MFA+MDes Thesis Exhibition opens on this Saturday (Preview Tonight!)

Max Pethe, Henry prep crew, readies the Stroum Gallery for the MFA+MDes exhibition opening.

On Saturday, May 25th, the Henry’s Stroum Gallery will feature the work of 17 graduating UW School of Art Master of Fine Art and Master of Design students. The students have been in the galleries preparing their pieces for over a week, with the help of the Henry prep crew and in particular, Jim Rittimann, Henry Art Gallery head preparator and exhibition designer. Jim, a UW School of Art MFA himself, helped the students select which work to show in this culminating exhibition.

Presenting students are: Jared Bender, Phillip Carpenter, Carly Cummings, Lacy Draper, Mike Fretto, Kari Gaynor, Dakota Gearhart, Meg Hartwig, Margarita Iordache, Dave Kennedy, Stephanie Klausing, Josh Nelson, Adriel Rollins, Travis-David Smith, Melanie Wang, Marcus Watson, and Ryan Weatherly.

The School of Art will award diplomas in a private ceremony and reception on Friday evening, which will be followed by a public opening at 7 pm. Join us to celebrate the 2013 MFA+MDes thesis exhibition and to meet this new generation of artists!

Aesthetic Dress: The Scandal!

Gertrude Käsebier. The Picture Book. 1903. Photogravure. Henry Art Gallery, Joseph and Elaine Monsen Photography Collection, gift of Joseph and Elaine Monsen and The Boeing Company, 97.249.

 

Today’s post is written by Kimberly Hereford, a PhD candidate in art history at the UW.

Just what is Aesthetic fashion and how was it different than everyday Victorian dress? In the day, Aesthetic dress was daring and existed outside the framework of etiquette and correct Victorian society. Though deemed scandalous and unfashionable by the public at large, initially a small group of avant-garde women dared to wear these gowns in public. 

On Thursday, May 23 I hope you will join me in the museum’s Reed Collection Study Center for “Off with the Corset!” to view a select group of objects from the Henry’s permanent collection and to discuss how Aesthetic dress differed from more conventional and acceptable woman fashion.

By looking at objects from the Henry Art Gallery’s permanent collection, we will explore what constituted “unfashionable” versus “ideal” Victorian standard of beauty, themes evident in the museum’s current exhibition Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty.

The Aesthetic dress movement grew out of the ideals of the Pre-Raphaelite art movement, which also influenced the Arts and Craft movement in England. “Truth to nature and beauty in all things,” was the guiding principle of Aestheticism, a Victorian art movement designed to counter the Industrial Revolution by rejecting conformity and materialism. The adherents to Aesthetic fashion believed that clothing should not distort the natural form of the female body, but rather should be in harmony with natural and individual characteristics with the wearer, and above all, allow ease of movement. The greatest outrage for the adherents to the Aesthetic movement was the tight lacing of the corset and the bulges caused with stiff bustles.

There are two excellent examples of Aesthetic dresses in the Henry’s collection, a hand-sewn blouse and a light blue silk dress from Liberty & Co. Each piece contains detailed smocking, a hallmark of Aesthetic fashion.  Rather than harsh aniline dyes, these dresses were often made using “natural” dyes and would have been worn without a petticoat or bustle. The total effect, would have seemed droopy, limp, and even “sloppy” – the antithesis of everyday fashionable attire

By 1884, a shift occurred and Aesthetic dresses could be procured by the everyday Victorian woman from Liberty & Co. in London, which was deemed the “chosen resort” for the followers of this movement. The Liberty silks and its distinctive floral motif became associated and trademarks of the Aesthetic dress and instantly recognizable.  

My talk on the 23^rd will also focus on these daring and fashion-forward women who were the first to cause a stir with their unusual style. Although Aesthetic dresses such as those in the Henry’s collection, would have been initially perceived as eccentric and “out of fashion,” we will also consider how, as the century progressed, this style not only became acceptable, but eventually influenced dress designers and continues to linger even today.

 

 

Henry Art Gallery Proudly Announces Six Finalists for the 2013 Brink Award

The Henry is delighted to announce the finalists for The Brink Award, an award for emerging artists age 35 and under in Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia on the “brink” of a professional career. The Award provides financial support, increased exposure, and critical validation from an internationally recognized arts institution, with the aim of fostering the artistic and professional development of emerging artists in the region.

