Henry Taylor 8th floor roof of Whitney Museum of Art, November 2023, Untitled, bronze, 2020
In early November on a trip to NYC, I saw exhibitions by Henry Taylor, Ruth Asawa ( Whitney Museum) and Kay Walkingstick (New York Historical Society): it was wonderful to see the work of major artists in major venues in NYC that are not part of the old fashioined mainstream white guy art history. Each of these artists is now well-known, each has gone entirely in their own chosen direction.
What a change from not too long ago when the big issues were whether art could be political and whether non abstract art was legitimate. But during my career this change has taken place. When I first started writing in the 1970s and 1980s, the farthest from mainstream were the earthworks artists, giant works in the wilderness created by bulldozing. Although they were full of metaphors, ( as in Smithson’s Spiral Jetty) any realism in a painting at that time was still considered a failure of nerve.
Now we have a wide range of possibilities and no one dictating what artists need to do to be creating meaningful art. Admittedly many artists still go after “success” and the latest thing, but many are freed from that to create as they wish. The result is artists like
Henry Taylor, Ruth Asawa, and Kay Walkingstick.
Warning shots not required, 2011 Acrylic, charcoal, and collage on canvas 75 1/4 × 262 1/4 in. (191.1 × 666.1 cm) The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; purchase with funds provided by the Acquisition and Collection Committee
Henry Taylor is from Los Angeles. As a contemporary art critic, I am not familiar with him!. Apparently he had his first solo exhibition about two years ago,in his sixties, and here he is at the Whitney Museum, with a huge exhibition “Henry Taylor: B Side”this is an ironic title, suggesting these are the pieces that are on the “other” side of the record, or in other words, less known. But the exhibiiton is a thorough overview of the artists work. Intriguingly I just discovered that one of the works considered his “masterpiece” by some, was omitted – his transformation of the Demoiselles D’Avignon called From Congo to the Capitol and Black Again.
I think omitting it was a good idea, when all of his paintings here are so sympathetic to the subject (usually families and friends), and personal. We don’t need Picasso to legitimize Henry Taylor.
Eldridge Cleaver, 2007 Acrylic on canvas 75 3/4 × 94 3/4 in. (192.4 × 240.7 cm) Private collection
Here are two examples of his portraiture the homage to Eldridge Cleaver, above, and the ironic That was Then, below.
Both are painted in flat areas of similar color. Cleaver obviously reminds us of Whistler’s Mother, which is really funny.
That was then shows an old man with “Boy” written on three sides. It is poignant and perhaps sarcastic. Are black men no longer called boys. I hope so. The image tells us that this elderly man certainly was. Taylor’s portraits are full of empathy for the sitter, as we see here.Carefully observed details of the man’s clothing tell us a lot about him
Here are the Obamas (2020)
and David Hammons selling snowballs in Africa. (2016) based on a performance Hammons did in NYC. Note the subtle references to Christmas
i’m yours” (2015)
I’m yours provides three generations of a family, each with a different expression, but all engaging the artist directly: one is resigned, one is angry and one is questioning.
Resting is a portrait of some of his familly, and their informal engagement with the artist suggests a relaxation, but behind them a third figure lies, is he sleeping, is he dead? We don’t know.
Resting 2011
“the times thay aint a changing, fast enough!” (2017), (Philandro Castile)
There is a shock in this painting, as we look at the wide flat areas of paint that send our eyes to Philandro, then we see the gun.
One of the show stopping installations was an homage to the Black Panthers. We could really experience their potency as we interacted with the mass of manniquins in leather jackets and the photographs of Panthers.
Untitled, 2022 Black Panthers Mannequins, leather jackets, and posters Dimensions variable Collection of the artist and Hauser & Wirth
.
Another powerful experience is the improvisational drawing in the so-called window lounge. Roberta Smith described it well:
“Using an image of Djenné’s Great Mosque, it loosely delineates the forced journey of many Africans from their homeland to a Southern plantation. Then comes the Great Migration that began after World War I. Passing reference is made (in an alluring little landscape) to “Big Momma’s House” in Naples, Texas, from which Taylor’s parents migrated to Oxnard, Calif., in the 1950s. The finale is Chicago and Whitney Houston as a large presiding angel. Here, dashed-off, stream-of-consciousness is perfect. It’s part of a history that all Americans should know by heart.” (NYT, October 18)
detail Whitney Houston
In one gallery we see this strange tree. What is it about? Trees always lead to thinking about lynching, but here the tree is completely without branches. It has an ominous presence that can suggest a guardian, or a disguise, or a place of confinement.
Most of the exhibition consists of portraits of his friends and family, created with empathy. He captures an everyday event and suggests its ordinariness as well as its grandeur.
the dress, ain’t me, 2011 Acrylic on canvas 84 1/4 × 72 in. (214 × 182.9 cm) Private collection; courtesy Irena Hochman Fine Art Ltd.
Taylor gives us intimacy. His parents migrated from East Texas to Southern California during the Black Migration of World War II, Taylor grew up in Los Angeles. When he went to art school he worked at Camarillo State Mental Hospital, from 1984 to 1995, making portraits of the people he met. 19 of those portraits are included here, suggesting his empathy for the patients.
“Henry Taylor: B Side” includes sports stars and political stars as well as ordinary people. But the stars look approachable and the ordinary people look like stars.
