Category Archive

I can’t get myself together for a cohesive post until I have another coffee, but I’ve been wanting to put a few things out here:

I never posted these images of Vancouver artist Khan Lee’s AMAZING paper performance in the Instant Coffee installation at Bumbershoot. Never before had a roll of newsprint combined with a Donna Summer song brought so much joy to so many people. People were making piles and diving into them, creating caves and hiding out, tossing armfuls, dancing, and laughing so hard it hurt.

Thinking about these Kienholz posts (Carolyn, at Dangerous Chunky and Regina at Art-to-go) put our Exhibitions Manager Paul Cabarga into the way-back machine. He dropped a catalog in my chair this morning to let me know that the Henry DID commission the creation of a HUGE work by Ed and Nancy Kienholz for the 1985-86 exhibition NO! Contemporary American Dada. The piece entered the artists’ collection - where it remains. It’s been included in many exhibitions since its making, allowing museum visitors all over the world to see it. The catalog is lovely: out-of-print, but available from the library.

On that note, one thing I’ve repeatedly witnessed since I’ve been at the HAG is how well the Henry does everything within its means to support artists in the creation of new work, regardless of whether those works then enter the Henry’s permanent collection. Most recently, and off the top of my head, the Henry supported the making of new works by Maya Lin, James Turrell, Steve Roden, Santiago Cucullu, Akio Takamori, Lead Pencil Studio, Axel Lieber, neuroTransmitter, and Roy McMakin. In the next few months we’ll be working with Dawn Cerny and Kader Attia on new pieces. Kim Jones will be making sculptures in the museum next week.

And in news from the unconscious world, I’ve had two very entertaining art dreams recently:
One, about an Olafur Eliasson Parade and Dance Party. In the dream, I read a press release from Tanya Bonakdar Gallery that said, “Finally Olafur Eliasson marries his break-dancing skills to his art-making practice!” The other, that Francis Alÿs is a fourteen-year-old albino girl, and we have an extensive conversation while riding in a moving camper van full of papier-mache sculptures, about Norse mythology and Fafnir, the dragon from Volsung.

Oh, yeah - and check this out: ArtsUW.org! I know it is completely bonkers that this hasn’t existed until now - but it didn’t, and now it does. One-stop-shopping for information and links about arts events that are open to the public on the UW campus. We’re there, so are the School of Music, the UW Dance Program, DX Arts, School of Art, UW World Series, Meany Hall, the Burke Museum, and the School of Drama. There’s a lot going on, too.

In 2005, the Henry was one of the 11 venues that hosted one of the works in The Trimpin Project; the installation Pfft (and its nearly 200 wind instruments) was here from July 2-October 2  This Friday, Trimpin will be on campus to give a lecture on his work beginning at 7 PM at Suzzallo Library.  Reserved tickets are sold out, but a limited number of walk-ins will be allowed entrance at 6:30.  If you can’t make the lecture, be sure to read Jen Graves’s “Found Objects to Sound Objects” piece on Trimpin in Art in America this month for an insightful analysis of the Trimpin Project and the interdisciplinary interplay of media and concepts within Trimpin’s work.  Below is a brief video of Klompen, a coin-operated piece that was on view at the Frye from July 14, 2006-January 21, 2007.

I’ve been meaning to post about last week’s Come Together, and Harrell Fletcher’s talk on his project The American War last week. Everytime I try to start it comes out so much less powerful and moving than the event itself actually was. Luckily, Carolyn Zick, who attended the event, made a fantastic post at Dangerous Chunky, which I’ll excerpt here, but I encourage you to go over and read the whole thing. Thank you so much, Carolyn, for your thoughtful and eloquent post. I’m really glad you were there!

The diverse group included those that had served in war, been impacted by siblings serving or dying in war, a female Marine who spoke publicly for the first time regarding the violent assault that ended her military career, and a Vietnam hospital pharmacist. The blocks of oral histories were broken by intermissions, undoubtedly meant to encourage small group discussions. The term that most keeps coming to the surface to describe the evening is consciousness-raising.

Professor emeritus Tom Bosworth discusses his career and his book Building with Light in the Pacific Northwest: The Houses of Thomas L. Bosworth, Architect tomorrow night at the Henry.

October 4, 6:30-8:30pm FREE
Lecture & Book Signing
at Henry Art Gallery

About the book: 

According to the esteemed American architect, Peter Q. Bohlin, FAIA, “Thomas Bosworth’s architecture subscribes to an appreciation and philosophy of balance, light and site positioning. His houses are Modern in detail, yet classical in spirit. They are calm and assured. They are comfortable and have great dignity.” A teacher and scholar, as well as practicing architect, the Seattle architect Thomas Bosworth is a classicist, strongly influenced by Greek and Roman architecture and especially powerfully by the work and writings of Palladio. His work is equally motivated by land and landscape: architecture follows site, literally and aesthetically, and every house sits on and in its particular location with a perfect sense of rightness and inevitability. This big, bold, beautifully designed monograph, Building With Light in the Pacific Northwest, is a review of some of Bosworth’s most exceptional houses. Read the rest of this entry »

Remember Team Gina from the Capitol Hill Block Party?  If you weren’t an early riser that afternoon, I can say from personal experience that they made the Seattle hipsters dance (or at least, move their heads slightly more aggressively than usual). 

