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Visual Art

Art After-Hours: Where to Go this First Thursday

Museums are free, galleries stay open late. So…many…choices…

Posted by: Adriana Grant on Jan 05, 2012 at 09:00AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Image courtesy Photo Center NW.

Jenny Sampson, Malcolm, San Francisco, 2010.

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In January the galleries seem to rev up after a sleepy holiday season—or time away showing at Art Basel Miami Beach. But these First Thursday openings are the ones not to miss.

Surface: Contemporary Wet Plate Collodion Portraiture
Photo Center NW, Jan 5–Feb 15
Wet plate collodion photography dates back to the 19th century, and requires the subjects to sit still for one (very) long minute in order for the image to set on a glass panel; the strain is often reflected in the models’ hardened faces and posture. For this group exhibit, five contemporary artists dabble in this alternative process technology. Daniel Carrillo is known locally for his delicate ambrotype portraits of Seattle artists and art critics. Savannah’s Ellen Susan captures Army soldiers with the same photo process used during the Civil War. National Geographic photographer Robb Kendrick shows images of contemporary cowboys in America, Mexico, and Canada. Jenny Sampson’s tintypes feature skateboarders at rest, while Joni Sternbach’s capture surfers on rocky beaches. Artists’ reception Jan 12, 6-8 pm.

Sean McFarland
Greg Kucera Gallery, Jan 5–Feb 18
For his Seattle solo debut, the Bay Area photographer muses moodily on landscapes in the half-light of dusk. Ivy snakes up tree trunks, all rich greens and shades of black, while a mess of brambles and thorns nearly suffocates. Opening reception Jan 5, 6–8pm; artist talk Jan 7 at noon.

Suzanne Opton: Soldier/Many Wars
Platform Gallery, Jan 5–Feb 11
Opton’s photo portraits of soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are as sad as they are startling. She focuses on their faces—heads resting sideways on the ground, and some with such vacant stares you fear for where their thoughts lie. Artist’s reception Feb 2, 6-8pm; artist talk Feb 3 at Henry Art Gallery.

View the slideshow for images from each exhibit.

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Tags: Visual Art, Pioneer Square, First Thursday

Visual Art

Art After-Hours: Where to Go This First Thursday

Museums are free, galleries stay open late. So…many…choices…

Posted by: Adriana Grant on Nov 03, 2011 at 09:00AM Speech Bubble 1 Comments

Suze Woolf, Seattle.101, “Noticing Infrastructure,” watercolor on gesso, 25″ × 19″.

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First Thursday art walks often start with a stroll through the Tashiro Kaplan building at Third Avenue South and Prefontaine Place, home to more than 50 artist studios and galleries. This Thursday is no different:

Soil Cooperative hosts Loose Leaf: Artists and Writers Make Books Together, a collaborative exhibit that pairs scribes and visual artists in an examination of the written word. Fantastical (and plain fantastic) fiction author Stacey Levine—matched with artist Julia Freeman—imagines A Book of the Future: A Maze, while Hugo House cofounder and poet Frances McCue and artist Ellen Ziegler work with the poetry of rocker Patti Smith. Ziegler and McCue’s work muses on the loss of a partner, informed by Smith’s verse on the topic (which they’ll read tonight). November 3 reception 6–8, reading at 8; artists’ talk and reading, November 19 at 7.

At Gallery4Culture, Jason Hirata shows Bubble Tea, a series of cheeky photo-composite posters, made of Photoshopped stock images and the artist’s own, that feature the popular sweet drink. Posters will appear both within and outside the gallery, as well as around Pioneer Square, and in shops where the Taiwanese, tapioca-studded beverage is sold. November 3 reception 6–8.

Suze Woolf’s meticulous watercolor renderings of asset tags—those number-and-letter combos identifying telephone poles—drip with color; they make for a strong show at Zeitgeist Coffee. November 3 reception 6–8 pm. View the slideshow for images from the opening exhibits.

Not new, but still noteworthy:

Andrew Witkin: Among Others, at James Harris Gallery
Patte Loper: Still Point of the Returning World, at Platform

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Tags: Visual Art, First Thursday

Visual Art

Art After-Hours: Where to Go This First Thursday

Museums are free, galleries stay open late. So…many…choices…

Posted by: Adriana Grant on Oct 06, 2011 at 10:00AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Image courtesy Saint Genet.

Wevers (left) helped choreograph art-as-mayhem for Saint Genet.

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If you can stop by only three openings tonight, these are the ones to hit.