Untitled, (Obamas) 2020
Also at the Whitney is “Ruth Asawa:Through Line”
Ruth Asawa as a Japanese American was interned during World War II, but she had the incredible luck to be with artists that taught her a great deal—- specifically animators from the Walt Disney Studios, who taught art in Rohwer Relocation Center in the Southeast corner of Arkansas. She was fortunate also in being allowed to leave to go to school. In 1946 she attended the avant-garde Black Mountain College
At that time she began creating what became her famous looped wire sculptures, a technique she learned in Mexico. Here we see one example of her sculpture from the Whitney Museum exhibit “Ruth Asawa Through Line”. This piece has a long title:
Hanging Six-Lobed, Complex Interlocking Continuous Form within a Form with Two Interior Spheres, 1955 (refabricated
1957–58). Brass and steel wire
The main theme of the exhibition is her extraordinay drawings, using line. Of course the sculpture above also consists of line, but as we experience her varied media and line, it enriches our understanding of her sculpture as well. Here are two unusual pieces.
Untitled (SD.254, Tied-Wire Sculpture Drawing with Six Petals in Center), c. late 1960s Tin 32 ¾ x 32 ¾ x ¼ in. (83.2 x 83.2 x 0.6 cm) Private collection
The exhibition is full of notebook sketches that reveal her deep exploration of growing patterns in nature, such as we see here executed in tin.
We feel a whole new insight into line as she creates in so many different materials.
At the New York Historical Society Kay Walkingstick Hudson River School created a thrilling series of paintings overlaying historical American landscape paintings with native signs, reoccupying the land
What we see are brilliant paintings of landscape and seascape and in the foreground are emblems of native tribes as though protecting the land.
Aquidneck after the Storm 2022 oil on panel in two parts, Colleection of Charlotte and Herbert S. Wagner III
Wampanoag Coast, Variation II, 2018 oil on panel Collection of Agnes Hse, PhD and Oscar Tang
Thom Where are the Pocumtucks2020
As in Thomas Cole ‘s famous painting of t he Oxbow
You can see her overlay more clearly here
Niagara 2022
overlay with Haudenosaunee pattern
Farewell to the Smokies Trail of Tears 2007 oil paint on wood panel,Denver Art Museum
About this painting the artist wrote:
“Its about the traumatic experience of leaving home- leaving this beautiful home”.
From the catalog by Wendy Nalani E. Idemoto:
” the Cherokee painter felt the pull of her ancestral land the first time she drove through the present day Carolinas and tennessee. Ghostly silhuetts march across her seeking mountainscape, referencing the forced eviction of her people from their homelands in the 1830s along the Trail of Tears.
This entry was posted on January 7, 2024 and is filed under Uncategorized.
Dazzling color paired with emotional depth and brilliant handling of the watercolor medium strike us right away in Linda Okazaki’s paintings in her retrospective exhibition at the Bainbridge Museum of Art.
Okazaki has lived in Port Townsend for decades, and before that she lived in Eastern Washington, attending Washington State University for two degrees and then joining the faculty there in the 1970s. She was part of an informal group of faculty and graduate students, a relaxed connection because of the isolation of Pullman. I can remember when I was on the faculty there in the late 1980s (long after Linda Okazaki had left) the rural setting affected the artists in unusual ways. We had parties to look at the stars, bonfires for the fourth of July, and still plenty of time to work. The artists often engaged with the unique landscape, its stillness, its creatures, its odd palimpsests of earlier times.
Gaylen Hanson, by my time retired and painting full time in the tiny town of Palouse, was one of Okazaki’s professors. Near the beginning of the exhibition is a “studio conversation” of Gaylen and Vincent Van Gogh. We see Hanson’s presence in her art in the benevolent animals and birds that fill her paintings.
But her birds multiply and congregate and disperse as in the wonderful recent painting, Birds Take Flight into Twilight, 2023. We see twenty different species of birds, each carefully observed, in a landscape filled with a rainbow of colors.
Another inspiration was the Bay Area artist Joan Brown, who also pursued a personal vocabulary of self portraits, dancing and swimming, in a fantasy world.
Also important to her was the anguished imagery of Frida Kahlo, as we see in Letter to Frida, 1985.
The exhibition has numerous themes, but they are not clustered together; rather Curator Greg Robinson, in collaboration with the artist, conducts a symphony of phrases that build on one another, and repeat, each with a new variation. The themes given are “Personal Narrative, Domesticity and Nature Morte, Dream Logic, The Mother Wound, Landscape and Waterscape, Music, Song, and Theater, The Briarcliff series, and Birds.
My own response is that water is the dominant subject that encompasses all the others. First, there is the transparency of watercolor which conveys many moods. At the outset of the exhibition, we see Evening Departure, 1980. The sea (Puget Sound) swirls around the boat, as the artist, accompanied by her dog, is held in the arms of a large wolf. The embrace is tender, but the image suggests anxiety. This represents on one level her departure from many years in Eastern Washington to live in Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula.
But on another level, we can sense her fear of starting over in an entirely new environment through the imaginary, but gentle embrace of a wolf.
In River Story Return, 1989, the artist now depicts herself nude in the water, carrying a raven and reaching for the shore as a glass vessel floats toward her and a person in a red and black striped robe fails to connect to her. Desperation is palpable, expressed through the color, textures, and images.
Crypt Swimmers heightens the sense of danger as several figures swim among heavy columns and arches.
When Okazaki was six, her mother was murdered by a stalker who then committed suicide. For the first time, the artist is showing several works that refer to this trauma, each more explicit than the last. The earliest is a pencil drawing made while in art school, but later large watercolors confront this painful subject with a courageous directness.
Not surprisingly then, the overall sensation of the exhibition is one of unease, everything is off kilter, filled with undecipherable metaphors, particularly in the still life paintings of tables set vertically against the picture plane and filled with odd objects as in Leaving the Table (above)
Much of the imagery is from dreams, dreams that suggest struggles to just find a firm footing. as in Music is the Muse ( left) and Fire Inside the Heart ( right)
It It is timely that the exhibition “Hokusai Inspiration and Influence” is at the Seattle Art Museum: Hokusai was a master of painting water. The artist clearly has an affinity with him.