If you are a student at the University of Washington, Cornish College of the Arts, or in Seattle University or Seattle Pacific University’s Art departments, you can see Team Gina at the Henry for FREE on November 1 for the Sweet Art Student Party.  Not only will you get Team Gina, but you will also have free donuts from Mighty-O and cupcakes from Trophy at your disposal. 

If you aren’t familiar with Team Gina, check out their video, complete with matching outfits and synchronized dance moves:

The Sweet Art Student Party is sponsored by Trophy Cupcakes and Mighty-O Donuts.

We’re gearing up for Come Together and Harrell Fletcher’s visit tonight, and really looking forward to it!

Meanwhile, this post on Dangerous Chunky, an interesting post to the tune of “I love Ed and Nancy Kienholz, and I am so glad to see that Portland Art Museum is currently displaying Useful Art #5 - The Western Motel,” begat this post on Art To Go first showing some well-deserved love for Carolyn Zick and her wonderful blog, Dangerous Chunky, genuinely lamenting Seattle’s lack of Kienholz holdings (and I do mean Ed AND Nancy), then strangely attacking the Henry for hiding our collection holdings. “…the Henry won’t show what you donate.”

I encourage you to read the comments, too.I mostly refrain from pen fights with people who buy ink by the barrel, I like and respect Regina Hackett very, very much (and I know she knows it) but I do comment, as does my colleague, Sara. And I wouldn’t call this a fight. More like a conversation.

Questions about how museums use their collections, and the different strengths and weaknesses of our local institutions’ holdings, and the public faces of each collection are interesting ones. Thinking about the Henry’s “back bins ,” I’m delighted that the Henry is moving forward on a new project DIG (Digital Interactive Galleries). You’ll hear lots more about the project as it comes closer to fruition, but basically, the Henry is working to digitize all the works in our permanent collection and make images and information. Here’s some information from our press release about the recent grant:

The Henry Art Gallery was awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services$148,916 to embark on a new, two-year project, called DIG (Digital Interactive Galleries) to install and implement a permanent collection database with images of 23,154 works; use information technology, including interactive Web components, to expand public and student access to the collections; and increase the effectiveness of the Reed Collection Study Center. The DIG project will benefit from 30 years of cataloging and research on objects in the collection led by Curator of Collections Judy Sourakli with the assistance of myriad student research assistants and volunteers over the years.

“The timing is excellent for us,” said Ms. Sourakli. ”The database implementation will integrate the on-going documentation of our collections with our 34,000 plus digital images.  The three sub-collections will be launched in stages, so as we go on-line, watch our progress and learn more about our collections.  DIG will allow our significant 17, 000 piece costume and textile collection to be seen via the web, providing for increased access for the design community, scholars and researchers around the world.”

All this nutty hubub about “child pornography” owned by Elton John and loaned to a museum is ridiculous! That “child pornography” is a Nan Goldin photo that showed here at the Henry, as part of Akio Takamori: The Laughing Monks.

“The image was seized by police from the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead last Thursday,” says the London Times.

Lots of people visited the galleries, last fall, saw the photograph, Nan Goldin’s Claire and Edda Belly Dancing and loved the exhibition. Not one gallery visitor was struck down by a lightning bolts, blinded by evil images, or hauled off by the police. Not one.

—

Our comments feature seems to be a little messed up, so I’ll post this one for the commenter:

May |  | maysmachete.blogspot.com |

I would still rather never see that picture ever again in my life. I wish I’d never seen it to begin with and I disagree about its museum-worthiness. That said, I also don’t think it’s porn.

Thanks for commenting, May - and I am glad you did like the ceramics. 

A little P.S.A. and community love for our good friends at SOIL. I’d certainly like for Jenny Zwick to wear a t-shirt with my picture on it for a month! SOIL TOIL (new this year) is pretty dang hilarious. And smart! Get the details straight from the source.

EXPLOSIVELY EXEMPLARY ART BY SOIL & FRIENDS OF SOIL

It’s time to dig deep, sell the car, and mortgage the house. SOIL’s annual art auction is THE opportunity to collect contemporary art in Seattle. And not only that, each dollar spent helps ensure SOIL’s ability to provide Seattle with fresh art all year long.

New this year is SOIL TOIL, in which each SOIL member will offer a unique service up for auction. For instance, who wouldn’t want Jennifer Zwick to wear a T-shirt with their face on it for one whole month? And don’t miss your opportunity to have a ceramic miniature made of you and your BFF sculpted by Saya Morlyasu.

In short, SOIL LOVES you and can’t wait to see you at the auction.

Sunday, September 30th
Greg Kucera Gallery
212 3rd Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98104
Between Washington and Main Streets

3:30 Doors open & Silent auction begins
Live auction 5–7 pm • LIVE AT FIVE

Auctioneer extraordinaire: Laura Michalek

Admission is $10.

