SANCTUM readies for a May Opening

“In an era of status updates, tweets, and check-ins, the geography of public, shared spaces needs to be reconsidered, along with our expectations of privacy in them.”
-James Coupe and Juan Pampin

Have you noticed all of the changes on the façade of the Henry? We are currently installing an interactive art piece, Sanctum, created by artists James Coupe and Juan Pampin. Coupe and Pampin were chosen in 2010 from 91 applications who answered an open international call, soliciting proposals for a site-specific project to transform the façade of the museum’s main entrance and to engage the UW population and the many visitors who pass by the Henry every day.

Sanctum, which officially opens May 4th, seeks to investigate the narrative potential of social media while raising important and provocative questions about the conflicting imperatives emerging in our culture as we promote and embrace ever-more-intrusive electronic media, while still cherishing traditional notions of privacy.

From those who choose to participate in the project, Sanctum will actively gather information via sophisticated surveillance and profiling technology and match it with data drawn from social media sites to shape original plausible and implausible fictional narratives.

To learn more about the project and to contribute with narrative content, please enter here. You can also opt in by scanning the QR codes are posted on signage outside the museum.

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

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.

Vis-à-Vis Society Poem-Survey Findings

At our Graduate Student Happy Hour on January 10th, we had the pleasure of hosting the Vis-à-Vis Society. During the event they conducted experimental poetry using write-in survey questions. Here are the composite poems from their findings!

Composite poem from the Vis-à-Vis Society. The Vis-à-Vis Society’s poem-survey asked people to choose an object in the Mitchell Exhibition “Like a Valentine,” listen closely, and then write down what the object said.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year, dear Hankblog readers! We here at the Henry hope that you have had a most wonderful and rejuvenating holiday and New Year! We are really excited about 2013 and hope that you will be as well!

Here are some of the upcoming events and exhibitions in store for you at the Henry in early 2013:

Graduate Student Happy Hour on January 10th.
The Reconstruction of Nijinsky’s Rite of Spring on January 11th and the rest of the Rite of Spring Series.
Now Here is Also Nowhere: Part I will be closing this Sunday, but Part II will be opening January 26th.
An Evening of Endingness on February 1st.
Henry Gala on February 9th.
Sean Scully: Passages/Impressions/Surfaces opens February 16th.
The Dowsing opens on February 23rd.

 

Recurring:
Student Led Tours every Saturday and Second Wednesdays at 12 noon.

Check out all of the other Henry Haps on our website or our facebook and watch out for our updated newsletter!

P.S. Stephen Sewell, who exhibited at the Henry’s University of Washington MFA Exhibition in 2012, has a new exhibition at 4Culture which opens tomorrow!

Holiday Popup Shop

Check out this interview with Tova, the Director of Favorite Art Projects, who is running the Henry Holiday Popup Shop. The Henry Holiday Popup Shop is held in conjunction with Like A Valentine: The Art of Jeffry Mitchell. The artists featured in the Popup have contributed work inspired by Jeffry Mitchell and his work. Tova said that the Popup shop came about organically with contributions from Northwest Artists who are inspired by the work of Jeffry Mitchell. Tova asked the artists to contribute work that is outside of their normal bailiwick and the result is an amazing amalgamation of art with a Northwest feel. Check out Tova talking about some of the art here:

The physical shop is open Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday: 12 to 4
Thursday and Fri: 12 to 8
The virtual shop is always open.

Great for last minute gifts!

Molly’s Hours During Winter Break

With the holidays coming up and UW on Winter Break, Molly’s will begin truncated hours this Saturday.

From December 15th through January 6th, Molly’s will be open 10:30-1:30, Thursday through Sunday.

As always, it’s a great place to grab a hot drink, enjoy some delicious nosh, and to combat museum fatigue!

Guest Blog from Rebecca Migdal, Summer Intern

Throughout the year, the Henry offers a variety of student internships in different departments. Find current opportunities here. This past summer, Rebecca Migdal, a Lois F. McNeil Fellow and  graduate student in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture at the University of Delaware, interned in the collections department under our Curator of Collections, Judy Sourakli. She recently blogged a reflection of her internship at the Henry on the University of Delaware’s Museum Studies in Motion blog. Here is an excerpt:

“Hands-on access also developed my visual vocabulary for late 19th and early 20th century clothing, the various issues with their conditions, their storage requirements, and other special needs. Throughout the internship, I contributed to other collections management functions, too. I helped research selections from the historic dress collection so we could more precisely date costume pieces. I also learned about the Mimsy XG database and the preparation and organization of digital images for both internal and external use. Learning a little about the Henry’s methods for condition reporting, storing flat textiles, and its accession process was also a focus during the summer.”

Read the rest of the post here!

Bear Hug

This Sunday, the Henry is hosting an afternoon of camaraderie as we gather to celebrate Seattle’s BFF, Jeffry Mitchell, on the occasion of the exhibition, Like a Valentine. The afternoon will feature tours led by friends of Jeffry at 2pm followed by an afternoon reception and chainsaw bear sale. Choose from a selection of handcrafted chainsaw bears selected by Jeffry and Claude Zervas from locations around the Olympic Peninsula.

Sunday, December 9
1:00 – 3:00 PM
Molly’s Cafe & Sculpture Court
FREE for Henry Members, Students, and UW Staff & Faculty
$10 General Audience

In conjunction with Like a Valentine: The Art of Jeffry Mitchell,  Favorite Art Projects has created a Popup Shop in the Henry with art from Northwest artists inspired by Jeffry Mitchell.

The physical shop is open Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday: 12 to 4
Thursday and Fri: 12 to 8
The virtual shop is always open.

Spontaneous Haiku inspired by Bear Hug:

animal inside
the articulate chainsaw
bear hug, bear hug. YES!

And a little diddy, sung to the tone of “Reading Rainbow”:

Bear Hug,
All of the hugs,
Bear hug.

Voicing Cage

This Friday in the Henry Auditorium, Stacey Mastrian and Stephen F. Lilly will present selections from John Cage’s vast and tremendously diverse output that employ the voice in its many facets. This is the final event in our public programming series commemorating the 100th birthday of the iconic American composer-musician-artist-philosopher-poet John Cage.

Soprano Stacey Mastrian is a Fulbright Grantee, Beebe Fellow, and Richard F. Gold Career Grant recipient whose performances have been broadcast internationally. Her repertoire ranges from late Renaissance to contemporary, and she specializes in 20th-century Italian vocal music, as well as the works of John Cage and Morton Feldman.

Stephen Lilly is a composer, new music performer, bass player, audio engineer, educator, and published theorist. Much like Cage, Lilly highlights aspects of musical performance that are often ignored or taken for granted. He is a full time faculty member at the Art Institute of Washington and has taught courses in recording, mixing, mastering, post production, and broadcasting.

Friday, November 30, 2012
7:00 – 9:00 PM
Henry Auditorium
$5 Students, Henry Members, and UW Staff & Faculty 
$10 General Audience
Get your tickets HERE.