Found something you like and don't want to forget about it later? Click "Save Event" on any of the linked events below to add it to your own private list.
Jump to: Museums | Galleries | Art Events | Art Walks
Museums
Bainbridge Island Museum of Art
Departures and Arrivals: Artists in Abstraction Past Event Like List BIMA offers an "intense session in art vocabulary" with this group exhibit focusing on the artists' idiosyncratic approaches to abstraction. The roster ranges from textile artist Jono Vaughan to ecologically focused Mary Coss. (June 29—Sept 29)
Bellevue Arts Museum
School: The Joseph Rossano Salmon Project Past Event Like List Rossano and his collaborators have sculpted a school of silvered glass salmon, which are paired with videos from scientists, artists, and indigenous people. Rossano says his project grew out of concern for the salmon schools of the Skagit River, whose population has shrunk from the millions to the tens of thousands. (Through Sun Aug 11)
Simon Hanselmann: Bad Gateway Past Event Like List You know that moment when you're in the middle of a hangout with your friends—slamming beers, intermittently hitting a bong, shoving chips into your mouth, binging old episodes of Project Runway—and suddenly a drunk-stoned realization overtakes you. Maybe all this eagerness to get and stay intoxicated comes from a place of deep unhappiness and frustration with a perceived lack of control over your life. The characters in Simon Hanselmann's comics constantly wrestle with this moment. Instead of letting the smoke clear, going to bed, and shaking off this momentary recognition of existential anguish—they lean into it. With drugs, with drink, with darkness, with weird sex, with selfishness, with addiction, with a lack of empathy. In his first-ever museum exhibition, the Tasmanian-born, Seattle-based artist displays drawings, sculptures, and every single page of his forthcoming book from Fantagraphics, also entitled Bad Gateway. He'll also sign books at BAM on July 11 and at Fantagraphics on August 10. JK (Through Sun Aug 11)
Oscar Tuazon: Collaborator Past Event Like List Oscar Tuazon works with ordinary materials—wood, concrete, steel, glass—to create pieces that are minimal in sensibility but maximal in design. In the LA-based artist's first solo museum show in his native Pacific Northwest, Tuazon will be exhibiting works from the past 15 years of his career while also introducing new site-specific pieces. The Bellevue Arts Museum itself is an interesting building to be in, with all its sharp edges and unexpected curves. The marriage between Tuazon's approach to space and Steven Holl's architecture should be interesting to witness. JK (Through Sun Sept 15)
Ron Ho: A Jeweler's Tale Past Event Like List Hawaiian-born Ron Ho looked to his family's Chinese roots and to world cultures to inform his own jewelry practice, incorporating found objects such as netsuke, Iranian bone beads, and jade buttons in structures of silver and gold. During his lifetime (he died in 2017), Ho was honored by many craft and art associations, including the American Craft Council. This exhibition reveals some of his essential treasures, reconstructs his studio, and screens the documentary Ron Ho: Becoming Chinese, A Jeweler's Tale. (Through Sun Sept 15)
Emerge/Evolve 2018: Rising Talents in Kiln-Glass Past Event Like List The winners and some finalists of Bullseye Glass Company's competition, which has been going on for the past 18 years, will have kiln-glass (highly moldable, fusible glass) on display. Some take geometric vase-like forms, like Andy Plummer's ovoid I Moved on Her Like a Bitch; others are weirder, like Evelyn Gottschall Baker's eerily realistic Bones-Group. (Aug 23—Jan 12)
Frye Art Museum
Cauleen Smith: Give It or Leave It Past Event Like List In her latest show (which riffs on the phrase "take it or leave it"), the black feminist multimedia artist emphasizes generosity and selflessness. She weaves together films, banners, and site-specific light installations from four distinct historical universes: Alice Coltrane and her Californian ashram, Bill Ray's 1966 photo at Simon Rodia's Watts Towers, Noah Purifoy and his desert assemblages, and spiritualist Rebecca Cox Jackson and her Shaker community in Pennsylvania. JK (Through Sun Sept 1)
Jane Wong: After Preparing the Altar, the Ghosts Feast Feverishly Past Event Like List I love how poets use space. I think it has something to do with the way their minds wrap around words, arranging them into something familiar yet strange, that lends itself well to curating spaces. This is poet and artist Jane Wong's first solo exhibition. Exploring the themes of hunger and waste and their meaning for immigrant families, Wong's show will consist of altars, sculpture poems, and belongings alongside texts that evoke her childhood in New Jersey where her parents ran a Chinese American restaurant. JK (Through Sun Sept 1)
End of Day: American Oil Painting Around 1900 Past Event Like List This exhibition captures a particular moment in American history, in which painters were poised on modernity and mass industrialization, and longed to capture the comforts and beauties of the bucolic countryside. (June 15—Sept 29)
Frame of Mind: Storytelling Through Animation Past Event Like List Teenage animators developed their own stop-motion animation over an eight-week course led by Reel Grrls' Celena Adler and teaching artist Elise Harper. Find out what they've been up to at this Partnership for Youth show. (June 22—Dec 8)
