- Kelly O
At 9:30 this morning, it was chilly, a woman on the sidewalk urgently needed to use my phone to make a call about a broken condom and a bank account, and when we finally got inside Bedlam Coffee, I was pretty sure I saw a big painting of Britney Spears on the wall—at that moment, the Stranger Genius Cake Committee arrived, totally throwing off the otherwise imperturbably gentle DK Pan by informing him that he’s this year’s Genius in Visual Art.
“What?” he said softly. “Really? What?” He stared at the QFC sheet cake—our delivery vehicle each year that lets the Genius winners know they’ve won.
- ‘Really?’
Our other four Geniuses—in film, music, theater, and books—will be announced in the coming hours here on Slog, and MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR THE PARTY ON SEPTEMBER 16 AT THE MOORE THEATRE, because it’s a giant great party with Wild Orchid Children and Wheedle’s Groove playing. (Remember last year with Shabazz Palaces and THEE Satisfaction and those headdresses by Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes?)
About Pan. He’s not a standard visual artist. He doesn’t show in galleries and museums, but just about every time you look behind the scenes of a great, community-based, interdisciplinary project, there he is.
- Kelly O
- The cake decorators misheard and wrote “You’re a second Genius” rather than “You’re a frickin’ Genius” (our standard language every year), so all the cakes had to be redone this morning.
He organized the wildly beautiful, wildly sad memorial to the Bridge Motel in 2007. He co-founded Free Sheep Foundation, which placed artists and installations in abandoned buildings from Belltown to the University District, as well as staging the multimedia spectacle at the Moore Theatre in 2009. He curates the red wall surrounding the Capitol Hill Light Rail Station construction site. Through all this, he performs and creates his own work, with a background in Butoh and installation. And all this despite this insane FBI nonsense.
He’s an artist the city is damn lucky to have, but one who’d never think of himself as a genius—he’s humble as hell. At the low-income senior housing facility in Belltown where he lives and works, he passed out the cake this afternoon. They all ate it together, most of them wondering whose birthday it was.
Here’s more info on the awards and how to donate to the Genius cause. Remember: Friday, September 16. Celebrate these artists with us! More Genius surprises to come…
LOVE IT! How very, very appropriate!
BRAVO!!!!
Yeah! Congratulations!!
YAY !
Good stuff. And nothing like cake for breakfast. Why a qfc cake though I never got that
Great choice. Inside out was such a crazy lovely night, and I still enjoy seeing the ever changing facade of Tubs.
Good call. DK Pan is a frickin’ genius.
did he teach a room of cats how to take over the world at bridge motel? that was inspired.
That’s fantastic. Can’t wait to find out who else takes the cakes.
Well deserved. Pan is a truly wonderful person, and a fricking genius!
That’s beautiful. Congrats to Pan!
WOOOOOOO!!!!! Way to go DK!!!
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweek…
This is pathetic. A shameless reflection on a.big nothing of a supposed honor. Rewarding him does not as you probably think stand in the annals of “art scandal triumphing over the establishment” etc…it is just plain bad judgement. It is no wonder art grants and awards are falling off like dead flies with no support. It is this type of thing that gives tha whole grant-award thing a bad
name, period. This is not what the NW art scene needed and shame on you…this is not badass or fuckin cool Jen, just lame.but I’m sure the party will be awesome!
@13-your link’s broken, douchebag.
Wow @13, I’ll bet folks in the art community just LOVE having you show up at their gallery openings. You’re like the anti-Jesus: you turn wine into vinegar just by opening your mouth.
@15. Thank you. …somebodys gotta do it.
…because the link did not work:
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweek…
King County prosecutors say that for nearly two years Capitol Hill-based artist DK Pan functioned as the “Chief Operating Officer” of illegal gambling “speakeasy” bars tied to cocaine deals and Mexican gun-smuggling operations. They also say that his organization, the Free Sheep Foundation, is nothing more than a “front” used to launder money earned from the underground gambling houses.
Sound Transit, on the other hand, says Pan is a “great artist,” and that they’re sticking by him as he continues his job as the lead artist for the Capitol Hill Art Wall Project set up around the construction site for the new light-rail stop in that neighborhood–a job he is being paid $10,000 to do over four years.
Reached by phone today, Sound Transit Art Program Manager Barbara Luecke said that “certain facts were being misrepresented” about Pan, and that she has no reason to question his role in facilitating art and commissioning artists for the wall project.
“DK was hired through an open call for artists,” says Luecke. “We’re very happy with the work he’s done, and he’s still delivering on the work he’s been contracted on. Nothing’s been proven yet.”
As for what facts are being misrepresented, she wouldn’t say, but suggested we “ask DK.”
We did. He e-mailed this response:
Abiding by the advice of my attorney I cannot talk about the ongoing case, though I would very much like to set record straight.
According to the charging documents seen below, Pan functioned as the second-in-command to Richard Wayne Wilson, the mastermind behind several illegal gambling houses around Seattle as first reported by SeattleCrime.
Wilson was convicted of selling cocaine to an undercover officer who showed up regularly to his speakeasies and of smuggling guns to Zapatista rebels in southern Mexico. He was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison last June.
Per King County charging documents:
Pan performed duties consistent with a “Chief Operating Officer” and bartender and dealer/player for the enterprises affiliated with Rick Wilson . . . Supervising and coordinating the day-to-day illegal activities at the location(s).
As for the Free Sheep Foundation “front” organization that Pan allegedly set up out of its one-story Belltown studio on Third Avenue, prosecutors contend that it was merely used to launder money.
In fact names such as “Don’t Arrest Us, Incorporated” and “Legal Front” were apparently joked about (on audio recordings, no less) as being possible names for the foundation, but that Free Sheep was eventually settled on.
Of course, the foundation has hosted several seemingly legitimate art events (as defended in the reporting-free rant published by The Stranger this week), but hosting real art events doesn’t preclude the foundation from functioning, in all other aspects, as a front.
Whether prosecutors have enough evidence to convict Pan and the rest of his alleged cohorts remains to be seen. But for now, Pan is safe knowing that his side job as a publicly funded art coordinator remains perfectly safe.
Huge Congrats to DK! yr next short Americano is on me…
and Britney Spears?! yikes…you either saw Edie Sedgwick or Andie DeRoux, NOT Britney…geesh
@17 Ah, the “Bryan T. Owens” fishing saga!
Guess what… nobody (aside from a bored police force, apparently) really gives a shit if the guy was dealing cards or making drinks at an “underground speakeasy”.