Culture Fiend

Game On: Seattle Opera Treasure Hunt Begins

Tickets to Orpheus and Eurydice are hidden around town. Only heroes will prevail.

Posted by: Stephanie Rubesh on Feb 15, 2012 at 03:00PM 0 Comments

Orpheus journeyed to the underworld to recover Eurydice. You might have to go to Fremont.

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Orpheus journeyed to the underworld to recover Eurydice. You might have to go to Fremont.

Orpheus knows a thing or two about quests. With his wife a “guest” of Hades, our Greek hero travels to the underworld—with lyre in hand, naturally—to fight the Furies and retrieve his lady love.

This past Monday, Seattle Opera launched its own hero’s quest: a four-week “treasure hunt” for tickets to SO’s upcoming production of Orpheus and Eurydice. Every Monday at 10am, now through March 5, opera staffers will stash a pair of tickets at a Seattle business and post clues to their whereabouts on the Seattle Opera blog, Facebook, and Twitter (@SeattleOpera). The Furies will be standing guard at the final location—don’t let the business casual fool you. They demand a password, provided each week with the clue. No password, no (Eury)dice. (Groan.)

The first round started with the clues “Allegedly inspired during a flight of the ‘I’m-on-a-rolla-Gay’” and “She laid down the law to Orfeo in Vienna,” and password “Green Mountain.” The winner found tickets at That’s Amore! Italian Cafe in Mt. Baker. (Eh? Amore, aka Cupid, is a character in the opera who sends Orpheus/Orfeo to the underworld.)

If, by the end of four weeks, you’re still empty handed, Seattle Opera will give away a fifth pair of tickets to the person who can solve the riddle of the passwords, strung together, and deliver the answer—musically—to the box office muses at 1020 John Street.

Game on.

Orpheus and Eurydice
Feb 25–Mar 10, Seattle Opera, McCaw Hall, $25–$203

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Tags: Art Events, Seattle Opera

Gauguin and Polynesia Tickets On Sale at SAM

A troublesome artist goes tropical in this winter’s biggest exhibit.

Posted by: Allison Williams on Nov 14, 2011 at 11:00AM 3 Comments

Paul Gauguin, Vahine no te Tiare (Tahitian Woman with a Flower), 1891, oil on canvas

Photo courtesy Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen/Seattle Art Museum

When painter Paul Gauguin went to Tahiti, what he found was his new muse. His work might ring a bell—bright colors, Tahitian women, the lush tropics. But what about the art that was already on his adopted island? Seattle Art Museum pairs native South Pacific pieces with the Frenchman’s best in the show Gauguin and Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise, opening February 9. This is gonna be a big one, folks, and tickets are on sale now.

Seattle is the only American stop for the show, which shows how Gauguin was influenced by Tahitian, Marquesan, and Maori works. The museum expects lines to be long; book now for events like In the Studio with Hotel 1000, a curator-led talk about the exhibit on February 15 (with free hors d’oeuvres!).

Gauguin was always a bit of a troublemaker, so no wonder that he supplemented his painting with wood and ceramic sculpture—"things that resist," says SAM curator Chiyo Ishikawa. “He liked materials that push back,” she says. “He wanted to be contrary to pretty much everything. He needed to have conflict.” In Tahiti, Gauguin was charged with libel, fathered children with local mistresses, and died of syphilis—sounds like he got what he was looking for.

Gauguin and Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise is at Seattle Art Museum February 9–April 29.

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Tags: Seattle Art Museum, Ticket Alerts, Art Events, Art Exhibits

Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview

See the late Apple CEO unedited and unvarnished in this two-night screening at Landmark Metro Cinemas.

Posted by: Matthew Halverson on Nov 11, 2011 at 01:40PM 1 Comments

Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview screens for two nights only.