Featured artists:

Sean Alexander Allison Manch Ariana Page Russell Nola Avienne Debra Baxter Vaughn Bell Gretchen Bennett Jana Brevick Olivia Britt Buddy Bunting Dawn Cerney Marc Dombrosky Eric Elliott Chris Engman Fire Retard Ants Ellen Garvens Mandy Greer Thom Heileson Ben Hirschkoff

Etsuko Ichikawa Ellen Ito Laura Komada Yoshiyuki Paul Komada Isaac Layman Rich Lehl Margie Livingston Kiki MacInnis Allison Manch Matt Mitros Saya Moriyasu Brian Murphy Jean Nagai Yuki Nakamura Tuan Nguyen Nicholas Nyland Sara Osebold Chauney Peck Mary Ann Peters

Owen Plumber Terry Plumber Jamie Potter Claire L. Putney Elise Richman Roshni Robert Paul Rucker Samantha Scherer Katy Stone Whiting Tennis Timea Tihanyi Shane Walsh Brent Watanabe Issei Watanabe Randy Wood Ellen Ziegler Susan Zoccola Jennifer Zwick

Yes, the Seattle Public Utilities Transfer Station is where garbage and recycling goes.  For this unusual residency, artists will “study the facilities’ operations, develop temporary artworks and create future artworks to enhance future replacement facilities” on a budget of $140,000, according to the City of Seattle’s website.  Proposals for this project are due Friday, so if you’re intersted, you need to get on it quickly. 

Not working in Public Utilities, it isn’t clear to me whether garbage is merely moved between trucks here or if some compression occurs, but if the process is study-worthy, I’m very curious to see the artistic response.  Willie Cole’s recent Anxious Objects exhibition at the Frye included many of his sculptures created from ordinary, discarded objects:

Willie Cole.  Dirty Little Soles.  2005-06.  Shoes, metal plate, and screws.  Image from Alexander and Bonin. 

Seattle also recently saw the use of garbage in art through Manufactured Landscapes, which include photographs by Edward Burtynsky of industrial waste in Asia:

China Recycling #7.  2004.  Wire Yard, Wenxi, Zhejiang Province.  Image from http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/index.html

So, I anxiously await the results of the residencies, to see what inspires artists from the Northwest. 

I promised the Stranger’s Jen Graves that I wouldn’t blog about this until she ran the story! Alan Sekula’s Documenta installation features a giant picture of the Henry Art Gallery Security Booth, and two of its amazing inhabitants, Bob Rini and Harold Churchill. Here are a few installation views of this part Sekula’s Shipwreck and Workers:

When Jen called to get the phone number for the guard booth, I was a little heartbroken. I was in Kassel, seeing Documenta, and I didn’t SEE this piece. I didn’t even KNOW! But, as a longtime admirer of the Henry’s booth - I was super excited to hear about it. I saw almost everything else in Kassel, but the day I had hoped to walk up to the Hercules Tower, and around the park, we were met with a torrential downpour, no umbrellas or jackets, and, well, we gave up and went to this awesomely freaky place called the Kurhessen Therme, which is a cross between Wild Waves,  and The Olympus Day Spa, only with a bar (!) where towel-clad people can drink vodka and smoke.

Here’s a recent photo of the internationally-famous Henry Security booth:

And here’s Bob Rini’s cartoon, it its entirety:

For more Bob Rini visit http://www.robertrini.com/index.html. I wish I could publish this bigger, but the machine won’t let me! And if you’d like to see a video of Alan Sekula, talking about Shipwreck and Workers, go here.

Thanks for the nice shout out - and the update on Fletcher’s gas station project, Regina! 

Here are the details:

Come Together with Harrell Fletcher
Friday, September 28, 6:30 PM
Auditorium
FREE

Come Together is an event created by Portland-based artist Harrell Fletcher that integrates people from different areas of a community to gather and exchange perspectives with one another. The Come Together event taking place at the Henry Art Gallery on September 28 will include members of the Seattle community who have been affected directly by the Vietnam and Iraq wars.

For this program, the Henry has asked ten local participants to invite someone to discuss, perform, or demonstrate their experiences with these wars for the event. On the evening of Come Together, Harrell Fletcher will introduce the program with a lecture on his project The American War. Those asked by the Henry to participate will then individually introduce their invitees to make their presentations. Once the presenters have finished, the audience will be invited to join the discussion.

And here are the particpants for Friday’s program:
Read the rest of this entry »

Have some empty walls to fill in your new apartment, house, or residence hall room? Come by the Henry’s Education Studio for our annual UW Student Poster Giveaway. Stop by the Henry between 11 am and 4 pm, and select your FREE exhibition poster. You don’t have to be a member of the Henry to get your free poster - just be a current student with a valid UW ID!

This is the perfect time to sign up for your FREE Henry Art Gallery Student Membership, too! You’ll find out about exhibitions, events, visiting artists and much more!

Lots to see and do this weekend, and since it’s Friday, and we’re making plans…

beyond this.

This is the FINAL weekend of Mouth Open, Teeth Showing.  See it before it’s gone, or, well, it’s gone.  Doug Aitken’s i am in you is calling; the stomping energy of Stephen Dean’s Volta; the creepy nostalgia of Zoe Leonard’s Mouth Open Teeth Showing; the orgasmic sweatiness of Tracey Rose’s T.K.O.; the connections, humor, and humanity of Joseph Grigley’s 101 White Conversations; the sticky goodness of Jeanne Dunning’s Icing… I could go on.  Just come see it before it’s over.

