VISUAL ART
MUSEUMS AND ART CENTERS
BELLEVUE ART MUSEUM
301 Bellevue Square, 425-454-3322.
FIRST DESCENT: ART AND ARTIFACTS FROM
SNOWBOARD CULTURE
Subculture comes to the mall, this time as art. This exhibition examines the snowboard aesthetic beyond the baggy-pants thing. Through April 22.
CENTER ON CONTEMPORARY ART
65 Cedar St, 728-1980.
JERRY PETHICK: OUT OF THE CORNER OF AN EYE
Pethick, a Canadian artist whose installations spin out ideas about seeing and perception, is setting up revised versions of mixed-media installations he has made over the last 20 years. He employs a variety of optic lenses in his work, so that background and foreground and depth of vision are all called into question, making a walk through the gallery like a day at the science museum. Opening reception Sat March 25, 7:30 pm, admission $7. Through April 29.
CONSOLIDATED WORKS
410 Terry Ave N, 860-5245.
*EVIDENCE
For a good 20 years now, the art world has been going back and forth on the question of whether or not graffiti is art. Tagging is an act both aggressive and sentimental, a mark (however impermanent) that an artist has been in a place. Most people consider graffiti a criminal act rather than a craft, but does work have to be shown in a gallery (or, for that matter, be legal) to be art? Here’s a chance to see graffiti in a different context: In this new exhibition, regional graffiti artists have created site-specific installations in the ConWorks space, so that we can see the evidence up close. Through April 30.
FRYE ART MUSEUM
704 Terry Ave, 622-9250.
DONALD BARTON: AN AMERICAN ABROAD
It’s a vanished event, or at least a changed one — the Grand Tour, a young man’s Wanderjahr around Europe before settling down. These days it’s likely to be undertaken with a backpack and a Eurorail pass, a somewhat less-romantic undertaking. Donald Barton was a painter, and the snapshots of his 1928 trip have the added allure of his good eye. Barton focused his attention to architecture, and later turned those photographs into paintings. Through April 9.
THIS TRANQUIL LAND: HUDSON RIVER PAINTINGS
FROM THE HERSEN COLLECTION
In the mid 1800s, a loosely formed group of artists concentrated their talents on representing the transcendentalist’s Nature with a capital “N.” It’s a kind of romanticism we wouldn’t be able to get away with these days; the wink-and-nod would be implicit. Also, those guys could make a canvas glow. Through April 16.
LISA ZWERLING
Zwerling’s paintings reference old themes — the seasons, man’s relationship to nature — and make use of traditional painting techniques. The mythical creatures who populate the works, however, come distinctly out of the New Age. Through May 7.
HENRY ART GALLERY
15th Ave NE at NE 41st St, 543-2280.
BANKS IN PINK AND BLUE
Genetics, aesthetics, and ethics — it’s a frequent theme in work shown in alternative galleries, and now it’s at the Henry, in an installation by Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle. Here, mixed media is an understatement: Manglano-Ovalle uses sperm banks, a liquid nitrogen tank, and abstract DNA portrait photographs, as well as the more prosaic video and audio, to ask his unanswerable questions. This is the second of three in the series Future Forward: Projects in New Media. Through April 16.
*SAM TAYLOR-WOOD
The first in a series of video installations called “The Henry Collects: Video,” which will bring to the gallery works by well-known artists in a still fairly unknown — and poorly understood — field. Taylor-Wood is a British artist with the most spot-on resume (Turner Prize, Sensation), whose work tends to focus on psychological, but unspecified moments; she shows events in which narrative and emotion are cut off from each other and from the viewer, provoking a simultaneous curiosity and discomfort. Hysteria, the eight-minute video running at the Henry, shows a woman moving through emotions from real laughter to utter dejection without skipping a beat. Through April 23.
SHIFTING GROUND: TRANSFORMED VIEWS OF THE
AMERICAN LANDSCAPE
It’s such a ubiquitous subject, and so often maligned. Here’s a show that makes a gallant effort to show how landscape portrayal has changed over time, and by implication, how our attitude toward the land has been altered in the process. Certainly an exhibition that encompasses both Albert Bierstadt’s Manifest Destiny–like paintings and Robert Smithson’s earthworks can make such a jump in perspective visible. Through Aug 20.
