Author Archive

Sneak preview at 911 tomorrow evening!

The whole scoop, for your reading pleasure, below. Find out more at 911 Media Arts, too.

Sheila Farr’s thoughtful review here.

This was at the Henry in 1985, I think.
Thanks, Shu and Joe! (Nice blog on art, architecture, design, and culture)

I love art that keeps working in my brain long after it goes away. Check out Regina Hackett’s new post on Art To Go, Kader Attia: The wow afterthought.

Artist Lecture: Matthew Buckingham
Friday, July 11, 6:30 PM
Auditorium
FREE to members; $5 general admission
Tickets available at the Henry Admission Desk beginning July 3; seating is limited.

Images: Matthew Buckingham. Everything I Need. 2007. Video installation. Courtesy of the artist; Matthew Buckingham. False Future. 2007. Film projection. Courtesy of the artist. Matthew Buckingham. The Spirit and the Letter. 2007. Continuous video projection with sound. Mary Wollstonecraft:Kate Miles. Courtesy of Film and Video Umbrella. Photo: Romain Forquy

Join us at the opening celebration of Play the Story and hear exhibiting artist Matthew Buckingham discuss his unique process of unearthing and reconsidering distinct historical moments and what they have to tell us about present day concerns.

Members: For your free Matthew Buckingham lecture tickets and to RSVP for the Members’ Reception following the lecture, please call 206.616.8783 or email specialevent@henryart.org Not a member? Join or renew online here.

It’s shaping up to be an arty weekend, for sure, despite the sunshine, and that the temperature in Lake Washington is no longer unbearable for swimming. Friday is Matthew Buckingham’s lecture at the Henry, and the first chance to see Play the Story. Saturday, (I cannot think of a lovelier place to spend a summer evening) Crawl Space opens Remake, a new show of works by guest artist Mike Bray.

Check it out (the video takes a minute or so to load - be patient):

Seven baby ducks hatched outside the Henry Art Gallery today. The nest was in the planter directly outside the museum’s front doors. Henry operations staff had been keeping an eye on it, and we were a little concerned since baby ducks need to make it to water pretty quickly.

As of a half an hour ago, with a little help from a few Henry Staffers, the mama and her chicks are swimming happily in the Drumheller fountain.

Vancouver’s Western Front is very awesome. This sounds like a great opportunity for the right person. Read all about it:

Call for Curators
Perspectives on an Archive

Western Front Media Arts

DEADLINE:  August 22

In the autumn of 2008, three emerging curators will develop programs of significant Canadian works of media art selected from the Western Front Media Archive. The project will include a public presentation series, a virtual exhibit, a catalogue, and in-house screenings on demand. Western Front Media Arts invites emerging British Columbia based curators of aboriginal ancestry and from culturally diverse backgrounds to apply for this unique opportunity.

This project provides an environment for engagement between culturally diverse curators and aboriginal curators to discuss, research and curate Canadian media art, as well as a space for young curators with unique perspectives to develop their own connection to and knowledge of media works produced in Western Canada. Perspectives on an Archive is a featured project of the BC 2008 Celebrations: British Columbia’s 150th Anniversary.

Three successful applicants will acquire skills in curation, presentation of media works and publication processes. Workshops will introduce the main components of organizing media programs by identifying the resources, tools and methods of curating. Western Front staff (Alissa Firth-Eagland, Director/Curator of Media Arts; Candice Hopkins, Director/Curator of Exhibitions; Liz Park, Media Arts Curatorial Resident) and other established local curators will share expertise and provide insight into how to make projects happen from the ground up.

About Western Front Media Arts

The Media Arts Program at the Western Front is an international hub for media arts. The Media Arts Program is expansive and elastic and presents emergent, new, and diverse media art practices through several areas of activity and resources. Research, creation, production and development activities are seen as converging dialogues that inform one another. As such, the Media Arts Program maintains several areas of activity and resources such as the Artist-in-Residence Program, the Media Archive, collaborative projects, co-productions, international exchanges and mentorships.