This is the FIRST weekend of Western Bridge’s AWESOME new show, Insubstantial Pageant Faded. Read Regina Hackett’s PI review here. Here are some photos from last night’s opening party:

Also not-to-be-missed:
 ‘Awesome’ has a show at Seattle Children’s Theater this weekend; GATZ is at On The Boards,  and Hug opens at The Frye, PLUS - if you like to dance to incredible 60s soul, go here; and local superhero and 2007 Henry Bash Committee Artist Christian French is having a studio sale on Sunday. That studio sale info doesn’t seem to be link-able, so contact him through his website if you’re interested: http://www.christianfrench.com/contact/contact.html. Here’s a picture, to give you a hint:

Regina said we would know.  We do know.  If you want to be among the first to see the new happenings at Motel 2 in the series all the Seattle blogs are talking about, you’ll have to pull a late night tonight!

Motel 2: Seal’s Motel
12035 Aurora, Rm 16
Shows begin at 2 AM Saturday, September 22
Here is the full schedule of performances

Note: the organizers ask that you please be respectful to the other guests in the motel while you are visiting, as this is an operating motel.

The University Art Institute is the Henry’s new annual initiative that uses exhibitions to spark dialogue, community engagement, and academic exploration.  With the help of a generous grant from the Simpson Center for the Humanities, this year’s Institute focuses on the the ways war is portrayed in art, though both a reconsideration of the Vietnam War and current views of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Henry’s current and upcoming exhibtions An-My Lê: Small Wars and Kim Jones: A Retrospective will be starting points for the lectures, film screenings, panel presentations and other events comprising the Institute.  

Next week, the first two programs will be taking place: Open Rehearsal with Spectrum Dance Theater and Come Together with Harrell Fletcher.  Full descriptions of these programs are below, as is a video of Fletcher discussing his other project recently in Seattle for Bumbershoot this year, Learning to Love You More.

Open Rehearsal with Spectrum Dance Theater
Thursday, September 27, 7 PM
Sculpture Court & East Gallery
FREE

In conjunction with the Henry’s exhibition An-My Le: Small Wars and the University Art Institute, the Henry hosts a special preview of Spectrum Dance Theater’s new performance Interrupted Narratives/WAR. Join Henry Art Gallery Chief Curator Elizabeth Brown for an introduction to the University Art Institute at 7 pm; the dance performance will follow at 7:30 pm.Spectrum Dance Theater will premiere Donald Byrd’s Interrupted Narratives/WAR, as part of American Stories, at The Moore Theatre on October 5 & 6, 2007. Interrupted Narratives/WAR represents Donald Byrd’s protest dance/theater expressing the horror and outrage of war, in the tradition of Kurt Joos’s great anti-war ballet, The Green Table.Come Together with Harrell Fletcher
Friday, September 28, 6:30 PM
Auditorium
FREE 

Come Together is an event created by Portland-based artist Harrell Fletcher that brings people from different areas of a community together to exchange perspectives with one another.  The Come Together event taking place at the Henry Art Gallery on September 28 will include members of the Seattle community who have been affected directly by the Vietnam and Iraq wars.   For this program, the Henry has asked seven local participants to invite someone else to discuss, perform, or demonstrate their experiences with these wars for the event.  On the evening of Come Together, Harrell Fletcher will introduce the program with a lecture on his project The American War. Those asked by the Henry to participate will then individually introduce their invitees to make their presentations.  Once the presenters have finished, the audience will be invited to join the discussion.

Last November, the artist collective neuroTransmitter created a site-specific installation at the Henry titled Beyond Territory (you can hear a podcast of the artists on their work here).  Catching up with neuroTransmitter, their latest exploration of transmission and broadcasting vs “narrowcasting” is a project coming out of on the Staten Island Ferry.  Collaborating with the New York City Department of Transportation, the FM Ferry Experiment will involve broadcasting performances and programs inspired by the ”sonic activation” of the space of the boat as it runs through Upper New York Bay.

 The next broadcast will be September 20-22, and you can listen on the project’s website or via radio stations Free103.9 and WSIA 88.FM.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons (http://commons.wikimeida.org)

The Henry is a proud sponsor of this event next week at Northwest Film Forum:

Slideluck Potshow at NWFF 
Thursday, September 20, 7pm, FREE
Everyone loves a slideshow and a family-style potluck; combine them and you’ve got SLIDELUCK POTSHOW, where members of the visual art, photography, and media communities gather to share and celebrate locally made art in one night. The show’s appetizer is a potluck dinner with home-cooked delights brought by the viewers and participants themselves. The main course is a two-act slideshow projected on both of NWFF’s screens, consisting of a series of short multimedia presentations by contributors ranging from the very accomplished to the up and coming. Photojournalists, painters, sculptors, comedians, fashion and fine-art photographers - amateur and professional alike - submit their digital slides for consideration. Click here to visit the official Slideluck Potshow website.

That same night is the Decibel Festival opening party, here in the museum:

DECIBEL OPENING GALA
Thursday, September 20, 5PM - 10PM, Free with pass, $10 adv / $12 door
Performers include Lusine, Kate Simko, Philip Sherburne, Yann Novak, lissome, OVERCAST and the Seattle DJ collective SunTzu Sound. Come early to enjoy complimentary snacks, drinks and the Seattle debut of “COLORFIELD VARIATIONS”, curated by Richard Chartier and featuring A/V works by Ryoichi Kurokawa, Steve Roden, Chris & Cosey, Frank Bretschneider and many more. For more info visit http://dbfestival.com/showcases/gala.html

In light of Bethany Jean Clement’s visual arts lead in the Stranger, with pictures by my favorite illustrator, Kathryn Rathke, I’d like to point pig-haters and Hankblog readers to Andreas Siekmann’s protest sculpture, Project: Trickle Down: Public Space in the Era of Its Privatization  for Skulptur Projekte Münster 2007.