SEATTLE ART MUSEUM
100 University St, 654-3100.
PORCELAIN STORIES: FROM CHINA TO EUROPE
A kind of survey course in porcelain, which of course ends up being a lesson in the movement of culture over trade routes. A very complete exhibition, with works on loan from all sorts of public and private collections. Through May 7.
SEATTLE COLLECTS LICHTENSTEIN
Seattle’s most established art institution gives over space to one of the artists who, along with Warhol, most challenged the idea of originality and what is acceptable as real art. Now he’s dead and an icon, and the works shown here are largely drawn from local collections. Through May 14.
SEATTLE ASIAN ART MUSEUM
1400 E Prospect St, Volunteer Park, 654-3100.
PAUL HORIUCHI
One of the Northwest’s venerable masters is remembered in an exhibition spanning his work from the 1930s through his death in 1999. Through June 11. See also under “Events.”
WORLDS OF FANTASY: CHINESE SHADOW PUPPETS
Volunteer Park hosts more than 70 puppets from the 19th century. The majority of the exhibited works come from the collection of Theodore Bodde, who purchased the extraordinary objects while in Beijing in the 1930s. Chinese textiles with related themes will accompany. Through April 2.
WRIGHT EXHIBITION SPACE
407 Dexter Ave N, 264-8200.
*THE WRIGHT COLLECTION
Virginia and Bagley Wright have rehung their foundation’s exhibit space, devoting one gallery entirely to their great collection of ’60s and ’70s color field paintings, and introducing a large David Salle oil and the John Baldessari piece Two Onlookers and Tragedy to the mix. Other highlights include a Robert Longo, Eric Fischl, a huge Warhol Rorschach, and Jules Olitski’s Thigh Smoke. Open-ended run.
CONTINUING EXHIBITIONS
APPROACH NEW ART
As deluged as we are with bad news from the art world — closing galleries, studio-less artists — the opening of a new gallery is a major event. Well, this may or may not qualify as an event (the press release was so vague as to be virtually useless), but Matthew Lennon (one of the featured artists) is a tireless arts activist and interesting painter, so go anyway. Other featured artists are Karen Kosoglad and Deborah Walker. Mary Vitold Gallery, 110 S Washington St, 624-9336. Through April 1.
DEBORAH ASCHHEIM
Not surprisingly, given its location in an architecture firm, Suyama Space tends to devote its exhibitions to work that investigates space itself, whether through surface (as with Victoria Haven’s recent rubber-band drawings) or through sound (like the Trimpin installation last summer). Next up is a site-specific work from New York-artist Aschheim. She’ll fill the gallery with the kind of objects she’s known for: light-reflective, ethereal, biological items clustering on the floor and ceiling. This is the kind of show that changes a space. Suyama Space, 2324 Second Ave, 256-0809. Through May 7.
GLENN BARR, MARK DANCEY
From the mean streets of Detroit, two bold (in both style and attitude) artists. Barr has a penchant for really stacked women and B-movie scenes, painted with the care and technique of the Old Masters. Dancey is perhaps best known for being the genius behind Motorbooty magazine; he approaches his controversial topics in the same kind of style as the comics he publishes. Roq la Rue Gallery, 2224 Second Ave, 374-8977. Through April 7.
MARGARETHA BOOTHSMA
You-are-there landscapes that combine photography and paint with sand, branches, and leaves. Linda Hodges Gallery, 410 Occidental Ave S, 624-3034. Through April 1.
*KRISTIN CAMMERMEYER
This exhibition of landscapes and glowing houses packs a sucker punch. You admire the skill and painterly touch of Cammermeyer’s Wyeth-like paintings of her native Virginia, until you realize that most of the images are of tract housing and lifeless suburban houses. Her angle is the change wrought in the landscape of her home town, and the works’ titles leave no doubt as to her perspective: Collonade Terrace, Brought to You by Oakhill Properties; Future Site of Wolftrap Meadows; Innovation Avenue. Once this becomes clear, even the neutral tones take on an unearthly hue, and the few unspoiled areas displayed here become even more poignant. Objects of contempt, beautifully painted. Jeffrey Moose Gallery, 1333 Fifth, 467-6951. Through March 25.
