believed a little longer?"

Ott's program didn't bring in the same numbers as the school-tours program, especially because the brand-new program was slow to fill up at first. But it could easily be argued that its impact on those students it did affect was great, and that those students couldn't have received that kind of instruction anywhere else.

The Frye's financial woes come from the economic downturn, which has meant fewer rentals on the Seattle warehouses the museum owns. Income from the warehouses makes up more than half of the museum's budget, because the museum, unlike most, is not a not-for-profit corporation—it is a private foundation.

If the economy continues to adversely affect the rental market, the Frye may need to establish a fundraising program for the first time in its history. The Frye may need to ask for donations, like other museums.

"Stay tuned for that," director Bowman said. "When we were slightly smaller, we could live on [this structure], but we've got a bigger vision now, and we can't support it as our current funding structure is."

That bigger vision is reliant on programs like Ott's. If the museum is truly devoted to smart art education that places the museum among the best in the country, then it will move swiftly on fundraising—and take as its first project raising the money to reinstate Ott's programs as a part of the core mission of what has become a museum identified with intelligent innovation.

Business as usual is not what we have come to expect from the Frye.

For Jubilation T.

posted by on September 5 at 9:00 AM

Jubilation T., you asked what I thought of the painting I posted in the last Currently Hanging. I hadn't yet seen it in person, so I didn't comment except on the painting's back story.

I went to see the painting yesterday in person, and I just want to report back that it is some powerful stuff. That "spill" that covers the guy's head and runs upward is encaustic, and the unpainted canvas is left raw.

But it was the hands that got me: they're made of thick paint piled on top of the canvas, and then actually burned.

I've always loved the way that the thickness of Miller's paintings imply an excess of information that stands in place of any knowledge Miller has of his subjects, since they're always taken from found photographs. The artist can only guess about his subjects' characters, their situations, what they might make of him if they knew he was doing this, or how they might behave in a formal portrait sitting that actually gave the artist permission. Miller puts himself in a position that's the reverse of the all-knowing "cone of vision" effect you get in Renaissance perspective, or even the locked-in knowledge that comes straight from the artist's soul in much of modernism. Miller doesn't know these people, but he's determined to paint them, and what you see in each piece is the evidence of him figuring out how.


Wednesday, September 3, 2008

The Frye Art Museum Cuts (Entirely??) Its Education Programs

posted by on September 3 at 8:35 PM

I couldn't get any details tonight, but I do know that Yoko Ott, the terrific curator of education at the Frye, has been let go and her programs have been axed. These were some great programs; I followed along on a class one Saturday in July. I'll describe later.

The "changes" were announced to the staff today, said Frye spokeswoman Rebecca Garrity-Putnam, who added:

I think that this was a very difficult decision, and a decision that was made for purely financial issues. It was very, very hard. I know that everybody at the museum is impacted, very much, and I know the community will be as well.

More on what this means for the Frye and the city's art ed offerings tomorrow.

Hate Is A Strong Word

posted by on September 3 at 8:34 PM

And I hate Sarah Palin.

But in other news, the inevitable art onslaught featuring her offensive face has begun.

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Sarah Palin Alaska Fur Bunny Pancake Breakfast Art

In/Visible Is Up: Harry Dodge & Stanya Kahn, Vaudevillians of the Apocalypse

posted by on September 3 at 2:47 PM

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L.A.-based artists Harry Dodge (born Harriet, but now not identifying as either male or female) and Stanya Kahn are as uncompromising as they are hilarious. The entertaining but unsettling performances in their videos—both in front of and behind the camera—are plainly spontaneous, but the final works are carefully crafted. To get a sense of what they do, watch a segment of their Can't Swallow It, Can't Spit It Out here (that's Kahn you see in the frame, and Dodge is shooting).

Then listen in to a sprawly phone conversation with them here.

For more, there's a comprehensive New York Times profile of the artists here, and a nice Time Out piece about them here.

Their 2006 work Masters of None (pictured above) is screening at TBA:08 in Portland through October 4, and the artists will talk at the Back Room Friday night, September 12.

Currently Hanging

posted by on September 3 at 9:00 AM

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Mark Takamichi Miller's Thieves: Man at Party (2008), acrylic, wax, urethane, oil, and glass spheres on canvas over board, 48 by 72 inches

At Howard House. (Gallery site here.)

I can't get the story of this painting out of my head. A man goes to his car. Everything is normal except that a roll of film is lying on the seat, with a business card rubber-banded around it. The business card says "Associated Counsel for the Accused."

The man figures he's been attempted-robbed. But nothing of his is gone. Instead, he's come away with something from the robber: this film. He gives the film to a friend of his, an artist who specializes in making painting from photographs of people he doesn't know, photographs he only half-understands. The artist makes paintings from the pictures. The pictures end up in a gallery in Pioneer Square.


Sunday, August 31, 2008

A Memorial for the Art Laborer

posted by on August 31 at 8:06 PM

Tomorrow is the 15th anniversary of the day that Jason Sprinkle attached a 700-pound ball and chain to Jonathan Borofsy's Hammering Man in front of Seattle Art Museum.

