by Caroline Hall | Jul 30, 2021 | General, News, The Arts
Seattle, WA. Things are getting closer to normal at The Henry Art Gallery. Visitors no longer have to register in advance, they can walk-up and buy tickets. Mask and social distancing requirements remain in place regardless of vaccination status. Here’s a link to visitor guidelines.
The Henry Art Gallery is part of the University of Washington and is currently showcasing Will Rawls: Everlasting Stranger which is featured in the image above. The exhibit, in collaboration with Velocity Dance Center, runs through August 15th.
In Everlasting Stranger, New York-based choreographer and writer Will Rawls (b. 1978, Boston, MA) activates relationships between language, dance, and image through the fragmentary medium of stop-motion animation. In his installation, time and movement slow as a live, automated camera photographs the frame-by-frame actions of four dancers. While the performers occupy the labor of becoming images, visual capture is staged as an obsessive process that is constant yet compromised by the movement it aims to fix.
Here, as in previous works, Rawls develops strategies of evasion and engagement within systems that mediate, distort, and abstract the body.
Rawls’s exhibition takes inspiration from the work of Guyanese writer Wilson Harris and his surrealist novel The Infinite Rehearsal (1987). In the book, the constrictive projections of the colonial gaze manifest as a child’s fever dream where ghosts reinterpret time, genealogy, and identity as unstable matter. Harris’s novel serves as a conduit through which Rawls addresses the misrepresentation that haunts all forms of capture, including photography and choreography. Within the temporal delirium that marks existence in quarantine, Rawls animates the life that appears between frames.
PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE:
Saturdays: July 17 – August 14, 12 – 3 PM
Will Rawls: Everlasting Stranger is a collaboration between Henry Art Gallery and Velocity Dance Center and is organized by Nina Bozicnik, Henry Curator, and Erin Johnson, Velocity Interim Artistic and Managing Director. It is presented in conjunction with the Seattle Festival of Dance + Improvisation, with project support from the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support provided by UW Department of Dance, and by John Robinson and Maya Sonenberg. Costumes complements of womxn’s rites.
The exhibition is presented in conjunction with
Murmurations, a Seattle-wide arts collaboration featuring a series of exhibitions, performances, screenings, community conversations, artist talks, and other programs co-developed between cultural organizations.
Other exhibitions are continually available this summer. For an online opportunity, Henry Art Gallery is hosting Sonolocations: A Sounds Works Series from June – August 2021.
Partnered with the Jack Straw Cultural Center, The Henry has commissioned a three-part series of audio artworks, to be released free and online throughout the summer of 2021. The participating artists were invited to consider the theme of place, and its unique resonance throughout the pandemic, to offer directed sonic experiences for listeners wherever they might find themselves. Participating artists are Byron Au Yong (b. 1971, Pittsburgh, PA), Chenoa Egawa (b. 1964, Ellensburg, WA), and Bill Lowe (b. 1946, Pittsburgh, PA) and Naima Lowe (b. 1979, Middletown, CT).
To get a preview of Sonolocations, listen to Byron Au Yong’s “Pomelo” here:
Audio artworks will be available on
SoundCloud, and on the Jack Straw
website. You can also subscribe to
Sonolocations as a podcast to receive each piece when it launches.
The Henry is also hosting Gary Simmons: The Engine Room through August 22, 2021. The work of Gary Simmons (b. 1964, New York, NY) explores racial, social, and cultural politics, interrogating the ways in which we attempt to reconstruct the past via personal and collective memory. For this commissioned exhibition at the Henry, the artist created a large-scale wall drawing, a suite of new paintings and sculptures, and a sculptural installation, drawing together disparate components to create space for new interaction and invention.
This piece has been utilized in Jambalaya Jam at the Henry, a night of music celebrating Seattle’s recent musical past.
The installation will function as an interactive space, riffing off traditional American suburban garage architecture and referencing the garage as a site for invention, creativity, and experimentation, particularly for music/bands. As both a private laboratory and a public stage, the garage sculpture will be activated by a series of musician residencies, drawing on unique areas of the Seattle music scene, both historical and present, and tapping into the lesser-known, yet equally influential, genres and practices.
Simmons researched and archived band and concert posters from around the world to create this piece.