CHRIST2000
This pseudonymous environmentalist artist’s solo show, Otherwise Landfill, features collages and sculptures made out of found trash, particularly stuff that’s unrecyclable by conventional means. Discarded objects including gum wrappers, bread bags, soymilk boxes, and fragments of matchbooks are fashioned into simple, smart, tight compositions that evoke everything from the still lifes of Picasso or the landscapes of Stuart Davis to the tiny, potent sculptures of Richard Tuttle. The Little Theatre, 608 19th Ave E, 329-2629. Through April 23.
WILLIAM CUMMING
One of the lauded “Northwest School” is having an exhibition of recent paintings, which are loose, colorful, and lightly narrative. Woodside/Braseth Gallery, 1533 Ninth Ave, 622-7243. Through April 4.
DRAWN FROM
Featuring work by local Asian American artists, and including Mark Takamichi Miller, Doris Jew, and Gerard Tsutakawa. The exhibition quite happily declines to come to any conclusion about similarities among the artists’ work or experiences. Commencement Art Gallery, Ninth and Commerce, Tacoma, 253-591-5341. Through April 28.
*TATIANA GARMENDIA
Compelling and dark, Garmendia’s drawings of x-rays ask new questions about surface, illusion, and depth in figurative work. Here, the artist as well as the machine has “invaded” the body; illustration of disease takes the place of character study. A mind-bending concept on paper. Phinney Center Gallery, 6532 Phinney Ave N, 783-2244. Through March 31.
*GEOFF GARZA
Garza has organized his show around the idea of wabi-sabi (or, as he puts it, WABI-SABI!), which, loosely explained, celebrates the beauty and symbolic virtue of the ordinary and imperfect. This may be modesty, or it may be strategic understatement; Garza’s paintings are exuberant color abstractions, with paint burnished into paper and panel. Ballard Fetherston Gallery, 818 E Pike St, 322-9440. Through April 4.
BOB HAOZOUS
Installations and portraits by the Native American artist. One installation, Separation, was first shown at the 1999 Venice Biennale. Sacred Circle Gallery of American Indian Art, Discovery Park, 285-4425. Through March 26.
ANDREW HARE
Hare’s paintings zero in on small urban architectural details — a window ledge, a weathered door — so that in the end, they document a disappearing aesthetic in the slickening city. Kimzey Miller Gallery, 1225 Second Ave, 682-2339. Through March 31.
INTRODUCTIONS 2000
Strictly speaking, they’re not really introductions; many of the 10 artists exhibiting this month are associated with prestigious Seattle and Portland galleries. Nonetheless, a good lineup, including Elizabeth Jameson and Donnabelle Casis. With Close Observation Room, an installation by James Jaxxa. Seattle Art Museum Rental Sales Gallery, 1334 First Ave, 654-3240. Through April 8.
*KEN KELLY
Three large-scale paintings from the much-awarded Kelly. His work is somehow formal and organic at the same time; Kelly uses mirror-image stencils to create shapes that are large and monumental on the one hand, but serpentine and movement-implying on the other. If that weren’t enough, the surfaces of the paintings are amazingly worked. Howard House, 2017 Second Ave, 256-6399. Through April 1.
TODD KEPHART
In this exhibition entitled Glass Children (after the precocious family created by J. D. Salinger), Kephart stages tableaux of events usually lost by the march of time — fleeting moments of insecurity, angst, and the simple mundane. FotoCircle Gallery, 216 Alaskan Way S, 624-2645. Through April 1.
LAYNE KLEINART
Paintings and prints by the Seattle artist. Atelier 31, 123 Lake St S, #102, Kirkland, 425-576-1477. Through April 11.
KÄTHE KOLLWITZ
No one equaled Kollwitz (who died in 1945) for emotionally turbulent images; given the period the German-born artist lived through, it’s hardly surprising that her work is shot through with suffering. This exhibition of prints is a fine introduction to Kollwitz’s world. Davidson Galleries, 313 Occidental Ave S, 624-6700. Through April 29.
