Henry Art Gallery: 2008 Year in Review

In 2008,  the Henry celebrated its 81st year as the oldest museum in Seattle with the newest art. We also said a fond farewell to our beloved Richard Andrews after 20 years of leadership and welcomed new Henry Director Sylvia Wolf. This year, the Henry launched a brand new website and unveiled the Digital Interactive Galleries (DiG) and continued co-sponsorsed events with University of Washington School of Art and Art History, Aperture West, Northwest Film Forum, NextBook, Seattle Arts and Lectures, Open Satellite and many more. The Henry exhibition Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes traveled to the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and the De Young Museum, San Francisco (and will continue to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. in the spring). 19 Henry exhibitions, 11 visiting artists, and an amazing list of programs and events culminated in a year of exciting and inspiring art experiences. Let’s take a look back at the Henry in 2008…

Carlos Cruz-Diez . ironie46

Issue 46 of le point d’ironie features Venezuelen born  Artisit and leading figure in kinetik art, Carlos Cruz-Diez.

This issue explores his reflections on “chromomatic notion” and is as brilliant in color as it is in concept. For Chromosaturation, Paris 1965  – Carlos Cruz-Diez crafted an artifical habitat that consisted of three chambers of varying hues (red, green, and blue) that saturate visitiors with color by placing them in a “absolute monochromic situation”. To find out more about  Artist Carlos Cruz-Diez  swing by the Henry during our open hours and pick up a copy of le point d’ironie from the  information desk.

Visiting Artist Lecture next week | Jacob Dahlgren: signs of abstraction

Friday, Jan 9 | 6:30 PM
Henry Art Gallery Auditorium

Henry Members FREE | $5 General
Tickets available at the Henry Admission Desk starting Jan 2

Swedish artist Jacob Dahlgren finds abstraction in everyday materials, which he employs to create dynamic interactive installations and performances. The centerpiece of his first exhibition on the West Coast is a wall of yellow-and-black dartboards, which viewers are encouraged to use.

Join us for this Visiting Artist Lecture and be among the first to view the exhibition Jacob Dahlgren: Foward, Back, Right, Left on view before and after the lecture.

Get your dart throwing arm ready!

Exhibit shines a light on what photography really means

Check out the review of Outta My Light!: Picturing the Processes of Photography

The Seattle Times article here

Anna Atkins. Trichomanes Radians (Common Maidenhair Fern). 1843. Cyanotype. Henry Art Gallery, Joseph and Elaine Monsen Photography Collection, gift of Joseph and Elaine Monsen and The Boeing Company, 97.12.

Factory girls, Madonna fans, Soho boys, check out THE FEATURE next weekend

And note the special Henry Members price:

THE FEATURE

A film by Michael Auder and Andrew Neel

January 2-8

Daily at 7:15pm

For artist Michel Auder the truth is certainly stranger than fiction. He was part of the heart of the Warhol Factory and the Soho art explosion, and was one of the first to compulsively exploit the diaristic potential of the Sony Portapak. This fictionalized biography of Auder draws on his vast archive of videotapes, connecting them with a distanced narration and new footage shot by co-director Andrew Neel.

With subject matter such as his marriages to both Viva and Cindy Sherman, and affiliations with Larry Rivers, the Zanzibar group and the downtown art scene, this is a tale of epic proportions, chronicling an amazing journey through art and life whilst providing access to a wealth of fascinating personal footage.

Featuring:
Hartley Neel   Alexandra Auder   Jelena Berhend    Patrice Cauda Nico   Philippe Garelle  Pierre Clémenti   Daniel Pommerolles    Donald Cammell Laure Roldan   Louis Waldon   Viva   Jane Fonda   Taylor Mead   Bridget Berlin Kris Kristofferson   Shirley Clarke   Harry Smith   Andy Warhol  Gregory Corso Jonas Mekas   Henry Geldzahler   Yoko Ono   Astro   Larry Rivers   Willem de Kooning Niki de Saint Phalle   Malcolm Morley   David Maysles   Christo   Maynard Alice Neel   Eric Bogosian  Gary Indiana   Cookie Mueller   Cindy Sherman Gaby Hoffman   Michael Stickrod   Madonna