The 2013 finalists are:

Raymond Boisjoly, Vancouver, B.C.

Anne Fenton, Seattle, WA

Rob Halverson, Portland, OR

Sylvain Sailly, Vancouver, B.C.

Blair Saxon-Hill, Portland, OR

Nell Warren, Washougal, WA

For the 2013 award, 47 nominations were received from a group of art professionals across the Pacific Northwest. The 2013 Jury is comprised of Vancouver artist Althea Thauberger, Pacific Northwest College of Art MFA Program Chair Arnold Kemp, and Henry Deputy Director of Art and Education Luis Croquer. The jury completed the review of artist submissions in early May.

Jurors will conduct studio visits with the finalists late this spring. The winner will be announced on June 7, 2013.

The Brink Award was established with the generous support of longtime Henry benefactors and Seattle philanthropists John and Shari Behnke. In partnership with the Behnkes, the Henry will confer this biennial prize of $12,500 to one of the above artists. The recipient will also be given a solo exhibition at the Henry, a publication, and a work of his/her art will be acquired for the museum’s permanent collection.

The Brink is in its third biennial cycle. In 2009, the Brink was awarded to Isabelle Pauwels, Vancouver, B.C. and in 2011, to Andrew Dadson, also of Vancouver, B.C. The Brink Award complements the Henry’s role as a catalyst for the creation of new work, while simultaneously demonstrating the museum’s commitment to artists working in our region.

In honor of the six finalists, the Henry Contemporaries, in partnership with the Behnkes and the Henry, are hosting The Brink Bash on Friday, May 17 from 6-9 pm at Hilliard’s Beer Tap Room. The public is invited. Tickets are available for a suggested donation of $15 online or at the door.

 

 

The Week Ahead @ the Henry

Here’s what’s happening this week at the Henry!

Wednesday, April 24th
12-12:30 pm – Art Break Tour: Henry Exhibition Guides will encourage a lively discussion around a selection of objects in our exhibitions.

Thursday, April 25th
7-8 pm – Music of Today with Abby Aresty. Abby Aresty, a UW School of Music graduate student, investigates the role of breath in music through creative manipulations of a performer’s relationship to her own breath. This performance is part of the UW’s ongoing centennial celebration of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

Have you seen Sean Scully: Passages/Impressions/Surfaces yet?

The Week Ahead @ The Henry

Check out this week’s offerings at the Henry!

Wednesday, April 17th
12-12:30 – Faculty Focus Tour: Carrie Bodle is a visual and sound artist who creates immersive installations that explore the relationships between art and science, translating inaudible or invisible phenomena into sensible experiences. Carrie will guide visitors through Now Here is also Nowhere: Part II.

Thursday, April 18th
7-8 pm - Bodycast, an Artist Talk by Suzanne Bocanegra Starring Frances McDormand. This event is sold out.

Sunday, April 21st
2-3 pm – Join Deputy Director of Art and Education Luis Croquer for a  Curator Led Tour of Now Here is also Nowhere: Part II. This exhibition closes May 5th, so we encourage you to come see it soon!

Artist Lecture: Paul Laffoley

Paul Laffoley, founder of the Boston Visionary Cell and Henry exhibiting artist, offers an intense, deep, and mesmerizing conversation this Saturday from 1-4 pm at the Henry.

His discussion will traverse the conceptual overlap between art history, architecture, classical literature, natural and occult sciences, and science fiction in contemporary painting – and we are sure, more.

As the lecture is long, we invite attendees to get up and stretch as needed. There will be refreshments in the Education Studio.

If you are attending the Open House this Friday, you can gain early access to Paul Laffoley: Premonitions of the Bauharoque, his first solo exhibition on the West Coast.