In remembrance, Sprinkle's friends, family, and other artists will be meeting at 10 am at Hammering Man to set a memorial sign there. The memorial is both for Sprinkle's art, and for his life--he was killed when hit by a freight train in 2005.

The organizer, Doug Parry, says:

Please feel free to bring cut flowers to place around the memorial sign (no jars or cups of water for the flowers and no candles--just cut flowers, please).

This is an unofficial gathering, although our goal is to invite SAM to recognize Jason's artistic contributions to the city of Seattle, and, especially, his Ball and Chain. Therefore, this will also be a peaceful gathering and if we are asked to disperse (by either SAM or the SPD), we will peacefully comply. Cool?

The memorial gathering will last from 10:00AM to 10:30AM and will end with a moment of silence before we all go our separate ways.

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The 50 Greatest Arts Videos on YouTube

posted by on August 31 at 3:47 PM

Yesterday Metafilter linked to The Guardian's list of the 50 greatest arts videos on YouTube—and I just disappeared into it for about three hours. Go ahead: let it swallow your Memorial Day weekend. It's so worth your time.

My favorites so far:

1. A screen test for East of Eden wherein James Dean tells Paul Newman to kiss him, and Newman responds, "Can't here."

2. Billie Holiday singing "Strange Fruit" not long before her death.

3. Jackson Pollock, filmed by Hans Namuth, saying pretty much everything that needs to be said about Pollock's painting, including that he got the idea from Native American sand painters.

4. Samuel Beckett's only film project, running in two parts (although like me, you may have to go three parts to piece together the whole thing, because of the original linkage) at about 15 minutes long, starring an old, wrinkly, terrifying, and still hilarious Buster Keaton. It's silent. Do watch it through to the end.

5. Kurt Russell trying to get the part of Han Solo.

There is also far, far more. I have to get back there. Now go!

Faded, Maybe, But Not Useless

posted by on August 31 at 3:38 PM

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Last week, when I posted an item announcing that local artists (including NKO) were starting work on a large mural on the side of the Monique Lofts, I asked this question:

Are they covering up all the ghost signage? I sincerely hope not.

Which brought this response from Gurldoggie:

I agree with preserving context when it's meaningful, but the importance of a decades-old service station ad eludes me. What's the history you want to preserve? It's not like it's a stop on the underground railroad - it's just a place people used to get their oil changed. To me it doesn't seem like anything worth preserving.

Except that ghost signs are part of a long history of sign-painting. Advertising may be corporate today, but back in the day, itinerant sign painters would go door to door offering their services to small businesses. That's how those signs went up. They represent a very cool, mostly lost tradition of independent craftspeople.

Which is exactly what the artists on the mural said they're thinking when I finally got out to ask them on Friday. They're not covering up the ghost signs.

We like them. We have histories as sign painters, too. It's part of the history of this wall, and it adds a layer of depth to the ground.

Photos of the project in process will be appearing here.

Windows Unfettered by Staircases or Corners

posted by on August 31 at 2:19 PM

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Check out this story and slide show by Pilar Viledas of Seattle artist/designer Roy McMakin's latest creation, a house on Vashon for the personal manager of K.D. Lang. From the outside, it looks like a Whiting Tennis painting, and on the inside, the cloudy concrete, gray paint, and vivid woods look like a blend of American Gothic, Northwest rustic, and Kafkaesque bureaucratic. If you can believe it, it's also child-like.

McMakin's the one who made the steel storage box, bronze lawn chair, and concrete bench at the Olympic Sculpture Park, not to mention his installation Love & Loss there.

McMakin has a solo show at James Harris Gallery coming up this fall.


Thursday, August 28, 2008

Why Bowties Are Better

posted by on August 28 at 11:00 AM

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Sam Davidson

For those of you who prefer the bow to the hanging (straight? long? what is the formal name for a regular tie?), please enjoy longtime Seattle art dealer and bowtie-wearer Sam Davidson's thoughts on why bowties are better, how bowties help people talk about art, and why he refuses to join any bowtie clubs even though he has been invited.







To listen to the entire podcast with Davidson, click here.

Currently Hanging

posted by on August 28 at 10:00 AM

Work began yesterday on the Monique Lofts Mural project, next to Value Village on 11th Avenue (very close to our offices). Here's a shot from the start of the work late yesterday, forwarded to me by a bystander (thank you, Ryan!) who happened to catch it:

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I've been looking forward to this, but my only question is: Are they covering up all the ghost signage? I sincerely hope not.

Nostalgia Is Good

posted by on August 28 at 9:27 AM

Yesterday, Ed Schad, the author of the really great blog I Call It Oranges (and also curator at the private Broad Foundation in LA), wrote a post in response to my Currently Hanging post about an Alec Soth photograph that reminded me of my parents' failed marriage.

After I described my personal connection to the image in the post, I backtracked. Schad calls me on my insecurity, explains why I didn't need to backtrack, and talks about his own family and August Sander.