Recent Acquisitions: Toyin Ojih Odutola Past Event Like List In Toyin Ojih Odutola's portraits, skin moves, glows, shines, and radiates. The way she renders black skin—at the beginning of her career in ballpoint pen—gives her 2-D drawings a dimension that I've never quite seen before. Her work is dynamic, beautiful, and challenging. The Frye recently acquired a suit of prints by the Nigerian-born, New York-based artist and plans to show them in this inaugural exhibition. Though Odutola's practice has expanded beyond ballpoint pens and into painting and printmaking, all of her work is informed by a sense of the tactile, the topographical, the subversive. JK (June 15—Dec 8)
Henry Art Gallery
Cecilia Vicuña: About to Happen Past Event Like List This is the first major US solo exhibition of the prolific Chilean-born artist. The show will encompass sculpture, installation, drawing, video, text-based work, and found-object sculpture that date back to Vicuña's practice in the 1960s. Vicuña's work is difficult to categorize, but it is resplendent and full of many possibilities—at once operating within conceptual art, land art, poetry, and feminist art practices. JK (Through Sun Sept 15)
Carrie Yamaoka: recto/verso Past Event Like List The New York-based artist's work is molten, glasslike, distorted as if you're looking into a funhouse mirror. She skips the traditional canvas and wood panels, opting instead to compose a lot of her work using resin or reflective mylar. The result is a slipperiness of both form and style: the material is the thing. recto/verso covers Yamaoka's work from the early 1990s to the present, including some of her early text-based explorations and chemically altered photos. JK (July 13—Nov 3)
Museum of Glass
Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight Past Event Like List One of the finest glass artists in the Northwest interprets the Tlingit story of Raven, who brought the moon, stars, and sun to the world, with perfectly formed sculptures accompanied by the research of Tlingit historian and mythologist Walter Porter. (Through Mon Sept 2)
Translations: An Exploration of Glass by Northwest Native Carvers and Weavers Past Event Like List Featuring pieces made in the museum's hot shop by family members of "three of the Pillars of the Evergreen Longhouse"—Mary Ellen Hillaire (Lummi), Gerald Miller (Skokomish), and Hazel Pete (Chehalis)—with the aid of Dan and Raya Friday. Old weaving and carving treasures are juxtaposed with the new glass interpretations of baskets, sculptures, and bentwood boxes. (Through Sun Nov 10)
Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI)
Seattle Style: Fashion/Function Past Event Like List Seattle fashion, whether utilitarian or glamorous, will be the focus of this exhibition drawing on the museum's clothing collection. The organizers say it'll be the "most significant" display of the PNW's regional fashion ever. (Through Mon Oct 14)
Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP)
Prince from Minneapolis Past Event Like List Prince's "If I Was Your Girlfriend" did to my erotic imagination what the flower revolution did to the earth millions of years ago—transformed a monochromatic vision of sexuality into one blooming with color. Listening to the song for the first time in 1986, I realized that sex was more (if not all) about play, rather than function, mission, or purpose. Many years later in college, I learned that this form of play was not specific to humans, but was the state of things in nature—most developed animals are not blind and efficient fuckers, but conscious wasters and abusers of sex. Fucking is mostly waste, wonderful waste. And lovers are only fully such when they are playful, when the borders between them are destabilized, when the sex is purely the energy of sex—a glowing substance that's there to be exploited and explored. Prince will never die, especially with exhibits like MoPOP's that use nearly 50 artifacts (instruments, photographs, artworks, clothes) to delve into what made the late soul-pop artist a superstar. Charles Mudede (Through Sun Jan 5)
A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes Past Event Like List Curators of this exhibit show how designers and artists like Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Gypsy Sport, Hassan Hajjaj, and Iris van Herpen have interpreted "seven feminine archetypes" within the context of women's changing roles. (Ongoing)
Nordic Museum
Studio 54 & Beyond: The Photography of Hasse Persson Past Event Like List When imagining Studio 54, NYC's world-famous (and defunct) nightclub and discotheque, one thinks of debauchery, drugs, celebrities, disco, extravagance, camp. I think of Bianca Jagger riding in on a horse. Liza Minelli and her long, lean Halston pants. But the exact shape and content of these images are blurry, I'm sure much like the real memories of the participants. Swedish photographer Hasse Person makes these images clear, and his iconic photography of the club will be featured in this notable new exhibit. CB (Through Sun Aug 25)
L. A. Ring: On the Edge of the World Past Event Like List Even a cursory visual arts education in the US—Europe-focused as it is—often neglects Scandinavia (with the exception of Edvard Munch). This collection of paintings by Laurits Andersen Ring, one of the most significant Danish artists in history, should help correct that imbalance. Born in 1854, Ring became renowned for his frank depictions of laborers and farmers as well as his eerily tranquil landscapes. (Sept 14—Jan 19)
Northwest African American Museum
Edwin T. Pratt: A Living Legacy Past Event Like List See work by longtime Pratt artist Jite Agbro alongside Pratt Scholarship recipients from the last four years. (Through Wed Aug 28)
Warren Pope Past Event Like List This Seattle artist reflects on the racist history of redlining (refusing to loan money to people in areas with populations of color) through abstract visuals. (May 31— Sept 8)
Seattle Art Museum
