Category Archives: Contemporary Art

  1. Rita Robillard Time and Place

      Nesting from the series Flower Serenade: A Gift of Time 2021   “Rita Robillard Time and Place”, Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Salem Oregon Tuesday to Saturday noon – 5pm Until March 25, 2023   Rita Robillard was a colleague of mine in the art department at Washington State University in Pullman in the […]

  2. The Stonehenge Exhibition at the British Museum

    Right after we arrived in London, we went to the Stonehenge exhibition at the British Museum. I got free press passes for me, Henry and Henry’s sister, Imogen.   There were so many amazing aspects to this display that it is impossible to convey the depth and extent of the experience. Not to mention the […]

  3. Morgan Peterson on Greed, Power, Control and Murder

          “Born of our Culture: American Excess” a recent installation at Method Gallery by Morgan Peterson tells it like it is in our contemporary moment. Morgan Petersen has long been fascinated by true crime and the amplifying role that media plays in our culture starting with the 1969 Charles Manson murders My fascination […]

  4. Ghost of a Dream and Elizabeth ‘Mumbet’ Freeman

    Ghost of a Dream and Elizabeth Mumbet Freedom at the new MassArtArt Museum

  5. Defusing Radical Alice Neel

          Observe these two portraits On the right is the feature image of the Metropolitan Museum of Art current exhibition of the work of Alice Neel “People Come First” It is identified as a portrait of “Elenka”1936,  about which there is no information except that she “presumably numbered among the several bohemians with […]

  6. Grief and Grievance at the New Museum in New York

    Grief and Grievance at the New Museum demonstrates the many ways that artist can address grief while collectively suggesting grievance, the resistance to injustice.

  7. Selma Waldman More Important Than Ever in 2021

    “Lust for power and territory is the same lust that kills man, women, children and the land itself” Selma Waldman 2002   What would Seattle’s deeply political artist Selma Waldman think of our current catastrophes?   On a bitter winter day in January 2008, I accompanied Selma Waldman to the last demonstration that she attended […]

  8. Marela Zacarias at Mad Art brings us the Temple of the Feathered Serpent in Xochicalco

        In case  you are yearning for a trip to get away from our crazy election or now to celebrate it, go to Mad Art (325 Westlake Avenue N, open Thurs, Fri, Sat noon to 5 and by appointment necessary) Marela Zacarías  brings us the Temple of the Feathered Serpent in Xochicalco, a Mesoamerican […]

  9. South African superstar photographer Zanele Muholi at the Seattle Art Museum

        Somnyama Ngonyama: Hail the Dark Lioness South African superstar artist Zanele Muholi bursts out of the Jacob Lawrence and Gwen Knight corner gallery at the Seattle Art Museum: “I’m reclaiming my blackness.” Their exhibition “Somnyama Ngonyama: Hail the Dark Lioness,” spills into four adjoining spaces.   First, we see the huge signature self-portrait […]

  10. Mary Coss’s “Groundswell” Tells About Salination and Climate Change

          During a recent residency, Mary Coss was growing barnacles on Willapa Bay, the second largest estuary in the United States (over 260 square miles!)   The artist described the process to me in detail:  first she coated a wire mesh with cement snags to attract the barnacles, then dragged it over an […]

  11. “In the Fields of Empty Days: Intersections of Past and Present in Iranian Art,”

    “In the Fields of Empty Days: The Intersection of Past and Present in  Iranian Art” at The Los Angeles County Museum  is a show on a crucial topic. Although much of the work is contemporary, note that the title does not say that. Tirafkan’s image speaks volumes of the intersection of past and present that […]

  12. William Kentridge “Triumphs and Laments” in Boston

    William Kentridge’s “Triumphs and Laments,” in an exhibition in Boston based on his 2016 giant procession and reverse graffiti along the Tiber in Rome.

  13. Art and Bombs

    August 6 a day to commemorate the most horrifying act of all time, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I am giving you the work of several artists who address these acts from contrasting perspectives as a response to the horrifying comments coming from the President and perhaps for more work to be created on this subject.

  14. Benny Andrews: The Bicentennial Series predicts America Today *

    Benny Andrews Bicentennial Series created in the early 1970s predicts the disfunction of our nation today.

  15. Mona Hatoum at the Tate Modern

    Mona Hatoum overtly expresses violence in her early performance works, then through metaphor with minimal materials she brings that sense of threat into our own bodies and lives.

  16. Break Free From Fossil Fuels Pacific Northwest Anacortes

    Break Free From Fossil Fuels Pacific Northwest a coming together of more than a thousand people, on land and sea, to insist on working together to end the plundering the earth.

  17. “Ai Wei Wei Fault Line” at the San Juan Islands Museum of Art

    San Juan Islands Museum of Art is a wonderful new venue for contemporary art with a dynamic director. Here I write about the Ai Wei Wei and Goya exhibitions along with the installation by Dana Lynn Louis

  18. Walid Raad Scratching on Things I Could Disavow

    Walid Raad Scratching on Things I Disavow at the Museum of Modern Art probes the interconnections of art, money, history, in the Middle East, focusing on Saadiyat (Happiness) Island in Dubai.

  19. Art AIDS America at the Tacoma Art Museum on World AIDS Day

    On this World AIDS Day, I offer a review of the comprehensive exhibition at the Tacoma Art Museum, Art AIDS America. It includes 127 works, many media, and a thesis that artists who addressed AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s permanently changed the course of American art by demonstrating strategies to address political issues.

  20. Nato Thompson Seeing Power, Art and Activism in the 21st Century

    My Review of Nato Thompson’s Seeing Power, Art and Activism in the 21st Century. Thompson is curator of Creative Time.

  21. A visit to the home of contemporary Turkish Artist Tomur Atagök

    A visit to the home of contemporary Turkish artist Tomur Atagök provided me with new insights into her paintings and collages about politics and nature.

  22. QUIET INSIGHTS INTO STRUGGLE AND JOY AWAIT YOU AT THE WING

    the subtle and beautiful exhibition “Constructs” at the Wing Luke Museum features interactive installations by Asian Pacific Women Artists ranging from a canvas house to calligraphy carried into the landscapes of Seattle. Each installation is both personal and universal in their implications.

  23. After Midnight: Contemporary Art in India At the Queens Museum of Art

    After Midnight: Contemporary Art in India 1947/1997 curated by Dr, Arshila Lokhandwala offers a sophisticated dialogue of contemporary India with global modernism, postmodernism and current issues.