Don’t stay home. You’re going to need two kinds of art in the days and months to come. You’re going to need the kind that calms you down and the kind that riles you up. As New York artist Marilyn Minter told Artnet.com, if you don’t want to see a Trump elected again, here are your operating instructions: “Feel the pain, until it passes thru you. Regroup, get angry, get tough, take notes.”
You won’t be able to do the second sentence unless you do the first, so here are some works of art you can see now in Seattle that will get you started on both, focusing on art made by LGBTQ people, immigrants, people of color, and women—anybody Trump’s campaign hatred targeted.
ART TO SOOTHE
MKNZ: Cumulative Deposits (Of You Inside Me)
On election night, I heard people say they’d left their bodies and felt like they couldn’t get back in. Rape victims talk about leaving their bodies to shield themselves from the full impact of the attack. What might help now is art made from pain and unafraid to claim it and name it. Each of the sculptures and installations in Seattle artist MKNZ’s show is named after a real person from her history. But it’s an expansive show that offers safety to those who need it, centering for marginalized bodies, and the possibility of re-embodiment itself. I’d go straight to the two installations titled after females, Charmeesha and Diana, made of girls’ barrettes and Paul Mitchell shampoo tinted pink with blush. Each one is an immersive dream of finding shelter and being in your own skin. (Glass Box Gallery, Wed–Sat, free)
Emily Gherard: Making Presence Known
For quiet contemplation and wonder, we need Seattle artist Emily Gherard’s living, breathing drawings of something—they hint at rocks or shadows or sheer presences. They, somehow, feel like company. With them, you aren’t alone. Also, Bridge Productions is offering its space to anybody in need of community right now, so the spirit is in the walls. (Bridge Productions, Wed–Sat, free)
