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I was strolling through Suzzallo Library today when I noticed that there is a new exhibition going up in Room 102 (it’s on the left after you walk through the main entrance). It is an exhibition of Chinese paper cut art called Cutting Ribbons for the Olympics. The theme of the show is Chinese folk sports, in celebration of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The East Asia Library has collaborated with the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in San Francisco to bring this traveling exhibition to the University of Washington. The official opening ceremony is this Thursday, June 5 at 3pm (open to the public), and the show runs until August 3. I am amazed by the beauty and detail of paper cuts. Check it out.
UP: DXARTS Undergraduate Student Video
Wednesday, May 21, 5 PM
Henry Auditorium
FREE
DXARTS presents a special screening of video shorts created by students in the course “Experiments in Digital Video: The Architecture of Time.” These works are final projects from this intensive, year-long sequence that explores the ideas and methods from the beginnings of the moving image up to contemporary digital cinema and video art. These emerging filmmakers have honed their skills in all areas of the production process including cinematography, sound, and lighting to non-linear editing, compositing, and effects presented in a diverse array of short features.
More video! This one has been posted around the interwebs this week, and I thought it should be seen on Hankblog. It’s a wall-painted animation called Muto, and it’s by Blu, a street artist from Bologna, Italy. This is a pretty amazing clip, not to be missed. Blu is one of several artists that will create giant murals on the outside wall facing the River Thames at the Tate Modern in London this summer.
From the Tate Modern press release:
“Blu works primarily with drawing, albeit on a large scale. His images often portray a mildly macabre fascination with death and the inner workings of the human body. His work begins as a sketch before being transferred directly on to walls using many traditional painting techniques. Blu’s inspiration, like many Street Artists, stems from the desire to transform ordinary decaying places into beautiful and interesting environments.”
The old Bankside Power Station is going to be a sight!
I recently discovered that Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa (SANAA) are now showing their work at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. The show goes until June 15. SANAA designed the new New Museum building, which appears as a stack of boxes, each one shifted off-center from the level above or below it. It made me happy to see that there are a bunch of Rabbit chairs in the cafe! SANAA had their first U.S. exhibition at the Henry from November 2007 to March 2008.
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, photo by Dean Kaufman.
Here’s another informative lecture hosted by the Henry! If you are a fan of Josiah McElheny’s The Last Scattering Surface, you won’t want to miss this one.
Seeing the Big Bang: Lecture by Thomas Quinn
Thursday, May 15, 7 PM
Auditorium
FREE
Josiah McElheny brings together the diverse fields of conceptual art, studio art and cosmology through his installation The Last Scattering Surface. In this presentation, Thomas Quinn (UW Research Assistant Professor of Astronomy and Adjunct Associate Professor of Physics) will discuss the way The Big Bang is visualized in the field of astronomy through images and animations selected in relation to McElheny’s work.
Since the Master of Fine Arts annual exhibition opens in one week, we thought you would be interested to know that some of the artists will also have solo shows at the Ceramic and Metal Arts (CMA) Gallery at the UW (4205 Mary Gates Memorial Drive - Google Map). Each artist will have an opening reception at 6pm on the first day of their show. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 11am–6pm.
May 13-17 Rachel de Conde
May 20-24 Kinu Watanabe
May 27-31 Alicia Basinger
June 3-7 Evan Blackwell (The image below is detail from one of his Straw Masses).
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.
As a University of Washington student, I pass by the Henry Art Gallery and continue through the western entrance of the campus fairly often. I’m a somewhat recent transplant to Seattle, so when the installation of Robert Irwin’s Nine Spaces, Nine Trees began (on the lawn immediately to the east of the Henry), I didn’t know what to expect, nor did I know the history of the piece. The install progressed slowly over many months, and I would always walk by, wondering what the space would transform into.
When it was finally completed, I honestly didn’t know what to think. The purple chain-link fencing just seemed so out of place. But thanks to some great art news and reviews from around town, now I know why. Brand new on Artdish is Gary Faigin’s review. Jen Graves wrote about her visit to the site last month on the Slog. Their perspectives have helped me to understand Nine Spaces, Nine Trees a little better.
