Rita Robillard’s beautiful exhibition

Well I decided it was time to get personal. This is Henry and me sitting inside Rita Robillard‘s installation Lookout/Outlook about fire look outs. Well it isn’t really about fire lookouts, its a statement about the environment paired with an homage to a lost friend. You can see the glowing images set in the midst of dark backgrounds in the installation in the background. Those glowing images are sunsets photographed from fire look out towers, where Rita stayed with her then partner Doug in the 1990s. Doug recently died and this exhibition is a type of homage to those special experiences she had with him. The darkness of the ground is both a darkness of the environment, the shining sunsets, the light of love, but also the life and death of her own relationship, as well as the forest itself. There are a lot of layers here. Robillard has created subtle, rich surfaces with experimental types of printmaking on a large scale. The works are technically subtle, but the overall effect envelopes us. Outside this enclosed space were other images that related to the threatened environment.

Rita and I go all the way back to Gramercy Park in New York City, a beaux art park from the 19th century, which is now a precious piece of real estate with most of its old trees gone, as well as its hedges and its charm. When we lived there it was an ordinary park, rather useless for young children to play in, too much gravel and no playground equipment. We made up games in the dirt about cowboys and indians, but were usually chased away.

Rita and I have had long conversations about life in New York City as our lives have intersected in so many places since then ( including the rusitc, rural Pullman Washington.). We are both marked as New Yorkers for life. The edge of nature/culture is sharp for those of us who grew up in New York. We feel its preciousness, its vulnerability acutely because we had so little nature in New York. I remember walking around the park on the sharp iron spikes that protected the park.
Here is a picture of Rita and me in front of a piece about Gramercy Park,

Art and Activism

This last weekend I went to two amazing fundraisers that both featured art and activism. The first was a collaboration between Chaya, an organization that helps domestic violence victims from South Asia that live in the Seattle area. and Tasveer, a non profit that sponsors South Asian independent film festivals . They presented films, dance, non fiction readings, and an amazing performance piece called Yoni Ki Baat based on the Vagina Monologues from a South Asian perspective. Ten woman told their stories with dignity, drama, and humor, ranging from childhood traumas to adult dating.

The second fundraiser was CARA, Communitites against rape and abuse. They also emphasized the intersection of art and activism, with hip hop performers, many of them quite young offering inspiring lyrics about their lives and the street and their losses. The audience was mainly African American, but the keynote speaker, Andrea Smith, was a Native American activist and she said CARA was also organizing around justice for Indian boarding school victims. The boarding schools introduced sexual abuse and drug abuse into native communities. Andrea is the author of INCITE: Women of Color Against VIolence.

The contrast between the two groups was dramatic. The first, Chaya, featured only women performers, many of them elegantly dressed although one was a Tibetan transgender who wore a suit and necktie. But the performances were on a stage with sophisticated projections, sound and music.

The second group was very grass roots. We met in a room that felt like an old defrocked store with wooden floors and big windows. We had a wonderful dinner and everyone was relaxed and chatting. The performers wore various low key clothes like the street related low pants look.

But the biggest difference was for Chaya the focus in the performances was on domestic violence related to specific South Asian cultural practices and prejudices. The dance performance focused on the selling of young girls into the sex trade. The dancer adapted traditional Asian dance to tell the story of one young girl who was sold into sex, but then was able to escape.

At the CARA event the focus was on communities in a more public sense, the problems of instiutitonalized violence, jails, police, and gangs. We have had a lot of gang murders in Seattle lately.

Both of them were reaching out to the community though. And both embraced young people being given a way to express themselves through creative words, music, dance, film. In both cases we saw the power of art to give a means of expression to people.

Both are great groups.

Basia Irland at Evergreen State College

The Nisqually Watershed Active and Proposed Restorations

Basia Irland and the musical group Shooting Stars

This is a carved ice book with elderberry seeds by Basia Ireland

I want to report on the stunning exhibition by Basia Irland at the newly re-opened gallery at The Evergreen State College.

Basia is from New Mexico. She has been the fortunate recipient of a Tom Rye Harville award at The Evergreen State College that has made possible “A Gathering of Waters, The Nisqually River Source to Sound,” Basia’s special focus is water in its every aspect. The Nisqually Gathering Project has lasted a year and it is not yet finished. There will be a final ceremony when the gathered water is returned to the river. She worked with students, scientists, biologists, children, all sorts of people who live along the Nisqually River in Central Washington State. Each one gathered a little water in a container and wrote in a log book about their experiences of the river, the water, as they gathered it.