Yes, those are all pig, bear, orca, penguin, whatever sculpture parts. Yes they are all compacted together into one giant awesome ball. You can read more about the art and the artist here.

If you’ve got civic sculpture on the brain and you’d like a laugh, click here.

The events happening at Seattle’s Bridge Motel this Saturday from 5 PM-12 AM remind me of Las Vegas’s Neon Boneyard.

Image from the-tiki-hut.com 

The Boneyard is a museum whose current indoor facility is an office with two desks, where visitors meet to begin one of the two daily tours. In the summer, someone will offer guests an umbrella before the group departs for the two dirt lots that comprise the actual museum. The tour guide leads everyone towards a chain link fence bolted with two locks (the museum had an incident of their Mr. Luck sign being burned due to homeless people making camp inside the sign during the night), as the Neon Museum is located on North Las Vegas Blvd., beyond the Strip and even the hotels remaining on the “Fremont Experience”. It resides in Las Vegas’s true, ”city center”, in walking distance from the Las Vegas Museum of Natural History that few visitors to the city will ever see.

 Photo by Matt McCormick, UrbanHonking.com

The Neon Museum is a repository for the decaying signs of past casinos, motels, wedding chapels, and the like. The artful arrangement of their collection in the boneyard couldn’t be more appropriate, though plans for the future include a building with a visitors’ entrance made from the La Concha’s clam shell exterior. Most fascinating about this collection of rusting signs with broken and missing lightbulbs and colors long forgotten (Caesar’s Palace’s original pink and turquoise color scheme, for example) is the juxtaposition of the history and decay it presents against the excess and glamor of Las Vegas Blvd. South.

What the Neon Museum hopes to achieve through the eventual restoration, use and display of some its collections along Las Vegas Blvd. North is a sense of community within the current state of soulessness that dominates Sin City. The idea that these decaying signs have the power to inspire a sense of community was somehow believable to me after the tour of the boneyard finished.

And I see the same sort of inspiration coming to the Bridge Motel this weekend, prior to its being demolished, as it is inhabited by artists such as the Vis-a-Vis Society, Paul Rucker, and others. If you’re baffled by the allure of destruction and decay I speak of, try watching this video of the famous Stardust Resort being imploded this past May; its sign now lives in the Boneyard in pieces.

What a morning! I missed my bus. The new newsletter is in its hairiest editing stage and the Henry’s fall issue is always a doozy. I spilled a lot of granola into my purse. Today’s PI’s Fall Arts Guide glaringly fails to mention Kim Jones: A Retrospective (Opening Celebration - Friday October 19 - save the date) and Kazuyo Sejima/Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA. They’re going to be amazing exhibitions. You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can’t always make Regina’s Fall Arts Picks.

I needed some cheering up today.

Luckily, I stumbled across this blog and played the video clip (below). Maybe some of you remember the Trisha Brown exhibition here a few years back - or her residency with the UW World Series and the UW Dance Program. The performances in Stroum Gallery of Floor of the Forest were one of my favorite Henry happenings. I was so excited last summer when I stumbled into a gallery in the Museum Fridericianum at Documenta to see both Floor of the Forest and this dance. I usually can’t stand the Grateful Dead but I love Trisha Brown, this dance, and sculpture they’re dancing around.

Made you look! We haven’t found that special someone yet, but the search committee is working hard. However, The Walker Art Center’s new Director has been announced, and there’s a story in this morning’s New York Times. It’s Olga Viso, director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, in D.C.

Starting today at Modern Art Notes: A month-long series of Tyler Green’s conversations with contemporary art curators about artists’ responses to 9/11. The first curator to join Green is Paul Schimmel, chief curator at MOCA - and the first artists are Tom Friedman, Thomas Hirschhorn, Robert Gober, and Luc Tuymans.

Here’s a response by artist Josh Azzarella - that was featured in Western Bridge’s show Crash. Pause. Rewind.

Crash. Pause. Rewind is now at the Missoula Art Museum, on view through November 24, 2007.

After a brief hiatus, one of my favorite Seattle art bloggers is at it again! Carolyn Zick, at Dangerous Chunky is posting up a storm. One recent post/proposal particularly piques my interest. You’ll have to read her post for all the well-considered details - but the Art Mobility Van is an idea whose time has come! How do we make it happen? I am GAME!

In thinking about this, I was wondering if Flexcar might be a suitable contributing partner for the AMV, and I was reminded of the new infuriating tax for renters of car-sharing vehicles. From FlexCar’s press release:

Beginning October 1, 2007, car-sharing in Seattle will be subject to a state-authorized, county-administered rental-car tax of 9.7%. This means that Flexcar Seattle members will be charged this 9.7% tax, in addition to the existing sales tax, bringing your total tax amount to 18.7% for any car-sharing usage on or after October 1.

As you know, car-sharing provides a valuable alternative to personal car-ownership and fosters increased use of public transportation among local residents. It is also a membership-based organization, making it significantly different in function and structure from traditional car-rental. And, as opposed to regular car renters who are paying the tax, most of the users of Flexcar are local residents, who are already footing local tax bills. Thus, we at Flexcar are working with the Department of Revenue to determine if/how we can gain an exemption from this tax, as has happened in Portland.