Artist Lecture: Paul Laffoley
Saturday, April 6th
1:00 – 4:00 PM
Henry Auditorium

Deborah Willis – Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty

Curator Lecture: Deborah Willis
March 1st
7 pm
Henry Auditorium
$5 Students, Henry Members, & UW Faculty and Staff
$10 General Audience
TICKETS

Deborah Willis, the curator of the upcoming exhibition at the Henry, Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty, will be at the Henry on Friday, March 1st, for a discussion with Erika Dalya Massaquoi moderated and introduced by the Henry’s Director, Sylvia Wolf. The discussion will revolve around the topics of transformative experience of the photograph through the themes of idealized beauty, the unfashionable body, the gendered image, and photography as memory. This discussion will also explore Willis’ work on historical perceptions of beauty and desire and the role individual photographers play in constructing ways of seeing.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Willis has authored a new book, Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty. Through the themes of idealized beauty, the unfashionable body, the gendered image, and photography as memory, Willis challenges and makes problematic the “reading” of photographic images in the 21st century.

Critical Issues in Contemporary Art Practice

This quarter, the Henry is hosting ART 361, Critical Issues in Contemporary Art Practice, in our auditorium. The class features artist lectures every Thursday night (until March 7th) at 7 pm. With sponsorship from the New Foundation, the class “lectures” are open and free to the public. That means YOU. This series is part of the new Nebula Project. The Nebula Project is a new initiative of the UW Division of Art that will support a variety of experiences to promote and expose contemporary art to our students, staff and faculty as well as to the broader arts community.   The Nebula Project has been made possible by the generous support of The School of Art, The College of Arts and Sciences, The New Foundation Seattle and the Henry Art Gallery.

Here is what you have to look forward to (Or miss out on. Your choice):

February 21st
Sam Lewitt’s practice often examines communications systems and technologies, both obsolete and cutting edge, that are central to contemporary life. For the 2012 Biennial, his subject is ferrofluid, a mixture of magnetic particles suspended in liquid that is used in a wide variety of technological applications, including computer hard drives, audio speakers, educational tools, and military aircraft. In the presence of a magnet, ferrofluid coagulates to resemble a solid mass, its contours conforming to the magnetic field yet retaining the plasticity of a liquid.

February 28th
Tamara Henderson is a Canadian artist who lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia. She will speak about her artwork. Read more about her on this webpage, plus she has a video posted on Vimeo. Henderson is also involved in a project in the Jacob Lawrence Gallery that involves building a bar-like structure and film set in one of the gallery rooms. Working with her will be Julia Feyrer, another Vancouver, BC, artist.

March 7th
Makan, founded in 2003, is an art space, a project and a collective based in Amman, San Francisco and somewhere in between. Alongside Samah Hijawi, the three collective members include Ola El-Khalidi and Diala Khasawnih. Ola works in the arts as an organizer, curator, and collaborator; she received an MA in curatorial practice from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2012. Diala is an artist and a translator who likes to bring people around a table to eat and talk, and if that could be art, she is happy.

Pablo Helguera

 

Pablo Helguera is a New York-based artist who works with a wide variety of mediums including performance, sculpture, and photography that often engages social issues and also is the director of adult and academic programs at MoMA. Helguera is an exhibiting artist in the newly opened Now Here is also Nowhere: Part II which opened on Saturday. His classical cartoons are featured regularly on NPR’s Scherzo blog. He is also behind the newly launched series of artist-led participatory programs at MoMA called Artists Experiment.

This Friday musicians will perform Endingness here at the Henry Art Gallery in conjunction with Now Here is Also Nowhere: Part II.  Endingness is a composition for chamber orchestra designed to be performed together with the last movement of Franz Joseph Haydn’s Farewell symphony. This performance is but one component of Helguera’s three-part work, on view in the exhibition, and consists of three interrelated elements: a musical composition, a reconfigurable sculpture made of framed beeswax and an essay exploring themes of mortality, memory, art, and endings.

Friday, February 1st
7 pm
Get your tickets HERE.

Guest Blog: Susan Robb & Sierra Stinson

Susan Robb is a Seattle based artist who has exhibited at the Henry with “Seedling” and as part of Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics. One of her most recent works includes The Long Walk. Siera Stinson is also a Seattle based independent curator who puts on Vignettes, which is a series of exhibitions that are up for one night in her apartment. They have been working in collaboration to produce  ONN/OF “a light festival” which is taking place this weekend, Jan 26th-27th.