Past visiting artists have included Laurie Anderson, Ant Farm, William Burroughs, Colin Campbell, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Tom Dean, Sara Diamond, Stan Douglas, Margaret Dragu, Robert Filliou, Vera Frenkel, General Idea, Ken Gregory, Mona Hatoum, Tetsuo Kogawa, Tanya Mars, Jeff Mann, David Rokeby, Tom Sherman, Thecla Schiphorst, Lisa Steele, Kim Tomczak, Elizabeth Van der Zaag, Paul Wong and Cornelia Wyngaarden. Recent visiting artists include Jude Norris, Judy Radul, Darsha Hewitt, David Clark and Emily Vey Duke + Cooper Battersby.

For more detailed information on this and other programs at the Western Front, please visit www.front.bc.ca .

How to Apply

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Friday August 22, 2008, 4:00 PM

Proposals must include:

• CV (maximum 3 pages)
• samples of critical writing (maximum 5 pages)
• a letter of intent (maximum 1 page). Please describe your interest in Canadian media art and in Western Front. Please include 3 examples of works from the Western Front Media Archive which are relevant to your curatorial research. The Media Archive is accessible and searchable on the website at www.front.bc.ca .

Download your summer newsletter right here, folks:
newsletter-summer-08

A note from our beloved Henry Security Guard, and artist extraoridinare, Bob Rini - tune in to KOMO at 11 if you can (and shoot them and e-mail afterwards, and let them know how glad you are to see a story about a talented local artist on the news!)

A heads up that our Broadway banner may be on KOMO News this evening at 11PM. As a result of the blog story buzz, I received a call today and did a brief interview with KOMO News, and they shot the sad remains of the mural.

In less than five minutes, I managed to plug the Friends of the Nib, explain the Sound Transit project, and lament the risk in making public art. Maybe they will use a few seconds, a sound byte ripped out of context, between their commercials for laxative and beer.

I realize no single person can represent the Friends of the Nib, but I did my best in this rare instance. We are a loose strange thing, more swamp gas than a fraternal order, and you cannot contain us in a jar. I pointed to missing panels, and mentioned some of you by name, and pointed to the cartouche of names — which, by the way, is still standing.

As for the street thieves, I sent those shitbirds flying. I nearly pulled out my lavaliere mic flailing my arms, sending those artless dodgers to hell. Let’s see if I look like a total lunatic artist.

So if you’re up, watch KOMO at 11.

Your friend in nibs,
Bob

the story:
http://hankblog.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/broadway-mural-vandalized/

If that’s the case, then you might want to check this out:

Ear to Ear

Friday, July 4th to Sunday, July 6th (three days only!)
Or Gallery, Vancouver
Curated by Jeff Khonsary

Conversations: Saturday, July 5th, 5 – 7pm
Closing Party: Sunday, July 6th, 8pm
Gallery Hours: 12 to 5pm

Cornershop Projects, in conjunction with the Or Gallery, Vancouver, presents Ear to Ear, a community-based, ad hoc archive of contemporary popular music and music ephemera.

Despite a clear antagonism, the relationship between the legal and the illegal distribution of popular music in the West has been formed through a dialectic process. Recently, as major music labels have begun to adapt in response to market pressures, mainstream interest in the illegal distribution of music has become increasingly acute — focussed almost exclusively on emerging peer-to-peer technologies. While rooted in older, less formal systems of distribution, these now pervasive, illicit distribution networks differ considerably from their predecessors in that they enforce a strict distance (both physical and emotional) between contributing users.

With all this in mind, Ear To Ear hopes to establish a temporary, non-virtual community interested in popular music. Through a collection of visual, auditory, and printed materials, the project focusses on informal and/or illegal networks of distribution and communication within various music subcultures. Taking cues from exhibition based projects such as Christoph Keller’s Kiosk: Modes of Multiplication as well as mix tape and fanzine culture, Ear to Ear was developed as a hypothetical framework rather then a fully realized archive — and as such is expansive and open ended.