Check out performance art troupe Saint Genet (an offshoot of Implied Violence) for Triumph and Ruin, act three of a four-part series. Previous performances have featured whippet-fueled dancers, a ritualized burning of pubic hair, and choreography by Oliver Wevers of Whim W’Him. (We’re not kidding.) Tonight’s show promises a similarly artful performance spilling out onto Occidental Square, starting at 6. Objects (including a whippet) from the series are on view in the Lawrimore Project gallery.
Performance 6–8pm, suggested donation $5–$15. The final performance, Sacred History, is Friday at the former Lawrimore Project (831 Airport Way S). Gallery opens at 6pm, performance at 8pm, suggested donation $5–$15. Cash bar.

Don’t miss the striking, politically charged work of Brooklyn-based Glenn Ligon at Greg Kucera Gallery, which explores race, language, and gender identity through painting, photography, and neon signs. He recently received a midcareer retrospective at the Whitney Museum; he shows some of his newer work here. Opening reception October 6, 6–8pm. Thru November 19.

In Still Point of the Returning World, the third Patte Loper solo show at Platform Gallery, we see a rebirth of a postapocalyptic world in colorful oils, as well the charming stick, string, and cardboard sculptures that served as models for her paintings. Opening reception October 6, 6–8pm, with a special performance by Brooklyn-based synthpop band UVA at 7. Thru November 19.

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Tags: Visual Art, First Thursday,

Visual Art

Art After-Hours: Where to Go This First Thursday

Museums are free, galleries stay open late. So…many…choices…

Posted by: Seattle Met staff on Sep 01, 2011 at 09:30AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Image courtesy James Harris Gallery.

Sarah Awad, Fallenheads, 2011, oil on canvas, 24″ x 30″.

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We’ll be heading to see:

Sarah Awad: Instruments of Culture
Museums appear as tombs, empty and forlorn with ancient busts lying abandoned on the floor, in the California artist’s new collection of rich oil paintings in pastels and grays, now on display at James Harris Gallery. Opening reception Sept 1, 6-8pm. Thru Oct 8.

New Work by Michael Brophy
Known for his richly textured Northwest landscapes, the Portland painter brings in a human element—workers in the Field, or men eyeing an Explosion on the horizon—in his latest pieces on display at G. Gibson Gallery. Opening reception Sept 1, 6-8pm. Thru Oct 8.

Kelly Vivanco: Where Colors Grow
Woodland creatures and auburn-haired maidens with big doe eyes populate the SoCal artist’s new paintings—scenes as alternately whimsical and dark as a Lemony Snicket story. Now at Flatcolor Gallery. Opening reception Sept 1, 5-9pm.

Last chance to see… Beauty and Bounty: American Art in an Age of Exploration at Seattle Art Museum. It closes September 11.

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Tags: Visual Art, Seattle Art Museum, First Thursday, James Harris Gallery

Visual Art

Art After-Hours: Where to Go this First Thursday

Museums are free, galleries stay open late. So…many…choices…

Posted by: Seattle Met staff on Aug 04, 2011 at 09:00AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Image courtesy Foster/White.

Cara Barer, Explorer, Ed. 2/9, 2011, archival inkjet on rag paper, 36.5 × 36.5 in.

Junk mail finds new life in Overload, the latest exhibit by Houston-based artist Cara Barer at Foster/White Gallery. She transforms a surfeit of print media—the Yellow Pages, discarded maps, daily newspapers—into sculpture by manipulating the pages with curling irons, water, and clothes pins, then photographs the unexpected undulations and rosettes. The images are both striking and disconcerting, like we’re looking at a wasteland of abandoned knowledge.

“Sculpting segued to thoughts on obsolescence and the relevance of libraries in this century,” Barer writes. “The way we choose to research and find information is in an evolution. I hope to raise questions about these changes, the ephemeral and fragile nature in which we now obtain knowledge and the future of books.”

Overload opens August 4 with a reception from 6-9. The exhibit runs through Aug 27 at Foster/White.

Also of note:
Vintage Japantown: Through the Lens of the Takano Studio Don’t miss the latest exhibit at Wing Luke: a collection of photographs from Takano Studio, a Japanese American photo studio founded in 1910 in Seattle’s Japantown. Many of the photos reflect personal stories—weddings and family reunions—and the history of Seattle’s Japanese American community, especially during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Thru Feb 2012.

It’s your last chance to see Mad Homes on Capitol Hill. The exhibit closes August 7.

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Tags: Visual Art, First Thursday

Sun's Out, Get Out

Today’s Summer Guide Pick: First Thursday

Museums are free, galleries stay open late. Where to head this month?

