It’s time. Art fair season. Now in its fifth year, the Seattle Art Fair (SAF) occupies the humongous CenturyLink Field Event Center from August 1 to 4, its 2019 programming organized around the theme of curiosity and wonder.
“This year we have projects that center around the notion of a 21st century Wunderkammer,” said fair artistic director Nato Thompson. Wunderkammers were cabinets of curiosities from the 16th century that “consisted of the natural, mystical, colonial, aesthetic, and scientific.” Thompson told me that they’re looking at artists who tackle “the post-human, the colonial project of artificial intelligence, climate change, and mutant creatures.”
In light of this theme, a lot of the out-of-town artist programming is unsettling. I say this with the utmost respect—unsettle me, baby! There’s Bread Face (who you might recognize from Instagram) and their brand of kinda sexy, kinda violent face-in-bread smashing ASMR work. There’s also multimedia artist Stephanie Dinkins, whose artificially intelligent sculpture, “Not The Only One (N’TOO)” tells the ever-evolving, multigenerational story of a black American family. If you need me, I’ll be weeping near this thing.