CD Mixes: At the heart of Ear to Ear is a series of 29 specially commissioned mixed CDs that will be redistributed freely during the run of the project. Participants include: Jeff Derksen, Eric Fredericksen, Andrew Lison, Adam Locke-Norton, Johan Lundh, Alan McConchie, Ceci Moss, Christopher Olson, Kristina Lee Podesva, Mark Soo, Jared Stanley, Jordan Strom, Saelan Twerdy, and Courtenay Webber. Read the rest of this entry »

Check out Regina Hackett’s great review of the Violet Hour here.
Plus a new voice in the PI’s blogs, here.

A shiny new Seattle Magazine is on the stands, featuring a smart little profile with new Henry Director, Sylvia Wolf.

That’s a paraphrased quote from the intro to the newly posted In/Visible podcast with Jen Graves.
Listen in to an entertaining (and possibly grim) conversation with Violet Hour artists Jen Liu and Matthew Day Jackson.

Be there or be square!

To see the UW M.F.A. Exhibition at the Henry. Tomorrow, Sunday the 15th, is the very last day!

(I know - shouting is bad manners - but this film merits a big shout.)
Henry members get $5 tickets, too.

SPECIAL ENCORE PRESENTATION!
ZIDANE, A 21ST CENTURY PORTRAIT
(Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, France / Iceland, 2006, 35mm, 92 min)

After turning scores of people away during our screenings in April, we’re pleased to bring this stunning portrait of one of the greatest players in the history of soccer, Zinédine Zidane, back to NWFF! Seventeen synchronized cameras were used, each focusing on Zidane in real time, from the first kick of the ball to the moment he was ejected from the game. The match, between Real Madrid (Zidane’s team) and Villarreal, was played on April 23, 2005 and was witnessed by eighty thousand screaming fans. Zidane himself recounts, in voice-over, what he can and cannot remember from his matches. Magnificently edited and accompanied by a majestic score from Scottish rock heroes Mogwai, this is perhaps the best sports films ever made, but also one of the finest studies of man in his element, an ode to the loneliness of the athlete and the poise and resilience of the human body.

The 7:00 screenings are sold out. Go here to get your tickets for the 9:00 shows.

Regina Hackett’s lively review of Josiah McElheny: The Last Scattering Surface in the Seattle-PI.

I’d also like to shout out to her Art to Go post from earlier today, on why some artists get the ink they do - artist-as-human-interest-story vs. criticism and reviews, and why some choices are made.

Speaking of, I hope this ABC News story (in their Health section) brought Arianna Russell some art interest, too!

I just got an announcement from Chas Bowie about his new photography blog, That’s a Negative. I’ve missed Chas’s genius blog Your Daily Awesome (it ended, one dark day in November ‘07 - with the memorable post Blogs End. Awesomeness Doesn’t).

In his words, That’s a Negative is:

a new blog about contemporary and historic photography. The goal of That’s a Negative is to provide a voice of critical discourse about the medium, to examine the lineage of contemporary trends, and to attempt to make sense of the practice and theories of global photography. I am exposed to photography in Portland more than anywhere else in the world, so the site will also serve as an ongoing record of photographic activity in Portland.

Currently on That’s a Negative, you will find reviews of exhibitions by Holly Andres and Stephen Berkman; links to essays by Max Kozloff, David Levi Strauss, and Bill Jay; an editorial on Photolucida that’s already generating controversy; and information about a Belgian man who’s trying to solve the JFK assassination with the aid of a camera obscura.

I’m excited, and it’ll be over there, on the blogroll in a minute.
Check it out here: http://thatsanegative.wordpress.com/

Thank you, Chelsea Alvarez-Bell.

