Category Archives: Uncategorized
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The New Deal Era and Today: Some comparisons
Recently references to the New Deal programs that provided federal assistance to painters, photographers ( Dorothea Lange being the most famous), and theater ( the shut down of Hallie Flanigan’s radical Theater Program), abound in our press these days, as the Corona Virus devastates the arts and the creative sphere. Even the conservative commentator David […]
This entry was posted on May 8, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Some Public Art in the Central District: Jimi Hendrix Park and the Shadow Wall
Scott Murase with Murase Associates designed the recently completed Shadow Wall sculpture in the Jimi Hendrix Park. The same firm beautifully designed the whole park to loosely suggest a guitar. From the entrance at 2400 S Massachusetts Ave, the Hendrix signature on the wall leads us on a purple (now faded to blue) swirling […]
This entry was posted on April 25, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
“Climate Change Alert through Arctic Aesthetics” by Jean Bundy, Art Critic based in Anchorage Alaska
This paper was presented in the International Art Critics Association session at the College Art Association February 2020 Jean Bundy is the Climate Change Envoy for AICA-INTERNATIONAL Introduction In the Eighteenth Century Captain Cook era, when exploration and desired acquisition of the Pacific Northwest was mapped and illustrated, it became evident that these locations had […]
This entry was posted on March 19, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
“Between Bodies”
Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington Oct 27, 2018 – Apr 28, 2019 The eight artists in “Between Bodies” take us from the air, to the minerals deep in the earth, the untamed rivers, the smoking forest, and finally to the sounds and microorganisms of the deep sea. They explore metaphors of sexual transformation, intraspecies […]
This entry was posted on March 14, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
John Akomfrah!
John Akomfrah’s “Future History” (until May 3, 2020) majestically fills three major galleries on the fourth floor of the Seattle Art Museum with video works projected on huge walls in separate darkened rooms. Brilliantly curated by Pamela McClusky, Curator of African and Oceanic Art, the three works span 500 years of history from the beginning […]
This entry was posted on March 13, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Hiawatha D, Christopher Shaw at the Northwest African American Museum, King Street again and the Henry Art Gallery
For the winter season here is Betty Shabazz X (Malcolm X’s wife): “We can say ‘Peace on Earth’ We can sing about it, preach about it, or pray about it, but if we have not internalized the mythology to make it happen inside us, then it will not be.” Betty Shabazz X is included in […]
This entry was posted on January 30, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Paula Stokes 1845 Memento Mori
Paula Stokes’s 1845 Memento Mori at Method Gallery featured a stunning “cairn” of one thousand eight hundred and forty-five hand blown glass potatoes. Each potato was sandblasted making it opaque, and each one was different. Paula Stokes is a native of Ireland who came here in 1993, but she still feels the draw of her […]
This entry was posted on December 10, 2019 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Donald Byrd Choreographer
“Dance as Provocation” Part I “Donald Byrd: The America That Is To Be” at the Frye Art Museum, October 12 – January 26. Susan Noyes Platt www.artandpolitics.com Donald Byrd transforms movement into resonant art. The world-renowned choreographer Donald Bryd has been based here in Seattle since 2002. In March 2016, I wrote here about his […]
This entry was posted on December 10, 2019 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Preston Singletary and Raven Skyriver
Preston Singletary (Tlingit, American) had a dazzling exhibition in Tacoma that recently closed called “Raven and the Box of Daylight.” The sculptures told the famous Raven story step by step with some full on installations, and special effects added in. We were mesmerized by the flow of the story and Preston’s presentation. “Before here was […]
This entry was posted on October 4, 2019 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Natalie Ball Betty Bowen Award Winner at the Seattle Art Museum
The Betty Bowen award winner Natalie Ball (Modoc, Klamath) has installed a provocative pair of works in the Seattle Art Museum . Ball is descended from the famous leader of the late nineteenth century Modoc resistance, Captain Jack. That heritage of warrior defiance is obvious here. You Mist, again (Rattle) and Re Run make up […]
This entry was posted on September 24, 2019 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
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 […]
This entry was posted on September 23, 2019 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Contemporary Art, Feminism, Uncategorized. -
A visit to the home of Alfredo Arreguín and Susan Lytle June 2019
Appropriately, a tangle of ivy hid the doorbell, but I knew I was in the right place because of the small pale red ceramic pig on the porch. As soon I entered the simple brick home of Alfredo Arreguín and Susan Lytle in North Seattle, I was immersed in a wonderland that echoed the jungles […]
This entry was posted on August 20, 2019 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Thank you Ludovic Morlot
Last night we heard Ludovic Morlot our brilliant music director of the Seattle Symphony conduct his final concert as director at Benaroya Hall, Richard Wagner, Claude Debussy and Leos Janacek. It was on the theme of love. It was a stunning concert that seem to be caressing us with one beautiful complex work after another. […]
This entry was posted on June 24, 2019 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
“Cecilia Vicuña: About To Happen” at the Henry Art Gallery
The Henry Art Gallery’s exhibition of Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña gives new life to found materials. On two walls and a large floor area, Vicuña placed over 100 Precarios, very small sculptures created from detritus gathered on beaches since the 1960s. Precarios refers to the delicacy of the tiny sculptures, but they also speak metaphorically […]
This entry was posted on June 11, 2019 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and N Scott Momaday
As we trash the planet Jaune Quick to See Smith in her paintings and N Scott Momaday in his books and poetry remind us of it and how to save ourselves.
