Exhibition Calendar 2018–19
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EXHIBITION CALENDAR 2018–19 Rachel Eggers Manager of Public Relations [email protected] 206.654.3151 The following information is subject to change. Prior to publication, please confirm dates, titles, and other information with the Seattle Art Museum public relations office. 2 SEATTLE ART MUSEUM – NOW ON VIEW Double Exposure: Edward S. Curtis, Marianne Nicolson, Tracy Rector, Will Wilson Seattle Art Museum June 14–September 9, 2018 Double Exposure features iconic early 20th-century photographs by Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952) alongside contemporary works—including photography, video, installations—by Indigenous artists Marianne Nicolson, Tracy Rector, and Will Wilson. Held on the 150th anniversary of Curtis’ birth, the exhibition explores the legacy of his haunting portraits of Native Americans from 21st century perspectives, focusing attention on Native and First Nation voices. Edward S. Curtis is one of the most well-known photographers of Native people and the American West. The exhibition features over 150 of his photographs, including famed portraits of historical figures such as Chief Joseph, Geronimo, and Princess Angeline. Also on view are one of Curtis’ cameras, audio field recordings of languages and songs made on wax cylinders, and a projection of his docu-drama, feature length film made in British Columbia, “In the Land of the Head Hunters” (1914). The works by the three contemporary indigenous artists offers a critical reassessment and understanding Curtis’ representations of Native peoples. Dzawada̱' enuxw̱ First Nations artist Marianne Nicolson creates an immersive, light-based installation about the significance of the Columbia River to First Nations people. Seminole and Choctaw filmmaker/artist Tracy Rector presents a new video work featuring “microstories” derived from the life experiences of Natives today. Will Wilson, a Diné photographer, presents large-scale images derived from tintypes he makes of Native sitters. Using the augmented reality Layar app to activate the sitters’ speaking about their ancestors depicted in the Curtis images, or performing dance, song or spoken word pieces, Wilson’s work offers an antidote to Curtis’ stoically posed portraits by showing the vibrancy of the contemporary Native experience. 3 John Grade: Middle Fork Seattle Art Museum February 10, 2017–ongoing Middle Fork, a large-scale sculpture by Seattle-based artist John Grade, is presented in its largest iteration yet. More than doubling from its previous length of 50 feet to 105 feet, the tree sculpture dynamically spans the entire length of the Brotman Forum, the main entrance lobby that welcomes guests to the museum. The highly detailed sculpture was created by Grade, his team, and a cadre of volunteers using a full plaster cast of a living old-growth western hemlock tree found in the Cascade Mountains east of Seattle. The cast was used as a mold to assemble a new tree from now nearly one million reclaimed cedar pieces. Suspended horizontally from the museum’s ceiling and above the viewer, Grade’s sculpture offers a mesmerizing new perspective on a familiar form. With its exhibition at SAM, Middle Fork returns home to Washington State. The work was first conceived and built at MadArt Studio and had its Seattle debut there in January 2015. Following that, it was included in the WONDER exhibition at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC (November 13, 2015–May 13, 2016) and was recently displayed at the 2017 Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland. With each iteration, Middle Fork has “grown” larger and added more branches. The artist plans over time to continue the sculpture’s growth to match the length of the living tree that it is based on, 140 feet. Eventually, he plans to bring the sculpture back to the forest, allowing it to decompose and return to the earth at the base of that original tree. 4 Big Picture: Art After 1945 Seattle Art Museum July 23, 2016–ongoing Big Picture: Art After 1945 features significant works of abstract painting and sculpture from SAM’s collection. Tracing landmark artistic developments in the decades following World War II, the installation reveals how abstraction established itself as a dominant force to be reckoned with. Big Picture will highlight works from the Virginia and Bagley Wright Collection given to the museum, such as Mark Rothko’s No. 10 (1952), Jasper Johns’ Thermometer (1959), and Eva Hesse’s No Title (1964). It will also feature key loans from other local collections, reflecting the depth and commitment of private collectors in Seattle. Virginia and her husband, Bagley Wright, who passed away in 2011, are longtime visionary leaders and legendary arts patrons of SAM and Seattle. The Wrights have donated extraordinary works to the museum for decades but within the past two years, Virginia Wright gave a large part of her and her husband’s collection to the museum. These works have transformed SAM’s modern and contemporary collection, elevating it to national status. In addition, Big Picture includes