I know this is not exactly Henry or even art-related, but I do know an awful lot of Flexcar-ing artists and arts people in Seattle who’ll be pretty sad to see this happen.

Former Seattle Art Museum Deputy Director and Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Lisa Corrin graced the Vows page of today’s New York Times. Congratulations, Lisa!

It’s fall - and fall in the NW means there’s a whole lot happening and art lovers have to make some choices. Coincidentally, next weekend’s conflicts are both hotel-related.

Saturday, September 15, from 5 PM to midnight is Motel, the first in an exciting new series of art performances, installations, and events. Saturday is at the Bridge Motel on Aurora, and includes works by The Vis-a-Vis Society, PDL, Rob Zverina, Implied Violence, D.K. Pan, and many others. Sounds pretty great, if you’re in town. Check out the whole list here.

If you’re not in town, it might be because you’re making the trip to Portland for Affair at the Jupiter Hotel and the second and final weekend of the T.B.A. Festival.

For a list of Jupiter’s participating galleries (including Seattle’s James Harris, Platform, Garde Rail, and Greg Kucera) click here.

For the T.B.A. schedule (Next weekend’s roster includes Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Claude Wampler, Hand2Mouth, Zoe Scofield and Juniper Shuey, and about five grillion other things.) click here. If you’re going, buy your tickets now or you’ll be sorry.

We’re excited that Spectrum Dance Theater will be here to help us kick off the University Art Institute, with an open rehearsal of Interrupted Narratives / War, here at the Henry. Here are the details:

Open Rehearsal with Spectrum Dance Theater
Thursday, September 27, 7 PM
Sculpture Court

In conjunction with the Henry’s exhibition An-My Le: Small Wars and the University Art Institute, the Henry hosts a special preview of Spectrum Dance Theater’s new performance Interrupted Narratives/WAR. Join us for an introduction to the exhibition An-My Le: Small Wars at 7 pm; the dance performance will follow at 7:30 pm.

Spectrum Dance Theater will premiere Donald Byrd’s Interrupted Narratives/WAR, as part of American Stories, at The Moore Theatre on October 5 & 6, 2007. Interrupted Narratives/WAR represents Donald Byrd’s protest dance/theater expressing the horror and outrage of war, in the tradition of Kurt Joos’s great anti-war ballet, The Green Table.

Meanwhile, check out Spectrum’s great video blog about the creation of this new piece, and get a sneak preview of what we might see here on the 27th. There are three episodes as of now - and they’re posting a new one each week.

Saturday, September 8, 3 PM
Henry Auditorium
FREE to public. First come, first served seating.

Los Angeles-based Olga Koumoundouros examines the legacy of mid-20th century utopianism in A Roof Upended, an installation created with architectural collaborator Leigh Jerrard during her residency at Open Satellite. Inspired by Bellevue’s breakneck growth and drawing on salvaged materials from local building sites, Koumoundouros poses a series of questions about the financial and social success of the evolving housing model.

Koumoundouros received a BA in Environmental Science from the University of Vermont and an MFA from the California Institute for the Arts. She has exhibited widely in the U.S. and Europe, appearing in 2005 in Thing, the Armand Hammer Museum’s critically acclaimed sculpture survey. In April of this year, Koumoundouros, in collaboration with four other artists, completed The Philosophy of Time Travel, a monumental re-imagination of Brancusi’s Endless Column, at the Studio Museum of Harlem.

Open Satellite is a contemporary art exhibition hall for the Seattle metropolitan area. The residency-based program provides an opportunity for emerging and mid-career artists from outside the region to work for an extended period to create large-scale artwork in any medium.

Maybe you Seattle history buffs are all over this but I had no idea! SAM’s original collection was from the Art Institute of Seattle, and their collection was housed in Henry House - the former home of Horace C. Henry. It’s all there on SAM’s Wikipedia Page.

The Seattle Art Museum opened on June 23, 1933 in an Art Deco building in Volunteer Park, given to the city by Richard E. Fuller and his mother, Margaret MacTavish Fuller. The starting collection was from the Art Institute of Seattle, of which Richard Fuller was president, and the Art Institute was responsible for managing art activities when the museum first opened. The Art Institute had housed its collection in Henry House, the former home, on Capitol Hill, of the collector and founder of the Henry Art Gallery, Horace C. Henry (1844-1928). The Art Institute in turn traced its origins to the Seattle Fine Arts Society (organized 1905) and the Washington Arts Association (organized 1906), which merged in 1917.^[1]

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m a little Bumbershot. Perhaps the term is Bumbershooted. Working with Instant Coffee was freaking fantastic! Check out their website and see what’s next.

After five full days of building, painting, planning and installing, then four full days of Bumbershoot - filled with performances in our installation (A Vis-a-Vis Society Polka Party, a hilaraious reading by Dawn Cerny, music with Katherine Hepburn’s Voice, Whiting Tennis, and The Watery Graves,  Double-Dutch with On the Double, a reading by Tom Blood, an Oliver Family Learning-to-love-you-more lecture series, a mind-bending Helsinki Syndrome performance, Large Walter Karaoke, a party with the Canadian Consulate,  giant afghan roll-outs on the International Fountain Lawn,) Gallons and gallons of lemonade, and then a day (A DAY!) and a half of tearing it all down, packing it up, sending the nooks on to Toronto for their upcoming show at Mercer Union and hugging the Canadians goodbye…

I feel like crawling under a rock. Forgive me for not posting the slideshow until today.