Trimpin: Hear & Now Past Event Like List Trimpin is a musical genius who builds room-sized art installations that are also instruments. Picture a Rube Goldberg machine exploded all over a room, but one you can play Beethoven on. This year, Trimpin is again partnering with students from Path with Art, a nonprofit that works with homeless people to create original works of art. Together they'll construct a new sound sculpture bursting with poetry, visual art, and, of course, music. Rich Smith (Through Mon July 15)
2018 Betty Bowen Award Winner: Natalie Ball Past Event Like List Ball (Klamath) was last year's winner of the prestigious Betty Bowen Award, which means she gets $15,000 and a solo show at SAM. Cool! Making sculptures out of found objects, cloth, and other unusual materials, Ball refashions perceptions of Native American history. (Aug 10—Nov 17)
Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts and Crafts Movement Past Event Like List You may have seen Pre-Raphaelite paintings, those opulently romantic depictions of medieval lords and ladies evoke a dreamy Middle Ages (without grime and shit). This exhibition of 145 paintings, crafts, sculptures, and more focuses on the small group of artists who rebelled against the aesthetics of industrialization and drew on the past. (June 13—Sept 8)
Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama—Hail, the Dark Lioness Past Event Like List Muholi is a titan of art and photography. I remember first encountering their photographs of black LGBTQI South Africans in college and being stunned by the honesty, intimacy, and strength that Muholi brought out in their subjects. In a time when being a queer black South African rendered an individual invisible or subject to extreme prejudice and violence, Muholi's work subverted and exalted this marginalized group of people. In this exhibit, Muholi becomes the subject, taking staged self-portraits using found materials like pads, cowrie shells, and washing machine tubes to "challenge perceptions of who and where they are." JK (July 10—Nov 3)
Material Differences: German Perspectives Past Event Like List This gallery is dedicated to post-WW II German art, including Anselm Kiefer's large, thickly layered canvases and Katharina Mann's giant mouse sculpture, supplemented by photos of the Russian front by Dmitry Baltermants. The works offer fascinating glimpses into the trauma of dictatorship and war, and the ways in which artists have grappled with new representations. (Through Sun April 26)
You Are on Indigenous Land: Places/Displaces Traditional and contemporary art of Native peoples reflects matters of land, ancestry, and kinship through modern forms and handicrafts like basketry and weaving. Go for the artists' mastery of their media, but also for a reminder of the deep roots of pre-Western cultures and the urgency of sovereignty and environmental issues. (Through Sun June 28, 2020)
Claire Partington: Taking Tea Past Event Like List There's a sense of caution that immediately overtakes anyone who steps into the Porcelain Room at SAM, interesting given that porcelain is actually hella strong. Featured artist Claire Partington even told me it bounces. Don't knock anything over, though. Partington's site-specific installation features six ceramic figures, each with its own story to tell about the history of international trade, gender, empire, slavery, and conspicuous consumption. JK (Through Sun Dec 6)
Tacoma Art Museum
Familiar Faces & New Voices: Surveying Northwest Art Past Event Like List A survey of Northwest art that will highlight work by both big names and less recognizable figures (including Dale Chihuly, Roger Shimomura, Patti Warashina, Barbara Earl Thomas, Jacob Lawrence and more), and offer a chronological take on visual expression in the region. (Through Sat Aug 31)
Bart at TAM: Animating America's Favorite Family Past Event Like List This unauthorized look at the first 13 seasons of The Simpsons features 100 animation cels, scripts, and drawings. (July 20—Oct 27)
Immigrant Artists and the American West Past Event Like List Rediscover stories and experiences of immigrant artists in Western expansion with works by people from Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Russia, and Sweden. (Through Sun June 14)
Wing Luke Museum
Worlds Beyond Here: The Expanding Universe of APA Science Fiction Past Event Like List This dreamy exhibit of Asian Pacific American sci-fi artists begins in a mock-up of a child's bedroom. Star Wars sheets cover the bed. Constellations of stars twinkle on the ceiling. From there you travel into the worlds created by local artists such as sculptor June Sekiguchi, plus national comics artists such as Greg Pak. Along the way, you can play with cool VR and AR exhibits, and learn about representations of Asian Americans in film, television, and literature. It's fun for the whole damn family, people, and it serves as an excellent review of the significant contributions Asian Americans have made to the world's collective vision of the future. (Through Sun Sept 15) Rich Smith
Galleries
Center on Contemporary Art (CoCA)
(Our Love Is) Unbroken by Bars Past Event Like List Childbirth is one of the most miraculous and dangerous things a human can do. A body brings new life into this world while sometimes risking its own well-being to do so—especially here in the US, where we have the highest rate of maternal mortality in the industrialized world. Now imagine having to do it in chains. (Our Love Is) Unbroken by Bars tells the stories of the many women who gave birth while shackled in prison, through the medium of photography, videography, and painting, seeking to heal formerly incarcerated mothers and raise awareness of the injustice facing those who are still behind bars. The exhibition will also feature work by renowned street artists Jess X Snow and Shyama R. Kuver. JK (Through Sat June 15)
Old Is Not a Dirty Word: Dykes Over 50 Past Event Like List Lesbians strike against our ageist society in this defiant exhibition. (June 20—July 20)
cogean?