This is the best Slog post ever, and uses the internet in the best way possible. Disclaimer: this has little to do with visual art, and everything to do with contemporary culture. In this post, Chelsea links 1970s Bob Fosse choreography, as performed by Liza Minelli in the absolute freak-out Liza with a ‘Z’, to contemporary dances The Matrix, Da Butt, and my personal favorite, the Crank Dat Soulja Boy. But that’s not all. She makes the observation, includes the YouTube clip in the post, and then, in the bottom of the post cross-references each modern dance to a time code in the Liza version. Wow! That’s some superfine blogging.
(a little text teaser won’t spoil the perfection of this post):

“I found myself asking, “Wait, did Liza just do the Tootsie Roll?” The answer is yes. Then she does The Matrix, Da Butt, and the most spastic Crank Dat Soulja Boy one could hope to see. I know Fosse gets plenty of big ups already, but damn, y’all.”

In related internet fun, an old YouTube, the Walk it Out Fosse:

Some evenings, the Japanese restaurant Maneki feels like the epicenter of Seattle’s art community. Maneki (103 years old! WOW!) just won a James Beard “America’s Classics” award! The hospitality of Jean Nakayama makes everyone feel special.  Every time I eat there I see friends, artists, designers, collectors, and colleagues from the Frye, and SAM. I dream about their avocado ponzu salad. Mmmmm.

Read about the award here, on the Beard Foundation’s site.
Here, on Slog, here, at Northwest Asian Weekly, here at the PI, and here, at the Seattle Times.

In other Seattle / James Beard news - one of my local heroes, the lovely, talented, and Seattle-based Sara Dickerman, was a nominee in the “Multimedia Writing on Food” category, for this awesome piece on MSN’s Slate.

The Henry’s own Mike Pham will be performing as part of the Ontological-Hysterical Theater’s Incubator residency series. All the details you’d care for:

HELSINKI SYNDROME’S
TRUE NORTH

June 18–21

photo: Mike Hipple

“…in the boisterous, rebel spirit of such older experimental theater crews as the Wooster Group and Forced Entertainment.”

–Misha Berson, The Seattle Times

Helsinki Syndrome is a performance art collective based in Seattle, WA producing non-linear, ensemble driven theater pieces that incorporate text, movement, music, and imagery into bold, rigorous, imaginative performance works. Helsinki Syndrome has performed to local acclaim at On the Boards: Northwest New Works Festival and 12 Minutes Max, Annex Theatre, Open Circle Theater, and collaborations with Henry Art Gallery and the Vancouver/Toronto art collective Instant Coffee, and Seattle School.

Set in the arctic landscape, True North explores obsession and isolation, including: the sounds that things make when you break them, Cole Porter songs, the constellations, recycled stuffed animal bear skins, hundreds of paper snowflakes, blood, glitter, and polar bears.

Rachel Hynes: Co-Director, Writer, Ensemble
Mike Pham: Co-Director, Writer, Ensemble
K. Brian Neel: Ensemble

June 18–21
Wednesday–Saturday, 8p.m.
Saturday, June 21, additional 10:30p.m. performance
Tickets: General $17/Student $12
Purchase in advance here or by calling 212-352-3101. Cash only at the door.
For more info on Helsinki Syndrome: www.helsinkisyndrome.org

Ten days only! All the details (also here):

Thursday, June 12th
6:00 - 10:00 pm
Lawrimore Project | 831 Airport Way S. | Seattle | 98134

The University of Washington’s Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media program and the Lawrimore Project are pleased to announce a BFA thesis exhibition of cutting-edge artistic inquiry, opening Thursday, June 12th from 6 to 10PM, running through June 22nd.

Featured works include installations that explore spatiotemporal aspects of light and sound in relation to the viewer, memory, kinetics, and real-time interactions. Intersecting these installations are environments that employ dance performance, stereoscopic cinema, animation, and a selection of experimental video.

This exhibition is undertaken by thirteen emerging artists investigating areas of convergence between technology and hybrid art forms. The Bachelor of Fine Arts acquired through the DXARTS program emphasizes creative academic research and experimentation through the arts, and this thesis exhibition showcases the final products of that process. The nature of this course of study merges the use of modern tools, techniques and modes of thought to pioneer new directions in contemporary, interdisciplinary art practice.