But I will end where I began with the dazzling color: Okazaki immersed herself in a study of Goethe’s color theory and then made her own color charts in order to exactly convey the emotions that she wanted to express. So seeing these paintings through color first gives us a feeling of comfort and sometimes joy, even as the paintings themselves take us on a fantastic adventure.
Below is Hunger Artist, Pond with Old Spirits and Dream at Salt Creek for those who make artifact.
This entry was posted on December 23, 2023 and is filed under Uncategorized.
This holiday be sure to make time to go to the Seattle Art Museum to see “Hokusai Inspiration and Influence” (to January 21) and “Calder: in Motion, The Shirley Family Collection” (to Aug 4, 2024.) Both expand our understanding of these two famous artists. In “Hokusai” we see the larger context of his work possible because this exhibition comes from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, a pioneer collector of Japanese woodblock prints. The Calder is a delightful exploration, the first in a series based on the wonderful gift of forty-five works by Calder by Jon and Kim Shirley.
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) is familiar to all of us for his Great Wave also known as “Under the Wave of Kanagama” part of his Thirty-Six Views of Mt Fuji. It depicts three fish delivery boats caught up in a huge wave (had you noticed there are three boats in the wave?)
Thirty-Six Views of Mt Fuji (1830 -31) was immediately popular. The exhibition demonstrates that artists from then to now have been inspired by it. Hokusai moved beyond the traditional scope of ukiyo-e prints that present Kabuki actors and women dressed in beautiful clothes (his teacher Katsukawa Shunsho’s specialty). Ukiyo-e means “pictures of the floating world,” and that world was the well-off educated urban middle class of Edo, Japan (1615-1868). Hokusai expanded those subjects to include landscape, folk tales, history, and literature.
The exhibition includes his teachers, his pupils and others who were inspired by Hokusai.
Wave(2006), a seven foot intaglio print by Peter Soriano, suggests we are inside the wave with its vertical thrust of water that breaks at the top.
One unusual series is One Hundred Ghost Stories (Hyaku monogatari). The most famous, The Ghost of Oiwa (Oiwa-san) has a strange distorted face on a lamp. According to the catalog:
“A man killed his wife in order to marry the rich girl next door, using a poison that caused poor Oiwa to become disfigured before she died. Her ghost returned to torment the killer by possessing everyday objects, such as the lantern that takes on the distorted shape of her dying face. “
“Calder: in Motion” ranges from large complex hanging mobiles to tiny wire sculptures of animals. I was amazed at the astonishing skill involved in putting these works together. How did Calder get them to balance? How did he decide how to attach the different parts, what colors work? But above all you see the playful humor of Calder, a perfect exhibition for these depressing times.
My favorite work by Calder is still his wonderful circus. I saw it at the Whitney many years ago, along with a movie of Calder manipulating the tiny wire animals. It came out of 1920s Paris, that exuberant period of experimentation in all the arts. Calder set it up in living rooms and the celebrity artists of the time came for the evening watching him bring the little circus alive; he even had music.
In this exhibition we see a set of seven prints of the circus performers that remind us of this playful, experimental era.
I also loved the Bird, the Rat, and the Cow, created out of wire and found materials. Calder’s ability to capture the nuances of moving animal forms in just a few lines, or pieces of wire, is the result of making hundreds of quick linear drawings at the Bronx Zoo in the 1920s.
Calder works from very small to very large. Space itself was a primary material for him, and we have to look up and down and sideways to fully experience his inventive work.
Although using different media in different eras, both Hokusai and Calder are about motion, scale and perspective. Hokusai pioneered a landscape art that included great changes in scale (he was familiar with European linear perspective; although his overall image size was small, we perceive vast distances. His other focus was moving water of which he was a master.
In the 1930s Calder began to create mobiles that are thought of as abstract. He also began to make monumental stabiles that shape space but touch the ground like Eagle in the Olympic Sculpture Park.
Given this title, I like to think animals are lurking behind all the abstract forms.
Expand your sense of space as you visit these two shows!
This entry was posted on December 22, 2023 and is filed under Uncategorized.
National Nordic Museum, 2655 NW Market St 98107, ph: 206.789.5707 Hours: Tues-Sun 10am-5pm; Admission: varies by age, see website; FREE on first Thursdays
Sorry it ended on Nov 26.
“Arctic Highways” by Meryl McMaster (b. 1988) What Will I Say to the Sky and the Earth II, 2019 (in the series “As immense as the Sky”) Print on aluminum
Finally, museums are offering us exhibitions that directly address climate change. “Arctic Highways” at the National Nordic Museum, until November 26, features twelve Indigenous artists from the circumpolar North (Sápmi, Canada, and Alaska) who address “the silent and the silenced knowledge” of their Sámi culture. The Museum of History and Industry ( MOHAI), until March 3, 2024 , features an interactive exhibition “Roots of Wisdom: Native Knowledge, Shared Science” developed by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Entirely interactive, it reaches out specifically to ages 12 – 14, but anyone can enjoy it.
“Arctic Highways” emphasizes common themes and shared concerns among Nordic cultures, beyond the artificial borders of nations. It began as an artist residency in Granö, Sweden and has now grown into a traveling exhibition and a book. The artists boldly experiment with a wide range of media, from traditional crafts to video art.
The idea of “arctic highways” creates connections between cultures: “Highways that are cultural and spiritual, real and thriving – but as invisible as the system of national borders that have imposed their rigidness and weight upon us, pitilessly trying to nullify the free flow of ideas and identity connecting our souls.” (museum label)
Several of the artists are from traditional reindeer herding families. They are acutely aware of the changes caused by warming weather, as well as alternative sources of energy filling open space. Wind turbines severely disrupt the grazing land of reindeer and melting snow alters migration and herding rhythms.
Maureen Gruben (b. 1963), Aidainnaqduanni, Aurora, 2020. Print on aluminum
Maureen Gruber’s striking photograph of three polar bear skins hanging on an abandoned survey tripod, looks like polar bears are climbing the tripods, then it becomes frighteningly clear that they are only skins.