Isvald Klingels: Poison Garden Past Event Like List Catch the party for this exhibition by Klingels, who literally draws from her experience in floral industry, combining flowers, horror-movie heroines, "what Elon Musk dreams about," and post-human reverie. (Sat July 20)
Davidson Galleries
Contemporary Northwest Print Invitational 2019 Past Event Like List A showcase of contemporary fine art prints and works on paper at Davidson and Seattle Print Arts' invitational fair. (Aug 1—31)
Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery
'Book of Weirdo' Exhibition Featuring Peter Bagge Past Event Like List This exhibit is held in honor of the release of The Book of Weirdo: A Retrospective of R. Crumb's Legendary Humor Comics Anthology. The book's focus is Weirdo, the Robert Crumb-helmed comics anthology series that was published from the early '80s to 1993, acted as a "low art" counterpoint to the modern higher-brow Raw, and tapped the talents of a wide swath of untraditional cartoonists. Among those was Peter Bagge, who was featured in Weirdo, then served as its editor for three years. (You know Bagge from memorable satires in exaggerated cartoon form, like his Pacific Northwestern-set Apocalypse Nerd, or maybe Hate, one of the best-selling alternative comics of the 1990s, which featured antihero Buddy Bradley as the slacker hipster mouthpiece of Generation X.) Bagge is also among Book of Weirdo's three editors, and works related to the anthology and book will presumably be on display alongside other Weirdo artists. LP (June 8—July 10)
Hot Off the Press Exhibition Past Event Like List See new work by Fantagraphics artists featured at the publishers' Book Fair, including Ulli Lust, Zak Sally, Joshua Ray Stephens, and Coin-op Books. (July 13—Sept 9)
Foster/White Gallery
Shawn Huckins: Staring at the Sun Past Event Like List Huckins is known for his humorous Pop Art and meme-inspired mixed media works that mash together images of early American figures and politicians with contemporary internet speak. Here, he mashes up pieces from the White House Art Collection. (June 6—22)
Will Robinson: New Sculptures Past Event Like List Bremerton-born Robinson's stonework is described as "a study in contrasts" and "prone to impossible balancing acts." (July 2—20)
Casey McGlynn Past Event Like List McGlynn's childlike, perspective-less paintings ever-so-slightly resemble Chagall in their flattened, colorful, endearing depictions of people, animals, vehicles, and houses. (Aug 1—24)
Gallery 110
Aaron Brady and Greg Pierce: Changing Waters Past Event Like List Brady and Pierce issue an artistic warning about the pollution of water sources by "oil extraction processes and chemicals." Brady works with mixed media to emulate "videos of liquid recombination in progress," while Pierce renders "pustules of degraded water oozing from beneath the surface" with reclaimed glass, rock, and glaze. (July 4—27)
Gallery 4Culture
Peter Rand: A to B — 6—10 Past Event Like List Rand works in a variety of forms: video, installation, interactive media, sculpture, socially engaged art, and performance. He is most interested in examining topics like identity, urban spaces, and the absurd. In his latest show, Rand uses time-lapse photography to depict him constructing objects as they move through space, shifting and reassembling these "toolsets" against various different backgrounds. These photos then become "a study in getting from here to there." JK (June 6—27)
Bill Whipple Past Event Like List Long preoccupied with "viewer-activated, message-driven constructions," Whipple is switching to wood and found objects to make intricate objects that suggest warped machines, Seussian cityscapes, mechanized human interactions, or alchemical apparatus. (July 8—Aug 8)
Ann Leda Shapiro Past Event Like List Acupuncturist Shapiro is not an outsider artist—she attended the San Francisco Art Institute and the University of California, Davis in the '60s—but her cut and painted works on paper have that brut but beautiful look. She combines fanciful depictions of human anatomy with equally inventive riffs on nature, animals, and microbes. (Sept 5—26)
Ghost Gallery
Erin Kendig: Giants Past Event Like List These gouache and watercolor paintings double as love letters to Northwest flora and fungi. Using mixed perspectives, patterns, curious symmetries, and sinuous lines, Kendig evokes animistic landscapes and mushrooms and plants with plenty of personality. (July 11—Aug 4)
Glass Box Gallery
Wandering What Is Past Event Like List How do artists relate to creative existence beyond themselves? That what's explored in this group show curated by Dori Hana Scherer, with makers who have developed structures that capture their methods and personal processes. (Through Sat June 15)
Paolo Arao: Key Change Past Event Like List Queer Manila-born Brooklyn artist Arao arranges textiles and paint in intricate patterns to evoke "traditional and historical" art in a softer, more tactile take on geometrical abstraction. (June 29—July 20)