*STEPHEN LYONS
Desire, disease, decay — these are the essential elements of Lyons’ vocabulary. This show consists of gorgeous chromogenic prints of the artist’s assemblages, which use obscure and enigmatic objects floated in a deep amber resin. These are artifacts which don’t give up their meaning on first glance. Pound Gallery, 1216 10th Ave, 323-0557. Through March 31.
TIM MARSDEN, KURT GEISSEL
Two idiosyncratic artists team up for a show called Strange Apothecary. Two Bells Tavern, 2313 Fourth Ave, 441-3050. Through March 31.
LYN MCCRACKEN
Landscape photography created during several trips to Cuba. These large-format prints of abandoned places have a formidable silence to them. Baas Gallery, 2703 E Madison, 324-4742. Through April 29.
GEOFF MCFETRIDGE
Not your ordinary textiles show. Rock Machine is an exhibition of McFetridge’s silk-screened and lithographed fabrics, and they are never what you expect. A red brick background is patterned with suburban signifiers (kids on bikes, lampposts repeating into the distance); the camouflage base of Stoner Forest hides all sorts of sketchy activity. Houston, 907 E Pike St, 860-7820. Through April 29.
JOHN MCQUEEN
McQueen is a basket maker, and he works in traditional basketry materials (willow and waxed string), but this is an appealingly odd exhibition of self-portraits. Each figure is four feet tall and hollow — a perfect container, in a way, for anything you care to put in it. Elliott Brown Gallery, 619 N 35th St, #101A, 547-9740. Through May 13.
MENAGERIE
Seven West Coast artists take on animal imagery. Kirkland Arts Center, 620 Market St, Kirkland, 425-822-7161. Through April 18.
DEBORAH MERSKY, SHIRLEY SCHEIER
There’s a homey feel at Esther Claypool this month. Mersky shows patterned block prints inspired by 18th- and 19th-century textiles; Scheier’s drawings incorporate ink, gouache, and collage in their investigation of everyday items. Neither artist is afraid of patterning and decoration. Esther Claypool Gallery, 617 Western Ave, 264-1586. Through April 1.
MIKE NIPPER
Recent paintings by the nice boy behind the reception desk at The Stranger. Re-bar, 1114 Howell St, 233-9873. Through April 14.
ROSY
All about the color pink, in all its myriad associations, from girlishness to kitsch. This exhibition, curated by Laurie Cinotto and Stephanie Carlson, includes work by Nicola Vruwink, Yvette Franz, Mariam Stephan, and the curators. SOIL Artist Cooperative, 1205 Pike, 264-8061. Through April 2.
ITALO SCANGA
There’s almost nothing Scanga doesn’t do — painting, sculpture, ceramics, prints, glass — and he really gets around. This month, the prolific Italian artist has a painting retrospective; next month, who knows? Bryan Ohno Gallery, 155 S Main, 667-9572. Through March 31.
SELF/DEVELOPED
Five artists exhibiting for the first time in Seattle show works that incorporate photographs of themselves. The results are as wide-ranging as the mandate is specific. Eyre/Moore Gallery, 913 Western Ave, 624-5596. Through April 1. Reviewed this issue.
MICHAEL SPAFFORD
The starting point for some of Spafford’s new paintings is the Greek myth about Uranus and Cronus. It’s a tabloid-quality story — castration, cannibalism, sex — and the work is appropriately vivid and vigorous. Who says the classics are boring? Francine Seders Gallery, 6701 Greenwood Ave N, 782-0355. Through March 26.
SUBSTANCE
Sculpture by four very good local artists: Leslie Clague, Sarah Chase, Patrick Holderfield, and Jesse Paul Miller. Washington State Convention Center atrium. Through March 26.
DONALD SULTAN
New York-artist Sultan’s recent paintings and works on paper are big and bold and, well, big and bold. Take a flower, blow it up in deeply saturated colors, and it suddenly becomes something else. Winston Wächter, 403 Dexter Ave N, 652-5855. Through April 1.
MARK TAYLOR
Nudes and landscapes in acrylic on masonite and china board. Trapeze Gallery, 1130 34th Ave , 329-3363. Through April 1.