Posted by: Laura Dannen on Jul 07, 2011 at 10:00AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Image: courtesy Greg Kucera Gallery.

Deborah Butterfield, MADROÑO, 2009, unique cast bronze with patina, 86 × 117 × 26 inches.

From the Seattle Summer Events Guide:

July 7
Hit the streets of Pioneer Square for the monthly First Thursday Art Walk. Museums are free and open late; galleries pour wine and showcase new work.

If it stays overcast like it is now, it’s a good day to wander the neighborhood and duck into Greg Kucera Gallery, where internationally acclaimed artist Deborah Butterfield is showing new sculptures: free-standing horses that appear to be made of wood, but are actually fashioned from twisted bronze and scrap metal. The process is pretty incredible: Butterfield starts by making a frame out of sticks, branches, logs, and other slabs of wood, then covers the wood with a heat-resistant plaster. She fires the horse in a furnace and burns away the wood so only the mold remains, then pours molten bronze into the mold. After chipping away the plaster, what’s left is a metal stallion that looks eerily fragile—like the poor beast was forgotten outside of a saloon in a Wild West town and only its skeleton remains. See Butterfield’s work through July 30.

Exhibits opening this weekend:

Debra Baxter: Wanting Is Easier Than Having at Platform Gallery (opens July 7)
The Digital Eye: Photographic Art in the Electronic Age at Henry Art Gallery (opens July 9)
Gabriel von Max: Be-tailed Cousins and Phantasms of the Soul at the Frye (opens July 9)

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Tags: Visual Art, First Thursday, Seattle Summer Events Guide

Visual Art

Art After Hours: Where to Go This First Thursday

Museums are free, galleries stay open late. So…many…choices…

Posted by: Suzanne Beal on Jun 02, 2011 at 11:00AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Give the tilted house a whirl at Fun House.

Photo courtesy Western Bridge.

Can’t wait for the fair? Find serious fun and games at Western Bridge. All the weirdness of the carnival midway is at the exhibit Fun House, open through the end of July. See it tonight at the First Thursday Art Walk.

At the center of this six-person group show is Julian Hoever’s Demon Hill, a massive plywood structure—20 feet long—that has viewers reeling like they’ve stepped off a roller coaster. With angled shelving, mounted ping-pong balls that seem to defy gravity, and nary a straight plane, the Demon Hill house spins visitors off axis. You’re welcome to climb on in; the show turns everyone into a participant.

The rest of the exhibit is stuffed with similar flights of fancy: floor-to-ceiling black-and-white stripes, a quietly orbiting star in a cage, and a reflective op-art panel tilted against a wall. The pieces combine madcap absurdity with the long tradition of Northwest mysticism.

Fun and games? Yes, but without the chance of getting cotton candy stuck in your hair.

Fun House is on display at Western Bridge through July 30.

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Tags: Visual Art, First Thursday, Western Bridge

Visual Art

Art After-Hours: Where to Go This First Thursday

Museums are free, galleries stay open late. So…many…choices…

Posted by: Suzanne Beal on May 05, 2011 at 09:00AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Photo courtesy James Harris Gallery.

Sol Hashemi, an image from Rock Show, 2011, archival inkjet print.

Recent University of Washington graduate Sol Hashemi is introducing visual art fans to rock that doesn’t involve headbanging, kegs or earplugs. In his new photography and sculpture exhibit Rock Show at James Harris Gallery, the Seattle artist turns fragments of the natural world (a boulder) into functional objects (a cup holder), and uses his camera to lovingly document the process. In a large wall hung print, a constellation of stars glow from within a sawed-off can of Pepsi. In reality you’re witnessing the grit and grime of Hashemi’s living quarters floating on the surface of a flat soft drink—but that shouldn’t detract from its beauty. Hashemi’s gift lies in elevating the mundane to the level of the sublime. A bottle of Budweiser Lime is held aloft by the squeeze of two hefty rocks; sparkling silver cake toppers are triumphantly planted into rocks the size of cupcakes; and a single stone is bedecked with clear Christmas lights. It’s not apparent whether or not Hashemi is celebrating nature, but it’s definitely a party you don’t want to miss.

Sol Hashemi: Rock Show is on display at James Harris Gallery from May 5–28.

UPDATED 12pm. Another fun First Thursday outing: Seattle Art Museum rolls out a March to the Center of the Earth, aka a costumed parade TONIGHT at 5:30. It starts at the Hammering Man outside SAM Downtown and heads down 1st Avenue, then back to the museum for food, drink, live performances by DJ Riz and Spectrum dancers in Nick Cave’s soundsuits, drop-in art making, and a tour of the Nick Cave exhibit. Admission is free.

