BELLEVUE ART MUSEUM
MUSEUMS AND ART CENTERS
301 Bellevue Square, 425-454-3322.
FIRST DESCENT: ART AND ARTIFACTS FROM
SNOWBOARD CULTURE
Subculture comes to the mall, this time as art. This exhibition examines the snowboard aesthetic beyond the baggy-pants thing. Through April 22.
CENTER ON CONTEMPORARY ART
65 Cedar St, 728-1980.
NORTHWEST ANNUAL 2000
This year's juror, New York artist Mike Bidlo, produced a healthy and not altogether unsurprising list of winners for CoCA's yearly who's who. The show is heavy on photography and work that leans toward the conceptual. There's a lot to like, such as Judy Allen's Dialogue: a work as mysterious as a question posed by a surrealist. This year's show also features work from last year's winners, Patrick Holderfield and Yvette Franz. Through March 11.
FRYE ART MUSEUM
704 Terry Ave, 622-9250.
DONALD BARTON: AN AMERICAN ABROAD
It's a vanished event, or at least a changed one -- the Grand Tour, a young man's Wanderjahr around Europe before settling down. Donald Barton was a painter, and the snapshots of his 1928 trip have the added allure of his good eye. Barton focused his attention to architecture, and later turned those photographs into paintings. Through April 9.
THIS TRANQUIL LAND: HUDSON RIVER PAINTINGS FROM THE HERSEN COLLECTION
In the mid 1800s, a loosely formed group of artists concentrated their talents on representing the transcendentalist's Nature with a capital "N." It's a kind of romanticism we wouldn't be able to get away with these days; the wink-and-nod would be implicit. Also, those guys could make a canvas glow. Through April 16. Reviewed this issue.
LISA ZWERLING
Zwerling's paintings reference old themes -- the seasons, man's relationship to nature -- and make use of traditional painting techniques. The mythical creatures who populate the works, however, come distinctly out of the New Age. Artist preview and lecture Thurs March 9, 6 pm. Through May 7.
HENRY ART GALLERY
15th Ave NE at NE 41st St, 543-2280.
BANKS IN PINK AND BLUE
Genetics, aesthetics, and ethics -- it's a frequent theme in work shown in alternative galleries, and now it's at the Henry, in an installation by Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle. Here, mixed media is an understatement: Manglano-Ovalle uses sperm banks, a liquid nitrogen tank, and abstract DNA portrait photographs, as well as the more prosaic video and audio, to ask his unanswerable questions. This is the second of three in the series Future Forward: Projects in New Media. Through April 16.
SHIFTING GROUND: TRANSFORMED VIEWS OF THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE
Here's a show that makes a gallant effort to show how landscape portrayal has changed over time, and by implication, how our attitude toward the land has been altered in the process. Certainly an exhibition that encompasses both Albert Bierstadt's Manifest Destiny--like paintings and Robert Smithson's earthworks can make visible such a jump in perspective. Through Aug 20.
SEATTLE ART MUSEUM
100 University St, 654-3100.
*HEREABOUTS: NORTHWEST PICTURES BY SEVEN
PHOTOGRAPHERS
A group of our finest local photographers show documentary images of less-familiar parts of Washington: Erika Langley goes backstage and on stage with the strippers of the Lusty Lady, Robert Lyons visits rodeos, and a whole lot more. It's all very, very good. Through March 12.
SEATTLE COLLECTS LICHTENSTEIN
Seattle's most established art institution gives over space to one of the artists who, along with Warhol, most challenged the idea of originality and what is acceptable as real art. Now he's dead and an icon, and the works shown here are largely drawn from local collections. Through May 14.
SEATTLE ASIAN ART MUSEUM
1400 E Prospect St, Volunteer Park, 654-3100.
PAUL HORIUCHI
One of the Northwest's venerable masters is remembered in an exhibition spanning his work from the 1930s through his death in 1999. On Thurs March 9, guest curator Michiyo Morioka, with Kazuko Nakane, will discuss the exhibit. Through June 11.
WRIGHT EXHIBITION SPACE
407 Dexter Ave N, 264-8200.
*THE WRIGHT COLLECTION
Virginia and Bagley Wright have rehung their foundation's exhibit space, devoting one gallery entirely to their great collection of '60s and '70s color field paintings, and introducing a large David Salle oil and the John Baldessari piece Two Onlookers and Tragedy to the mix. Other highlights of their collection include a Robert Longo, Eric Fischl, a huge Warhol Rorschach, and Jules Olitski's Thigh Smoke. Open-ended run.