Seattle’s Lawrimore Project presents some of the most ambitious and innovative shows in the Northwest and is dedicated to carrying forward a critical dialogue between artists, curators, collectors, and the community. Scott Lawrimore’s curatorial instincts, matched with his unique historical perspective, are evident with a quick glance at the wide breadth of shows he has exhibited. From radical installations that transform the entire gallery, to unhinged video, painting and photography exhibitions, Lawrimore’s interventions in Northwest contemporary arts reinforces the new collaboration with DXARTS and will deliver a new emerging artistic logic heavily focused on the frontier of experimental arts.

Check it out:

The Henry channel is up and rolling on YouTube, with new videos from exhibiting MFA artists Zack Bent and Rachel de Condé.

Definitely worth checking out this week:

A little note from Sara at On The Boards:

Dear Friends,

One last reminder to come and check out Back to Back Theatre’s “small metal objects” – opening tonight at SAM’s Olympic Sculpture Park. This show promises to be a kick-ass way to end the season. I saw the tech rehearsal last night and was personally blown away.

ADVANCED PURCHASE STRONGLY RECOMMENDED. Tickets are $24 general admission. Only around 120 people at a time can see this show – several performances are close to selling out.

Call the box office at 206.217.9888 or buy online by clicking here: http://purchase.tickets.com/buy/TicketPurchase?organ_val=21712&event_val=AB4A

The show is:

May 29 – June 1

Thu @ 7pm

Fri - Sun @ 4 and @ 7

Read more at ontheboards.org

Josiah McElheny | “Conceptual Drawings for a Chandelier, 1965″ at Art21 Blog:

This SOLD out, screening after screening, the first time around, in April. It’s coming back!
Buy your tickets now at the very special Henry Members price of $5.

SPECIAL ENCORE PRESENTATION

Acclaimed contemporary artists and filmmakers Douglas Gordon (24 HOUR PSYCHO) and Philippe Parreno have taken a unusual approach in creating this film portrait of soccer superstar Zinédine Zidane. They focused seventeen synchronized 35mm and HD cameras (equipped with the most powerful zoom lenses ever made) solely on him for the entirety of a soccer match from the first kick of the ball to the final whistle.

The result of this 360-degree, real-time portrait is a startling connection to the sensations, the psychology and the body of the athlete. The film’s brilliant sound design captures the ebb and flow of the stadium crowd (one clue to the game’s activity off-screen), and incorporates an original score by the band Mogwai that emphasizes the calm intensity of the player (and the sport.) Something of a mixture between sports film, nature documentary and art portrait, ZIDANE is a truly unique cinematic experience.

Directed by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, France / Iceland, 2006
Presented on 35mm

JUNE 13-15, Friday - Sunday at 7, 9:15pm

Tickets $5/NWFF and Henry Art Gallery members, $6/children and seniors, $8.50/general
Available online at www.nwfilmforum.org

This sounds like a great event, worth checking out next week!

Pecha Kucha Night V. 07 – Artist Trust Benefit: Thursday, June 5^th, 2008 – 7:30PM

Please join Pecha Kucha Seattle in our first ever benefit for Artist Trust (http://www.artisttrust.org), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting Washington State artists working in all creative disciplines. We’ve assembled an incredible roster of filmmakers, visual artists, musicians, composers and arts visionaries. Share ideas, see great work and support the arts. We’d love to see you there! Funds raised will support Artist Trust core programs, and for every $1500 raised, Pecha Kucha will support a GAP grant. http://www.artisttrust.org/grants/GAP

EVENT DETAILS
Thursday, June 5^th
Doors Open 7:30 PM
Presentations Begin at 8:30
Ouch My Eye (www.ouchmyeye.com)
1022 1^st Ave. South
Seattle, WA  98134
$10 Suggested Donation at the door

(If you know me, you know that I sang that headline to the tune of Foreigner’s “Hot Blooded.”)

I just sent the following note out to members of the Henry Art Squad on Facebook - and I thought I’d post it up here as well (lots of links, after the jump):

Subject: PacNW Fans of Contemporary Art, Performance, and Film on Facebook!

