Want more? Here’s everything we recommend this month: Music, Visual Art, Literature, Performance, Film, Food, and This & That.
May 9–10
Lovers of art books (and art that comes in the form of books): Arrive rested and ready to immerse in work by more than 85 artists spread across all three floors of Washington Hall. Seattle Art Book Fair, now in its fourth year, was founded by superstar book designers Jayme Yen and Tom Eykemans, and features every flavor of art-book-object you can imagine—hardcovers, softcovers, indie magazines, photocopied zines, risograph ephemera—from local, national, and international makers. And the whole thing is free! In addition to vendors, the fair offers tutorials and author presentations, an art exhibition component, and on-site screen printing and letterpress printing. Last year, I regretted not budgeting enough time for a leisurely perusal, but that didn’t stop me from making out with a huge haul—racing Super Toy Run–style—through the labyrinth of book-lover’s delight. (Washington Hall, times vary) AMANDA MANITACH
Timothy White Eagle: Once Wild River
May 9–June 21
Timothy White Eagle is an icon. Grounded in theater, his work is both an embrace of and a revolt against the forces that shaped him—a queer, mixed-race Indigenous child adopted into a white Mormon family, raised in rural Washington. He’s known for his visual storytelling and visionary theatrical rituals (including performances at On the Boards), but also for founding the community/cabaret space Coffee Messiah and touring with Taylor Mac. Last year, White Eagle was named the inaugural artist for the Green-Duwamish Urban Waters Federal Partnership Artist-in-Residence program, a year-long residency piloted by the EPA. This exhibit marks its culmination, featuring work by collaborators working with White Eagle to read the river, addressing its problematic history and present healing. Participating artists include Adrain Chesser, Laura Wright, Epiphany Couch, Crystal Cortez, and Sarah Kavage. (Mini Mart City Park) AMANDA MANITACH
Monochrome: Calder and Tara Donovan
May 13–Jan 17, 2027
Tara Donovan is a renowned artist who works a special kind of alchemy: transforming mundane junk objects into the jaw-dropping sublime. Each of her sculptural installations is made from (roughly) hundreds of thousands of individual, tiny things—Styrofoam cups, drinking straws, toothpicks, Slinkys, Mylar, and hot glue—to create masses that undulate like oceans or resemble mountainous biological and geological formations. Donovan’s work at SAM is part of an ongoing series inviting artists to respond to pieces in the museum’s recently acquired Alexander Calder collection. Donovan—ever the monochromist—chose Calder’s use of the color black as her touchpoint, specifically responding to Mountains (1:5 Intermediate Maquette), a hulking geometric landscape made of overlapping black sheet metal plates pierced with holes. Come be blown away by delicacy and scale. (Seattle Art Museum) AMANDA MANITACH
Rebels + Icons: The Photography of Janette Beckman
Opens May 15
You know Janette Beckman’s work even if you don’t know you know Janette Beckman’s work. Her photographs of musicians, athletes, artists, and pop culture icons have traveled through time and become just as vital to the history books as the subjects within. There’s Keith Haring in his New York studio with his cartoon-sized paint brushes in 1985. There’s Salt-N-Pepa grabbing snacks at an East Coast bodega in 1986. There will be hundreds of her treasures to see when, starting May 15, the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP), displays the largest ever collection of her images. And the opening party promises to be just as memorable as the exhibit itself. Not only will Beckman be on hand to talk about her work and sign books, but stick around afterward for a dance party featuring none other than DJ Mix Master Mike. (MoPOP, 7 pm, 21+) MEGAN SELING
May 21–June 27