OPENINGS
GLENN BARR, MARK DANCEY
From the mean streets of Detroit, two bold (in both style and attitude) artists. Barr has a penchant for really stacked women and B-movie scenes, painted with the care and technique of the Old Masters. Dancey is perhaps best known for being the genius behind Motorbooty magazine; he approaches his controversial topics in the same style as the comics he publishes. Opening reception Fri March 10, 6-10 pm. Roq la Rue Gallery, 2224 Second Ave, 374-8977. Through April 7.
INTRODUCTIONS 2000
Strictly speaking, they're not really introductions; many of the 10 artists exhibiting this month are associated with prestigious Seattle and Portland galleries. Nonetheless, a good lineup, including Elizabeth Jameson and Donnabelle Casis. With an installation by James Jaxxa. Opening reception Thurs March 9, 5-7 pm. Seattle Art Museum Rental Sales Gallery, 1334 First Ave, 654-3240. Through April 8.
LAYNE KLEINART
Paintings and prints by the Seattle artist. Opening reception Thurs March 9, 6-9 pm. Atelier 31, 123 Lake St S, #102, Kirkland, 425-576-1477. Through April 11.
LYN MCCRACKEN
Landscape photography created during several trips to Cuba. These large-format prints of abandoned places have a formidable silence to them. Opening reception Thurs March 9, 5-8 pm. Baas Gallery, 2703 E Madison, 324-4742. Through April 29.
MENAGERIE
Seven West Coast artists take on animal imagery. Opening reception Thurs March 9, 5-8 pm. Kirkland Arts Center, 620 Market St, Kirkland, 425-822-7161. Through April 18.
THREE GENERATIONS OF MEXICAN MASTERS
A sampling of Mexican art comes to Tacoma, thanks to the collaboration of a couple of cultural and bureaucratic entities. Still, here in the restrained Northwest, the work (including some by Diego Rivera) brings a certain needed heat. Opening reception Sat March 11, 6 pm. Random Modern Gallery, 1102 Court D, Tacoma, 253-383-5659. Through March 31.
CONTINUING EXHIBITIONS
APPROACH NEW ART
As deluged as we are with bad news from the art world -- galleries closing, artists studio-less -- the opening of a new gallery is a major event. Well, this may or may not qualify as an event (the press release was so vague as to be virtually useless), but Matthew Lennon (one of the featured artists) is a tireless arts activist and a lot of fun to talk to, so go anyway. Other featured artists are Karen Kosoglad and Deborah Walker. Mary Vitold Gallery, 110 S Washington St, 624-9336. Through April 1.
DEBORAH ASCHHEIM
Not surprisingly, given its location in an architecture firm, Suyama Space tends to devote its exhibitions to work that investigates space itself, whether through surface (as with Victoria Haven's recent rubber-band drawings) or through sound (like the Trimpin installation last summer). Next up is a site-specific work from New York-artist Aschheim. She'll fill the gallery with the kind of objects she's known for: light-reflective, ethereal, biological items clustering on the floor and ceiling. This is the kind of show that changes a space. Suyama Space, 2324 Second Ave, 256-0809. Through May 7.
DICK AVERNS
Averns is a British artist living in British Columbia, and his current installation at 911 uses a mixture of neon and backlit texts to explore the relationship between language and visual communication. 911 Media Arts Center, 117 Yale Ave N, 682-6552. Through March 19.
MARGARETHA BOOTHSMA
You-are-there landscapes that combine photography and paint with sand, branches, and leaves. Linda Hodges Gallery, 410 Occidental Ave S, 624-3034. Through April 1.
*KRISTIN CAMMERMEYER
This exhibition of landscapes and glowing houses packs a sucker punch. You admire the skill and painterly touch of Cammermeyer's Wyeth-like paintings of her native Virginia, until you realize that most of the images are of tract housing and lifeless suburban houses. Her angle is the change wrought in the landscape of her home town, and the works' titles leave no doubt as to her perspective: Collonade Terrace, Brought to You by Oakhill Properties; Future Site of Wolftrap Meadows; Innovation Avenue. Once this becomes clear, even the neutral tones take on an unearthly hue, and the few unspoiled areas displayed here become even more poignant. Jeffrey Moose Gallery, 1333 Fifth Ave, 467-6951. Through March 25.
JOHN DUGDALE, HEAVEN AND EARTH
Dugdale's photographic meditations are taken with an early-20th-century camera and developed with a 19th-century process. His nudes are immediately recognizable, at once nostalgic and heroic. G. Gibson Gallery, 122 S Jackson St, 587-4033. Through March 18.