I confess I was a little dubious about this project when I first heard about it. I was afraid it was a little too grassroots, literally and figuratively. I was afraid it was a kind of fake ritual based idea. But what really works is that the project is about water, it included scientists and ecologists and park rangers. It created connections with people and water, and educates us about the crucial place that water has in our lives. We see the Nisqually River watershed on a map, not the state highway system!

The Nisqually is particularly appropriate for such an endeavor: it starts at Mt Rainier, travels through various tributaries and a national park, national forest, military reservation, and finally ends in a delta on Puget Sound that is a bird sanctuary. Not very long ago ( 164 years to be exact) this land belonged to the Nisqually Indians. They still havesections of their reservation along the river, although much of it is now controlled by the military base at Fort Lewis. They have fought hard for their fishing rights and they are still fishing for salmon there. I did another blog entry about them. They are also collaborating with whites in restoring the river.

The exhibition documented the gathering of waters, as well as groups of student works from The Evergreen State College who made their own art work, or students in environmental sciences who studied the ecosystems.It included their displays, video made by Basia of the project, and her own art work, which is books made from the materials she gathered along the river such as barnacles and sand.

It also included videos of her ice books. The ice books have been frozen with seeds embedded in them in her freezer, then carved into books. They are placed in the water and they dissolve. The plant seeds are good for natural plant growth on the banks of the river and hopefully will land and germinate.

Basia is a poet and an artist. Perhaps her biggest contradiction is that she has such a strong sense of aesthetics that even when she is representing pathogens like e coli as a reference to water borne illnesses, she makes them beautiful. Her videos and her art work are so carefully crafted aesthetically, that it almost gets in the way of her crucial political engagement. Her gentle personality is also subtle. How can such a lovely person change the world? Only through the power of her concern about the planet. At the opening she thanked everyone and then reminded us all that someone dies every 8 seconds from a preventable water borne illness. She is urgent and intense under her gentle facade.

The opening included a dedication of the gallery by Skykomish elder Delbert and music by the Shooting Stars, a young group of native musicians who write music in response to the sound of water.

What I really enjoyed is that Basia is truly interdisciplinary in her outreach, there were science professors, biologists, a park ranger (photographed here, this is Marne McArdle at the opening from Mt Rainier National Park), and each one had their own story, their own relationship to the work. The students also eagerly recounted their experiences. This is a successful endeavor, when everyone is involved and cares.

At the same time the exhibition is a major presentation of the artists work. She included work from earliers projects. More about that soon.

No More Seattle Post Intelligencer

I am too sad to say anything much. Our great paper has been done in by the Hearst corporation who wanted to put it online, by lots of people who read it online already, by commuters who drive (nobody has mentioned how using mass transit means you read the newspaper everyday, as I do), by young people who love their electronic gadgets, but older people who love their electronic gadgets. By Craig’s list ( that’s a big one), and by so many other forces. So many great writers are now online alone including my friend the art critic, Regina Hackett.

Coffee Strong GI Coffee House and Counseling

Coffee Strong is a GI Coffee House near Fort Lewis Military Base between Tacoma and Olympia. It is a place for a good cup of coffee and great conversation about war, resistance, how to know your rights whether you are in the military or not! They gave me a card that documented 51 people who had the courage to resist  ” Support the Troops who refuse to fight”