Let’s set aside for a second the kinda-sorta opportunistic nature of Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview. That the archival Q&A with Apple’s founder, parts of which were used in the 1996 PBS miniseries Triumph of the Nerds, is being released in its entirety now, just one month after the man’s death, feels a little skeevy. But getting hung up on the why just obscures how intriguing this 70-minute sit-down with Jobs really is—not because it reveals any new facts about his life, but because it offers an unvarnished glimpse at his personality.

One of the necessary evils of documentary storytelling is leaving a ton of research on the editing room floor. Viewers of the finished product get a series of money quotes that serve the story’s narrative arc—i.e. Jobs’s jabs at Microsoft—but they often miss the longer stretches of conversation that give insight into the subject. At one point, late in The Lost Interview, host Robert Cringely asks Jobs how a CEO can know if he’s taking a tech company in the right direction. Jobs pauses for several seconds—keep in mind, this interview was conducted in 1995, 10 years after Jobs had been ousted from his own company and two years before he took it back—before responding, “You know, ultimately it comes down to taste.” Had you just caught that sound bite in the documentary, you would have missed his earlier monologue about the creative—and artistic—spirit he fostered in his employees while developing the Macintosh 10 years earlier. Jobs is, in no uncertain terms, comparing himself to some of the greatest artists of all time.

But my favorite part? When Jobs compares the process of developing the Macintosh to putting unpolished stones into a rock tumbler: The engineers who designed that next-level computer were thrown into a room together, and were forced to smash into each other again and again and again until they came out with something beautiful. What Jobs never says—but you can see it in his ideas—is that he delighted in being the metaphorical tumbler. Did you get that from Walter Isaacson’s biography?

Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview screens November 16 & 17 at 7:15 & 9 at Landmark’s Metro Cinemas.

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Tags: Art Events, Documentaries

Big Trimpin: Seattle Sound Artist Unveils New Book at Town Hall

Posted by: Annie Rose Favreau on Jun 22, 2011 at 04:00PM 0 Comments

Trimpin, the Seattle sound artist behind the EMP’s If VI Was IX (pictured), celebrates the release of his new book at Town Hall.

Trimpin. The name sounds familiar, right? It should: It belongs to the Seattle-based sound sculptor behind the Experience Music Project’s If VI Was IX, that tornado of self-picking, self-tuning guitars. “My work is always visualizing sound,” the artist says. "A blind person can hear the movement and a deaf person can see it.”

Although Trimpin’s work has appeared all over Seattle (remember KeyArena’s Hydraulis, the wall of water that responded to the movement of sports fans?), access to most of his projects is limited. Only a few of his sculptures are viewable; he doesn’t allow recordings of his music; and then there’s the problem of commercial viability. It’s kind of hard to purchase a Bunsen burner-powered organ designed to float on water while making duck call noises.

Published this month, coffee table book Trimpin: Contraptions for Art and Sound was designed to fill the void, and document—as best a 2D rendering can—the artist’s major works. The book is composed of passages by Trimpin, paragraphs lifted from museum programs, and essays by writers, composers, curators, and friends. “The (Un)Common Object” by Washington State University museum of art director Chris Bruce is a particularly insightful look at how Trimpin fits into the tradition of sculpture (hint: he doesn’t).

Illustrated with large photographs, the book’s visual style is geared toward clarity, not glamour shots. The most exciting images are the colorful sketches, diagrams, and blueprints of Trimpin’s outlandish contraptions. The designs take you inside Trimpin’s artistic process—a joyful collision of messiness and precision, music and science. It appeals to artists and tech geeks alike.

Trimpin’s known for a while he’s not quite like the rest of us: In the afterword, he thanks his parents for “ignoring the fourth-grade teacher’s warning that ‘there was something wrong with my logical way of thinking.’” But perhaps its us who should be thanking him.

Town Hall will host a launch party for Trimpin on June 24 at 6pm. The artist will be on hand to discuss the book and provide “a musical interlude.”

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Tags: Visual Art, Review, Town Hall, Art Events, Books & Talks, University Bookstore

SAM Remix: Nick Cave Edition

Cocktails, music, highly opinionated gallery tours, and furry suits that look like Koosh balls—at this week’s SAM Remix.