Forward — Part 3 Past Event Like List Shaun Kardinal curates the third phase of Forward, an annual series in which artists receive a piece, transform it, exhibit it, and pass it on. (Aug 3—17)
SPACEFILLER: Fantasy Parameter Spaces Past Event Like List For Seattle-based duo Alexander Nagy and Alexander Miller, their collective name, SPACEFILLER, is in reference to both their role as artists (one who fills space) and also to Conway's Game of Life, a mathematical model. (A "spacefiller" is a pattern that wants to spread out indefinitely.) Here, the duo will be taking over the white cube and installing interactive "mini universes" that invite the viewer to "play with the parameters of algorithmic simulations in order to reveal the complicated relationship between order and chaos." Expect light projection, sounds, sculptures, and tactile electronics. JK (Sept 5—Oct 12)
Goethe Pop-up Space
White Bunnies, Arabic Cola, and the Last Passenger Pigeon: Comic Stories From Germany Past Event Like List Graphic novels and comic arts are BIG in Germany, and this pop-up exhibit offers the chance to take in some of the most interesting, critically acclaimed, avant-garde pieces today. Make sure you stop by to appreciate the work of Nina Bude, Anna Haifisch (founder of the collective the Millionaires Club), Thoka Maer (who's illustrated for the NYT and Buzzfeed), and respected fantasy artist Robert Deutsch. (Through Mon June 10)
Virtual Bauhaus: An Interactive Exhibition Past Event Like List Take a virtual tour of the famous school that revolutionized design during its brief interwar existence in Dessau, Germany, in this VR exhibition by Goethe-Institut Boston in cooperation with Cologne Game Lab (CGL) at the Technical University Cologne and independent Bauhaus experts. (Through Wed July 31)
Greg Kucera Gallery
Ed Wicklander: Mostly Cats Past Event Like List Wicklander is a master of his materials. When I look at his balloons made of steel, I feel like I've seen them before. I glaze over. His kittens? There's nothing else like them. They're hilarious and heartwarming, an almost impossible combination in contemporary art. They know about kitsch and they zoom happily by it traveling on the same road, another near-impossibility. So smart and so dumb at the very same time. JEN GRAVES (June 6—July 13)
John Buck: Woodcut Prints and Kinetic Sculpture Past Event Like List Buck remixes cultural icons, classical iconography, and visual jokes in elaborate, often-kinetic sculptures. (June 6—July 13)
Claudia Fitch Past Event Like List Award-winning sculptor Fitch has been making public art in Seattle since the '90s, messing around with art history, pop culture, and the female form. In the past few years, she's fashioned torsos and clothed headless women in casual stances, creamers and stands made of women's bottom and top halves, and more abstract pieces emphasizing generous forms and unusual takes on femininity. (July 25—Aug 24)
Juventino Aranda: Sculpture and Paintings Past Event Like List An exhibit of Aranda's conceptual sculptures, textile art, and altered objects. (July 25—Aug 24)
Whiting Tennis: New Work Past Event Like List Tennis's colors cohabit uneasily, and even the symmetrical designs look unstable. He favors compositions that don't allow the gaze to rest, but jostle it from shape to shape: intestinal tangles, chaotic patchworks, smudgy mazes, indefinable objects in confrontation. But this graphic agitation also appeals to the viewer's sense of play and freedom. Far from severe, the forms he invents are variously insectoid, childlike, flailing, drooping, and prowling. JZ (Sept 5—Nov 2)
Hedreen Gallery
Romson Regarde Bustillo: More than can be held Past Event Like List Multi-layered and immersive, the work of Seattle-based Bustillo is deeply satisfying to take in. The richness of color, form, and content is grounded by a sense of gravity and landscape. Consisting of large scale collagraph prints, video, sound, and performance, More than can be held will engage "the nuanced networks of visual cues, codes and colloquialisms...that are employed by communities to negotiate, claim, and reclaim space." JK (Through Sat Aug 10)
James Harris Gallery
20/20: A 20th Anniversary Survey Past Event Like List Twenty artists—among them Viola Frey, Akio Takamori, Fay Jones, and Mary Anne Peters—who've participated extensively in the gallery's 20-year history are celebrated in this anniversary exhibition. (June 8—Aug 17)
King Street Station
yəhaw̓ Past Event Like List The exhibit at this new Seattle arts space is curated by Tracy Rector (Choctaw/Seminole), Asia Tail (Cherokee Nation), and Satpreet Kahlon, and features 200 pieces by indigenous artists working in all sorts of mediums. (Through Sat Aug 3)
Koplin Del Rio Gallery