This entry was posted on May 30, 2019 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Edgar Arceneaux at WaNaWari
WaNaWari is a new cultural center in the Central District. Located at 911 24th avenue on the site of Inye Wokoma’s grandmother’s house, it is “Reclaiming Space for Black Art and Stories.” Four people are collaborating: Inye Wokoma and Elisheba Johnson are African American artists affected by gentrification and displacement . Jill Freidberg and Rachel […]
This entry was posted on May 26, 2019 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Yəhaw̓!
Contemporary Indigenous Art in Seattle’s King Street Station Inaugural Exhibition Prepare to be delighted and overwhelmed! As you enter the huge exhibition of contemporary Indigenous art on view at the new art space ARTS at King Street Station, the first work you see is an accumulation of objects hanging over the front desk by Catherine […]
This entry was posted on May 7, 2019 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Inye Wokoma’s Amazing “Turning the Earth” at Liberty Bank Building
Inye Wokoma’s four mixed media art works inside the Liberty Bank Building lobby will be visible only to those who live there. So I am taking this opportunity to introduce these four intricate art works. Inye gave me an overview of their significance. The wall on which they are installed has two sides. On the […]
This entry was posted on May 7, 2019 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Art and Regeneration at the Liberty Bank Building in the Central District
As we approach the new Liberty Bank Building on Union we can see from a block away that it is special. Its bold white with orange and brown accents stands high above surrounding buildings, a dramatic contrast to the innocuous developments on two corners of 23rd and Union, what was once the heart of the […]
This entry was posted on May 3, 2019 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
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 […]
This entry was posted on March 23, 2019 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Ecology, Contemporary Art, Uncategorized. -
Elizabeth Gaskell and the politics of workers and women in the 19th century
Elizabeth Gaskell, Victorian novelist, advocate for women and the working class, a treat to read.
This entry was posted on February 2, 2019 and is filed under Uncategorized, Victorian fiction, Women Artists. -
Martin Luther King Day 2019
Martin Luther King said it all “A Nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military deense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” As our government shutdown was going on and on, and ordinary dedicated Federal employees Americans were standing in line at food banks, the […]
This entry was posted on January 28, 2019 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Jack Whitten’s Odyssey: A New Perspective
Jack Whitten made his name as an abstract painter in New York City beginning in the 1970’s and had a solo exhibition in 1974 at the Whitney Museum! During the 1960s and 1970s in New York City he was friends with musicians, poets, writers, and other artists. […]
This entry was posted on November 3, 2018 and is filed under African American fiction, African American history, Uncategorized. -
Charles White: Humanist
The huge mural by Charles White, “5 great American Negroes” overwhelms us before we even enter the Charles White retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In this first mural Charles White created for the government sponsored WPA mural program, Sojourner Truth leads a march of freed slaves […]
This entry was posted on October 29, 2018 and is filed under African American history, American Art, Art and Activism, Art and Politics Now, Uncategorized. -
World War I America at the Museum of History and Industry and some personal history
As we approach the hundredth anniversary of Armistice Day for World War I on November 11, over very own Museum of History and Industry is hosting the only exhibition on that subject on the entire West Coast. Armistice Day began as a protest against the horrors of war. It has evolved into […]
This entry was posted on September 25, 2018 and is filed under Uncategorized.
