Amazon. Grunge. Weed. Coffee. Visual art is probably pretty low on the list of things for which Seattle is known. And what a shame. Because Seattleโs art scene isnโt under a spotlight like New York or Los Angeles, artists here arenโt afraid to get a little weird, to take risks. Seattleโs best art spaces and installations are immersive and interactive. They invite you to join inโto touch, explore, gather, and scream your face off. (In more than one instance, actually!)
Stop Sleeping on Seattleโs Best Art Collection at the Seattle Asian Art Museum
Capitol Hill
The Seattle Asian Art Museum is one of the cityโs most underrated assets. Previously closed for a three-year restoration, they set their reopening date just in time for the world to collapse into a pandemic. Since society is (sort of) back up and running, itโs time to visit this must-see collection. The gallery features a wide range of historic to contemporary art that is expertly curated, intermingling art from across different regions and time periods to compare and contrast overarching themes. There are countless brilliant and moving pieces in their permanent and rotating collections. See it now, lest it close again for upcoming seismic reasons. (NICO SWENSON)
Scream Your Fucking Face Off at the Seattle Art Museum
Downtown
When strolling through the Seattle Art Museum, youโll likely hear bloodcurdling screams echoing throughout the galleries. As you make your way past the startled docents through the museumโs new โrecontextualizedโ American art collection, youโll find those screams emanating from a little room featuring big neon letters that read: โIโVE COMPOSED A NEW AMERICAN NATIONAL ANTHEM / TAKE A KNEE AND SCREAM UNTIL YOU CANโT BREATHE.โ On the floor, a grid of โDaisy Doormatsโ provides an ironic pad for your knees. The score and padding come courtesy of Nicholas Galaninโs Neon American Anthem (white). In the piece, Galanin, a multidisciplinary artist with Tlingit and Unangaxฬ ancestry who works out of Alaska, ironically pairs the last words of so many Black victims of police brutality with the sunny products of capitalism and patriotism, offering viewers a chance to scream in defiance of those systems and, for some, prove loud and clear that theyโre still here despite the odds this country stacks against them. (RICH SMITH)
Donโt Kick the Pigeons at Pioneer Squareโs First Thursday Art Walk
Pioneer Square
Once a month, Seattleites flock to the streets in Pioneer Square for a chance to stroll, sip on booze, and attend as many art openings as possible at First Thursday. Itโs the cityโs central and oldest art walk and takes place in a historic neighborhood known for its abundance of galleries. Free wine, cheese, and hobnobbing steal the scene for some, but at its core, itโs an impressive communal unveiling of new artwork. A few favorites include Greg Kucera Gallery, J. Rinehart Gallery, Stonington Gallery, SOIL,ย and Railspur, a โmicro-districtโ specializing in contemporary pop art. A warning to first-timers: Pioneer Squareโs pigeons DO NOT GIVE A FUCK. Those dummies prioritize whatever garbage theyโre pecking at over their safety, and they have, through generations of pigeon evolution, adapted to humans walking around them. Watch where you step. (STRANGER STAFF)
Investigate Neukom Vivarium with a Magnifying Glass at Olympic Sculpture Park
Belltown
At the corner of Broad Street and Elliott Avenue in Belltown, a low-lit glass greenhouse shelters a living installation. Mark Dionโs biosystem Neukom Vivarium is built on the foundation of a Western hemlock โnurse log,โ a fallen tree from the Green River watershed that now serves as a growing site for young native plants. Sword ferns, deciduous huckleberry, and even spruce trees have sprouted from the log, creating an intricate ecosphere. The entire project emphasizes just how complicated it is to support natural life, and itโs not necessarily meant to evoke warm fuzzies. Itโs more of a memento mori work. (Dion told Art21, โThis piece is in some way perverse. It shows that, despite all of our technology Neukom Vivarium and money, when we destroy a natural system, itโs virtually impossible to get it back.โ) (LINDSAY COSTELLO)
Soak in Seattleโs History at the Duwamish Longhouse and Cultural Center
North Delridge
The history of the Duwamish people is the history of Seattle, and itโs an essential one. Duwamish Tribal Services, which has fought for the Duwamish people to be recognized as a tribe at both federal and state levels for decades, runs the Duwamish Longhouse and Cultural Center at the mouth of the Duwamish River in South Seattle. The space was a collaboration between the Duwamish and architect Byron Barnes of Montanaโs Blackfeet tribe in the style of a traditional Puget Salish longhouse. A gathering space, cultural center, and gallery, the Longhouse serves as a hub for the indigenous community that does incredible work for its members and for the Duwamish River Valley, where Duwamish Tribal Services lead environmental restoration, education initiatives, and so much more. (KATHLEEN TARRANT)