Elyse Pignolet: You Should Smile More Past Event Like List LA—based artist Elyse Pignolet's work is charming—a ceramicist, she often incorporates feminist messages and phrases into traditional-looking vases and plates. A gorgeous blue-and-white ceramic tulipiere, stuffed with flowery images, has the phrase "Will She Ever Shut Up?" and a plate finds snake-like branches swirling around the word "bitchy." A bit kitschy, Pignolet's work subverts the stuffy and persnickety assumptions we have toward ceramic artwork. And it's a lot of fun. JK (Through Sat June 29)
Linda Hodges Gallery
Robbie Riley Past Event Like List Gorgeous nostalgia reigns in Riley's large-scale paintings based on Kodak photos from the 1940s and '50s, drawn from his family's trove. See rich and cinematic images of the Northwest from more than a half-century ago. (June 6—29)
Jennifer Beedon Snow and Joe Max Emminger Past Event Like List Snow makes the loveliest paintings of tennis courts and subdivision pools in suburbia, while Emminger paints quirky people, animals, and figures in between. (July 11—Aug 31)
MadArt
Beili Liu: Each and Every Past Event Like List Liu creates immersive, "site-responsive" and specific installations that create and explore various dichotomies. She often works with quotidian materials (thread, scissors, paper, water), which both familiarizes and disorients viewers. For the Austin-based artist's first solo exhibit in Seattle, Liu will be suspending thousands of pieces of concrete-coated children's clothing inches above the gallery floor. JK (June 25—Aug 11)
Oxbow
Matthew Offenbacher Past Event Like List The Seattle artist is Oxbow's current artist-in-residence. He made waves a few years ago after he received the $25,000 Neddy Award and used the money to buy work made by women and queer artists, which he donated to the Seattle Art Museum's permanent collection. During his Oxbow residency, he'll be presenting painted pictures based on the ancient Greek romance novel Daphnis and Chloe. JK (Through Sun June 16)
Paramount Theatre
Re:definition: Latinx Diaspora Past Event Like List Seattle Arts Commissioner Juan-Alonso Rodriguez has curated the newest incarnation of Re:definition, a series transforming the theater's lobby bar into an exhibition space. Artist Monica Arche (born in Puerto Rico to Cuban parents), writer Felicia Gonzalez (born in Cuba), and painter/printmaker Fulgencio Lazo (born in Mexico), all currently based in Seattle, display works that manifest their contributions to the city's artistic and cultural scene. (Through Sat July 27)
Peter Miller Books
bauhaus.photo Past Event Like List As part of the Goethe Institut's celebration Wunderbar Together—The Year of German-American Friendship, the bookstore/gallery hangs 100 selections from the Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, which houses about 70,000 photos from the famed interwar German architecture and design school. This looks to be a fascinating glimpse into a turbulent yet artistically dazzling era, with work by the well-known Lucia Moholy, László Moholy-Nagy, and T. Lux Feininger, plus less famous artists like Kattina Both, Irene Bayer, and Max Peiffer Watenphul. (Through Sun July 14)
Phylogeny Contemporary
Liz Tran: Innerverse Past Event Like List See brightly colored, exuberant paintings by Liz Tran. The dominant shapes are circles. Circles that look like gears in a machine that creates happiness from a movie set in a flower-power utopia. JEN GRAVES (Through Sat June 29)
The Polygon
Christian Marclay: The Clock Past Event Like List If you make the trip up north, don't miss this installation of Marclay's fascinating 2010 video, a renowned work that uses clips from seven decades-worth of films to create a 24-hour clock in real time. It's been shown at the Venice Biennale and the Tate, so you're lucky to find it here. On some Fridays, the gallery will stay open for 24 hours so you can see the whole film if you wish! (July 5—Sept 15)
Push/Pull
Alli Good Past Event Like List Grotesque sexuality, eye-popping nudity, skewed religiosity, and horrifying surrealism clash in North Carolina artist Alli Good's comic-like prints. The artist, who'll be present at the opening, takes a decidedly unwholesome—yet fascinating and cathartic—approach toward issues of body image and femininity. (June 20—July 17)
Specswizard and Keef Cross Past Event Like List Charles Mudede has written: "SpecsWizard is a veteran. His entire life has been devoted to the art. It's almost impossible to imagine him doing anything other than rapping, making beats, and painting mystical urban images on walls." See his character designs for the forthcoming Gibson Comic Anthology alongside pieces by tattoo and comics artist Keef Cross. (Aug 15—Sept 18)
Shift
Leah Gerrard: Element Past Event Like List Gerrard's wiry creations speak to the delicacy—and rigidity—of her material. Gerrard incorporates the natural (rocks, wood, organic forms) into the metallic sinew of the wire, which is often suspended from rusty iron chains. JK (July 11—28)