From Henry Art Gallery:
The Henry is internationally recognized for bold and challenging exhibitions, for pushing the boundaries of contemporary art and culture, and for being the first to premiere new works by established and emerging artists. Through individual experiences with art, we inspire visitors to upend their expectations and discover surprising connections.
For more info click here.
by Janine Granstrand | Jul 20, 2021 | General
Seattle, WA. The Seattle Art Museum reopens to the grand public with new exhibitions and strict Covid-19 guidelines and policies to follow. Their newest exhibition piece is a small varied selection of carefully selected statement pieces from his debut to his best works by famous French impressionist painter, Claude Monet (1840-1926).
The beginning stages of the exhibition in preparation for guests on July 1st
The current exhibition, starting on July 1st and ending October 17th, features Claude Monet’s ten paintings he painted at a small fishing village, The Manneporte, or known as Étretat, in hopes of finding inspiration after a minor setback and painters block. Monet who had been financially insecure at this time needed something that would lead to a long-lasting impression and favorable results from collectors hitting the market. He needed to create paintings that were profitable, yet he recounted that most of his prior artworks were to be unfavorable and bad to him. What made this collection of paintings a hit in the world of artistry was the way that Claude Monet founded the style of an impressionism painting, which may be seen as a starting form of modernism. As most of his paintings focused on painting particular scenes of nature (landscapes or people) from the way that he understood and perceived it, his paintings painted at Étretat, focused on the livelihood and casual scenery of the most beautiful spots he chose to highlight during his trip.
Fishing Boats at Étretat, 1885, Claude Monet.
Claude Monet’s series of paintings made at Étretat focused on scenery, but what stood out was how, pictured below, he focused on the cliff at Étretat from a multitude of perceptions. Whether it was from a change in location from where he stood to paint, the highs or lows of the ocean tide that day, or if he decided to paint at daybreak or sunset. All of these variations were the precursor to his eventual growth into impressionism style painting, and this collection in particular is what stood him out from other artists at the time.
Another painting from Claude Monet’s Étretat painting anthologies.
But with such a popular exhibition, how would the Seattle Art Museum handle an influx of visitors while following covid-19 pandemic regulations while maintaining the fullest experience. Although the mask mandate in Washington State has been dropped only for vaccinated individuals; mask optional, meaning that unvaccinated individuals must still wear a mask at all times within the facility and social distance (suggested, but not enforced) as some of the areas are blocked off to the general public to avoid crowding. The places that have been closed off are “the entire south wing of the museum will be closed, including South Hall and South Hall restrooms, the Grand Staircase, the Chase Open Studio and the Ann P. Wyckoff Education Resource Center. The Bullitt Library and children’s play areas will also be closed.” They have also closed off certain entrances and exits to avoid too much foot traffic and have created one-way traffic signs for entry.
The Seattle Art Museum has added a new feature to impress individuals hoping the visit. By adding the interactive smartphone feature, users can listen to virtual letters written by Claude Monet and audited out loud for an interactive solo experience while touring the exhibition from start to last, from his selected five paintings from the Étretat painting anthologies.
The community has reacted positively, despite tour guides being unavailable, visitors can now enjoy the series of paintings, while also following a blueprint of where to go, all by themselves or in a small group. However, to ensure social distance and safety precautions as the pandemic is yet to be over, the Seattle Art Museum has decided to make certain exhibitions such as Monet at Étretat to be timed and limited, meaning that in order for all guests to have a chance to enjoy the exhibit, you cannot stay for too long. That is not the same for general admission, as you can stay for as long as you like. Overall, tickets to the Seattle Art Museum are open and available but online purchasing is the better route to go as only a small amount of in-person ticket purchasing will be available. The Seattle Art Museum states, “Advanced online timed tickets are encouraged and special exhibition tickets are likely to sell out. On-site tickets are available only if time slots are not sold out. Please arrive prior to your reserved ticket time. If you are more than 15 minutes late, we may not be able to accommodate entry.” The Seattle Art Museum is currently open from Wednesday to Sunday from 10-5.
From the Seattle Art Museum:
Suggested admission means visitors may choose to pay anything from a penny to $19.99 for general admission when they purchase tickets. General admission includes access to Collections and Installations at Seattle Art Museum and is suggested. Suggested admission tickets do not include entry to special exhibitions which have fixed pricing.
As for discounts, on the First Thursday of every month admission to the Seattle Art Museum is free! But general admission tickets tend to run out fast!
