Seattle Art Fair: 2020 Edition Cancellation | ArtsFund and Artist Trust Emergency Relief & GiveBig Washington A Call for Support: May 5 - 6

This is a year of unprecedented cancellations and postponements among the spectrum of global art fair events. Where once, "Art Biennials Were Testing Grounds. Now They Are Being Tested". For a self-apparent set of reasons, major shows like Art Basel Hong Kong, Art Basel Switzerland, Art Brussels, Art Paris, Art Cologne, Dallas Art Fair, Prospect New Orleans Triennial, Arte Buenos Aires, Bienal de São Paulo, and Frieze New York have been postponed until later dates or outright cancelled. In the case of Frieze New York, there being a small consolation offered with the launching of a "virtual gallery" opening May 8th featuring more than 200 galleries presenting major works by established and emerging artists. Our own Seattle Art Fair hasn't fared quite as well, facing simply a full-scale cancellation until next year's installment. These all in relation of course to the financial and cultural fallout of the pandemic, creating dire funding and sustainability questions for large and small arts institutions alike. Situations like, "MoMA and New Museum Among NY Institutions Cutting Jobs to Curb Deficits", "SFMoMA to Lay Off or Furlough More Than Three Hundred Employees", "Furloughs and Job Cuts Hit The Broad", "Mass Layoffs at Lincoln Center", "MoMA PS1 Facing its ‘Most Serious Financial Crisis’ Ever", "Guggenheim Museum Projecting $10 M. Shortfall", "New York’s Whitney Museum Expecting $7 M. Shortfall", "After Losing $19 M., Brooklyn Museum Joins other Arts Organizations in Applying for Federal Aid", aren't the exception, but instead the norm. In response, hundreds of galleries, nonprofits, arts and cultural institutions in New York alone have banded together to "Petition NYC to Aid Galleries Amid Covid-19 Pandemic", all the while, "Mayor de Blasio’s Budget for 2021 Significantly Cuts NYC’s Arts Funding". A small gesture of relief is the development of the, "Museum Association Eases Rules on How Institutions Can Use Funds Amid Covid-19 Pandemic", which will aid cultural institutions have have applied for and received federal assistance to apply these essential funds to their specific state-by-state contextual particulars.

There's also the philanthropic work of efforts like the ArtistRelief grant, which to-date has worked to generate funds for creators and artists specifically. With galleries, museums, and programmed shows now cancelled, this "Covid-19 Relief Fund to Give $10 Million to Artists" will be the only revenue that many artists receive. Returning to regional concerns, while Paul Allen's Vulcan, the parent company of the Vulcan Arts + Entertainment and Seattle Art Fair will likely weather this period, many of our other local arts institutions will not. The pandemic’s ensuing economic and cultural shutdown has created a revenue abyss for these institutions which exist on a precipice of funding even during good times. Seattle ArtsFund have created the COVID-19 Arts Emergency Relief Fund, and alongside the Artist Trust relief fund, they have generated millions in response. These factors also make this year's annual nonprofit GiveBig donation days, spanning May 5th to 6th, of the highest significance. Widely recognized and essential cultural institutions like Seattle Symphony, Frye Art Museum, Scarecrow Video, Earshot Jazz, SIFF, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Theatre Group, Henry Art Gallery, regional smaller cinemas and nonprofit music venues like The Grand Illusion Cinema, Northwest Film Forum, On The Boards, The Vera Project, and Nonsequitur, are all in need. Or consider giving directly to the gallerists and artists under the Vital 5 Productions umbrella and their work toward some of the most notable and aspirant reconceptions of arts exhibition, funding, and urban spaces for work, to be found around the city in the last decade. These are just a few institutions to consider among countless others, too multitudinous to name, who will be in need of your generosity regardless of the particulars. Your outward financial appreciation of the value of these spaces will be bolstered in many cases through shared GiveBig donation matching. Amid the "Frantic Fundraising, Relief that Can’t Meet Demand: Artists and Arts Groups Scramble Amid Coronavirus Crisis", if you are able, make this week a contextual framing for essential giving. Photo credit: Gagosian Gallery