select contemporary works that point to the continuity and resonance of these ideas today, such as X (2015)—a painting recently acquired by the museum—by Gwendolyn Knight | Jacob Lawrence Prize-winner Brenna Youngblood. Also on view will be five videos that highlight the physical act and process of painting; the selection includes works by Kazuo Shiraga, Yvonne Rainer, and Margie Livingston—as well as Hans Namuth’s famed work that shows Pollock performing his drip-painting technique. Following the opening on July 23, additional installments are planned for August 20 and then again on November 19. The August installment addresses varying modes of portraiture, while November introduces works by European artists such as Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer and Katharina Fritsch. In subject and materiality, these works are grounded in the post-war European experience and address different concerns from the American works. 5 In This Imperfect Present Moment Seattle Art Museum July 21, 2018–June 16, 2019 In This Imperfect Present Moment is the title of a portrait by Toyin Ojih Odutola. She is one of 15 artists who live in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Cotonou/Rotterdam, Luanda/Lisbon, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and New York whose work has been brought to Seattle by local collectors who are intrigued by how these artists convey vibrant narratives that resonate across global boundaries. Odutola says she focuses on ". the understated in art: moments that can be quickly passed over but are complex and layered." This premise continues as artists in this installation layer complex imagery to envision moments with the issues of labor, leadership, faith, and portraiture. Photographs of workers by South African artists David Goldblatt, Pieter Hugo, and Mikhael Subotzky suggest the effects of AIDS, bees, and technological waste. Leaders are subjected to extreme satire in cloth appliques by Lawrence Lemoana and a photograph by Kiluanji Kia Henda, while a tapestry by Igshann Adams and photographs by Hasan and Hussain Essop showcase unique ways of displaying their Islamic beliefs. Portraits of women by Amy Sherald, Xaviera Simmons, and Genevieve Gaignard take ownership over women's representation, while Athi-Patra Ruga and Saya Woolfalk portray avatars from idealized utopias. 6 New Topographics Seattle Art Museum June 30–December 30, 2018 In 1975, the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, featured the work of ten contemporary photographers in an exhibition titled New Topographics, which became an important milestone in photographic history. The subtitle of the exhibition was “photographs of a man-altered landscape” and the images, most of them in black and white, captured distinctly unheroic vistas. The subjects were primarily new housing developments in various stages of completion, indicators of development from newly-laid roads to mounds of dirt. These “man-altered landscapes” were a far cry from the celebration of pristine natural beauty which had been a favorite subject of modern photographers. The comparably nondescript images of the New Topographics—as the photographers included in the exhibition came to be known—outlined a new subject as well as a new aesthetic. Taken together, they posed questions about the ever-expanding sprawl of housing developments and the social and environmental implications of this unchecked growth. In addition to the photographs by Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, and Henry Wessel, who were featured in the original show, this installation also presents thematically related works by other artists. 7 Project 42: Jono Vaughan Seattle Art Museum April 21–August 5, 2018 Project 42: Jono Vaughan is the solo exhibition of the winner of the 2017 Betty Bowen Award. Jono Vaughan’s multidisciplinary work memorializes transgender individuals whose lives were cut short by violence; she creates handmade garments that are then used in collaborative public performances. On view at SAM are three new works from Project 42, Vaughan’s ongoing series begun in 2012. Named for the short life expectancy of transgender individuals in the United States, the project calls attention to the persistent pattern of extreme violence against trans people. Each work in the series is a garment that commemorates an individual transgender person who was murdered. The three garments on view at SAM memorialize the life and death of Myra Ical, Deja Jones, and Lorena Escalera Xtravaganza. Vaughan begins with a Google Earth image of a murder location and digitally manipulates it to create an abstract textile print. The style of the garments is inspired by the life and history of the individuals. Each garment is then worn by a collaborator in performance as a form of memorialization and celebration. In SAM’s exhibition, two of the garments hang on the wall, which is covered with wallpaper of the same pattern as the dress. The third—a monumental and much larger, more sculptural garment—is displayed in the center of the gallery, with a 34-foot train lifting off from the dress and draping down from the ceiling.