Archives for April 2009

Sam Falls (Click to enlarge)

Air Supply, 1-5, 2004 Images via Western Bridge from James Harris Gallery. (Click first four to enlarge)

Silke Zeidler (Click to enlarge.)

Brianna Sendziak, Sea, 40 x 30 inches, C-print, 2009

More Icarus here.

Garden and Cosmos: The Royal paintings of Jodhpur closes on Sunday at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. More information than you want to read here.

In response to Jen Graves’ provocative article, The Vancouver Problem (my response here), Ries Niemi logged the following reflections on Artdish, quoted in part:

I know a lot of Vancouver artists- and, some of them are just like Jen
describes, while others are just as provincial as she accuses Seattle
artists of being.
And in Vancouver, the shadow of a certain style of text and photo
based, detached and cold conceptual work, somewhat Baldessari-esqe,
hangs over a lot of the artists.
There has been a big concern lately, as Emily Carr has been closing all
the “crafty” art departments, and going more and more towards a Photoshop-only curriculum, that nothing but one style of art is
“approved” in Vancouver. And, strangely enough, THE EXACT SAME THING
has been happening at the (University of Washington).

Ries:
The text/photo crowd, most of whom are not “cold and detached” although
there’s nothing wrong with an ambitious chill, is in the ascendancy
everywhere. The extra reason why at the University of
Washington comes down to faculty: photographer Paul Berger and photo-technician/curator Michael Horn (neither of whom has a Web site), along with Rebecca Cummins and Ellen Garvens. Add the recently demised Larry Sommers, and you’ve got the Pied Pipers of the art department.

A
good crew graduates from the UW this year with BFAs in photography,
video and whatever trails those categories as installations.(Exhibit at
the Jacob Lawrence Gallery, through May 2. Tuesdays-Saturdays, noon-4)

From  Sol Hashemi, Special Event
is a collage of the world’s corny surfaces, what takes up space around
us, our sometimes inadvertent lightening and brightening touches. At the
last minute, Hashemi added to the show a forlorn construct he’d made on
his way in, titled, Untitled (Mardi Gras Mylar Spray Pick #2).
He was doubtless thrilled to see it booted out soon after and placed
near a trash can, not in the trash can, which I presume would have been
better.

(Click images to enlarge.)
In the spirit of Robert Rauschenberg, rejoice.

[Read more…] about A lot younger than Jesus at the Jacob Lawrence Gallery

Mr. Cotter won the Pulitzer for criticism, story here.
Art critics have long been passed over for Pultizers. He’s an excellent
place to start. In an Allan M. Jalon profile of Cotter last December in
the Columbia Journalism Review (only the lead online), Jalon quoted me
saying..:

Of all the critics out there, I think I might like Cotter the most, not
only for his knowledge and insight (lots of critics have that) but for
the heart and soul he quietly brings to each piece.

More from me on Cotter more here, here, here and here.

Frank Zoretich was leaving the PI as I arrived. We met in passing but kept up, at first through his newsletters sent under the title, Friends of Frank, and later, as his fame grew, in a second edition, Friends of Friends of Frank. At the PI, he was known as the king of fluff, a title he wore with pride. Let others battle for the big news story, the trend, the deepish investigative foray. Zoretich is all about what others with an eye on the substantial disdain, such as, stories about cats.

Back in Seattle after stints at several newspapers in the Southwest, Frank contributed My God, the Cat! to A News Cafe, his first online only venture.

(Image, Julia Salamonik. Click to enlarge)

Ryan Molenkamp, artist and security chief at the Frye, reports that museum guards have more to fear than the agony of da feet. Boredom eats the soul. To combat this eating away, the artists on the Frye team organized a portrait challenge in 2004, open to all comers. In ever more ambitious forms, it continues. Writes Molenkamp:

Subjects were taken from the various discarded magazines floating around the museum. The challenge amounted to a small photo being pasted in a standard sheet of paper,
and 6 empty boxes placed below it…The results ranged from realistic renderings to insightful caricatures,
silly pictures to conceptual musings, and everything in between.
(Besides guards), participants over the years have ranged from artists Mark
Ryden, Jennifer Zwick and Cait Willis to folks
with no artistic training what-so-ever…This year’s highlight will be highlight an interactive section of 100 new, blank portrait
challenges which the public will be asked to fill up with the night of
the show.

Baby Seal Club, 619 Western Ave., third floor. May 7, 6-10 pm. Sample from the past below.