Kentridge Return of Ulyssses Opera

I have already previewed this amazing work. The full production was absolutely fabulous.
How lucky Seattle is that Stephen Stubbs decided to found Pacific Operaworks in Seattle and to bring us this phenomenal performance.
The Monteverdi opera is, of course, the story of Ulysses return to Ithaca after all of his adventures where he was waylaid by various beautiful women and natural disasters, wayward gods, and adventures ( Homer’s Odyssey). The Opera was presented by extraordinary singers. The baroque era is clean and melodic compared to later opera. The singers were mostly paired with a large wooden puppet for each character, ( except Ulysses who had two), Penelope was the star, seen here with the brilliant singer Laura Pudwell and her “handler” , then there was Telemachus, Ulysses son, Zeus and Eumaeus ( a shepherd), and there was also Athena, Neptune, Time, and more
The baroque music was performed on stage with amazing period instruments including the chitarrone played by Stephen Stubbs. For an informed review on the music see the Post Intelligencer writer R.M. Campbell The stage design itself was Kentridge’s idea, it was a seventeenth century theater.
Behind them was Kentridge’s animation. It was brilliantly correlated with the action on stage. There were flowers growing when love was sung about, body parts and medical imaging – including colonscopy, open heart surgery, sonograms) for the dying Ulysses in the center of the stage ( a Kentridge addition to put him in Johannesburg, South Africa), images of flowing water for the wandering Ulysses evoked by Penelope and other life forces. When Penelope was sewing we had Kentridge lines at strong diagonals moving around, when she sang of love plants turned into bodies, hearts turned into plants; lovers were blotted out when Penelope sang about the brevity of love, when the courtiers tried to woo her a scale appeared with gold on one side and a heart on the other. I loved the scenes when Ulysses was travelling and the animation traversed cities, landscapes, Greek temples, as he swayed in front of them, utterly convincing, like those old movies when people were in cars, and the landscape moved behind them.
It all worked incredibly well. He did finally get home, inspite of Penelope’s doubts. In Kentridge’s staging, the two re united over the dying Ulysses in a hospital in Johannesberg. So it fit with his performance. No matter what, we want to hold onto our dreams and ideals, and carry them on our backs forever. It was of course obvious that Penelope would ask after the joyous reunion
“where have you been big O?” but the play ended first.
The action of the puppets was unbelievably subtle, utterly convincing as movement of actors.
The singers were stunning.
Don’t Miss It!!

William Kentridge takes Seattle by storm

This week we were on the cultural map with a performance by William Kentridge on Monday and an opera by Kentridge on Wednesday.
At the Henry Art Gallery, the performance, “I am not me, the horse is not mine”had its North American Debut. Naturally, I wasn’t allowed to take pictures. This is a picture of a related idea, as you will see. I did take a few notes
The stage set echoed his studio, with a simple scaffolding, a working wall, with pentimenti of work removed, and the artist running through sets of notes. Back projected on the studio wall appeared the artist himself, once, twice, three times, at various times. The real Kentridge sometimes seemed to chase off these other Kentridges, sometimes dictate to them while they took notes, sometimes bore them to tears, and sometimes collaborate with them, as when he threw his real notes away and his photographic double caught them.
He started out with Gogol’s The Nose from 1837 which was made into an opera by Shostakovich in 1928 at a critical transitional moment in the early Soviet Union, when creative thinkers were still allowed to work, just before the Stalinist era began. (Kentridge is actually going to present this opera next year)
He told some of the story ( one can’t help but notice that the artist has a prominent nose, and therefore perhaps is attracted to stories about disappearing and reappearing noses)
He went backwards to an earlier version a story in a story from the seventeenth century, then Don Quixote.
Meanwhile the wall also projected some of his “stone age animation” images, and such images as video footage of himself (already mentioned above) and him awake at four am with a busy mind. The title refers to cut out collage pieces that seemed to form a horse for us, and as it fell apart, we still saw horse forms.
Here are a few quotes, that I found provocative:
“how much of the outside world do we need inside us to make sense. And we cannot stop making a meaning from shape, even as it disappears we hang onto it. 

Trespassing in Bellingham Washington

One top image is by John Feoderov Totem Teddies, the bottom is by Tanis S’eilten, Blood for Shares.

This exhibition is only up until March 22. It is in the Whatcom Museum in Bellingham Washington. But what a great show. It includes all contemporary Native American art by John Feoderov, Tanis S’eilten ( two friends of mine whose work I really admire) as well as Roxanne Chinook, Ka’ili, Larry McNeil, Ramon Murillo . The works are quirky, funny and intensely political. Tanis addresses issues that relate to Alaskan natives, like the pollution from cruise ships, land grabbing then and now, and the corporate culture that was forced on native tribes in the first oil agreement for exploring the North Slope. Fedeorov is relentlessly mixing contemporary culture and religion, kitsch shamanism in works like the Office Shaman and Temple. The other artists all address environmental and cultural issues. It is so refreshing to go to show where all the artists have something to say and aren’t afraid to say it.

Garden and Cosmos Seattle Asian Art Museum

The work just above is Mahraj Bakhat Singh at the Jharokha Window of the Bakhat Mahal, 1735, 37 x 29 inches. You see the Maharaj seated in a window looking down to women who are dancing.
The work at the top is Jallandharnath and Princess Padmini Fly over King Padam’s Palace, 1830.29 x 37″ This is taken from Hindu stories.
These are huge paintings.

