One room in Dawn Cerny’s magnificent, dark installation is for the
dead—rows of glaring taxidermied owls, a stand of funerary
flower arrangements, watercolor paintings of macabre T-shirts in
heavy-metal style, and 150-year-old photographs of dead infants with
their families. The other room is for the not-yet-dead—it’s a
waiting room. On the coffee table is a National Geographic
Traveler magazine. Its headline reads, wickedly, “Sudden
Journeys: Adventures in Last-Minute Travel.” (Henry Art Gallery,
15th Ave NE and NE 41st St, 543-2280. 11 am–5 pm, $10
general/free for students.)

Jen Graves (The Stranger’s former arts critic) mostly writes about things you approach with your eyeballs. But she’s also a history nerd interested in anything that needs more talking about, from male...