Perhaps the most dramatic photograph in the exhibition is Meryl McMaster’s What Will I Say to the Sky and the Earth II, 2019 (in the series “As Immense as the Sky”): the artist stands against an Arctic landscape, wearing a protective coat with insects embedded. She states “Among the coastal ice flows of Lake Erie, I am covered by various insect species—members of a poorly understood and very important class of lifeforms. There are millions of insect species that are unknown to us but play an important role in maintaining ecological equilibrium. To me they represent the fragile, harmonious balance that we are a part of and that we must take care to protect. Their silence is a warning that we are falling into a disharmonious condition.”
Works by Sonya Kelliher-Combs and Tomas Colbengston address the subject of Church boarding schools in Alaska and Sweden that stripped children of their Indigenous Sámi culture. Kelliher-Combs’s Credible, Small Secrets, consists of 35 finger sized sculptures referencing abuse with human hair, nylon thread, glass beads, and steel pins. Each one refers to a village with credible reports of abuse. Colbengston’s painting is based on a photograph of a boarding school with the children lined up in front.
These artists of the polar North witness change every day, as ice melts, temperatures rise, and animals and humans must change centuries old habits. The show is poignant, but also triumphant because the artists are both witnessing and resisting change.
“Roots of Wisdom: Native Knowledge, Shared Science” Building a Healthy River courtesy of the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.
MOHAI, 860 Terry Ave N 98109, ph: 206.324.1126Hours: Tues-Sun 10am–5pm; Admission varies by age see website; FREE First Thursdays 5-8pm
Down on Lake Union at MOHAI “Roots of Wisdom: Native Knowledge, Shared Science” features interactive displays, created in consultation with contemporary tribal members. Each display highlights a different theme and tribe: “Reestablishing a Native Plant” (Eastern Band of Cherokees), “Restoring Fishponds,” (Hawaii), “Rediscovering Traditional Foods,” (Tulalip) and “Saving Streams and Wildlife” (Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation). We can learn how to build a fishpond in Hawaii and or help preserve an ancient fish. The Lamprey, less glamorous than salmon, also suffer from the dams on the Columbia River. We can restore a river or learn why cane is better than grass near a river. We can weave a basket as we listen to traditional elders speak about caring for the land.
The MOHAI exhibit makes each pairing of contemporary science and indigenous knowledge easy to remember. Most striking perhaps was the section on “biopiracy” in which the question of patenting seeds is raised, a big issue in today’s world. “Native Origins” suggests all the everyday products we use, like popcorn, that originally were created by Indigenous peoples.
We are fortunate to have both of these shows featuring Indigenous creative ideas that suggest a few ways to survive on the planet.
Another interesting exhibit:
M Rosetta Hunter Gallery at Seattle Community College, 1701 Broadway (inside the building)Hours: Mon-Thur 10am-3pm
This Fall at the M. Rosetta Hunter Gallery at Seattle Central College, the exhibition “Lush Computation” explores digital and algorithmic aesthetics. September 26–November 16, 2023. Curated by the exciting artist and director of the gallery, Meghan Trainor, “Lush Computation” explores the idea of resisting AI as these artists manipulate digital aesthetics, rather than using AI generated ideas.
This entry was posted on November 25, 2023 and is filed under Uncategorized.
Contemporary cross by Gerry Judah who was born in Calcutta and moved to London when he was ten.
The imagery suggests cities falling apart, catastrophes.
St. Paul also had a lot of statues to colonial leaders with accomplishments like “reduction of French West Indies” meaning taking them over I think.
Statue to a young captain who died at sea in the battle in Burma
A large area behind the altar dedicated to Americans who died in World War II
These strange plaques and signs about the Indian Army and all the places they fought for the British.
Personal Experiences
Teens from Botswana on a field trip to London
I am holding a large Ukrainian cupcake given me by these two women, Julia and Natalia, whom we met walking along the Thames.
They are coming to the end of their supported situation in UK and wondering what they will do next. Both have families here, children, parents, not their husbands.
We also toured the Globe Theater, for which Shakespeare wrote his
plays.
It was rebuilt in the late 20th century funded by Sam Wanamaker.
It has perfect acoustics, no artificial lighting, the audience is visible to the actors which scares the actors ( not the audience)
The people standing in the middle drank beer and urinated creating a stench, so the people in the boxes rubbed oranges on themselves and then threw them at the people below.
The lobby of the Globe “We are such stuff As dreams are made on” The Tempest
This entry was posted on and is filed under Uncategorized.
Laila Susanna Kuhmunen When Two Become One Installation with kolt traditional clothing, 2019
Finally, museums are offering us exhibitions that directly address climate change. “Arctic Highways” at the National Nordic Museum, until November 26, features twelve Indigenous artists from the circumpolar North (Sápmi, Canada, and Alaska) who address “the silent and the silenced knowledge” of their Sámi culture.
Laila Susanna Kuhmunen opens the show with her installation of a traditional kolt garment, formerly for work, not festive.
In the background is a seasonal celebration with fabrics Mátki Sámi ja Sámi áigodagaid čađa (The Roadtrip through Sápmi and the Sámi seasons) by Gudrun Guttorm. She is editor, together with Harald Gaski and Katya Garcia Antón, of Let the River Flow. An Indigenous Uprising and its Legacy in Art, Ecology and Politics (Office for Contemporary Art Norway/Valiz Amsterdam, 2020).”Let the River Flow’ takes the eco-indigenous action against the construction of a hydroelectric power plant in the Altaelva river in Northern Norway during the late 1970s and early ’80s as its starting point. The series of massive protests led by the Sámi people grew into an unexpectedly broad movement of solidarity across society, in which artists played a pivotal role.