Sky View Observatory
Look How Far We've Come: A Queer Art Show 902 Feet in the Air Past Event Like List Photographer, curator, and Stranger contributor Timothy Rysdyke has chosen works of art by fellow talented queers to grace a gallery high over the city. Check out pieces by Anthony White, Casey Curren, Clyde Peterson, Coco Spadoni, Frank Correa, Gordan Christenson, Kade Marsili, Lamb, and Mary Ann Carter, among others. (Through Sun June 30)
SOIL
Repossessed Past Event Like List Black, indigenous, Asian, Latinx, Muslim, and Jewish artists revisit the damaging legacy of racist housing policy—as the gallery explains, it was legal until 1968 to explicitly discriminate against minority renters on homeowners' deeds. Humaira Abid, Elisheba Johnson, Sara Osebold, Kristen Ramírez, Daniel R. Smith, and Ellen Ziegler have set themselves the task of tackling this shameful local history and its present-day effects. (Aug 1—31)
Stonington Gallery
Salish Brilliance: Dan Friday and Maynard Johnny, Jr Past Event Like List . Lummi glass blower Friday crafts exquisite sculptures based on Native practices like, in this case, cedar bark weaving and totem carving. The objects pay homage to the intricacy of the traditional craft while adding his own asymmetries and vividly contrasting colors. His fellow Coast Salish artist Maynard Johnny, Jr. (Penelakut/Kwakwaka'wakw) paints brightly and beautifully on paddles and canvases. (Sept 5—29)
Traver Gallery
Jane Rosen: Written in Stone Past Event Like List Rosen manages to capture something about birds—hawks—that is at once regal and utterly terrifying; perhaps because they are lifelike without looking entirely real. Her birds have a presence—they are watchful, preying, observant, there. Rosen is inspired by Egyptian funerary art (it shows) and Asian calligraphy. This exhibition is a mix of 2-D and 3-D work, plus a mix of material (glass, stone, ink, paper, etc.). JK (Through Sat June 29)
Treason Gallery
Bisco Smith Past Event Like List Though the work is rather straightforward, New York artist Bisco Smith makes black-and-white exciting. The marks on his canvas resemble writing, like it's actually trying to communicate something through words to the viewer. That's—in part—due to his process of creation. Selecting an instrumental song or beat to play as he paints, Smith then freestyles lyrics "that express the consciousness and energy of that moment." Although these lyrics aren't exactly legible (at least to my eye), the paintings pulse with life. Drawing on his background as a street artist, Smith often composes his works using materials like household paint, rollers, spray paint, and white paste. JK (June 6— July 20)
True Love Tattoo & Art Gallery
The Other Beauty Past Event Like List Celebrate weird loveliness on canvas by local artists like abstract painter Carolyn Hitt, collagist Kabriele Rosas, graphic artist Angelina Villalobos, and others. (Through Sun July 7)
Vashon Center for the Arts
Tree Past Event Like List Employing a vast range of styles, 19 artists (including prolific local notables like Sara Norsworthy, Brian Sanchez, Molly Magai, Tuan Nguyen, and Gillian Theobald), seek to capture the shape and spirit of trees. (Through Sat June 29)
Vermillion
Nark Past Event Like List For many queers new to the Queen City, Nark Magazine's photographs of Seattle queer parties are the first images that stand out to them about this city's scene. They're slick, gay, rowdy, hot—some would say intimidatingly so. But under the leadership of Kevin Kauer (with photography from Roman Robinson), Nark has captured much of the Seattle underground like no one else has. They are perfect archives of blissed out Seattle club kid moments. This show will dig deep into Nark's archives, while also displaying club-inspired installations and new photography. CB (June 13–July 6)
Virago Gallery
Kook Teflon: Church of the Poison Mind Past Event Like List Seattle is about to lose a team of kooky artistic leaders: Kook Teflon, a High Priestess who has produced over 100 live shows during her time in Seattle; and Jackie Hell, a drag queen so strange and wonderful she's hard to describe, like if Dina Martina were haunted by a fun demon. The duo is moving to New Orleans at the end of June, but Kook will be creating a final installation at Virago Gallery. Kook's last hurrah should be a spectacle. Expect a ceremony. CB (Through Sun June 30)
Jessica Rycheal: Altar Call Past Event Like List After her exhibition at the Northwest African American Museum, Rycheal's frank and loving visual odes to black healing and community are once again available to view at Vermillion, and you should seize your chance to do so. (July 3—31)
Winston Wächter Fine Art
