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My feet have been held to the fire by Redheaded Stepchild, a four-month-old zine devoted to Seattle's alternative art spaces. ArtSpace director Christian French went back and looked at 26 art reviews I wrote over 44 weeks, and found that my reviews were largely devoted to shows at commercial galleries (44 percent) and museums and arts centers (36 percent), with 15 percent devoted to alternative spaces and 5 percent to festivals.
I'm shocked to see how unproductive I've been this year, but the percentages don't surprise me much. Provided that Seattle's art spaces aren't entirely slaughtered by gentrification, and the trend toward better art and smarter curation at alternative spaces continues, I expect to do a little better in the upcoming year.
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The money train keeps running for the Seattle Art Museum, which last week announced the receipt of a $10 million two-for-one challenge grant from Bill Gates (the treasured stepson of SAM director Mimi Gardner Gates). The money will go into SAM's previously teensy endowment fund, which now stands at $30 million and change. Lest you fear that all this money will just get sucked up into high-tech, Windows-based interactive gallery guides, SAM informs us that 15 percent of the endowment must be used to acquire actual, bona fide art.
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As you read this, I am in New York, where among other things I am checking out Sensation, the naughty art show at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Watch for my review next week, when I settle, once and for all, the thorniest question in contemporary art: Does old elephant shit stink?
Send gossip and complaints to eric@thestranger.com