This book reflects on events at the time and their correlations with artists’ eco-actions worldwide today. It addresses the political, cultural, and artistic aspects, including political organising, new influences of indigenous thinking on contemporary politics, and the centrality of artists within these activities.”
“Despite their protests, the Norwegian Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that the government had the right to construct the dam and power station, and the project was completed in 1987”
Laila Susanna Kuhmunen’s second work is a compelling stone sculpture from which a small polished chest emerges.
Máret Ánne Sara (below) comes from a reindeer-herding family in Kautokeino, Northern Norway, and currently works in her hometown. Sara’s work deals with the political and social issues affecting the Sámi communities in general, and the reindeer-herding communities in particular.”
But she is also involved with the international art community and showed in Documenta 14 in 2017 and will part of the Nordic Pavillion in Venice next year, which will now be a Sámi pavillion
Máret Ánne Sara (foreground) Moder Jord I (Mother Earth I) Sculpture made from a globe and scooter spring, 2015 Crowned by Foreign Fate (Background)
Máret Ánne Sara (detail)
“Arctic Highways” emphasizes common themes and shared concerns among Nordic cultures, beyond the artificial borders of nations. It began as an artist residency in Granö, Sweden and has now grown into a traveling exhibition and a book. The artists boldly experiment with a wide range of media, from traditional crafts to video art.
The idea of “arctic highways” creates connections between cultures: “Highways that are cultural and spiritual, real and thriving – but as invisible as the system of national borders that have imposed their rigidness and weight upon us, pitilessly trying to nullify the free flow of ideas and identity connecting our souls.” ( museum label)
Artists are from traditional reindeer herding families. They are acutely aware of the changes caused by warming weather, as well as alternative sources of energy filling open space. Wind turbines severely disrupt the grazing land of reindeer and melting snow alters migration and herding rhythms.
Aidainnaqduammi, Aurora Photo by Kyra Kordoski, print on aluminium
Maureen Gruber’s striking photographs of three polar bear skins titled Aidainnaqduanni (Inuvialuktun for ‘We are finally home’ ), Aurora, hanging on an abandoned survey tripod, looks like polar bears are climbing the tripods, then it becomes frighteningly clear that they are only skins. Her work here includes harp seal skin, red velvet, thread. She also works with “polar bear fur, beluga intestines and seal skins together with resins, vinyl, bubble wrap and metallic tape,” connecting the Arctic to ecological concerns.
“Throughout a week-long installation during winter freeze-up, sea ice gradually accumulated around the base of these assemblages, shifting the bears’ positions such that their gaze slowly tilted up towards the stars.”
detail of Seal in Our Blood
Maureen Gruben Seal in our Blood
Perhaps the most dramatic photograph in the exhibition is Meryl McMaster’s What Will I Say to the Sky and the Earth II, 2019 (in the series “As Immense as the Sky”):
The artist stands against an Arctic landscape, wearing a protective coat with insects embedded. She states “Among the coastal ice flows of Lake Erie, I am covered by various insect species – members of a poorly understood and very important class of lifeforms. There are millions of insect species that are unknown to us, but play an important role in maintaining ecological equilibrium. To me they represent the fragile, harmonious balance that we are a part of and that we must take care to protect. Their silence is a warning that we are falling into a disharmonious condition.”
Tomas Colbengtson, Sápmi and Defaced
Tomas Colbengtson,Residential School
Works by Sonya Kelliher-Combs and Tomas Colbengtson address the subject of Church boarding schools in Alaska and Sweden that stripped children of their Indigenous Sámi culture. Colbengston featured in a previous exhibition at the Nordic Museum, Mygration, in whcih he collaborated with to create a moving installation about a strange project to bring reindeer and their herders to Alaska from what was then called Lapland.
Sonya Kelliher-Combs’s Credible, Small Secrets, consists of 35 finger sized sculptures referencing abuse with human hair, nylon thread, glass beads, and steel pins. Each one refers to a village with credible reports of abuse. Colbengston’s painting is based on a photograph of a boarding school with the children lined up in front.
Laila Susanna Kuhmunen When Two Become One Installation with kolt traditional clothing, 2019
These artists of the polar North witness changes every day, as ice melts, temperatures rise, and animals and humans must change centuries old habits. The show is poignant, but also triumphant because the artists are both witnessing and resisting change.
The Museum of History and Industry ( MOHAI), on Lake Union features an interactive exhibition “Roots of Wisdom : Native Knowledge, Shared Science” developed by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Entirely interactive, it reaches out specifically to ages 12 – 14, but anyone can enjoy it.
“Each display highlights a different theme and tribe: “Reestablishing a Native Plant” (Eastern Band of Cherokees), “Restoring Fish Ponds,” (Hawaii), “Rediscovering Traditional Foods,” (Tulalip) and “Saving Streams and Wildlife”( Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation).
We can learn how to build a fish pond in Hawaii and or help preserve an ancient fish. The Lamprey, ( on the right) less glamorous than salmon, also suffer from the dams on the Columbia River. We can restore a river or learn why cane is better than grass near a river. We can weave a basket as we listen to traditional elders speak about caring for the land.
The MOHAI exhibit makes each pairing of contemporary science and indigenous knowledge easy to remember. Most striking perhaps was the section on “biopiracy” in which the question of patenting seeds is raised, a big issue in today’s world.
“Native Origins” suggests all the everyday products we use, like popcorn, that originally were created by Indigenous peoples.
We are fortunate to have both of these shows featuring Indigenous creative ideas that suggest a few ways to survive on the planet.
This entry was posted on October 23, 2023 and is filed under Uncategorized.
Dhyana Garcia’s pre show Butoh event outside King Street Station
Tatiana Garmendia (IMG is movie) La Boveda: My Mother’s Kitchen IMG_3555Dhyana Garcia Victoria@ King Street Station. THis was a long piece and she constantly metamorphosed.