It is true that people still don’t come into this public space very much. Even though it provides a meeting place, large tables and benches, and even a decent place to people-watch (with some amount of privacy), it is underused. It just doesn’t seem all that inviting from the outside. Maybe this will change as the weather warms up, but I wonder. Maybe it would help if people knew of its history at the old Public Safety Building in town.
It will be interesting to see how people adapt to this space over time.
The Violet Hour
Opening Celebration: Friday, June 20, 8pm
Member and Patron Preview: 6pm
Food, Drinks & Summer Revelry
in the Henry’s Illsley Ball Nordstrom Sculpture Court
Live music by Zeke Keeble!
FREE Members
$8 Students & Seniors
$10 General Admission
The Violet Hour is curated by Henry Associate Curator Sara Krajewski. Major support is provided by Arts Fund, the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, and PONCHO. In-kind support is generously provided by OutBack Power Systems and Silicon Energy.
Just a reminder that Jon Kertzer will be at the Henry this Wednesday at 7pm for a music dialogue with UW professor Philip Schuyler. You can listen to Jon Kertzer’s African music radio show, “The Best Ambiance” tonight on KEXP (90.3 FM in Seattle or online at kexp.org) from 6-9pm PDT.
After the Henry hosted last week’s panel discussion featuring Aaron Dixon and Larry Gossett, I have been spending some time thinking about the powerful revolutionary forces that were at work in 1968. So many student demonstrations happened around the world that year. I’ve been browsing through some of the street poster art created by Atelier Populaire during the 1968 Paris uprising. These images are powerful and they still have so much resonance 40 years later.
A Youth Disturbed Too Often By The Future
Yes To Occupied Factories
Return to Normal
I went to BLVD Gallery over the weekend, and I am still thinking about the show. Right now the gallery is showing work by New York graffiti artist Ghost. He is legendary for his contributions to the NYC subway graffiti movement in the 70s and 80s, but over time he has switched to strictly legal artistic pursuits. His style is super fun- lots of humor and goofy letters squeezing into the frame.
My favorite pieces in the show are four canvases hanging along the south wall- reminds me of being lost in the Sea of Monsters on the way to Pepperland…
I’ve long been a fan of urban art, and it is great to see this work in a gallery setting. I am glad that BLVD is providing a haven for street art and graffiti culture. The show closes on May 3, so get there soon!
Check out a local Flickr photo pool: Seattle Street Art
Reading a comment from topherZ on the Potter-Belmar Labs post reminded me of another performance in Seattle that involves fortune telling and audience participation - Radio8Ball. If you have yet to check out this monthly event, I recommend it. Host Andras Jones has a dry sense of humor that I really enjoy. The next one features singer/songwriter Andrea Wittgens, and it happens on Thursday, May 8, 8pm at the Capitol Hill Arts Center.
“Unlike the carefully crafted and controlled images that Mapplethorpe would later stage in the studio, his Polaroids are marked by spontaneous invention. Some convey an unexpected tenderness and vulnerability; others have a toughness and immediacy that would give way in later years to a more refined formalism.”
Sylvia Wolf, Mapplethorpe: Polaroids
Our new director Sylvia Wolf has one final show at the Whitney Museum, and it opens this week. It’s Polaroids: Mapplethorpe. You can see a great series of images at The Morning News. (I know Betsey dropped this link into a post a couple months ago, but I wanted to post it again in case anyone missed it like I did!) I think the Henry is pretty excited to have Sylvia.
Cornish College of the Arts will present their 2008 Bachelor of Fine Arts exhibition from May 9-20. The opening reception is on Thursday, May 8, from 5-9pm. Click here to learn more about the graduating artists!
Katie Miller, Camper and Car, watercolor, ink, and pen on paper
I am looking forward to this event that the Henry is hosting at the auditorium on Wednesday, May 7 at 7pm. It is an Algerian music dialogue with Jon Kertzer, host of KEXP’s “The Best Ambiance,” and Philip Schuyler, an ethnomusicology professor at the University of Washington. They will discuss the musical interests of French-Algerian artist Kader Attia, whose New Work is currently on exhibition at the Henry.