Hello - Henry Art Squad,

Happy sunny Saturday! I was helping Northwest Film Forum out with their facebooking - and I thought I’d send around a “State of the Arts in Facebook” for Pacific Northwest America.

I’ve noticed that farther north you go, the more the art scene loves Facebook. As you travel south, less and less. Not so many museums, galleries, and groups by the time you get to Portland.

You’re a Henry fan, right? (Go see the MFA Show! It’s open now!!)
http://www.facebook.com/pages/seattle-WA/Henry-Art-Gallery/12035785890

Read the rest of this entry »

Okay. I have to say I feel a little bit funny on this one. Link-wise, I kept getting pointed to this blog, Peripheral Vision - but I’ve been swamped so I hadn’t really had time to check it out. I go there , it’s a Seattle art blog- and it’s smart, funny, and just plain GREAT.

Then I see the byline, “erinl.” Those of you who have been with Hankblog for a while may know her as erin82, and maybe you read a few of her 182 Hankblog posts. Perhaps you’ve missed her (I sure do!) in these past few months. (Teary goodbye, here.) She left the communications department at the Henry for an awesome education gig at SAM. You can just stop the missing and get over to Peripheral Vision and read, read, read. It’s also added to the “art blogs” blogroll.

First, I thought - not our Erin L? If our Erin were making a thoughtful, smart art blog she would certainly tell us so we could link to her and tell our friends. Especially if she were over at my house eating crepes and playing Wii Mario Party a week ago. We would talk about it.

I realize now she was testing me. You totally got me, Erin. Sorry it took so dang long! I will totally dedicate “Wind Beneath My Wings” to you next time at karaoke, buy you a huge cocktail, and congratulate you on your stealthy and fantastic new home in the blogosphere.

Check out the review of Polaroids: Mapplethorpe (Curated by Henry Director, Sylvia Wolf - on view now at the Whitney) in today’s New York Times.

Check the delightful Jen Graves post about her first meeting with Sylvia in Slog, too.

FYI, Polaroids: Mapplethorpe will be here at the Henry in Fall, 2009.

It’s eighty degrees and gorgeous - but I am going to spend some time this weekend in a lovely dark movie theater. Northwest Film Forum’s, to be exact.

There’s the Alice Neel documentary - read all about it here: http://www.aliceneelfilm.com/, and here in The PI’s Art to Go, in yesterday’s Stranger, and here in the Times.
Get your tickets here. It’s showing the 16-22.

Of greater personal interest to this blogger - Harmony Korine’s new film, Mr. Lonely, opens there tonight.
Can’t wait.

Roxanna Brown, a internationally known expert on Asian art who was implicated in an antiquities smuggling scheme, died here in Seattle yesterday. According to artforum.com/news she had traveled to Seattle for a speaking engagement at the University of Washington. Brown was trained in art history at UCLA. She died of a heart attack at the detention center, between Seattle and Tacoma.

UW Astronomy Professor Tom Quinn lectures here at the Henry, tonight, 7PM!
You’ve seen how Josiah McElheny sees the Big Bang, check out how these scholars see it, too!

Free for YOU, gentle Hankblog readers.

Details here.

New video on the Art21 blog:

from blog.art21.org posted with vodpod

OBViouS
Object Based Video Sculpture
911 Media Arts Gallery
Opening Reception: May 15th 6pm – 9pm

Regular Gallery Hours
Monday through Friday 12pm – 6pm
Saturdays 1pm. – 6pm

OBViouS, a five-artist show curated by Affiliate Curator Steven Vroom, opens in the 911 Media Arts Gallery on Thursday May 15th with an opening reception from 6pm – 9pm.

OBViouS is a sampler of different contemporary approaches to sculpture which have video as a common thread. The equivocal nature of the practice of making sculpture allows for the curator to “state the obvious”. This group exhibition features works by Tina Aufiero, Casey Cahoy, Joseph Gray, Caroline Kapp, and Tony Weathers.