Xavier Lopex and Katherine Adamenko
Soft Cyborg meets the Beauty Borg
crazy costumes
Katherine Adamenko had a second piece called Shocked. I couldn’t photograph it, basically it was about having a shock treatment. She did a brilliant job of enacting that experience, but it was too much for me.
Sonia Aguilar Mourning Pomegrantes A Veiled symphony
If you look closely you will see she has arrows in her body. This piece ranged from lyrical to agonized.
Santiago Vega performing on colonization
Last Friday, a type of performance/workshop with
Men in Dance, five choreographers. This was right before they started. Each one created a dramatic contrast of emotions. The man on the far right in the white shirt is a friend of mine, Bryon Carrr
Next to him is CHris Bell from New York, then in the background with long hair is Jet DogDog,(Long Branch California), Will Jessup and Bnjamin Defaria ( Vancouver BC) and Jameel Hendricks (Philadelphia) . the woman standing on the right was one of the three panelists who offered feedback on the performance.
Next was Indigenous People’s Day a rally and march down
fifth avenue, celebrating and honoring elders.
There were tribes from all over, from Alaska to Mexico and many parts of the US. Where it says img with a number is a link to a movie.
This summer we had memorials for two special artists, both deeply concerned about our planet: Gail Tremblay, Native American poet and multimedia artist, and Alfredo Arreguín, Mexican and American painter. Gail Tremblay was a close friend for many years, I only met Alfredo once when I interviewed him for an article. The memorials were equally moving, although approached in different ways. In each case, I learned a great deal about the artists.
Gail Tremblay, of Mi’kmaq and Onondaga descent, was a long time professor at The Evergreen State College. The memorial took place at the House of Welcome Cultural Arts Center on the college campus. We heard about her huge role at Evergreen since the 1980s in creating a Native arts program, as well as mentoring students of all backgrounds. Called an “Artistic and Teaching Retrospective” it included testimonials to her importance as an educator, readings of her poetry, and a celebration of her art career.
I knew Gail mainly as a poet and a visual artist who addressed difficult topics in original mixed media formats.
The last time I talked to her, she read me some of her new poetry on the phone. What a wonderful experience. She was still writing in spite of many physical issues.
I have written about her art work for many years, as well as reviewing group exhibitions that she curated such as “Voices of Water” and “Not Vanishing. Contemporary Expressions in Visual Art.” Her striking installations addressed ecological disasters such as cancer from pollution at Hanford- “It is Heavy on My Heart,”
– and the loss of salmon-“Empty Fish Trap.”
She incorporated recorded narratives, video, photographs, and poetry into her installations.
She was best known for her film baskets woven from 35 mm film addressing the racism of Hollywood.
As I wrote in 2003:
“Gail Tremblay weaves our spirits into these artworks and takes us on a journey with her extraordinary technical ability, her words, her deep caring for the earth, and her sense of humor. On the journey we enter small worlds and large worlds, the outer universe and the inner universe. She hopes that we end up caring about all of it as much as she does.”
The memorial for Alfredo Arreguín on Whidbey Island at the Schouten Gallery featured an exhibition of his works in the gallery that surrounded us with his brilliant invocations of nature.
Arreguin started exploring the theme of Frida Kahlo many years ago, before she was a household name.
Arreguín’s painting is extraordinarily detailed, it includes layers of intricate patterns with faces emerging from them, or birds and monkeys immersed in deep jungle scenes.
I took this photograph when I visited him for an article for South Seattle Emerald. they wanted too much rewriting, so I posted it on my blog instead.https://www.artandpoliticsnow.com/2019/08/a-visit-to-the-home-of-alfredo-arreguin-and-susan-lytle-june-2019/
I also included in my book, Setting Our Hearts on Fire.
While he talked to me, he turned around from time to time and added a dot to the painting. Here is a detail.
Arreguín’s paintings both celebrate and grieve for the loss of our rich biodiversity. As he stated, “We are the most dangerous animals on the planet.”
The next day the memorial featured informal statements by close friends in the garden of the gallery. The event was led by eminent poet Tess Gallagher. She and her husband, writer Raymond Carver (1938-88), were dear friends of Alfredo and Susan Lytle. Gallagher read “Reaching” a poem she wrote for him when he gave her the painting Green- Eyed Poet.
Lauro Flores, chair and professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington and author of Alfredo Arreguín Patterns of Dreams and Nature spoke eloquently. Jeff Day, sculptor, and long time personal friend of Alfredo and Susan spoke about the Blue Moon Café, that famous bar in the UDistrict where many of Alfredo’s friends first met.
Both memorials honored the artists through the invocation of their lives and creativity. But what came across most clearly for both Alfredo Arreguín and Gail Tremblay was their vivid spirits, generous friendships, and extraordinary originality as creative people.
Arreguín painted leaping orcas in Puget Sound in several versions. Shortly after Arreguín’s memorial we heard of the death of Tokitae, an Orca captured on August 8, 1970 in Penn Cove, Whidbey Island the only survivor of hundreds captured. She spent her life in a small tank at the Miami Seaquarium. After many years of effort, she was about to be returned to her home pod in the Northwest.
Tragically, immediately after her death, the decision was made by the Aquarium to have Tokitae undergo an autopsy, so her body has been cut up. This is an additional shock to the Lummi since they weren’t consulted.
Now the Lummi have decided to cremate the remains and bring the ashes back home.
This entry was posted on August 28, 2023 and is filed under Uncategorized.
As we come into the installation of Jaune Quick- to- See Smith’s exhibition at the Whitney Museum, the first piece we encounter is the enormous Trade Canoe Forty Days and Forty Nights. 2015
named after the journey of Noah’s ark.
Trade canoes are a major theme in Smith’s work. In this exihbition we have eight, two actually built of pinewood lath with her son.