*TATIANA GARMENDIA
Compelling and dark, Garmendia's drawings of x-rays ask new questions about surface, illusion, and depth in figurative work. Here, the artist as well as the machine has "invaded" the body; illustration of disease takes the place of character study. A mind-bending concept on paper. Phinney Center Gallery, 6532 Phinney Ave N, 783-2244. Through March 31.
*GEOFF GARZA
Garza has organized his show around the idea of wabi-sabi (or, as he puts it, WABI-SABI!), which, loosely explained, celebrates the beauty and symbolic virtue of the ordinary and imperfect. This may be modesty, or it may be strategic understatement; Garza's paintings are exuberant color abstractions, with paint burnished into paper and panel. Ballard Fetherston Gallery, 818 E Pike St, 322-9440. Through April 4.
*GREEN LADY
Another in a line of smart shows at Houston, one of the few galleries in Seattle to make the connection between art and general visual culture. Green Lady is comprised of designers Todd St. John and Gary Benzel, who began their artistic inquiry by making clothes, and then moved into graphics and installation. Their themes echo a number of millennial anxieties such as isolation, technology, and the appetite of corporations. Houston, 907 E Pike, 860-7820. Through March 15.
BOB HAOZOUS
Installations and portraits by the Native American artist. One installation, Separation, was first shown at the 1999 Venice Biennale. Sacred Circle Gallery of American Indian Art, Discovery Park, 285-4425. Through March 26.
ANDREW HARE
Hare's paintings zero in on small urban architectural details -- a window ledge, a weathered door -- so that in the end, they document a disappearing aesthetic in the slickening city. Kimzey Miller Gallery, 1225 Second Ave, 682-2339. Through March 31.
*KEN KELLY
Four large-scale paintings from the much-awarded Kelly. His work is somehow formal and organic at the same time; Kelly uses mirror-image stencils to create shapes that are large and monumental on the one hand, but serpentine and movement-implying on the other. If that weren't enough, the surfaces of the paintings are amazingly worked. Howard House, 2017 Second Ave, 256-6399. Through April 1.
TODD KEPHART
In this exhibition entitled Glass Children (after the precocious family created by J. D. Salinger), Kephart stages tableaux of events usually lost by the march of time -- fleeting moments of insecurity, angst, and the simple mundane. FotoCircle Gallery, 216 Alaskan Way S, 624-2645. Through April 1.
KÄTHE KOLLWITZ
No one equaled Kollwitz (who died in 1945) for emotionally turbulent images; given the period the German-born artist lived through, it's hardly surprising that her work is shot through with suffering. This exhibition of prints is a fine introduction to Kollwitz's world. Davidson Galleries, 313 Occidental Ave S, 624-6700. Through April 29.
*STEPHEN LYONS
Desire, disease, decay -- these are the essential elements of Lyons' vocabulary. This show consists of gorgeous chromogenic prints of the artist's assemblages, which use obscure and enigmatic objects floated in a deep amber resin. These are artifacts which don't give up their meaning on first glance. Pound Gallery, 1216 10th Ave, 323-0557. Through March 31.
TIM MARSDEN, KURT GEISSEL
Two idiosyncratic artists team up for a show called Strange Apothecary. Two Bells Tavern, 2313 Fourth Ave, 441-3050. Through March 31.
DEBORAH MERSKY, SHIRLEY SCHEIER
Mersky shows patterned block prints inspired by 18th- and 19th-century textiles; Scheier's drawings incorporate ink, gouache, and collage in their investigation of everyday items. Neither artist is afraid of patterning and decoration. Esther Claypool Gallery, 617 Western Ave, 264-1586. Through April 1.
JEFFRY MITCHELL
Mitchell mixes unlikely elements -- humor and decorative arts -- and still manages to make work that's referential and interesting (as opposed to kitschy, precious, or junky). His Delftware ceramics mix craft and concept, filtering cute things like puppies and bunnies through a kind of Jeff Koonsian sensibility. Elliott Brown Gallery, 619 N 35th St, #101A, 547-9740. Through March 11.
MIKE NIPPER
Recent paintings by the nice boy behind the reception desk at The Stranger. Re-bar, 1114 Howell St, 233-9873. Through April 14.
ROSY
All about the color pink, in all its myriad associations, from girlishness to kitsch. This exhibition, curated by Laurie Cinotto and Stephanie Carlson, includes work by Nicola Vruwink, Yvette Franz, Mariam Stephan, and the curators. SOIL Artist Cooperative, 1205 Pike, 264-8061. Through April 2.
ITALO SCANGA
There's almost nothing Scanga doesn't do -- painting, sculpture, ceramics, prints, glass -- and he really gets around. This month, the prolific Italian artist has a painting retrospective; next month, who knows? Bryan Ohno Gallery, 155 S Main, 667-9572. Through March 31.