Posted by: Allyson Marrs on May 31, 2011 at 06:15PM 0 Comments

A little wacky. A whole lot of creativity.

Photo courtesy SAM

There’s only five days left to journey to Nick Cave’s Center of the Earth before the show closes at Seattle Art Museum. Celebrate the artist and his fun sculptural “soundsuits” at SAM’s uberpopular Remix party this Friday at 8pm.

Cave’s soundsuits are costumes made from materials like twigs, gum-wrapper chains, bike reflectors, and stuffed animals. Worn by Seattle-area dancers (including Spectrum Dance Theater and Cornish college), the suits bring to life a mythical world where crazy chic is in. One suit places its wearer in a birdcage that is itself adorned with a variety of bird species, from an eagle to a cardinal (see the awesome image at left).

Simply put, Cave’s art is a whole lot of fun. The coolest part? Each suit is just so different. And the exuberant eccentricity of the suits adds to the joyfulness of the experience.

We are dying to see what it’s like to swill absinthe amid them. Remixers are encouraged to be creative with their dress: The first 50 guests wearing faux fur get in FREE.

SAM Remix is Friday, June 3 from 8pm to midnight.

Highlights include:
-Beats by DJ Supreme La Rock (8–11:45)
-Entertainment: The last soundsuit performance by Spectrum Dance Theater performers (8:30, 9:30, 10:30) and contemporary dancer Josephine Echopraxia (9, 9:45, 11); and poetry by Storme Webber (8:45, 10)
-“Highly opinionated tours” of the gallery with Spectrum Dance Theater artistic director Donald Byrd, 2008 Betty Bowen Award–winning artist Isaac Layman, and others
-Costume making (8–11:45)
-Taste restaurant will be open until midnight.

Tickets will sell out fast so get yours now at seattleartmuseum.org. Ages 18 and over; $20 general admission, $12 members, $15 students.

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Tags: Visual Art, SAM Remix, Party, Art Events, Fashion as Art, Nick Cave

The Story Behind the Story Behind ‘Twilight’s’ Quileute Werewolves

The Quileutes, whose art shines at SAM this Saturday, are unique in another way.

Posted by: Eric Scigliano on Aug 09, 2010 at 01:00PM 0 Comments

‘Wolf Headdress,’ wood, paint, and hair, from SAM’s ‘Real Story of the Quileute Wolves.’ Courtesy Seattle Art Museum

Seattle Art Museum has cannily tied its show on Quileute art and culture, opening this Saturday, August 14, to the insanely popular Twilight books and movies. It’s an irresistible link: The Quileutes’ origin myth says they’re descended from a pair of wolves turned into humans by Kwati the Transformer. Twilight author Stephenie Meyer borrowed this to make them teenage heart-throb shape-shifting werewolves who tangle with the immortal teenage heart-throb vampires of nearby Forks.

Fact is the Quileute, former master whale hunters of the far Olympic coast, are a people apart, in a fundamental way that as far as I know isn’t noted in Twilight or SAM’s Behind the Scenes: The Real Story of the Quileute Wolves. As Seattle anthropologist and linguist Jay Miller explained to me, “their language is unique in the world, not closely related to any other, which says they’ve been on the Peninsula a long, long time.”

Quileute is the last living language of the Chimakuan group; the only other known Chimakuan tongue was Chimakum, spoken by people living between Port Townsend and Hood Canal (hence today’s town of Chimacum). Chief Seattle and his Suquamish raiders wiped them out in 1850 and 1860. Maybe he was a vampire.

Quileute is unique among local tongues, and nearly unique in the world, in having no nasal consonants (m, n). Come to think of it, I’ve never heard a wolf ask for M&Ms.

Behind the Scenes: The Real Story of the Quileute Wolves opens Sat, Aug 14, with a Quileute dance and drum circle from 1 to 3pm.

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Tags: Seattle Art Museum, Twilight, Art Events, Native American Arts