TOM OF FINLAND
Erotic art in honor of Washington State Leather Pride Week. Tom of Finland’s iconic gay men will be on display for a week, and bookended with events. On Sun March 26 at 8 pm, a formal Black (leather) and Tails event opens the exhibition. A discussion about erotic art will take place on Tues March 28 at 7 pm, and a cocktail party will close the show on April 1 at 9 pm. Admission for these events is $15, $5, and $15 respectively. Proceeds benefit the Tom of Finland foundation, which works toward the preservation of gay culture. Animal’s Espresso, 550 12th Ave. Through April 1.
THREE GENERATIONS OF MEXICAN MASTERS
A sampling of Mexican art comes to Tacoma, thanks to the collaboration of a couple of cultural and bureaucratic entities. Still, here in the restrained Northwest, the work (including some by Diego Rivera) brings a certain needed heat. Random Modern Gallery, 1102 Court D, Tacoma, 253-383-5659. Through March 31.
*DAVID TUPPER
Recent paintings from Tupper, who makes vigorous use of color, layering architectural shapes with silhouetted stenciled figures that reappear from piece to piece. Ballard Fetherston Annex, 307 Pike, 322-9440. Through April 5.
*FRIESE UNDINE
Undine’s paintings resemble nothing so much as propaganda posters, but whereas propaganda overtly announces its meaning, these paintings are as cryptic as they are — weirdly — beautiful. William Traver Gallery, 110 Union St, Second Floor, 587-6502. Through April 2. Reviewed this issue.
ALICE WHEELER, JOHN BUCK
Most of us know Wheeler for her grunge photographs; her images of Kurt Cobain and other musicians were among the first to emerge as the scene defined itself. Her current show moves away from personalities and toward landscape, but she brings the same grittiness to them. Beauty is an option, but not the only one; Wheeler turns her sharp eye to urban landscapes as well. Buck exhibits folk-arty sculptures of wood and copper, as well as woodblock rubbings. Greg Kucera Gallery, 212 Third Ave S, 624-0770. Through April 1. Reviewed this issue.
JUNKO YAMAMOTO
The exhibition is entitled Shunyata, which is a Buddhist term that references emptiness and temporariness. Yamamoto’s paintings reflect this concept through empty thought- balloons in fields of saturated color and heavily worked surfaces. The implication is thought over speech — a refreshing idea these days. King County Arts Commission, 506 Second, Room 200, 296-7580. Through March 31.
*AMIR ZAKI
Zaki favors empty spaces in Los Angeles at night, and the resulting photographs are dark and eerily quiet, relieved only sporadically by artificial light. The parking lots and apartment houses seem almost like stages, awaiting even the smallest burst of activity. James Harris Gallery, 309A Third Ave S, 903-6220. Through April 2. Reviewed this issue.
EVENTS
PAUL HORIUCHI CELEBRATION
The venerable painter and collagist remembered through slides and talks. Participants include Martha Kingsbury, Professor of Art History at UW, writer Kazuko Nakane, and Paul Horiuchi Jr. Sat March 25 at 3 pm, in the Stimson Auditorium of the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park. A short reception will follow. To RSVP call 654-3182, or e-mail GraceM@seattleartmuseum.org.
WHAT’S GOING ON IN CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS?
A lecture by Dr. Robert Skotheim (president of the Huntington Library in California) on the future of museums and other cultural centers. What with the threat to artists and small galleries everywhere, we might as well start worrying about the big guys. Sat March 25 at 2 pm at the Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Ave. Admission is free.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR ARTISTS
CALL FOR ARTISTS
Seattle artists are invited to submit work for the Fifth Annual Juried Greenwood/Phinney Artwalk. Send three to five slides labeled with name, title, date, medium, and size, along with a resume, artist statement, and labeled slide sheet, to Greenwood Art Council, 8515 Greenwood Ave N, Seattle, WA 98103. There is a $7 screening fee. For more information, call 684-4096.
VIDEO ARTISTS
Submit your short films for the Tacoma Art Museum’s “After Hours” party. Send a non-returnable VHS tape to TAM, attention Michelle Bufano, 1123 Pacific Ave, Tacoma, WA 98402-4399, or call 253-272-4258 ext. 3007 for more information. Deadline is April 17.