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Tags: Visual Art, First Thursday, James Harris Gallery

Visual Art

Art After-Hours: Where to Go this First Thursday

Museums are free, galleries stay open late. So…many…choices…

Posted by: Suzanne Beal on Apr 06, 2011 at 12:00PM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Photo courtesy James Harris Gallery.

New work by Akio Takamori (from left): Boy With Socks, 2011, stoneware with underglazes, 41″ × 13 × 10″. Boy With Black Shoes, 2011, stoneware with underglazes, 41″ × 13″ × 11″.

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This First Thursday experience a perfect pairing. James Harris Gallery serves up the work of two Neddy Award recipients: Eric Elliott, winner in 2009 for painting, will show Residual Forms in the front gallery, and Akio Takamori, winner in 2008 for ceramics, showcases freestanding sculptures Boys in the back.

Do opposites attract? Japanese-born Takamori has examined cultural identity via ceramic art for 25 years, while Elliot is a young gun whose career went off like a shot when he graduated with an MFA from the University of Washington in 2007. Elliot’s gray-tone still lifes almost seem abstract at first glance: thick layers of short, boxy brushstrokes capture studio objects that nearly fade into nothingness. It’s not always easy to find the Cookie Jar. Meanwhile, Takamori’s painted ceramic figures of rosy-cheeked boys are family-infused mashups; they touch on Japanese and American culture, with gestures that mimic both Buddhist and Renaissance sculpture. Both artists have put their stamp on the most traditional of mediums—and as different as the results may be, paintings that look like sculptures and sculptures that read as paintings make for a must-see odd couple of exhibits.

Residual Forms and Boys are on display at James Harris Gallery from Apr 7–30. Opening reception Apr 7, 6–8pm

Also opening April 7: NTG, NKO, and Dan Hawkins: Street Art at Gallery4Culture

Last chance to see…
Wang Huaiqing: A Painter’s Painter in Contemporary China at SAAM (Exhibit ends April 10.)
Thomas Allen and Jonah Samson at G. Gibson Gallery (Exhibits end April 16.)

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Tags: Visual Art, First Thursday, James Harris Gallery

Visual Art

Art After-Hours: Where to Go This First Thursday

Museums are free, galleries stay open late. So…many…choices…

Posted by: Allison Williams on Mar 03, 2011 at 02:00PM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

619 Western Avenue in downtown Seattle, circa 1917.

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Seattle’s First Thursday art walks have been happening for nearly 30 years, but everyone has to have their first First. Tonight’s mine. I plan to kick things off in Pioneer Square at 619 Western Ave, a five-floor collection of artist studios that opens its doors each month for the event. It’s the most endangered artists’ hub in the city, conveniently located in the middle of the upcoming Alaskan Way Viaduct construction.

In December, the artists learned that their building was in jeopardy; they’d have to vacate by March 2012, before the city started boring the 99 tunnel beneath the century-old edifice, which was considered for demolition. But yesterday, the WSDOT announced a proposal to preserve 619 Western, suggesting that the foundation be shored and a steel frame built to stabilize it during construction. That means there’s a chance, albeit small, that artists will return to the site. Of course, whether the tunnel goes under, around or directly through the studios, all of 619 Western’s residents still have to go, so now’s the time to visit. To see the direct influence of Seattle’s transportation woes on its creative output, look for abstract paintings of the crumbling viaduct from Marie Gagnon.

Beyond 619, Ted Hiebert will introduce a collection of photo self-portraits, Werewolf Stories, at Shift Collaborative Studio. The Canadian cloaks himself in a wolf skin and plays with blacklight to explore the idea of transformation—but there are no teenage vampires here, we promise. I also plan to stop by the opening of a show by Tyson Anthony Roberts at the Corridor Gallery. Abstract works like The Grounds—“pixilated,” he calls them—resemble the rhythms and order of nature or, if you’re on the juvenile side, the backdrop to Super Mario 3.

View the slideshow above for a glimpse of everything.

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Tags: Visual Art, First Thursday, Free Museum

Visual Art

Art After-Hours: Where to Go This First Thursday

Museums are free, galleries stay open late. So…many…choices…

Posted by: Laura Dannen on Feb 03, 2011 at 10:00AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

At Wing Luke: Gene Tagaban, Henare Tahuri and Tawera Tahuri, Ritual of Encounter, 2010, acrylic on wood, 8’ x 15’. Photo and art courtesy of the Evergreen State College Longhouse.