Lav Diaz's "Norte, the End of History" at NWFF: Nov 14 - 20 | Ben Russell & Rivers' "A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness" at NWFF: Nov 15 | The Garden of Earthly Delights: Three films by Ben Russell at Grand Illusion Cinema: Nov 17 | Magic Lantern: Time as a Character in Contemporary Film at Frye Art Museum: Nov 16

Much has been made of last year's epic re-imagining of Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" by the vanguard director at the forefront of Filipino cinema. Not least of which it ranking on notable Films of the Year lists, cited as a highlight of Cannes, and since it's distribution this year, as Film of the Week for both Sight & Sound and Film Comment. Unlike some of the director's previous work, his newest diverges from what's come to be called 'Slow Cinema' in that Lav Diaz's "Norte, the End of History" is as much a dynamic personal fiction with the ebb and flow of a narrative drama, set within the duration and structural expanses of Slow Cinema's spacial ambiance. This vantage from the perspective of the interpersonal is the force that moves the viewer through the larger existential and natural landscapes, guided by "Rays of Humanity in a Vile World: ‘Norte, the End of History,’ a Dostoyevskian Fable". Where Dostoevsky's novel comes into play is in the tone, attitude, and sensibility of Diaz’s film; the gravitas, the unrestrained philosophical questioning, the cryptic humor, the sometimes melodramatic tendencies.

Clear lines can be drawn between the characters of Fabian as our academic yet alienated Raskolnikov and Magda the avaricious pawnbroker Mrs. Ivanovna, and while it’s not clear in many of the supporting characters who is which of the novel's equivalents, much of the film’s first half feels like a direct transposition to a Philippine setting. And more than any other work, it can be seen as a culmination of Diaz’s long engagement with the Russian novelist, in this the most fully realized of his "Dostoevsky Variations". Fabian is embittered law student who has dropped out for vague reasons, which hasn’t stopped him from eloquently and endlessly debating with friends and former professors. Like Raskolnikov, Fabian believes in a sentiment-hating, results-oriented, pseudo-Nietzschean philosophy; and like Raskolnikov, he longs to put his philosophy into practice in the most radical way possible. The deed done, the film diverges significantly from the text, Dostoevsky’s relentless manhunt is replaced with an existential and at one point self-destructive quest through massive, unpopulated landscapes and dark city streets of the Filipino island of Luzon.


That same weekend at Northwest Film Forum in the way of Slow-er Cinema of time and space, the ethnographic explorations of Ben Rivers collaborative work with director Ben Russell and their Film of the Year list charting "A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness". The film featuring the performance and music of Robert A.A. Lowe of Lichens and OM, as a man on a quiet quest for Utopia: first in an Estonian commune, then alone in the European woods, and finally in the unlikely setting of a Black Metal concert. An expansive experimental work, in Film Comment's Interview: Ben Rivers and Ben Russell we see the process by which the two directors having crafted a sumptuous visual and sonic experience that is several things at once: the primitive, the transcendental, even a metaphor for cinema itself. The nature of the directors shared fusion of technique and form should come as no surprise to those familiar with Rivers' highly regarded documentary-drama fusion "Two Years at Sea" and where it is the case that in much of his work, "Little Happens, Nothing is Explained" this is a personal, reflective, observational, inward and outward looking cinema of time. Coinciding with Russell's attendance at NWFF for his workshop on Psychedelic Ethnography across town The Grand Illusion will be screening a rare evening of his shorts, "The Garden of Earthly Delights: Three films by Ben Russell".

Along with all of the above, the third weekend in November also marks the final of Robert Horton's monthly Magic Lantern screening and discussion series at The Frye Art Museum. After a decade-long tenure at the museum the Film Comment contributor will be closing out his time as host and moderator of the series with their annual Critics Wrap in December. This weekend's program is the final of the regular screenings, and a exceptional theme has been selected; Time as a Character in Contemporary Film. Through excerpts from the work of directors working either in duration-based cinema (Bela Tarr, Andrei Tarkovsky, Tsai Ming-liang), or narrative which utilizes time as a structural element (Aleksander Sokurov, Jia Zhang-ke, Richard Linklater), Horton will present and discuss these representations of time-focused cinema and the significance of their technical and psychological objectives in the age of the post-MTV quick cut.