As an object in itself it can refer simply to a means of transportation and community connection (the importance and challenges of canoe journeys are now a prominent aspect of Northwest summers. Here is a report on the arrival of the canoes from all over the Northwest in Seattle n 2023, on Alki Beach, where the Denny party landed in 1850 greeted by Chief Seattle,)
But these trade canoes are already full to capacity with people, animals, trees, and imaginary creatures.
The artist states:
“Remember when the trade canoes came up river, they would be piled with bags of moldy flour, wormy beef, whiskey laced with lead and blankets smeared with smallpox” (p 21 Memory Map, interview with Lowery Stokes Sims)
So the trade canoes all suggest death related themes in some way.
Let us look at 40 Days and 40 Nights
It is impossible to take in all the details of even a single trade canoe and its contents. The larger theme is devastation of the land, the people, and the indigenous way of life that was stampeded by colonialism. A partner theme is the same colonial devastation is being perpetrated on the peoples of the Middle East.
Left side ( bow??) we see the devil in outline;
above flies a winged calaveras ( where putti would be in baroque painting), a crowd of heads are collected one with a big “hat” like form
Center, Coyote part of Creation Myth, as well as trickster, near Coyote are various creatures, rabbit, eagle, deer. He is bathed in a shower of sun.
On the right we see two humans greeting each other and below a long row of cliche indian heads. A large picassoid head with one eye and a crooked mouth and a snake leaps up in the stern.
You can look at one of Smith’s paintings for a long time and not see everything.
She began the earliest canoe
at the time of the 1992 celebration of Columbus arrival in 1492. Needless to say the arrival of Columbus was no cause for celebration among indigenous peoples. So this first canoe called Trade Gifts for Trading Lands with White People is full of amusing details, such as all the “gifts” strung across the top of the painting are Indian themed kitsch. Also the canoe has nothing in it unlike all her other canoes. and has no indication of front and back.
The canoe is suspended in a sea of collage that speaks to the abuses and contradictions of native life.
It is hard to see the collaged details in the painting, but they refer to various iconic images from the era of the Indian Wars such as Wi-jún-jon, Pigeon’s Egg Head (The Light) Going To and Returning From Washington, 1837-1839 by George Catlin. In this famous painting Catlin depicts the native Chief going to DC in his traditional regalia and returning with European clothes and whiskey bottles in his back pockets.
Tongass Trade Canoe 1996, another blockbuster painting refers to the bringing of oil drilling to the fragile Tongass National Forest, the calving land of the Caribou, whom we see galloping across the top of the painting. Above are laundry baskets suggesting a commodity that comes from oil drilling. The Tongass. after a decade of fighting, was finally protected in 2023 from development (we hope).
Here are more examples of trade canoes from the exhibition
Trade Canoe the Garden
Trade Canoe Making Medicine with Neil Ambrose Smith
pinewood lath, plastic water bottles, styrofoam and paper coffee cusps, and take-out containers, wooden crosses, hypodermic needles, arcylic and synthetic sinew.
A detail of a second canoe Trade Canoe: Fry Bread 2018 pinewood lath, fry bread and synthetic sinew.
In other words one canoe has the detritus of consumption of a mainstream diet, the other has one staple of Indigenous food.
Trade Canoe for the North Pole What do you take when you have to leave everything. Smith humourously suggests Palm trees, but also a horse.
Trade Canoe False Gods
Trade Canoe: Don Quixote 2 details
and Trade Canoe Don Quixotein Sumeria detail
Clearly we are seeing death and destruction, suffering, and chaos in these canoes. In the last, created in response to the Iraq war, we see a reference to a looted art work from the Baghdad Museum rubbing up against a skeleton, and a monster creature underneath that echoes Picasso.
One of Smith’s great accomplishments is to take on the big famous white artists and, in my opinion, outdo them at their own game adding much more meaning to the work. Picasso is one example.
The maps in the exhibition were initially inspired by Jasper Johns, but look where the artist goes with them. These are only three examples of many.
Indian Map
Memory Map
Homeland
Look closely, the artist is from Montana in the upper left, there is a US map underneath, the radiating lines and colors create an entirely new dynamic.
Smith dismisses the traditional lines of US maps, the states, as arbitrarily cutting across Indian lands and tribes. In fact borders of any kind are arbitrary colonial demarcations.
Other icons in her work are horses
Going Forward Looking Back
and buffalos
this painting is called Indian Drawing Lesson After Leonardo.
Again in the detail, you can see some famous Greek sculpture
Smith’s show includes numerous icons, witticisms, re-ups of famous artists like Edward Kienholz
and Christianity with Indian Madonna Enthroned
a whole series on General Custer, this is my favorite.
Send up of the thirst for Indian artifacts by white collectors
“Flathead Headdress collected by whites to decorate homes”
“After priests and US Government banned cultural ways such as speaking Salish and druming singing or dancing.
Sold at Sotheby’s today for thousands of dollars to white collector’s seeking Romance in their lives.”
One of Smith’s amazing talents is taking the dreadful and making it amusing even as we don’t lose sight of the horrors. I think this is called Indian humor.
Fortunately the exhibition is coming to Seattle in the spring, so I will get to write about it again with different perspectives. I feel as though I have barely begun.
This entry was posted on July 18, 2023 and is filed under Uncategorized.
Michelle Kumata (right) with Cora Edmonds (left), founder of Artxchange Gallery, now ArtX Contemporary, at the beginning of Michelle’s gallery talk in her exhibition “What We Carry/ O que nós carregamos”
The story is fascinating. Kumata’s great grandmother went to Brazil in 1927 with all but two of her children. Michelle’s grandmother married and came to the US in 1918.
