Photo: Ryan McVay
Robin Held shows off a dark, dripping ensemble.
As reported by Jen Graves at The Stranger, the Frye Museum of Art’s chief curator, Robin Held, is leaving to head up youth nonprofit Reel Grrls. She leaves in February after six years at the First Hill institution, and director Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker hasn’t announced a replacement.
When we asked Robin Held to describe her personal style last year, she called it, “dripping, dragging, dark.” But her tenure at the Frye was more than simply dark—she added to the museum’s collection of 19th-century paintings by commissioning art that was both multidisciplinary and daring.
In March, she spoke to Seattle Met about the Degenerate Art Ensemble, a local performance art group that she brought to the Frye. The troupe takes its name from a German art exhibit the Nazis disapproved of; and DAE shows the same kind of fearlessness in its multimedia work: dance, music, video, and sculpture, including a ninja battle skirt. Held encouraged experimentation, and her influence at the Frye will be missed.
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