The veil is thin in Drie Chapek’s work—the surreal and mystical breaking through the oil paint, where landscapes are ground for bodies to grow. At least, that’s one way to read her explosive depictions of limbs and land bursting with analog glitch and the churn of frothy, murky, incandescent white, cobalt, rust, and PNW-coded greens. Chapek is the kind of artist for whom legibility becomes a game of hide-and-seeking the sublime, leading us down a path where obfuscating the thing is as meaningful as the thing itself. In her latest solo show at Greg Kucera, this impulse intensifies, as the narrative element in her work continues to be subsumed by abstraction and love of the mark for its own sake. And what love! The body of the paint is as much a character as the demi-bodies emerging from it. (Greg Kucera Gallery) AMANDA MANITACH
More
Sharon Shapiro: Tender Wild Opening May 7 with artist reception May 14, Spectrum Fine Art
Ed Archie NoiseCat: Trickster’s Feast May 7–30, Stonington Gallery
Clare Johnson: A Life in Sticky Notes May 7–June 18, Gallery 4Culture
Ann Gardner: The Color of Light May 7–June 20 with artist reception May 9, Winston Wächter
Prepress: Seattle Art Book Fair Launch Party May 8, Actualize AiR, 6–9 pm
The Prehistoric Group Show May 8–June 6, Roq la Rue
Meet Me at the Henry May 16, Henry Art Gallery, 11 am–4 pm
2026 University of Washington MFA + MDes Thesis Exhibition May 16–June 14, Henry Art Gallery
Tom Lloyd May 16–Sept 20, Frye Art Museum
Sarah Winkler: Folded Earth, Open Sky June 4–20, Foster/White Gallery
Eirik Johnson: Pine June 4–July 25, Foster/White Gallery
Ongoing
Norman Lundin: Landscapes, Mostly, Other Things Too Through May 16, Greg Kucera Gallery
Project NW: Ralph Pugay Through May 17, Tacoma Art Museum
Wallflowers Through May 17, Frye Art Museum
Ad-Lib Through May 17, AMcE Creative Arts
Donald Cole: Throughlines Through May 23, ArtX Contemporary
Eva Isaksen: Drawn to Line Through May 23, with opening reception May 7, Foster/White
Sue Danielson: Relic, and Kim Van Someren: Holding the Line Through May 29, J. Rinehart Gallery
Hana Hillerová: Flow: The Shape of Process; Marita Dingus: Ancient Ones; and Joe Shlichta and Matt Sellars: Northern Light Through May 30, with opening reception May 2, Traver Gallery
Christine Gedye: Water’s Edge Through May 30, Fountainhead Gallery
Mya Kerner & Zak Helenske: While the Garden Overgrew Through May 31, Dirkse/Prim Gallery
In Circulation: An Exhibit on Artist Publishing in Seattle and Miwa Gardner and Ramona Lee: A Maternal Gaze Through May 31, Columbia City Gallery
Haunted Through June 7, Tacoma Art Museum
You’ve Had It in You All Along Through June 7, Avery Barnes Gallery
In Practice: Work by PCNW Faculty Through June 7, Photographic Center Northwest
Modern American Masculinity Through June 12, Base Camp Studios 2
River Coello: HAMPI Through June 13, Jack Straw New Media Gallery
Claire Partington: The Small Things Through June 13 with artist reception May 9, Winston Wächter
Crafting Futures: Emerging Artists Invitational Through June 13, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art
Aimee Lee: Tethered Through June 14, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art
TADAIMA: I’m Home Through July 12, Museum of History & Industry
Beyond Mysticism: The Modern Northwest Through Aug 2, Seattle Art Museum
Woven in Wool: Resilience in Coast Salish Weaving Through Aug 30, Burke Museum
Chloë Bass: Soft Services Through Aug 2026, Volunteer Park
Moomins’ Sea Adventures & Tove and the Sea Through Sept 6, National Nordic Museum
Lost & Found: Searching for Home Through Sept 14, Wing Luke Museum
Let There Be Light Through Sept 30, Cannonball Arts
Samantha Yun Wall: What We Leave Behind Through Oct 4, Seattle Art Museum
Jonathan Lasker: Drawings and Studies Through Oct 11, Frye Art Museum, free
Boren Banner Series: Chloe King Through Oct 11, Frye Art Museum, free
Eric-Paul Riege: ojo|-|ól Through Oct 25, Henry Art Museum
A Room for Animal Intelligence Through Jan 2027, Seattle Art Museum
Ten Thousand Things Through May 2, 2027, Wing Luke Museum
Pioneer Square Art Walk Every first Thursday
Capitol Hill Art Walk Every second Thursday
Georgetown Art Attack! Every second Saturday
Chris Kallmyer: Song Cycle Ongoing, Seattle Art Museum
Gossip: Between Us Ongoing, Tacoma Art Museum
Legacy: Highlights from the Permanent Collection Ongoing, Tacoma Art Museum
Qiu Zhijie: Map of the History of Science and Technology Ongoing, Olympic Sculpture Park, free
Ash-Glazed Ceramics from Korea and Japan Ongoing, Seattle Art Museum
Find all these listings and more on our sister site, EverOut Seattle!
