Brandy and Baileys
What's new in the art worlds? Well, former Slate editor Michael Kinsley is getting roundly spanked (and not-so-secretly admired) for admitting he didn't read every page of every nonfiction book nominated for the National Book Award... a bunch of museums (including the Met in New York and the Getty in L.A.) signed a rather paternalistic agreement declining to give back artifacts to the various countries from which they were plundered, claiming credit for the popularity of those cultures due to their own exhibitions... Keith Tyson won England's Turner Prize for work that was neither pornographic nor airlessly conceptual... and this weekend's SOIL auction was, if a claustrophobically packed house is any indication, wildly successful. I slipped in for about an hour, hung out by the bar, and received such gossip as came my way. The evening's best-dressed gent was, hands down, John Seal, in a trim chocolate-brown wide-lapeled suit and cream-colored turtleneck. Why, I wonder, does a man in a suit and turtleneck always look like he's in search of a snifter of brandy?
And now we note a few transitions.
There will no longer be either a Bailey or a Coy at the helm of Bailey/Coy Books on Capitol Hill. Barbara Bailey, after 30 years in the business, recently announced that she had sold the store to Michael Wells, the store's manager, and plans to move to Port Townsend. (Michael Coy sold his share of the business in 1989, and went on to open the little downtown oasis M. Coy Books.)
Bailey comes from what is practically literary royalty in this town: her brother, Thatcher Bailey, cofounded Bay Press (with eminent super- smart critic Hal Foster and Charles Wright of the Wrights); her father, Philip Bailey, founded Argus, a local opinion journal. And Bailey/Coy, of course, has long been the beacon of an otherwise mostly chain-stored and largely dull stretch of Broadway. In other words, thank God for the Baileys, and best of luck, Barbara.
The Foster/White Gallery has been sold to Paul and Xisa Huang, owners of the Vancouver, BC Bau-Xi Gallery. Normally, this news wouldn't stir even a ripple of interest around here, but the fact is that after years of resolutely ignoring Foster/White (with its Chihuly overdrive and endless recycling of the Northwest masters), I had been pleasantly surprised by some interesting developments. There was the excellent James Martin show at F/W's Kirkland branch a few months ago, and now the current Jason Mouer show, also at the Kirkland gallery. Best of luck to the Huangs (and don't blow it now).
