Culture Fiend

Free Museum Admission on May 18

It’s in honor of International Museum Day.

Posted by: Laura Dannen on May 10, 2012 at 03:00PM 0 Comments

Photo by Gary McKinnis; courtesy the artist / Henry Art Gallery.

Gary Hill, Withershins (installation view at Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, 1996), 1995.

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Photo by Gary McKinnis; courtesy the artist / Henry Art Gallery.

Gary Hill, Withershins (installation view at Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, 1996), 1995.

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Image courtesy SAM.

See Arshile Gorky’s 1944 masterpiece How My Mother’s Embroidered Apron 
Unfolds in My Life at Seattle Art Museum Downtown.

Museums across North America will offer free admission next Friday, May 18, in honor of the Association of Art Museum Directors’ (AAMD) Art Museum Day and International Museum Day. Since the dates coincide, I will now refer to the holiday as AAMDAMDIMD. To make things easier.

A full list of participating museums will be available soon on the AAMD website, but I was able to confirm today that both the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle Art Museum, and Seattle Asian Art Museum will offer free entry that day. Any other museums in the Seattle-Tacoma area that plan to participate? Let us know in the comments section below.

Exhibits on display:

The Brink: Andrew Dadson (Henry Art Gallery)

Gary Hill: Glossodelic Attractors (Henry Art Gallery)

Morning Serial: Webcomics Come to the Table (Henry Art Gallery)

Theaster Gates: The Listening Room (SAM downtown)

You can also plot a tour of 10 must-see masterpieces in Seattle, many of which are at SAM and the Henry.

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Tags: Visual Art, Seattle Art Museum, Henry Art Gallery, Free Museum

More Free Gauguin Events at Seattle Art Museum

Starting with a lecture by the curator of Paris’s Musée d’Orsay.

Posted by: Laura Dannen and Seth Sommerfeld on Mar 06, 2012 at 04:00PM 0 Comments

Paul Gauguin, Self-Portrait Dedicated to Carrière, 1888 or 1889, oil on canvas, 15 15/16 × 12 13/16 in. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Walking through the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, home to dozens of Van Goghs, Cezannes, and Gauguins, is the equivalent of a crash course in post-impressionist painting. So it’s something of a coup to have the museum’s curator, Stéphane Guégan, in town to speak about the new Gauguin and Polynesia exhibit on display at Seattle Art Museum. Guégan has written extensively on the 19th-century French contemporaries—including the aptly named Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay—and can offer a new perspective on the complex connection between Gauguin and his tropical muse.

While tickets to the talk are sold out, a free simulcast of the event will be shown at the Nordstrom Lecture Hall at SAM. Seating is limited and available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

For those who haven’t seen Gauguin and Polynesia yet, SAM will hand out free tickets (typically $18–$23) to the exhibit this Saturday, March 10; just be one of the first 400 people queued up at the Hammering Man at 10am. Saturday is Community Day, so the museum will host Tahitian drumming acts and Polynesian dance classes all day—see the event list below.

SAM Talks: Stéphane Guégan on Paul Gauguin
Mar 8 at 7, Plestcheeff Auditorium at Seattle Art Museum, sold out

Simulcast of ‘SAM Talks: Stéphane Guégan on Paul Gauguin’
Mar 8 at 7, Nordstrom Lecture Hall at Seattle Art Museum, free

Seattle Art Museum Community Day
March 10, SAM Downtown, free–$23 (Gauguin admission)
10:30, 11, 1:45, 2: Te Fare O Tamatoa (Tahitian dance and drumming)
11 & 1: Family-friendly tour of Gauguin and Polynesia
Noon: Na Hanu ‘O Ku’uleialoha (Polynesian dance lessons)
12:30: Rogue, a French-inspired cabaret band

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Tags: Seattle Art Museum, Free Museum

Enjoy a Free Historic Hotel Tour at Wing Luke This Saturday

It’s the hidden gem of the International District.

Posted by: Allie Oosta and Laura Dannen on Nov 09, 2011 at 03:45PM 0 Comments

Photo: Lindsay Kennedy Photography

Wing Luke museum admission is free this Saturday—so is this view.

What Free admission to the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, which includes the historic hotel tour.

When Saturday, November 12, 10–5

Why 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 refuge for Chinese laborers and Asian Pacific American pioneers. 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.

Part of the tour stops in a 1901 shop that sold imported goods and tickets to the Blue Funnel Line steamship. These historic spaces are only accessible through the tour—and they come alive thanks to the guides (often a couple in their eighties with lots of great slow-cooking stories to tell).