On the right is “Queda (Fallling)” an evocation of the experience of migration for her family in Brazil, her great grandmother is near the bottom, with other family above. They float through the air and are about to land in the lush countryside. Kumata commented that her great grandmother made this migration when she was in her mid 50s!
“This multi-generational family references the Japanese migration to Brazil: falling, blindly jumping into the unknown, with a jungle of tangled vines below. The strong vertical shape references Japanese scrolls.” ~ Michelle Kumata
They went to Brazil for work, but the agricultural work was, of course, very hard, and poorly paid and they lived in substandard sheds.
“What We Carry” on the left is described by the artist:
“When Nikkei families packed their belongings to go to camp, they were told to bring only what they could carry. A butterfly wing is patterned faces of younger generations. Outlines of suitcases represent the legacy we carry with us.” The outlines of the suitcases are barely visible in this image, in the pink area of the butterfly wings.
Crisântemo e Bananas (Chrysanthemums and Bananas)
“The chrysanthemum represents Japan. Bananas represent Brazil, farm labor, and also play on the term that some of the Asian diaspora are called, “yellow on the outside, white on the inside,” the results of assimilation. This is indicative of the complex identities of being Nikkei – being seen as the “Other” – not accepted as Brazilian enough, and also not accepted as Japanese enough.” ~ Michelle Kumata
The exhibition is probably the first time that an artist has brought together Japanese migrants’experiences in Brazil and in the US . We are familiar with our dreadful incarcerations. In Brazil the Japanese were stigmatized, but not incarcerated. They were not allowed to give their newborn children Japanese names. They were ridiculed for their food and appearance, and discriminated against in work.
(Currently, there is a reverse migration, as Brazil’s economy crumbles creating more layers of identities for the Japanese from Brazil who return to Japan. )
The story of Michelle’s family as seen in these beautiful art works is one of survival and endurance. The artist has carefully chosen motifs and colors to evoke various aspects of the cultural experiences in both Brazil and here. One of her themes is silence of the elder
generations, which resulted from racism and cultural oppression during World War II. Younger generations are now sharing these stories and speaking out against injustice.
This painting called “Ripples,” also refers to the enforced silence, as these floating heads have no mouths. Michelle: “This silence and the invisible scars continue to reverberate through generations.”
With support from the Meta Open Arts Program, Kumata partnered with filmmaker Tani Ikeda to create a stunning multimedia “talking mural” last year. It celebrated the stories of the Bellevue Japanese farmers who worked land that was unusable with stumps after logging, and turned it into fertile farm land. They produced much of what was sold at Pike Place Market before the incarceration.
Much of this current exhibition is recent work, figurative images filled with symbolic references
We see the horse in the background as a mother holds her baby in a blanket. It makes reference to the fact that the first stop during the removal of Nikkei (Japanese diaspora) in Washington State
was the Puyallup Fair Grounds, where people of Japanese descent were forced to live in the horse stalls.
Michelle:
“Mother cradles her child, wrapped in an Army blanket in their temporary home in horse stables at the state fairgrounds. She protects her baby from the effects of war, the hatred and racism, creating a camouflage shelter covered with carp, a symbol of strength, courage, patience and perseverance.”
You can see the carp on the blanket.
Moving to Brazil:
“Alcançar (Reach)” has a carefully chosen selection of patterns, each with specific meaning:
Michelle:
“The woman raises her arms, building strength from snakes and butterflies, as the brilliant blossoms of the Pau Brasil, the national tree of Brazil, dance on the folded fan. The shadows of crown of thorns branches fade behind.
What does it mean to be Japanese Brazilian? How does one navigate their own heritage, ethnicity and claim their own identity?”
The color of her face is intentional. We see a woman looking into the distance, buoyed up by the snakes and butterflies. It is a positive image, her expression is one of perseverence and hope.
Kumata paints with specifically chosen imagery in brilliant color so her artwork becomes a celebration at the same time that it is honoring the difficulties these people experienced.
Again we see thorns here in “Espinos (Thorns).”
“The Nikkeijin may be culturally, ethnically and linguistically Brazilian, but very often they are seen as ‘false nationals.’ With the economic success of Japan, the image has altered, but the Nikkeijin are still presented in the Brazilian media as ‘foreigners’ and not as Brazilians.” ~ From “Migrants and Identity in Japan and Brazil: The Nikkeijin” Daniela de Carvalho, 2003, p. 65
You might miss the meaning here without looking carefully. The color of the face is intentionally two toned, divided. Thorns pass over his face, and snakes fill his hat, but in the background we see a celebratory red and orange filled with butterflies.
In “Cobras (Snakes),” 2021, the woman and child are silenced by the snakes, slithering across the foreground. This is again, the idea of silence.
From “Migrants and Identity in Japan and Brazil: The Nikkeijin.” Daniela de Carvalho
“Not being Japanese was particularly important, and although almost all Nisei had attended Nihongakko (Japanese language school), they did their best to forget what they had learned or to pretend they had never learned Japanese. It was believed that despite physical differences, not speaking Japanese and knowing little about Japanese culture would mean being identified (and accepted) as entirely Brazilian.”
This exhibition glows with color and pattern even as it gives us a history we know so little about in Brazil, and a new perspective on the incarceration experience here.
“Healing,” represents survival:
“Barbed wire flows from the heart, releasing a brilliant shibori firework. The verb “shiboru” means to wring, squeeze and press.” Fabric is twisted, folded, stitched and dyed in this intricate technique, resulting in beautiful, unexpected patterns. Hope flows as we find ways to heal.” ~ Michelle Kumata
This entry was posted on June 27, 2023 and is filed under Uncategorized.
Henry Taylor 8th floor roof of Whitney Museum of Art, November 2023, Untitled, bronze, 2020
It It is timely that the exhibition “Hokusai Inspiration and Influence” is at the Seattle Art Museum: Hokusai was a master of painting water. The artist clearly has an affinity with him.