SELF/DEVELOPED
Five artists exhibiting for the first time in Seattle show works which incorporate photographs of themselves. The results are as wide-ranging as the mandate is specific. Eyre/Moore Gallery, 913 Western Ave, 624-5596. Through April 1.
MICHAEL SPAFFORD
The starting point for some of Spafford's new paintings is the Greek myth about Uranus and Cronus. It's a tabloid-quality story -- castration, cannibalism, sex -- and the work is appropriately vivid and vigorous. Francine Seders Gallery, 6701 Greenwood Ave N, 782-0355. Through March 26.
SUBSTANCE
Sculpture by four very good local artists: Leslie Clague, Sarah Chase, Patrick Holderfield, and Jesse Paul Miller. Washington State Convention Center atrium. Through March 26.
DONALD SULTAN
New York-artist Sultan's recent paintings and works on paper are big and bold and, well, big and bold. Take a flower, blow it up in deeply saturated colors, and it suddenly becomes something else. Winston Wächter, 403 Dexter Ave N, 652-5855. Through April 1.
MARK TAYLOR
Nudes and landscapes in acrylic on masonite and china board. Trapeze Gallery, 1130 34th Ave, 329-3363. Through April 1.
*FRIESE UNDINE
Undine's paintings resemble nothing so much as propaganda posters, but whereas propaganda overtly announces its meaning, these paintings are as cryptic as they are -- weirdly -- beautiful. William Traver Gallery, 110 Union St, Second Floor, 587-6502. Through April 2. See Bio Box.
ALICE WHEELER, JOHN BUCK
Most of us know Wheeler for her grunge photographs; her images of Kurt Cobain and other musicians were among the first to emerge as the scene defined itself. Her current show moves away from personalities and toward landscape, but she brings the same grittiness to them. Beauty is an option, but not the only one; Wheeler turns her sharp eye to urban landscapes as well. Buck exhibits folk-arty sculptures of wood and copper, as well as woodblock rubbings. Greg Kucera Gallery, 212 Third Ave S, 624-0770. Through April 1.
JUNKO YAMAMOTO
The exhibition is entitled Shunyata, which is a Buddhist term for emptiness. Yamamoto's paintings reflect this concept through empty thought-balloons in fields of saturated color and heavily worked surfaces. The implication is thought over speech, a refreshing idea these days. King County Arts Commission, 506 Second Ave, Room 200, 296-7580. Through March 31.
AMIR ZAKI
Zaki favors empty spaces in Los Angeles at night, and the resulting photographs are dark and eerily quiet, relieved only sporadically by artificial light. The parking lots and apartment houses seem almost like stages, awaiting even the smallest burst of activity. James Harris Gallery, 309A Third Ave S, 903-6220. Through April 2.
EVENTS
CLOSING PARTY AT COCA
CoCA is celebrating the end of the Northwest Annual by throwing a big party, with music by Ensemble Sub Masa and Rouge. Sat March 11, starting at 8 pm, and anyone with $7 is invited. Oh, and you can look at the art, too.
ENAMEL IS NOT SHINY PAINT
A lecture by Hannah Voss. Sun March 12 at 2 pm, at the Columbia City Gallery, 4916 Rainier Ave S, 760-9843.
YOUTH IN FOCUS AUCTION
Get your tickets now for an auction featuring work by local and national photographers, including Eva Sköld Westerlind, Spike Mafford, and Randy Hayes. The event is Thurs March 9, with a silent auction at 6 pm and a live auction at 7 pm. Youth in Focus teaches photography skills to Seattle's urban kids -- a good cause, and the photography's not bad either. Tickets are $45 in advance, $55 at the door; for information call 723-1479, or check out www.youthinfocus.org.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR ARTISTS
ARTISTS' SLIDE SHOW
The public (which may or may not include curators, art dealers, and collectors) is invited to attend this slide show on March 30, and the first 150 artists to respond can have their work put in front of many pairs of eyes. The deadline for submission is March 23; for more information call the Pacific Northwest Arts Council (who put this event together) at 654-3119.
RESPONSES TO WTO PROTESTS
CoCA is looking for art, images, and literature created about, or in response to, the WTO protests. The exhibition in June will include video footage and photographs from independent media activists, mainstream media, protesters, and those who just happened to get in the way. Send video and film submissions to 911 Media Arts Center (117 Yale Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109, 206-682-6551), and everything else to CoCA (65 Cedar St, Seattle, WA 98121). Include contact information, a written description of your work, an artist statement, and slides or photo documentation. Deadline for submissions is March 31.