Potter-Belmar Labs is Leslie Raymond and Jason Jay Stevens, two collaborating artists who conduct live cinema. They are doing a west coast tour this spring, and will be stopping at Central Cinema in Seattle on May 24 & 25. From the San Antonio Business Journal:
Their live cinema performance, titled “Fortune,” is a dream-like mix of sound, music and moving images created from laptops, projectors and a bevy of other electronic devices. There is also an interactive element to the show: Audience members will pick tarot cards bearing descriptions of different states of being, and the resulting art performance will be a symbolic collective fortune telling.
“The audience determines the selection and arrangement of the vignettes, ensuring that no performance is like any other,” Raymond says.
Check out their West Coast Tour site here.
Photographer Roger Ballen will speak at the Henry Auditorium on Thursday, May 8. Check out some of his recent work here and here.
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.
It’s going to be a busy evening at the Henry Auditorium! All tickets have been picked up for the panel discussion When Words are Not Enough. If you got your ticket, we’ll see you at 7pm.
Just a reminder: If you haven’t yet visited Dawn Cerny’s installation We’re all going to die (except for you) or seen Jean-Luc Mylayne’s photography, this week is your last chance, because both shows close on April 27. If you want to revisit once more, now is the time!
I like what Jen Graves said about her third visit to Cerny’s “waiting room”.
Very soon, the Henry will make way for the UW Master of Fine Arts annual exhibition in the North Galleries, opening May 17.
I wanted to mention one other thing about the Stephen Shames exhibition at Odegaard Library. Nearby some of the photographs on the first floor, there is a film playing on a monitor with headphones. The film is a documentary called In Pursuit of Social Justice: An Oral History of the Early Years of Diversity Efforts at the University of Washington. It was produced by UWTV in 2007. It is really engaging and interesting, with tons of interviews, and I wanted to keep watching it. Fortunately, it is available to view online in its entirety!
This documentary centers on the May 20, 1968 takeover of President Odegaard’s office by members of the UW Black Student Union and their supporters. The content includes the landmark event of the 1968 sit-in and the climate of the times that led up to it, as well as the results of campus diversity efforts and their impact on the UW today. A history lesson, showing us the life and times of the decade or so before 1968, the program examines society, politics, and education during that time.
Click here to watch it in Windows Media or Quicktime.
I’ve just come back from viewing the Stephen Shames photography exhibition currently at the University of Washington’s Odegaard Library. It’s called The Black Panthers: Making Sense of History, and it runs until May 31, 2008. (building hours)
As a photographer, Shames had unique access to the Black Panther Party. This exhibition contains public images of party members at street demonstrations and protests throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, and it also has images of private party meetings and intimate portraits of leaders like Huey P. Newton.
This exhibition coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Black Student Union’s May 1968 takeover of President Odegaard’s office, an action which served as a catalyst for increasing diversity and opening doors of opportunity for people of color at UW.
There are several related activities going on, including a film series on Monday afternoons (PDF list), a walk-through presentation with Stephen Shames (Friday, April 25 at 4pm), and a panel discussion at the Henry Auditorium, featuring Aaron Dixon, co-founder of the Black Panther Party’s Seattle Chapter; Seattle City Councilmember Larry Gossett, co-founder of the University of Washington Black Student Union; James Gregory, director of the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project; and Janet Jones, coordinator of the Seattle Black Panther Party History and Memory Project. This panel program will take place on Thursday, April 24 at 7pm. Free tickets are available at the Henry admissions desk beginning today. Seating is limited, so get your tickets soon!
To see more Stephen Shames photos, check out his 2006 book, The Black Panthers.
It was great to have Brian Tolle speak at the Henry last week. The audience was very interested in the process he went through to bring Stronghold to the University of Washington campus. He explained how the project was inspired by the history of the region, particularly by old photos that documented the logging of old growth forests. He showed quite a few old slides, including this one, from “Children’s Day” at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909, featuring possibly the largest piece of lumber ever made :
Tolle also explained how he originally planned on using cast concrete for the piece, but over time it became clear that lumber would be a better material. It seems that many people question this decision (and the issue did come up during the Q&A) but he pointed out that the lumber would be used either way. He stated that the fact that it is a work of art makes it different from a deck or a hot tub made of wood. I think that the image of Stronghold is certainly more potent when I consider the 10,000 linear feet of cedar that went into it.