Claire Partington: The Hunting Party Past Event Like List Fresh off the debut of her two-year installation Taking Tea in the Porcelain Room at SAM, British ceramicist Claire Partington is back in Seattle showing new work—a playful dissection and sendup of a European hunting party. Each figure in the group has a removable head that can be swapped with an animal one (bear, warthog, etc.). And the Roman goddess of the hunt, Diana, is depicted with gold hoops and pubes to match. Partington's work is equal parts exquisite, fun, timeless, and modern. JK (June 8—July 27)
Peter Gronquist: Searcher Past Event Like List Portland sculptor/painter/taxidermist Gronquist employs infinity mirrors, painting, found objects, and lights to call attention to "American consumerism, excess and escapism." (Through Sat Aug 3)
Art Events
9th and Thomas
RELISH Seattle Past Event Like List Locally cherished artists like Anthony White, Electric Coffin, Brandon Vosika, Blake Blanco, Mary Coss, Drie Chapek, and others are featured at this show presented by RELISH magazine. (June 7—29)
Cal Anderson Park
AMPlify Memories: Temporary Installations Past Event Like List A new AIDS memorial designed by Horatio Hung-Yan Law will be installed in Capitol Hill, reminding new denizens of and visitors to this trendy neighborhood of past tragedies. Before its completion, the AMPlify Memories series will provide a space for artists to perform and exhibit their elegiac work, among them, singer/animator Clyde Petersen, dancer David Rue, designer/curator Gabriel Stromberg, visual creator Pete Rush, and storyteller/artist Timothy White Eagle. (June 13—Nov 15)
CenturyLink Field Event Center
Seattle Art Fair Past Event Like List The five-year-old international art fair has quickly become one of the most indispensable cultural events in the Northwest, gathering gallerists from across the US and Canada as well as cities in Asia and Europe. Throughout the fair, there will be performance art happenings, talks, demos, and more. There is guaranteed to be more fantastic, wild, diverse work than you can take in over one day, so plan for more. (Aug 1—4)
Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery
Hot Off the Press Book Fair Past Event Like List Seattle's world-renowned Fantagraphics Books, known for publishing boundary-pushing cartoons and graphic novels, will host their annual book fair, with appearances by guest artists like Berlin-based Ulli Lust, Americans Zak Sally and Joshua Ray Stephens, Coin-op Books from Brooklyn, and many other small publishers and artists. (Sat July 13)
Northwest Film Forum
festival:festival Past Event Like List This multidisciplinary festival offers the chance for photographers, multimedia artists, dancers, and others to create artwork on intersectional identities. Among the participants are some of Seattle's most active and appreciated: singer-songwriter JusMoni, filmmaker/artist/musician Clyde Petersen, slam poet J Mase III, visual artist Ryna Frankel, queer indigenous hip-hop artist Dakota Camacho, choreographer Alice Gosti, and many others. (Aug 2—3)
Occidental Park
UCU First Thursday Past Event Like List Urban Craft Uprising and the Downtown Seattle Association will kick off First Thursdays with curated vendors, artists, and food stands in Occidental Park. (Through Thurs Oct 3)
Olympic Sculpture Park
Summer at SAM: Family Field Day Past Event Like List Make art, learn yoga and zumba, and more at this SAM-sponsored family fun day. (Sat July 20)
Summer at SAM: Thursdays and Saturdays in the Park Past Event Like List Family-friendly arts programming throughout the park includes yoga, zumba, tours, shows, workshops, and food. (July 11—Aug 22)
SAM Remix Past Event Like List A recurring and ever-changing art party that includes performances, tours, and dancing, all inspired by their current special exhibit (Victorian Radicals). (Fri Aug 23)
Vermillion
Imminent Mode: FAST FORWARD Past Event Like List The Imminent Mode fashion and art series returns with garments and accouterments of the future. Designers were asked to take into account environmental and societal trends that will affect the fashion industry in years to come. (Thurs Aug 8)
Volunteer Park
Lusio: A Night to Awaken Past Event Like List A free, family-friendly evening of light, art, and sound, featuring more than 30 light installations (LED sculptures, infinity mirrors, glowing textiles, crystal caves, and more) spread throughout the park. (Sat Aug 3)
Washington State History Museum
In the Spirit: Contemporary Native Arts Awards Ceremony Past Event Like List For the 13th year, Native artists will showcase their work in this exhibit, with prizes in categories like Best of Show, Honoring the Northwest, and People's Choice. An accompanying fest on August 10, co-hosted by the History Museum and Tacoma Art Museum, will feature dancing, drumming, a fashion show, vendors, and more. (Thurs June 20)
Art Walks
Second Saturdays
Second Fridays
Second Thursdays
First Fridays
Second Saturdays
First Thursdays (second Thursday in July due to holiday)
Third Fridays
Second Thursdays