"1962": Ligeti, Xenakis, Tenney, Feldman, Riley, Brown, Scelsi & John Cage at Seattle Symphony & Frye Art Museum: Oct 19 & 21 Olivier Messiaen "Turangalîla" Jan 31 & Feb 2

A lot is going on mid-October here in the way of Modern Classical. Foremost in my mind is the "1962" concert by that most progressive of modern ensembles ICE, performing with the Seattle Symphony. We've not seen something of this caliber/focus since the demise of Seattle Symphony's brilliant "Music of Our Time" seasonal showcase. By this evidence, the symphony's new conductor, Ludovic Morlot looks to be making good on his proposed late-night [untitled] Modern Composer chamber series. Funny to see this first installment in celebration of the anniversary of the World's Fair and features work of that year's event hosted here in Seattle. We get a Modernist wormhole back to an time when the avant-experiments of the post-war era rubbed shoulders with popular culture a bit more and our future hadn't yet been resigned to the bipolarism of cynically aggrandized Apocalyptic visions or self aware Retro-Ironic rehashes. Instead the future was the unknown, the challenging, the risk taking, the as-yet-tried and often enough; the iconoclastic. Which is exactly the word I'd use to inclusively describe the work of the composers featured on this bill. Which includes György Ligeti's "Poeme Symphonique for 100 Metronomes", Iannis Xenakis' "Atrées", James Tenney's "Entrance/Exit Music for Tape", John Cage's "Variations III", Morton Feldman's "For Franz Kline", Terry Riley's "Mescaline Mix for Tape", Earle Brown's "Novara" and Giacinto Scelsi's "Khoom". Also of note, the "9pm for a pre-concert performance of Gabriel Prokofiev's Concerto for Turntables and the Orchestra" whatever that entails. Her in-person performing with orchestral accompaniment? Turntablism performance of her work with accompaniment? I guess we'll find out! And while we're here, it's probably wise to look into tickets for the performance of Olivier Messiaen's organ works "Chants d’Oiseaux", "Le Banquet Céleste", "Le Fils Verbe et Lumière from Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité" & "Livre du Saint-Sacrement" coming next January and at the end of that same month Messiaen's massive (exceedingly rare in it's performance) symphonic work, "Turangalîla".

All of that alone is more modern works at the Seattle Symphony than we've seen cumulatively over the course of the past half-decade, and yet, there's more! In recognition of this year's John Cage Centennial the 1962 concert contains Cage's "Variations III" coming at the end of a month of events/celebrations throughout September, reaching almost fever-pitch the week of his Birthday. These Cagean events continue into October with the Frye Art Museum presenting Jarrad Powell's performance of Cage's 4'33'' followed by Film Comment's Robert Horton hosting a lecture and screening of Elliot Caplan's "Cage/Cunningham". The documentary, filmed over the course of 8 years, explores the totality of their 50 year collaboration as friend, composer and choreographer. Depicting two of the 20th Century's great moderns through performances, rehearsals, interviews by them and their cohorts and contemporaries including Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Nam June Paik, Carolyn Brown, David Tudor and other luminaries of the Abstract Expressionist, Minimalism and Fluxus movements. Continuing into November, the most significant of the Cage festivities this Fall, Seattle Modern Orchestra make his centennial the focus of their seasonal performance at Chapel Performance Space, with their own one-night John Cage Festival. From the Frye: "The Frye Art Museum celebrates the 100th birthday of composer John Cage (1912-1992) with a special program of music and film demonstrating ways this genius composer/artist/essayist revolutionized music, art, and performance. Cage lived in Seattle from fall 1938 through spring 1940 where he composed and worked at Cornish College of the Arts as a dance accompanist and teacher. The program begins with a performance by Jarrad Powell of 4’33” (1952), Cage’s most well-known and controversial work. Powell is a composer, professor of composition at Cornish College of the Arts, and director of the ensemble Gamelan Pacifica. He fondly remembers walking the beach at Deception Pass with Cage to gather stones for the composition Ryoangi. "Following the performance, film critic Robert Horton hosts a screening of films that introduce the wide-ranging work of Cage and his circle. Highlights include a groundbreaking television appearance and candid footage of Cage with choreographer Merce Cunningham and other luminaries whose profound influence on post-war twentieth-century music and art still resonates today."