The show runs from May 15th through June 30th, and follows the multi-dimensional Yellow by Robert Campbell.

This video, created by Scott Lawrimore and Yoko Ott, and the following essay were created as a companion pieces to this year’s MFA catalogue. The exhibition opens this weekend, the community celebration is Friday, May 23 at 7PM.

See you there!

from blip.tv posted with vodpod

WHATEVER: A YouTube | MFA MASH-UP

by Scott Lawrimore and Yoko Ott

So when the sucker m.c.s try to chump my style

I let them know that I’m versatile

I got style finesse and a little black book

That’s filled with rhymes and I know you wanna look

Today, how can we not speak of the university?

But there’s a thing that separates you from me

And that’s called originality…

…A tick a tock y’all a beat beat y’all

A let’s rock y’all ya don’t stop

~ A Sugarhill Gang and Jacques Derrida Mash-Up

Two voices presented as one, sampled and remixed into a new composition to create fresh meaning, the above quote and the following co-authored essay are mash-ups of ideas, reflections, opinions and critical evaluations.

We were, admittedly, implored by members of the 2008 Master of Fine Arts graduating class to do something different. With that charge, and in the spirit of originality and institutional critique offered by Sugarhill Gang and Jacques Derrida, we searched for different beats. Embrace the syncopation.

This MFA thesis exhibition is a culmination of two years spent refining thought and perfecting craft; this catalog the record. Both represent a transition out of a safe academic environment. The feedback loops of studio critiques and oral thesis defenses amongst their peers and advisors are now reverberating in a new forum where the audience is redefined, expanded, and viewer response amped up and tuned in to new frequencies. With the rite of passage of graduation—and degrees labeling these individuals as masters in their field—nineteen freshly dubbed artists are about to be released into circulation. This is their major-label debut. It is a new product launch and we’re supposed to be writing advertising copy, not only for the graduates, but also for the University of Washington School of Art, its Director, and its professors. Heard through those headphones, our resistors temporarily overloaded. Our search for a smart point of entry into the reductive practice of filtering all of these artists’ ideas into one neat and tidy bit of writing led us to Read the rest of this entry »

Robert Rauschenberg died yesterday, at age 82. Here’s Michael Kimmelman’s piece in the New York Times, and Alan Artner’s in the Chicago News Tribune.

Here at the Henry, we’ll be showing a few Rauschenberg works from our collection on the mezzanine this summer. We’ll be exhibiting Booster along with several test stones that were created as part of this ambitious project. This was already in our exhibition schedule - but it now seems appropriate that we will be able to commemorate this amazing artist.

Image - from MoMA.org - Robert Rauschenberg. (American, born 1925). Booster from the series Booster and 7 Studies. 1967. Lithograph and screenprint, composition: 71 1/2 x 35 1/8″ (181.7 x 89.3 cm); sheet: 72 3/16 x 35 9/16″ (183.4 x 90.4 cm). Publisher and printer: Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles. Edition: 38. John B. Turner Fund

Tonight, the Music Dialogue with KEXPs’ Jon Kertzer and Philip Schuyler, UW Ethnomusicology Division Head and Associate Professor of Music.
Details:

Music Dialogue with Jon Kertzer and Philip Schulyer
Wednesday, May 7, 7 PM
Auditorium
FREE
World music KEXP DJ Jon Kertzer and UW School of Music Professor Philip Schulyer will share a music dialogue related to Kader Attia’s Algerian musical interests.

Tomorrow, a lecture from photographer Roger Ballen. (Check out a conversation with Ballen here.)
Details:

Artist Lecture: Roger Ballen
Shadow Chamber
Thursday, May 8, 7 PM
Auditorium
FREE
Tickets available at the Henry admissions desk beginning Thursday, May 1. Seating is limited. First come, first served.

Celebrated photographer Roger Ballen will present a lecture on the breadth of his outstanding career. Ballen’s early work in South Africa in the 80s and 90s is highly regarded for its unflinching views of village life. His recent Shadow Chamber series reveals a new interest in creating painterly effects in surreal tableaux.