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This First Thursday, we’re celebrating Lunar New Year by starting at the Wing Luke Museum. Their latest exhibit, Cultural Confluence, tells the story of urbanites of mixed Asian-Native American descent and what it means to be “native” when so many live off the reservation. Stop in for the video tribute to woodcarver John T. Williams.

But it’s the historic hotel tour that’s the hidden gem here. Even if you’re a local, you might have missed the rickety staircase just to the left of the Wing Luke entrance in the same East Kong Yick building. Those creaky boards lead up to the remnants of a 100-year-old migrant hotel that used to be a second home for Chinese laborers. It’s like the set of an old western: hardwood everything, narrow hallways, low tin ceilings, rooms with the kind of metal-frame beds suited for military barracks and college dorm rooms. You almost feel like the tenants just stepped out for a minute, considering the wealth of abandoned photos, hairbrushes, steamer trunks, and a too-tiny faded vest and suit jacket, hanging neatly on the back of a chair. It’s a time warp in here.

There’s one room dedicated to Family Association meetings, with an long oaken table fit for a banquet hall, another room just for mahjong. And though we didn’t get to experience this, we hear that a couple in their eighties leads the tour and has lots of great slow-cooking stories to tell. For fans of the Underground Tour, this is a nerdy slice of paradise.

The tours are $8.95-$12.95 for 45 minutes, and you have to step out earlier in the day to catch them (they only run 10:30-3:30). But now that you’re out, you might as well swing by the Frye Art Museum on First Hill, where Singaporean artist Ming Wong has put together a very impressive collection of Southeast Asian movie memorabilia and new work exploring identity in its many forms—language, race, gender, nationality—through the lens of Singaporean cinema of the 1950s and ’60s. “The glory days of national cinema,” as he calls it. Though it’s easy to miss, check the hallway to the right of the exhibit for a five-minute documentary on the making of the exhibit’s vibrant billboards by Singapore’s last remaining billboard artist, Neo Chon Teck.

View the slideshow above for a glimpse of everything.

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Tags: Visual Art, frye art museum, First Thursday, Wing Luke Museum, Wing Luke Museum, Free Stuff, Chinese New Year

Visual Art

First Thursday: November

Free is the word at downtown galleries and museums.

Posted by: Olivia Margoshes on Nov 04, 2010 at 10:00AM Speech Bubble 1 Comments

Harry Shearer, Sean Hannity, Fox: The Silent Echo Chamber, still.

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Where will we be this First Thursday?

At the Henry Art Gallery, where Harry Shearer: The Silent Echo Chamber gives us a glimpse of talking heads and politicos in those unscripted moments before they go on air. You may know Shearer as the voices of Ned Flanders, Mr. Burns, and Smithers on The Simpsons, but after this exhibit you’ll know him as the artist who curated 15 looped DVD segments of John McCain drinking coffee or FOX’s Sean Hannity massaging his brow as though he’s watching President Obama be elected to a life term. We promise you won’t be as bored as some of them look. Thru Jan 16.

We’ll also be at the Platform Gallery in Pioneer Square to check out Kelly Mark’s current exhibit (titled, simply, !@#$%^&*k) featuring over 20 Letrasets. This now-retro graphic design involves the transferring of letters and patterns from vinyl sheets onto paper, which produces a series of intricate, layered black-and-white images—some resembling a table full of poker chips, others a a complicated mathematical function on a graphing calculator. It’s the kind of exhibit you need to examine up close; luckily, it’s on display through November 27.

Woodblock artist Annie Bissett shows her latest collection, We Are Pilgrims, at the Cullom Gallery in Japantown. Bissett’s works chronicle the lives of early New England settlers and the impact they had on Native Americans. It’s not a diatribe by any means—though one darkly sardonic image shows the first two Native American students to enroll at Harvard (one died in a shipwreck, the other of tuberculosis). The prints also allude to what settlers left behind. One in particular, No Friends to Greet Them, depicts a recently arrived family of Pilgrims, lost and alone in a barren winter forest. Thru Nov 27.

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Tags: Visual Art, First Thursday

Culture Fiend

Art After-Hours: Where to Go this First Thursday

Art After-Hours: Where to Go This First Thursday

Art After-Hours: Where to Go This First Thursday

Art After-Hours: Where to Go This First Thursday

Art After-Hours: Where to Go this First Thursday

Today’s Summer Guide Pick: First Thursday

Art After Hours: Where to Go This First Thursday

Art After-Hours: Where to Go This First Thursday

Art After-Hours: Where to Go this First Thursday

Art After-Hours: Where to Go This First Thursday

Art After-Hours: Where to Go This First Thursday

First Thursday: November

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