:::: VISUAL ART OF 2007 ::::

HERE ARE MY TOP RATED VISUAL ART SHOWS ATTENDED OF 2007
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Olafur Eliasson "Take Your Time" (SFMOMA)
Neo Rauch/Tilo Baumgärtel/David Schnell "Life After Death: New Leipzig Paintings" (Frye Art-Seattle)
Louise Bourgeois "Bourgeois in Boston" (ICA-Boston)
Felix Schramm "New Work: Misfit" (MOMA)
Tivon Rice "Resolution/Apotheosis" (Lawrimore Project-Seattle)
Bruce Nauman "Elusive Signs" (Henry Art-Seattle)
Christian Marclay/Various "Kit Bashing" (Western Bridge Gallery-Seattle)

A number of memorable shows this year. Wishing there had been travel and opportunity to catch more, in particular
some significant shows in the eastside, namely the Dada Retrospective at MOMA NY, Matta-Clark at the Whitney and
the Takashi Murakami exhibition at MOCA along with a handful of others that were missed due to geography and
economics this year. Here's hoping for seeing more art out in the cities of the world in 2008!

"Life After Death: New Leipzig Paintings" Exhibition at Frye Art Museum : Feb 17 - Jun 3

Link to Frye Art Museum Site


Show currently at The Frye of post socialist-realism based figurative painters from the Leipzig school including the work of Rauch, Schnell and others titled "Life After Death: New Leipzig Paintings". The *one* westside gallery stop for this touring exhibition of works. Really well put-together exhibition with many excellent works in the collection. Easily my favorite show I've seen in a long while. I'll likely be going to view it again at some point. Here til' June. Don't miss it.

From the Frye Museum:

"Life After Death: New Leipzig Paintings from the Rubell Family Collection presents, for the first time in the Northwest, paintings and drawings by prominent artists associated with the venerable Leipzig Art Academy: Neo Rauch, Tilo Baumg..rtel, Tim Eitel, Martin Kobe, Christoph Ruckh..berle, David Schnell, and Matthias Weischer.

In the 1980s and '90s, young artists eager to draw from nude models, master the rules of perspective, and analyze formal composition were attracted to the Leipzig Art Academy in Germany. Although the rise of abstraction had eroded the tradition of figurative art in post-war America and Western Europe, in parts of Europe cut off from the West by the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall, figurative art as it had been taught for centuries flourished.

Founded in 1764 and one of the oldest art schools in Germany, the Leipzig Academy is highly regarded for its tradition of figure painting, which, before the reunification of Germany in 1989 and 1990, was bound to state-mandated Socialist realism. The school's required focus on figure painting foreclosed experimentation with subject matter or form, but left technique free to develop. Its rigorous two-year foundation course, focused primarily on portrait and nude studies, produced some of East Germany's most highly regarded figure painters.

Six of the artists included in Life After Death were students at the Academy in the decade after the 1989 collapse of the Berlin Wall; the seventh, Neo Rauch, studied at the school in the 1980s and taught there in the 1990s, working closely with these students. Following graduation from the school, the younger artists formed Galerie LIGA (the League Gallery) in Leipzig.

The New Leipzig School painters share stylistic and thematic concerns, shaped by both the school's traditions and by East German Socialist realism. The Academy prioritized classical techniques of painting, resulting in the artists' use of graphite scaling grids, forced perspective, careful attention to color, and an emphasis on the figure. Their artwork—characterized by enigmatic narratives, surrealist overtones, and a general feeling of world-weariness—breathes new life into realist figure painting. The works are incredibly diverse, from Rauch's dreamscapes to Kobe's elaborate architecture to Weischer's empty rooms. Yet they all contribute to a contemporary reflection on the East German political situation, depicting places and people not necessarily prepared to integrate into the brand-new optimistic West."