A very special THANK YOU to Instant Coffee artists Kelly Lycan, Jenifer Papararo, Jinhan Ko, and Khan Lee, all the amazing VOLUNTEERS who built and unbuilt (special shout outs to Benny Eisman, Ryan Horvath, Jocelyn Whitworth and Michael McDevitt, Elissa and Darren Foster, and Mike Pham.)

And so many thanks to all the folks who performed, lectured, danced, sang, read, jumped, played, spun records and more. It was great fun and you made it that way. A round of applause to Bob Redmond and Bumbershoot - they gave us the opportunity to bring Instant Coffee to Seattle.

For SWARM 8. It’s a quick trip up north for a heckuva lot of art. If I weren’t all Bumbershot, I’d certainly try to go. 
In their own words:

SWARM is Vancouver’s annual Fall gallery-hop, meet-and-greet, and art-party extravaganza—a multi-sensory showcase of artist-run culture and initiatives in the city. Come join us as PAARC (Pacific Association of Artist-Run Centres) celebrates the spontaneous gesture and the public gathering, artistic process and practice as well as the finished product.

The fun starts tonight and lasts until Saturday night - check out the whole schedule here. 

Bob’s amazing. In real life, he’s an artist and a connoisseur of interesting music and pop culture. The rest of the time, he’s one of the Henry’s security guards. He’s got two new blogs, one about his artwork - http://bobrinimakesart.blogspot.com/, and one about everything else - http://9poundhammer.blogspot.com/ .

Remember when we built this? And this memorable exhibition?

Now it’s being built here - with help from students! Read the whole story here.
Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes opens at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis on Friday! After St. Louis, it’s on to the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (March 29 until June 30, 2008), and the De Young Museum, San Francisco (October 25, 2008 - January 25, 2009.)

Now available for your listening pleasure is an ArtCast focused on recent performances that have happened at the Henry, including Anna Banana on her New Look Fashion Show and an excerpt from Helsinki Syndrome’s performance in the Nooks this past weekend!

Performance at the Henry 

In the upcoming months, performance will become a focal point for the Henry on many fronts. This ArtCast focuses on a first set of performance-oriented works and events, beginning with a discussion with Seattle designer Anna Banana on the New Look Fashion Show she hosted at the Henry on August 4th. Then, we speak with Sara Krajewski and Mike Pham about the Henry satellite exhibition Nooks: If you lived here, you’d be home by now and the role of performance in this installation. Finally, Benjamin Miller performs a spoken piece on the Henry’s monthly outlet for creativity Open Floor.

Listen here!

Spending last weekend in Instant Coffee’s Nooks was, in its own way, a home away from home among the chaos that is Bumbershoot.  Of the many people who curiously wandered through the doors of the Lopez Room to be met with James Brown, Al Green and other masters spinning on vinyl, some meandered around and out, but many stayed to enjoy one or more of the following: polka with the Vis-a-Vis Society, charcoal drawings with The Oliver Family, a make-out session in a Nook (with the Nook light off), a dance party within a tangled mass of paper, guest DJing, and too many other activities to note.  In other words, as Regina Hackett suggested, the Bumbershoot community was welcomed into the installation.

In turn, the community engaged in the art space before them.  While Bumbershoot is a far cry from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this exhibition spoke directly to those that come to the festival for the music, the company, and an introduction to a new facet of the arts they may not otherwise have found.  The moments of creativity inspired by the space were exciting to see, and we will be posting a slew of pictures soon-stay tuned!

Yes, Regina, I totally agree with you about the Bumbershoot Visual Arts Opening in your post, The Party That Isn’t Happening.  Those were fun parties that brought together all types from the arts community. And, having invited international artists to collaborate with B-shoot and the Henry to make an exhibition there, I am truly missing that event. Everyone has been asking me when to come to the opening party. And I am not really sure what to tell them except, “Kick off early Friday and come by.” Let’s make the most of it. Come by the Henry’s installion Friday afternoon, and together, we’ll make it a party.

After much digging on the Bumbershoot website - I found these details:

2007 Mayor’s Arts Awards Ceremony and
Bumbershoot Visual Arts Opening
Noon, Friday, August 31
Northwest Court at Seattle Center

Mayor Greg Nickels will honor the 2007 recipients at an awards ceremony at noon on Friday, August 31 at Seattle Center’s Northwest Court. The outdoor ceremony will feature award presentations, followed by the official opening of Bumbershoot’s Visual Arts Exhibits, which is free and open to the public from noon to 6 p.m. that same day. For more information about the ceremony and this year’s recipients, visit the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs website.

The Mayor’s Arts Awards are presented by the Mayor’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs in partnership with Bumbershoot and primary media sponsor Encore Arts Programs, the magazine proudly serving performing arts organizations throughout the Puget Sound. Media support is also provided by Seattle Magazine and Seattle Channel.