Spend a Whole Day Exploring the Central Library
Downtown
Thereโs a free museum downtown boasting works by George Tsutakawa, Ann Hamilton, Tony Oursler, Lynne Yamamoto, and Frank Okada, and you can explore it floor by floor with a self-guided tour map. Thing is, the museum is actually Central Library, which is better, in my opinion, because you can leave with free books. Culture!!! If I were you, Iโd make a day of itโstart on level 1 to scope Tsutakawa and Hamiltonโs works, then move up to level 4 for a truly eerie experience on the Red Floor, which is bloodied with 13 shades of red paint on the walls, ceiling, floors, and stairs. Jump up to level 10, the highest public viewpoint in the library, to spot Yamamoto and Okada pieces among collections of local Seattle history. (LINDSAY COSTELLO)
Ask โIs the Room Spinning or Is She?โ at the Pink Door
Pike Place Market
The Pink Door is a classy Italian restaurant tucked into Pike Place Market. There is no signage, just a (you guessed it) pink door in an alley. Iโm convinced that a table at the Pink Door is the hardest reservation to get in this townโespecially on Saturdays and Tuesdays. Saturdays make sense, but Tuesdays?? Itโs because there are aerialists who perform basically right above the tables on Saturdays and Tuesdays. Itโs incredible. You can sip a negroni, eat clam pasta, and watch a sexy performance happening IN THE AIR. All of it feels like youโre in a time when circus performers were celebrities and the best party in town was at a table directly below a woman spinning in a large ring. (RACHEL STEVENS)
Play With Pop Culture at MoPOP
Seattle Center
Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP, formerly known as the Experience Music Project) is filled with interesting nerd matters about rock โnโ roll music (the only major art form that routinely denies being an art form), science fiction, games, and such like. In any other city, MoPOP would be a cherished weirdo sanctuary. In Seattle, itโs a problem because it was started by Paul Allen, who was a local billionaire. Donโt be deterred. If you like that sort of thing, youโll like it a lot. (SEAN NELSON)
See a ShowโLiterally Any Showโat On the Boards
Uptown
The cityโs home for all things contemporary performance is basically never a bad ideaโforward thinkers like Nia-Amina Minor, Anna Luisa Petrisko, Jaha Koo, Will Rawls, and Takahiro Yamamoto have woven liminal narratives there in recent years, and the performance roster is always stacked. With modest beginnings renting space at Washington Hall from then-owners the Sons of Haiti, OtB has expanded into the Behnke Center for Contemporary Performance, its current Uptown location, with consistently sold-out spectacles of improvisational dance, experimental drag, and more. Head there to stretch your perceptions. (LINDSAY COSTELLO)ย
Sweat It Out at Dance Church
Various locations
Dance Church immediately inspires curiosity with its culty name, which was coined when Seattle dancers Kate Wallich and Lavinia Vago started a small Sunday morning dance party in 2010. Today, that humble gathering has blossomed into a full-fledged movement with a presence in six cities and an online streaming platform. A professional dancer leads the group in loose choreography to an upbeat pop soundtrack, and participants are encouraged to move their bodies joyfully. Thereโs just something ineffably cathartic about being crammed in a room with 200 sweaty strangers, grooving your heart out to โCall Your Girlfriendโโdevotees report being moved to tears, especially at the end when the collective clasps hands together in a circle. Frankly, I canโt imagine a better endorphin-fueled start to a weekend morning. (JULIANNE BELL)
Prioritize the Chocolate Popcorn at SIFF Cinema Downtown
Downtown
Seattleโs Cinerama theaterโone of the only Cinerama theaters left in the countryโfinally reopened its doors in December after abruptly closing in February 2020. Late billionaire Paul Allen famously saved the theater from demolition in the late โ90s and spent millions of bucks restoring it to its mid-century glory. Local film org SIFF bought the theater from Allenโs estate in 2023, and while rights to the Cinerama name were not a part of the saleโhence the new basic bitch monikerโSIFF was at least able to bring back the famous chocolate popcorn, for which Cinerama was loved. It makes the whole theater smell like hot Cocoa Puffs! Get a 50/50 mix of chocolate and buttered popcorn and swear off seeing movies in any other chocolate-popcornless theater again. (MEGAN SELING)
Worship, You Heathens, at St. Markโs Cathedral
Capitol Hill
Seattle is thankfully the least religious โlarge metro area in the US,โ and I count myself among its godless horde. But I do know beauty and pleasure when I see it and hear it, and watching robed choristers singing ancient songs of devotion into the echoing chambers of St. Markโs Cathedral counts as one of the more beautiful and pleasurable experiences this cityโand this lifeโhas to offer. The Compline Choir, as theyโre called, sings for half an hour every Sunday at 9:30 pm, unless that Sunday falls on Christmas. Despite its holy environs, itโs a real casual community affair. People lay out blankets on the altar, stare up at the huge timber pillars holding up the gorgeous and accidentally postmodern building, and listen to the voices of heaven quiet the week. (RICH SMITH)
