The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper: Slog: Visual Art

What's That?

Jen Graves — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:19:43 -0700

You'll find out in this week's paper, coming out tomorrow.

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"Positive, Uplifting, and Invigorating Art" to "Offset Grey Days"

Jen Graves — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 08:12:40 -0700

THE PAINTINGS OF KATHERINE BERNHARDT I'd say "positive" has nothing to do with it.

There's a new gallery opening inside the interestingly weird warren of Seattle Design Center, where upscale design shops cater to specialty clients next to art galleries taking up temporary residence in shops that have been left empty in a cutthroat economy. I got the email announcing Kate Alkarni Gallery yesterday; it opens July 18.

Good things: Deserving local artists like Kathy Liao will get commercial representation and presumably a new audience, and the roster interconnects the PNW with the rest of the universe; the roster's got artists from all over, Brooklyn to Boston to Chicago, at various levels of what those in the art world refer to as "emergence."

But there's something deeply silly going on in the PR. I have to remark on it, because it's not an anomaly. From the email, written by a marketing director I won't embarrass by name:

"What we're up to that's a bit different from everywhere else, is that we are focusing on positive, invigorating and uplifting fine art. We aren't going to fill our walls with protest art, or anything overtly depressing. We figure Seattle needs art that will brighten their walls to offset the grey days."

1: Art is not a vitamin, it is just art.

2: The gallery business is a hard business. Almost every gallery owner is trying to offer something they think is a positive contribution to the world. You're not different if you're positive.

3: What does art that is "positive, invigorating and uplifting" actually look like? We have been given parameters: no protest art. Even if the thing it is protesting is quite horribly negative? (Protests! So DRAB!)

4: I'm here to tell you that art that is not "overtly depressing" can be plenty implicitly depressing.

5: Have the artists been briefed about how positively uplifting their works are? Here's a segment from an Interview interview with Katherine Bernhardt, one of the artists at the gallery:

[Interviewer]: The brush strokes could be seen as a hostile gesture.

KB: Yes. Some people ask if I hate the models I paint. I say no, I don't hate them. I'm obsessed with them.

Again, the gallery business is a hard business. I'm not trying to give Kate Alkarni Gallery a hard time; I'm looking forward to seeing more work by Liao and Laura Hamje, and being introduced to Rachid Bouhamidi and Aaron Hobson. Surely the gallery was casting about for an angle to distinguish itself, and hey, maybe it has—I'm writing about it here.

But at the very least, those intent on reducing art and artists to cheering antidotes to modern life might leave the innocent environs of Seattle out of their scheme.

The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper: Slog: Visual Art

What's That?

"Positive, Uplifting, and Invigorating Art" to "Offset Grey Days"

Death of a Teenager: The Specific and General Sorrows of Mark Calderon

The Great 30-Year Story of a Great Seattle Artist Opens Today: JOIN ME

Currently Hanging: Allyce Wood's Breakthrough Show

Meet Me at Vermillion at 6

What's That House Being Built in the Sculpture Park? A Father-Daughter Collaboration

Creepy Dolls and Elaborate Pig Costumes: The New Women and Queer Space You Must Go See (No Jackasses)

Another Way of Thinking About Genius

Jeff Koons, White Preschooler Supplicant to the White One Percent

We Have to Change, Humans Have to Change

"To be avoided like the plague."

Currently Hanging: A Sneak Preview of Buster Simpson's Upcoming Survey at the Frye

The Art of the Macklemorecene Era

Currently Hanging: David Byrd's Painting on the Cover of The Stranger

Anne Fenton Wins the Brink Award

Wish You Were There?

Soon to Be Hanging: Mark Calderon's Sculptures of Hollowness, Spine Repair Tape, and Self-Pleasure

Lend Me Some Sugar. I Am Your Lifeguard.

A BIG First Thursday Is Here

A Million Dollars (Plus A Half-Million More in Matching Funds) to the Glass Museum

So Long, David Byrd

The Jekyll and Hyde-iest Show in Town

Chicago Sun-Times Lays Off Its Entire Photo Staff

Gamer Versus Hippie

The Wealth of Detroit

Sunday's Front-Page Photograph of a Flattened Uniform

Currently Hanging: The Burning of Vito Badalamente

Animal Creativity

Taking Pictures of the Neighbors Through Their Windows