Who Fans of the Underground Tour will enjoy this trip through time. Recommended for ages six and up.

Where Wing Luke is located in Seattle’s Chinatown–International District at 719 South King St.

How Just print off and fill out your free passes and bring them to Wing Luke this Saturday. The tour lasts about 45 minutes, and we’re told spots fill up quickly, so consider going early.

Looking for a place to eat in the neighborhood afterwards? Try our guide to Seattle’s best Asian restaurants.

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Tags: Wing Luke Museum, Museums, Free Museum

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 0 Comments

619 Western Avenue in downtown Seattle, circa 1917.

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619 Western Avenue in downtown Seattle, circa 1917.

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Marie Gagnon, from Explorations of the viaduct, 2010-2011, oil on canvas. Photo courtesy Marie Gagnon.

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Ted Hiebert, Werewolf Stories, color photograph, 2010-2011. Photo courtesy Ted Hiebert.

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Tyson Anthony Roberts, The Grounds, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 30’’ x 40’’. Photo courtesy Tyson Anthony Roberts.

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

Your Ticket to 17 of the World’s Best Museums

Google digitizes artwork at the Tate, the Met, MoMA, Uffizi, and more.

Posted by: Laura Dannen on Feb 08, 2011 at 04:00PM 0 Comments

Get up close to Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus with Google’s Art Project.

This weekend, I did an art tour of Amsterdam…then Madrid, Florence, London, and New York. I put my nose up to Van Gogh’s The Bedroom, examining the brush strokes, then leaned back to take in the gracefulness of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. I didn’t wait in any lines, didn’t get on a single plane. And though it doesn’t replace the experience of seeing a masterpiece in person, Google’s new Art Project, launched last week, is an enthralling digital tour of 17 of the world’s best museums.

It’s hard not to geek out over this: Google has obtained access to museums like the Uffizi in Florence and the Tate in England (among many others—see below), and uses its street-view technology to let you “walk” through the galleries. You can take in the layout of the place and see how the artwork hangs, then zoom in on dozens of pieces at each museum. And I mean zoom. ‘On average there are 7 billion pixels’ per image, Amit Sood, leader of the Google Art Project, told The Washington Post. ‘This is a thousand times more than the average digital camera.’ Many of these museums already have digital images of their collections on their websites, but Google aggregates them all for the greatest, laziest art walk imaginable.

I was a little worried that my web prowling of the Palace of Versailles would detract from the first time I actually go there—diminish the power of the unknown. Then again, I can’t get up close to the artwork on the palace’s ceiling otherwise, unless I find a ladder and avoid getting thrown out of France. I think there’s room for both kinds of exploration.

Here’s the full list of museums on googleartproject.com:

Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany
Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Germany
The Museum of Modern Art, NYC
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC
Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain
Museo Thyssen – Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain
Museum Kampa, Czech Republic
The National Gallery, London, England
Palace of Versailles, Versailles, France
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Tate Britain, England
The Frick Collection, NYC
The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia
The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Not included: the Louvre
When will we see some Seattle museums on this list?

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Tags: Visual Art, Art Exhibits, Free Museum

Free Museum Days Are Back

We hear impressionist paintings soothe all those New Year’s Day pains.

Posted by: Laura Dannen on Dec 29, 2010 at 12:00PM 3 Comments

William Glackens, Natalie in a Blue Skirt, 1914, oil on canvas. Courtesy Tacoma Art Museum.

Oh Bank of America, you generous monolith. Thank you for giving us free access to local museums this coming weekend…in turn, I will continue to deposit my paychecks into your accounts. You’re welcome.

The deal: If you’re a Bank of America cardholder, you can get into museums across the country for free on January 1 and 2. In the Seattle area, that means entry into:

Northwest African American Museum (current exhibit: After Hours, the Northwest Jazz Scene)
Tacoma Art Museum (current exhibits: The Movement of Impressionism: Europe, America, and the Northwest, Mighty Tacoma: Photographic Portrait 2010)
Seattle Art Museum (current exhibits: Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris, Amy Blakemore: Photographs 1988-2008, SAM Next: Cris Brodahl, Behind the Scenes: The Real Story of the Quileute Wolves)

And in Portland, you can visit the Pittock Mansion, Lan Su Chinese Garden, and Portland Art Museum. To get a ticket, just bring your photo ID and a valid Bank of America/Merrill Lynch credit or debit card. One ticket per person.

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Tags: Visual Art, Free Stuff, Free Museum