Educate the Masses All Over the City
Various locations
On a hot girl walk around a neighborhood of single-family homes youโll never be able to afford, you will likely stumble across a Little Free Library. Personally, I have never borrowed from such a library, not because I donโt want to, but because itโs always some Nora Roberts shit. Start putting communist propaganda in those things! I want to see handmade zines and pamphlets and annotated copies of The Communist Manifesto. (HANNAH KRIEG)
Then Educate Yourself at Town Hall
First Hill
Iโve lost count of how many events Iโve seen at Town Hall over the years, but one thing I do know: Every time I leave, I leave smarter than when I arrived. Just this year, I heard the brilliant Hanif Abdurraqib discuss his approach to pop culture criticism (be curious, not cynical!) and listened in while Sloane Crosley talked about life and death and her latest book, Grief Is for People, with Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie. Town Hallโs summer calendar is stacked with intellectual superstars, too, including Miranda July, the Bushwick Book Club performing music inspired by Moby Dick, and Kathleen Hanna in conversation with celebrated local author (and former Stranger writer!) Lindy West. (MEGAN SELING)
Shut Up at Read at a Silent Reading Party
First Hill
Invented by a former editor at The Stranger, the reading party takes place every first and third Wednesday of the month at 7:30 pm. The Fireside Room at the Sorrento Hotel goes quiet and fills with people. Everyone brings whatever they feel like reading and sits there and reads, silently, to themselves, while waiters bring them things and Paul Matthew Moore plays piano softly and exquisitely. Heโs amazing. You can reserve a seat at silentreadingparty.com. (RICH SMITH)
Find Your Inner Pinball Wizard at the Seattle Pinball Museum
ChinatownโInternational District
ยยยยยView this post on InstagramยยยยยยยยยยยA post shared by Seattle Pinball Museum (@seattlepinballmuseum)
Twenty-three bucks gets you unlimited play at the best all-ages gaming space in all of Seattle, and its 50-plus pins spread the wealth between historical relics, flashy โ80s tables, and the modern-day pinball resurgence. I recommend the rock โnโ roll table playlist: Guns Nโ Roses, KISS, Wizard! (featuring The Who), and not one but two Elton John tables. Tip: The SPM is kind of cramped, so donโt be afraid to take a break after 30โ45 minutes, enjoy nearby International District delights (boba tea, dim sum, those amazing Korean hot dogs on a stick), and come back (re-entry is free) refreshed and ready for more Elton-themed pinball. If youโre over 21, you have additional options with drinks and games at Seattleโs four best arcade bars: Coindexterโs (Greenwood), Jupiter Bar (Belltown), Add-a-Ball (Fremont), and Time Warp (Capitol Hill). Each has unique, cool shit to play; if you need our prodding, weโre big fans of the weird Bishi Bashi cabs at Coindexterโs. (SAM MACHKOVECH)
Bliss Out (Or Have an Existential Crisis) in the James Turrell Skyspace at the Henry Art Gallery
University District
Light Reign was unveiled to the public more than 20 years ago, so if you havenโt spent a few moments meditating in the Henryโs permanent illuminated work, youโre long overdue. Everyone from Quakers to artists and performers have made use of the space, which the light-loving artist James Turrell designed with minimalist bench seating and an aperture-like oculus in the ceiling, revealing a hint of sky. When thereโs rain or snow in the forecast, a dome rolls into place over the oculus and emits a celestial glow. The Skyspaceโs frosted glass perimeter is also programmed with LED lights that shift in color throughout the day. For heightened effect, Light Reign is a piece to form a relationship withโI recommend visiting once a season to see how your experience shifts. (LINDSAY COSTELLO)
Catch an Indie Flick at One of Seattleโs Many Art House Theaters
Various locations
Seattle is truly a bounty of riches if youโre wanting to go see a film that you likely wouldnโt be able to find anywhere else. The Northwest Film Forum (NWFF) has a whole bunch of thoughtful programming, films both old and new, and some lovely little theaters in which to experience these exciting cinematic visions. The historic Grand Illusion is still kicking ass on a single screen while navigating tough timesโthey show everything from inventive new works to classic genre fare and beyond. Then there is the Beacon, which also operates with a single screen and boundless imagination, often showing films that fit week- or month-long themes. You truly canโt go wrong with any of these distinct gems. (CHASE HUTCHINSON)
How many things on our list have you done? Download a free PDF of our checklist to keep track!