Tickets $6/NWFF and Henry Art Gallery members, $6.50/children & seniors, $9/general
PURCHASE TICKETS NOW

Regina Squared

Check out Regina’s year-end review in the Seattle P-I with a shout out to Henry exhibitions and our new website:

“BEST MUSEUM WEB SITE: For usefulness, glamour and fun, the dazzling site of the Henry Art Gallery, henryart.org, makes all other museum Web sites in the region look like horse-and-buggy operations. Then there’s the art. The Henry cannot compete with SAM’s depth and ambition, but on its own contemporary turf the Henry edged out SAM for the best year, which isn’t always true. I loved “Liz Magor: The Mouth and Other Storage Facilities”; “Matthew Buckingham: Play the Story”; “The Violet Hour”, “Kader Attia: New Work”; and Jean-Luc Mylayne, photography’s master of anonymous bird portraits.”

Also, check out this Art-To-Go blog post with her own curation of YouTube art videos which includes YouTube videos by Susan Robb, Trimpin, among others.

Sixty-nine

This upcoming, year-long series at Northwest Film Forum kinda blows my mind:

69 is an in-depth, yearlong exploration of the films of 1969

beginning January 9, 2009

if you’re in southern california over winter break

If it weren’t a solid drive, I’d be headed to the MJT over winter break.  If you can, you should go.

As its etymological namesake denotes, today’s ‘museums’ are a manifestation of modern mythos, acting not only as the pluralistic daughters of memory, but as living depositories of wonder. In this age of scientific explanation and institutionalized interpretation it is important that we, as visitors and museum professionals, not neglect our notion of wonder – that element of mystery that causes us to question the known world and seek out our own understanding. It is in this sense of wonder that museums find their purpose – to exhibit and provide plausible context and meaning to objects both ordinary and extraordinary.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City, California teeters curiously on a fence between the past and present tense of the typical modern museum. Unlike the specialized museums of the twenty first century, the MJT has chosen to create a hybrid exhibition strategy that places man made works of art right alongside the wonders of the natural world in a way that potentially legitimizes even the most curious of objects. By employing collections strategies from early Wunderkammern and applying them current museum practices visitors are encouraged to marvel at the collection in terms of the objects themselves as well as the legitimacy of their exhibition.

“The visitor to the Museum of Jurassic Technology continually finds himself shimmering between wondering at (the marvels of nature) and wondering whether (any of this could possibly be true). And it’s that very shimmer, that capacity for delicious confusion, that may constitute the most blessedly wonderful thing about being human.”

The irony of this hybrid allows for these exhibitions to be institutionally legitimized while causing the visitor to wonder both at the object as well as its context. Pretty freakin rad, right?

If you do go – send the Henry a postcard will ya. Or, if your still around come visit us!

Collections Search: Winter

I did some DiG-ging today:

Skagit Winter | Wesley Wehr drawing, 1970

Winter Dance Time | Helmi Dagmar Juvonen lithograph on paper, 1946

Untitled (Winter Pool 32) | Amir Zaki photograph, 2004. Purchased with the Henry Contemporaries Acquisition Fund

DiG in youself HERE

Henry Art Gallery is Open!

The snow in Seattle is melting, just like Jeppe Hein’s Ice Cube (2005) and as slow as Kader Attia’s Oil and Sugar (2007).

The galleries are open regular hours today 11AM-5 PM and with the same hours scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. Looks like we’re getting back to normal!

Now’s a great time to visit: Spend some time with Adaptation, visualize warmth with Richard Misrach: On the Beach, see some photographic gems in Outta My Light!…and catch a brief glimpse (via the Richard Andrews Overlook on the Mezzanine Level) of Jacob Dahlgren’s upcoming interactive dart installation i, the world, things, life (2007) which will open January 10, 2009.

Stay tuned for more updates, and of course, if you plan on visiting the museum – travel safely!