It’s time for me to get back up on that bloghorse and ride - after a long hiatus while visiting Frankfurt (awesome John Bock Films show, Tino Sehgal at the MMK), Kassel (Documenta), Muenster (Skulptur Projekte Muenster 07), Groningen, NL (Noorderzon Festival - featuring a video program curated by Eric Fredericksen), and Berlin (friends, and a Matthew Buckingham exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof - Buckingham shows here at the Henry in 2008.)

I returned last Thursday evening, to a houseful of Canadian artists who’ve been tirelessly creating this since their arrival.  We completed the Bumbershoot installation yesterday morning - and I cannot wait for YOU to see it.

On that note - this morning’s Seattle Weekly included a preview of the installation by Adriana Grant that is so dang right on that it made me misty.

Open Floor this month at the Henry Art Gallery is shaping up to be something special. Heather Fagan is a multi-media artist, whose work incorporates photography, video installation, sound design, and performance. She’s going to discuss her exploration into humanity’s relationship with water and our fascination, fears, and contradictory attitudes regarding it.

Also, we have a special performance titled Progress: Molecular and Cellular Biology vs. Artistic Endeavor, a showdown for Cash! We here at Open Floor are thinking it’s time to contribute to our exploitational biased media pundit zeitgeist and get confrontational! So we’re having a debate! Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology Jason Berndt PhD and his team from the Institute of Prestige College for Important Scientific Matters at Havenerds University will debate a team of critical patheticos from the Henry Art Gallery Operations Staff, a team who has vowed to put the smackdown back into the creative process. Each team will be evaluated by an independent judge panel. The winner will walk home with 1 million fake US Dollars. Big time. It’s Science vs. Art. One night only. Hope to see you there.

Tuesday August 28th 6pm Henry Art Gallery Auditorium / FREE 

Open Floor is a laboratory of ideas brought to you by the Henry Art Gallery staff. It’s part artist survey, part lecture, part sing-a-long, part belly of the beast! Each month Henry Staff along with local artists, musicians, performers, and filmmakers will present work with the hope of generating new creative relationships. As its title suggests, Open Floor encourages the release of whatever vibrancy you may have swirling in your chest. Discussion is appropriate. Debate seems necessary. Random shouting is required. 

Your House is a fascinating  combination of architecture, design, bookmaking, and computer technologies that ultimately restulted in a scaled house made from 454 slices of paper bound together as a book. You can see more images of this piece at Origami Tessellations and at Visions in Paper (the laser-cutting house that produced the book). 

Artist Olafur Eliasson is known for art that integerates multiple disciplines and encourages engagement from viewers through multisensory experiences.  His first full-scale survey in the US Take your time opens next week (Sept. 7) at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Image courtesy of Visions in Paper (www.kremo.de).

Last week, Ken Lambert of The Seattle Times made a fantastic sound slide show of Zoe Leonard’s Mouth Open, Teeth Showing, capturing not only the essence of the installation, but reactions of visitors in the gallery as well.  You can see it for yourself here.

Also, be certain to mark your calendar for the Henry’s special closing event for the exhibition, which will include a conversation with collectors William and Ruth True on September 19 at 8 PM.

Image: Zoe Leonard.  Mouth Open, Teeth Showing.  2000.  162 vintage dolls.  Collection of William and Ruth True, Seattle.  Courtesy of the artist and Tracey Williams, Ltd.

With one week left until Labor Day weekend, now is the perfect time to start planning when to stop by the Henry’s satellite installation by Instant Coffee, Nooks: If You Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now.  Below is the schedule of events happening in the Nooks throughout the festival, which range from performances by Vis-a-vis Society, Helsinki Syndrome, and On the Double to Instant Coffee’s Ceremonial Afghan Roll-out taking place at the International Fountain.

Friday, August 30 from 12-6  

2:00      Ceremonial Afghan Roll-out by the Instant Coffee artists, lemonade will be served (on the lawn near the International Fountain) 

4:00      Welcome from the curators and Instant Coffee artists Jenifer Papararo, Jinhan Ko, Kelly Lycan, and Khan Lee. Instant Coffee Videos, DJs, and Dance Parties throughout the afternoon  

Saturday, September 1 from 10:45 until 8:15

12:00    Ceremonial Afghan Roll-out by the Instant Coffee artists, lemonade will be served (on the lawn near the International Fountain)           

1:00      Instant Coffee Video Program Screening            

2:00      On the Double (Dutch): Performance and Jump-in           

5:00      Helsinki Syndrome: This is not a test.             

6:30      Benjamin Miller: Large Walter: A Beastly Karaoke                        

Instant Coffee Videos, DJs, and Dance Party 

Sunday, September 2 from 10:45 until 8:15

12:00    Ceremonial Afghan Roll-out by the Instant Coffee artists, lemonade will be served (on the lawn near the International Fountain) 

12:00-4:00 Lectures and activities by Learning to Love You More and the Oliver Family         

4:00      Tom Blood: Reading for the Nooks           

4:30      The Watery Graves of Portland: Music for Nooks           

5:30      Instant Coffee Videos, DJs, and Dance Party           

7:00      Rooster Tooth                         

Instant Coffee Videos, DJs, and Dance Party 

Monday, September 3 from 10:45 until 8:15  

12:00    Ceremonial Afghan Roll-out by the Instant Coffee artists, lemonade will be served (on the lawn near the International Fountain)               

1:00      Vis-à-vis Society Polka Party: Polka Films, music, lecture, and lesso