Very interesting article - Thanks Jen

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It does not really matter who runs EMP. The incompetence is clearly at the top. Paul Allen and his sister Jody in essence won the lottery. Writing code at Microsoft and holding residency on a bar stool did not equip either of them to be leaders of a large portfolio of companies. This, mixed with the volatile relationship between them, creates a year round toxic environment. Paul is easily bored and unfortunately, the new car shine is off EMP. EMP is an albatross to Paul Allen at this point. It wouldn’t surprise me if they turned over to the city within 5 years and walked away.

the truly sad part of this story isn't her being hired at EMP as a sort of final nail in her museum career's coffin but rather her being hired as the final nail in EMP's coffin. Could've should've been a cool institution that looks at music and science fiction and how these play/have played in popular culture. There could be great programming that touches on culture in ways museums traditionally don't ..but instead it says nothing, does nothing and contributes very little.

sad ..just plain sad.

Dennis Barrie is indeed courageous and something of a hero, and you are right to compare his choice to Orr-Cahall's.

But you say that Orr-Cahall's arrival at the EMP is "a kind of exile" as a museum curator. Meanwhile Barrie was the first curator for the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame.

That's basically the same thing, isn't it? I mean, yeah the Hall of Fame commands greater respect than the EMP, but by your measure it is still "a kind of exile" in the museum world. Right?

Seems like a double-standard to me. Neither are respectable museums in your eyes. Or is there something special about the Hall of Fame we should know about?

You seriously wrote this article without an iota of reflection regarding the actions of Erica C Barnett?

Jen, you and everyone else at The Stranger need to STFU.

I don't know, is it a good idea to project

"the most explicit of the more than 100 photos of flowers, celebrities, and homoeroticism in the show"

on the side of a museum where everyone is forced to look at it, even children? I'm pretty liberal but I think I have a right to not have to look at certain pornographic things. Ummm like this one: http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t146/…

Gross.

@yeah: I don't think that image was a Mapplethorpe so that wouldn't really make any sense.

James, I understand asking a troll for an explanation is a fool's game, but I'm feeling foolish: Do you really think the fact that Erica C. Barnett got busted trying to shoplift wine means The Stranger is never allowed to criticize anything again ever? Or do you just harbor enough resentment toward ECB/The Stranger you're willing to let this resentment inspire you to ridiculous proclamations?

You can also say that she, unintentionally, created space for a new "Avant Garde". She gave something for artists to reject/fight against. Unfortunately no one took advantage of that possibility.

Keep these kinds of articles coming! We need this kind of illumination here and now. Good work Jen!

This is a poorly written article that started with a premise and stuck to it, even though there is not much evidence to back it up. Where are the reasons the museum pulled the plug? Where are Orr-Cahill's words about what made that decision necessary? Where are ANY real facts about the situation?

If you want to crap all over the EMP go ahead, but please use some journalism in the process...

David Schmader wrote: "Or do you just harbor enough resentment toward ECB/The Stranger you're willing to let this resentment inspire you to ridiculous proclamations?"

I could say the same thing about the original article, just changing ECB/The Stranger to EMP...

The EMP was a joke the day it opened. Run by $300.000 grant writers and people who always wanted to "rock", but were never cool enough. If it actually had to pay the bills with what it makes like every rock band, it would be out of business almost immediately.

Dear Jen,
Thank you for your Stranger article, "Grappling with a Nonissue," April 2. It brought an important refocus to an issue we continue to live with today.

Christina Orr-Cahall's decision to cancel the Mapplethorpe exhibition for clearly political reasons became the face of all conservative negativism that has since plagued the visual arts in America. She buckled at a time when committed strength was required. Her decision can hardly be called a non-issue when still, today America's visual artists are penalized by the National Endowment for the Arts as untrustworthy to receive individual artist fellowships. The NEA gives individual fellowship grants to musicians, writers, actors, singers, poets, et al, but none to visual artists. Rather, their funding continues to be given to institutions that apparently are better trusted than visual artists.