This is an astonishing exhibition We are so fortunate in Seattle to have extraordinary exhibitions come to our city. We have the ONLY WEST COAST SHOWING of this amazing group of GIANT Indian miniature paintings, that were discovered in a chest in the home of the current Maharajah of Jodhpur. Literally, in a closet, according to Debra Diamond the curator. And they re wrote the history of Indian miniature painting. The exhibition just goes on and on with fascinating revelations. I went to this exhibition an astonishing eight times, revelling in its intricate detailed renderings of trees, birds, flowers, fish, and of course, Hindu mythology and Kingly pursuits. The first room has the Maharajah apparently relaxing entirely amid the ministrations of dozens of beautiful women. Of course I thought, oh dear, how decadent.

But appearances are deceptive. According to expert historians, the kingdom at this time (1735)was going through massive transitions from security to insecurity, from the security of affiliation with the Muslim Mughal Empire, to the insecurity of being ordinary leaders of kingdoms with ( in the case of Marwar-Jodphur one of the Rajput Kingdoms in the North) few resources. The purpose of these miniatures is to “Maintain a Kingly Aura in Hard Times” . This is the phrase of Purnima Dhavan, an assistant professor of history at the University of Washington. She gave a brilliant lecture explaining this with big arrows sweeping across the state from various directions. Therefore we can see that these paintings, like those in “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”, are also government propaganda.

The next two sections of the show are using religion to promote kingly power, Hinduism, and Nath yoga “aesthetic” yogis ( apparently they were very well off). But it is actually all about power plays, how leaders use the people around them, or other people to stay in power. How do artists respond to this desire by painting the invisible, that is what we learn in the last sections of the show. We of the West look at the colors, shapes, lines and say how beautiful. But there is much more to it. According to Michael Shapiro these miniatures are about sharing emotional states called Rasas. anger, fury, fear, tranquility, eroticism, pity, compassion. Perhaps that is more obvious to us now that we have all seen Slumdog Millionaire.

I am addicted to this fascinating exhibition about a period of art that I know nothing about. At the end of March, the current Maharajah Gaj Singh II came to Seattle from Jodphur. He was a delightful and modest man. He has founded an international organization that addresses head injuries because his son suffered from a serious injury in a polo fall. He is also encouraging women’s education. His position is now what he calls “tribal” . Under the British Raj in the late 19th and early 20th century, the traditional status of Maharaja’s was diminished. Then after democracy, they were further moved out of the political system. But Maharajah Gaj Singh II is still a regal figure with a deep concern for the people in his region. He pointed at the painting of the installation of the Maharajah centuries ago and said he remembered the same event in his own life when he was four years old.
This piece is called Cosmic Oceans, 1823.

Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

Ok, here is a chestnut. What is wrong with me you might be asking. And there is that cliche in the title of the blog. Well believe it or not, the Yale Art Gallery is loaning some of their stellar works to the Seattle Art Museum and that is the title of the show. These are the original paintings of American art history and its partner, the myth making foundations of the Republic. This painting for example is pure myth as we were told. These people were never in the same room together. John Trumbull traveled all over to get portraits and then assembled them in the painting. Of of course, all white men with property and Jefferson biggest in the center, although he owned slaves, as did George Washington.
The whole show is a stunning group of works in every sense of the word. It includes the movement west, manifest destiny ( we even have the Golden Spike photograph of the connecting of the East and West railroad in Utah, of course the Yale people don’t know about our own Seattle based Zhi Lin, and his brilliant work commenting on the marginalization of the Chinese workers in the photograph.) And great political cartoons
The Yale American Art Collection contains almost primal benchmarks of the history of American art perhaps even the history of America on some level. It includes all the major artists, Homer, Bierstadt, Eakins, even Henry Ossawa Tanner, one of the outstanding African American artists.

But it is all propaganda, by privileged artists on the East Coast, painting for a privileged audiences.

And of course artists of color are represented only lightly, one African American walking stick, one chair made by a slave, a chest maybe by Mexicans, the painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner (who had to live abroad because of racism). There are also pencil drawings of the Amistad mutineers that are worth seeing in themselves. Amistad is the name of a ship on which the slaves rose up and killed the white crew. They were tried in New Haven in 1839 during the abolition movement and then sent back to Africa. The decorative arts are more “multicultural” in a way, intriguing sources in various places in the world.
And then there is the miniature with the interwoven hair of George Washington and Martha Washington. That was kind of astonishing, and you would miss it on the back of the painted miniatures unless you know what to look for.

It is intriguing to line this show up with Cosmos and Garden at the Asian Art Museum. That is also a mythmaking show, of maharajas in India. I will get to that next entry, but not tonight.