SAM
The Seattle Art Museum has transformed into a big city museum. BIFF, POW, KAZAM!
My visit yesterday was brisk at two hours, but in that short time I had the pleasure to view gorgeously ambiguous works by some of my favorite artists: Anselm Kiefer, Joseph Beuys, Lee Krasner, Joseph Cornell, Donald Judd(s), Marcel Duchamp, Katharina Fritsch and Jackson Pollock. Those were the overall eye poppers, and there was lots else worth perusing, including the Glenn Ligon that we attempted to read line by line, black on black, like tar. The Gary Hill seven-channel video piece was not operational, the circular Murakami piece was not one of my favorites, but the other Japanese pieces were quite poppy and fun. One of the two Rothkos, dare I say it, was pretty mediocre (the other was very lovely). Close by, a stunning Clyfford Still hung in rapture, we had to sat down and gawk at its rich brick red impasto. A few interesting Guston’s here and there. The spectacularly fueled entrance by Cai Guo-Qiang. Brancusi’s Bird In Space has the most elegant presentation of anything here, it’s pedestal within a pedestal as a centerpiece, just heavenly. I’m not a big fan of Tom Wesselman, but thought the frisky minimalist segmentation of the body blended well with the two de Kooning’s on view which were vastly different, deep in savage color, but both dealt his signature deconstruction of the female body. I think it was two side-by-side de Chirico’s that nearly transposed a scene nearly forty years apart, a contrast in personal style! Oh yes, the Warhols (both of them)…I’ve always been a big fan of the Double Elvis, and the Rorschach piece is immense (I had only ever seen smaller versions of this in Pittsburgh)!
My friend David and I have to thank Davidson Contemporary artist Steven Miller for putting us up at his loft (thanks man). His new work looks very interesting - watch for new projects of the levitating, orchestrated body in space. Back to the museum…through a few galleries I spied a Chuck Close that was pretty par-for-the-course, and a Cindy Sherman I could take or leave. The Richter room is odd to me, though it has three stunning pieces, and shows a wide velocity of what the man is capable of, it seemed like a motley crew. Though I am a huge fan of Richter, the Mark Tobey room seemed much tighter to me. There was one piece that took me by surprise, and I didn’t get the artist’s name but it was a taxidermied dog on a chair, and the way it’s placed, partially behind a column makes it seem mighty real and situational. Effective and off-putting. I’m not sure I like the piece, honestly, but the initial sense of surprise and the weirdness of this domestic moment in the museum reminded me of some of my first experiences with Robert Gober’s wall works. There is a lot to explore here, and I am totally impressed by the way they fused the original building and the new one, it’s close to seamless (with more floors to potentially grow!).
My only criticism is fairly minimal, and that is the video documentation in many corners with a few random chairs for visitors. While the educational aspects and content are absolutely apropos, it gives several of the galleries the appearence of more of a resource room than a museum space. Plus, video is a contemporary dialect, and seeing video mixed into a gallery space detracts for the potential of actually having video work shown in the same space. There is one gallery, as part of the Native American wing that gets it right by projecting the accompanying video on to one of the gallery walls with chairs set up like a mini theater, without darkened curtains - it works as you move from room to room. The photography collection on view seems sparse, and while inclusions of both Tina Barney and Diane Arbus are perfectly situated, they feel a bit truncated in the hallway-like space they are shown in. I loved the odd portrait of Dr. Spock by Richard Avedon. Very telling. The museum took a normally yawnful collection (to me at least) of china, porcelain and installed them floor to ceiling in stunning vertical cases lit to the hilt, by far the best presentation in the whole museum. I always pass by these collections, but the display is jaw-dropping, along with a large and lush ornate ceiling painting. The glass objects and fragile craft works were all set in adjacent stunning cases - lit to expertly showcase azures, translucence and patinas.
Oh, if I were to continue to count the ways you could go for the Agnes Martin pieces, or the eerie Dan Flavin (which made me uncomfortable), Albers’ perfect geometries, an eye-popping contrast in black and white by Ellsworth Kelly, Do-Ho Suh’s Some/One full metal jacket and the Ed Ruscha study in the intersection between light and language.
Speaking of wall work, catch Jesse Hayward’s curatorial debut(?) with The Hook Up at the New American Art Union, which will open next Friday, June 1 (7-10PM). The show features eight artists from the area, all who use the wall as a motif for creating installation-oriented sculptural or works that deal in space.