It was fun to see some of Tolle’s other work, including a performance called Skid Rows, which happened at the Queens Botanical Garden in 2005. This involved a modified pick-up truck that was equipped to plough through the lawn while depositing seeds into the ground. This project arose after Tolle had contemplated the erosion damage caused by the recreational use of ATVs, and he decided that he should turn that kind of beer-drinking joyriding into something positive (like planting a garden!)
So a couple weeks ago Betsey posted that great clip from American Beauty featuring the floating, dancing plastic bag. Plastic bags can be seen in the current Kader Attia exhibition at the Henry. And today I’ve come across a great plastic bag post from Olympia Dumpster Divers, the art blog of Ruby Re-Usable. Be sure to check out video of the Air Bear by Joshua Allan Harris.
Virginia Fleck, Make Over Mandala (2006)
plastic bags, tape
78″ diameter
plastic bags, tape
78″ diameter
For the regular Hankblog visitors who might have noticed a new contributor this week, allow me to introduce myself! My name is Jamey Summa, and I am the new Communications Intern at the Henry Art Gallery. I am a senior English major at the University of Washington, and I am thrilled to be working with Betsey on all things Web 2.0. Please feel free to leave comments for me- I love feedback. I’ll leave you with a little video mix featuring one of my favorite contemporary artists, Scotsman Andy Goldsworthy.
from YouTube felaiuki
Last week, Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. The exhibition made its debut at the Henry Art Gallery in 2006, and has also traveled to the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. Click here to check out a short video featuring Stephanie Hanor, the Senior Curator at MCASD. She discusses the large-scale installation process as well as the silver leaf river drawing that Maya Lin created for the specific venue.
Related:
- Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (artdaily.org)
- Maya Lin’s earthly concerns (Los Angeles Times)
If you have been on the UW campus and walked past the east side of the William H. Foege building recently, your eyes were likely drawn to a new work of art by Brian Tolle. The massive cedar sculpture is titled Stronghold, and Tolle will be at the Henry Auditorium this Thursday at 7pm to speak about the creation of this impressive work.
Artist Lecture: Brian Tolle
Thursday, April 10, 7 PM
Auditorium
FREE
Tickets are now available at the Henry admissions desk. Seating is limited. First come, first served.New York based artist Brian Tolle, best known for his city-block-sized Irish Hunger Memorial project in Battery Park City, has recently completed a monumental work of sculpture for the University of Washington campus in Seattle. Stronghold (2007) is a 23-foot diameter effigy of the base of a massive old-growth tree, like the ones that may have been on the university’s campus before logging. Painstakingly built from 2×6 cedar lumber, the sculpture seems like a low-resolution digital image — very realistic from a distance and obviously constructed up close.
This lecture sponsored by the UW Public Art Commission, the Washington State Arts Commission, the UW School of Art, 4Culture, and the Henry Art Gallery.
On Friday evening, Josiah McElheny was in Seattle to celebrate the opening of The Last Scattering Surface at the Henry. A very appreciative crowd turned out for the lecture he delivered at Kane Hall. During his talk, he discussed much of the work he has done in recent years, with a focus on his interest in modern science and the Big Bang.
He showed a few minutes of the film Conceptual Drawings for a Chandelier, 1965 (which is also on view at the Henry). This film features his inspiration for The Last Scattering Surface—the Lobmeyr chandeliers that hang in the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.
It was very interesting to see McElheny’s simple animated line drawings of the origins of the universe put into context with the dramatic images of the raising and lowering of the galaxy-like chandeliers. McElheny talked about how he initially thought that the chandeliers looked like a Pop image of the Big Bang, and he wondered how he might turn the idea into a sculpture. His collaboration with cosmologist David Weinberg led to the very scientifically precise work that is The Last Scattering Surface.
Some “big” concepts from the lecture:
- The universe has no center, and no edge
- Every viewpoint tells the story of our development
- The nature of matter is like porridge—the individual differences are why we exist