As long as visual artists in America are relegated to this substandard category, Orr-Cahall's 1989 political decision will remain front and center in the eyes of all those who really care for and defend the visual arts.

Beth Sellars

Great piece, Jen--It's too easy for us to forget history

Here is something I wrote as a letter to the editor for the Rocket (old school rocks!) a week after the EMP opened. 2000? I think. Not saying its good. More just getting it off my hard drive

I’m Pissed! The EMP is nothing but another fat rich corporate-type who knows more about business than music telling the rest of us “How to rock”. It all started in 1983 when I walked in all giddy to my first “Hard Rock” Café and heard Madonna. Haven’t heard a “Hard Rock” song in there since. To REALLY Rock has absolutely nothing to do with sitting at some interactive pod pretending to be a rock star while electronics plays the right notes for you and morons offer you a poster of your “15 minutes” for $9.95. (Cross “Rock Star” off my list of busy executive things to do in life). To rock, you need to load gear into a stinky broken down van, arrive at a club on a Tuesday night at 4pm for a 11pm show and in the meantime eat crappy food, get beer spilled on you three times by cheap women, and get home at 3 am only to have to be in the studio at 8am. I want to give a big salute to the people Paul Allen failed to. The thousands to bands, promoters, agents, roadies, local magazines, recording studios, and other businesses and people who are way to busy trying to make a living and play for fun, passion and sometimes profit who started all this shit that fuckers like Paul Allen are trying to enshrine, but can’t because they just don’t…and never will understand. EMP has several people working for them who are working musicians and other industry pro’s. It disappoints me that no one stood up to this “Steve Wozniak/US Festival” wanna-be and told him that “rock & roll” has nothing to do with giving an “experience” to regular people. The term rock should be preserved for those things and people who make the sacrifice daily to give imbisills like this something to enshirne in the first place. Glad to see that you gave some fairly unknown bands (outside of the Northwest) some pop…But don’t you think denoting their achievements by buying a $2 ticket to their shows on a Tuesday night at the local club would have been a better way? It would give all those yuppie idiots who work for you and think they rock the opportunity to feel what rock is really about while doubling some bands draw in one feel swoop with all you friends. Nope. You and your glass guitar and all your Dockers clad employees will never know how to rock or will ever be willing to make the sacrifices that it takes to do so. Like a band that rocked their first album and got fat and happy and didn’t anymore, you don’t realize that “Rocking” is not something you can buy. It’s a feeling that the KOMO news team playing in your EMP studio and you, will never have. Please take Andy Whoppler and stay out of promoting yourself as a champion of local music. No struggling musician or music business professional that I know of has seen you anywhere near a smelly club on a Tuesday night. If you want to give EMP visitors a taste of what it is really like to “rock” then you are going to have to install sprinkler systems that pour beer and cigarette smoke on people, have people screem that they suck at them, and make their ears ring for a while. Or maybe it’s that the music business has gotten to the point where all you have to do is press a button and you “rock”…Glad I am out of it. Paul, you should be ashamed. To all you younger musicians out there. Being a rock star has nothing to do with going to some “master Class” in a museum or taking classes at the Seattle Art Institute. The real classroom is in the clubs and concert halls where it starts and ends for most.

It's crazy that she makes that much money and she's a zero when it comes to recognizing great art. I interviewed there several years ago and talked with Jody Patton. She was a total bitch and get this---she thought that Bowie's career began in the 1980s and she'd never heard of the Velvet Underground. She was a combination of Heather Locklear on Melrose Place and Joan Collins on Dynasty. I couldn't believe her lack of knowledge. Now they've hired another numbskull. I ended up working at the nonprofit, GLAAD, where the Executive Director made $280,000 a year. This was 1/20th of the organization's income. Crazy shit like this happens a lot.