And SATURDAY, a special preview screening of The Gates!
Details:

The Gates
Saturday, May 10, 2 PM
FREE

In 2005, Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed The Gates, one of the largest art installations created in history. Beginning with footage from the artists’ first announcement of the project in 1979, this new HBO documentary by renowned filmmakers Albert Maysles and Antonio Ferrera chronicles the 25 years Christo and Jeanne-Claude dedicated to their ambitious work of art and its impact while on view in New York’s Central Park from February 12 through 27, 2005.

Are you on Facebook?
Add these to your Facebook events:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=29486963312
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=31651601456
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=11028839667

The Development team here at the Henry, affectionately known as DEVO, seeks a Development Associate.
Read the whole job posting below the jump!

Read the rest of this entry »

A purely informational - trouble-saving post:
If you plan on visiting the Henry today - take the University Bridge or I-5, or something that is NOT the MONTLAKE BRIDGE. It’s the opening day for boating season - ahoy! The drawbridge will be up all day, 10-4.

New header, up there. Your comments are welcome. Let me know if you miss the old one.
This image is a detail from a photo by the awesome and talented Bellen Drake.

(The link is to her 2004 exhibition at Photographic Center Northwest. Bellen’s site seems to be down - but I promise you the link when it is up again!)

RARE WEST-COAST APPEARANCE!

Chuck Close in Conversation with Bob Holman
Sunday, May 11, 2 pm
New Location: Pantages Theater
901 Broadway, Tacoma
Chuck Close, one of America’s foremost portrait artists, speaks with New York School poet Bob Holman about their collaborative work in A Couple of Ways of Doing Something: Photographs by Chuck Close, Poems by Bob Holman. Reflecting on his forty-year career, Close will discuss his approach to capturing images of longtime friends through multiple media. Holman will perform the praise poems written to accompany the portraits.

Cost is $10 for Tacoma Art Museum and Henry Art Gallery members, $15 for non-members. Tickets are general admission and seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Advance purchases are recommended. Contact 253.272.4258 x3030 or education@TacomaArtMuseum.org for details. Purchase tickets online now

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is the very last day of Tim Tinker’s show of paintings at Cafe Solstice on University Ave. Enjoy it while you can. And have a very delicious coffee while you are there,and visit Tim’s website here.

Jen Graves is getting scoopy on the SLOG. The news? Larry Rinder, current Dean at California College of the Arts, and former Whitney Curator, has been named director of Berkeley Art Museum / Pacific Film Archive. Read the whole release here.

Regina Hackett has a very excellent review of the On The Boards show: The Devil You Know Is Better Than the Devil You Don’t in the PI’s print edition. Rumor has it the show is sold out. Congratulations Juniper and Zoe, and congrats, ticketholders for tonight - you’re in for a wild time!

Speaking of sold out: Northwest Film Forum’s annual gala is this evening - and it is shaping up to be the best one ever. This year it will be held at the China Harbor - and the theme is the 1950s TV show You Asked For It. Before cleaning up to attend the 1PM Andreas Zybach lecture at Western Bridge, I’ve got lots of gluing and glittering to do on the costumes for the Cocktail Cavalcade of Cocktails. If you like NWFF and this silly business sounds like your kind of fun - sign up for their mailing list so you’ll get an invite next year - before it’s sold out.

Back to the WB - the new exhibition there, You Complete Me, could not be more fun. I can’t wait to see it in a non-opening setting.  want to hang out, quietly, with Mark Soo’s That’s That’s Alright Alright Mama Mama, and I want to do a flip in Mungo Thompson’s Skyspace Bouncehouse when no one is watching. It’s an energetic, electric exhibition - and all the works really require YOU to fully engage (and sometimes exercise.)

The palpable, frenetic energy of the kids (a pack of 7 to 9 year old boys) running between Skyspace Bouncehouse, and Martin Creed’s Half the Air in a Given Roo