Pope, He Angry

posted by on August 28 at 8:25 AM

Over this:

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A man has been hospitalized after recently going on a hunger strike in response to this. What a wuss! He's been eating happily for years while this thing has been in existence, tormenting, absolutely tormenting the sacredness of human life. What I mean is, this art's old. The artist, Martin Kippenberger (a good, spicy one, as you might imagine), has been dead since 1997. Here's the best overview of his work that I've found on the web.


Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Sam's Complaint About SAM

posted by on August 27 at 3:04 PM

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Recumbent Bear Drinking by Marcus De Bije (Dutch, 1612-1670), from 1664, is one of many prints in Davidson Gallery's Antique Print Department, which is catalogued online.

Lately, it may seem like I've been hammering on Seattle Art Museum, but this time, it's not me who's complaining. I sat down with Sam Davidson, the longtime Seattle dealer, for a podcast a few weeks ago, and he revealed (in his incredibly soft-spoken way) that he has a major bone to pick with the museum. He says SAM pretty much ignores prints, and is losing out on, or will lose out on, local collections from contemporary to Old Masters.







For the entire podcast with Davidson, click here.

Currently Hanging

posted by on August 27 at 10:00 AM

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Allison Manch's I'm on Fire, embroidery on handkerchief

At Grey Gallery. (Gallery site here.)

"Whoh-oh-oh, I'm on fire." The moment you see it, you hear it. You hear Bruce. That's why I like this work.

I say it's "Currently Hanging" at Grey because that's what the press release says, but when I was at Grey last week, I didn't see this one. The one I did see, and liked, featured the lyrics "Biggie, Biggie, Biggie, can't you see, sometimes your words just hypnotize me," which put the song in my head for a solid two days—until, coincidentally, just driving down the road in my car one afternoon, I came across the song on the radio, which seemed to close the circle and put the song out of my brain.

Many artists work across the senses (vision to hearing, that is), and one of the best is Dario Robleto, whose Alloy of Love exhibition at the Frye Art Museum includes several works that form a sort of silent concert in the galleries—a concert that takes place in your head only. That show, in case you haven't seen it, must be seen. And it closes Sept. 1, so get over to the Frye.

Bonus: The Frye has a brand new web site! It's here. I haven't done much roaming around on it yet, but my first impression is that it's much improved—you can see the entire founding collection there, as far as I can tell. (Next stop: the Henry's getting a new site this fall, and I can't wait. That's another great collection that needs to be online.)


Tuesday, August 26, 2008

More Obama Art

posted by on August 26 at 10:00 AM

After I wiped the tears from my eyes when Michelle finished her awesome speech, I found myself bereft. Oh, so far from the action! (I miss you Eli, Annie, and Charles!)

So I went online to look at the online gallery of Obama art sponsored by moveon.org during the convention. It's here. Most of the art, as expected, was terrible.

How terrible?

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Well, yes, you can, but I can't believe you did: A "Barack-in-the-box" by Heather Courtney of San Jose, California.

Continue reading "More Obama Art" »

Currently Hanging

posted by on August 26 at 7:52 AM

The sun.

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Aflo's Starburst Sun Above Clouds in Blue Sky

For the moment, anyway. Please. I beg you to stick around for a few hours.

UPDATE, 8:01 am: It's gone.


Monday, August 25, 2008

The Day the Board Said No to the Flying Cars: An Artist's Fantasy About Seattle Art Museum

posted by on August 25 at 12:30 PM

As the curtain rises, curator Lisa Corrin is finishing her explanation of why Cai Guo-Qiang's installation of flying cars would be perfect for the new Seattle Art Museum lobby. (We're back in the day.)

It sounds like a done deal, but when the executive committee of the board takes a vote, there are a few whopping nays, including from Mimi Gates, the museum's director.

Bagley Wright starts to explain. He's a nay, too, along with Susan Brotman (another powerful longtime board member), and Bagley's wife, the longtime collector and super-power-broker Virginia Wright.

What do the nays want?

They want to take the $6 million that would be spent on the cars, invest it in a trust, and instead spend $25,000 a month until 2030 buying art by regional artists.

"Sure, these flying cars would look good for a postcard," Wright says. (He, and in fact most of the people at the meeting, can not pronounce Cai's name, anyway.) "But I'm not going to stand behind a six-million-dollar chandelier to spruce up the lobby."

Virginia and Mimi chime in, also cheerleading for local artists, and for the museum's connection with them.

The joke is that SAM has a mostly deserved reputation for being imperious and disconnected. (Witness the frantic don't-touch signs at the Olympic Sculpture Park, or SAM's recent no-go on the whole idea of hosting painters in the galleries, or the fact that SAM does not get involved in the business of regional biennials the way TAM and PAM do.) The Wrights in particular are the force that has brought (often great) work by New York artists to Seattle throughout the last three decades.

This recorded conversation, of course, never took place (and I don't believe a cost figure for "Inopportune" was ever released).

But it's the conversation that contemporary artists wish would happen at SAM.

Unfortunately, SAM did buy the cars, and we're left to marvel at how shallow an experience they are, and how bad they look in the chopped-up architecture of SAM's various lobbies.

But you can revel in this artists' fantasy nonetheless, on the Unauthorized Seattle Art Museum Audio Tour by PDL here:







To receive other tracks on the tour, free of charge, email the artists here.