"Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei" at Seattle Art Museum: Mar 12 - Sept 17 | "A Deep Dive into the Provocative and Creative World of Ai Weiwei" | The New York Times

On the eve of his previous major assembly of work at the Hirshhorn Museum, dissident artist Ai Weiwei found that he was unable to attend the event's opening, as the Chinese government had barred Ai from traveling abroad, an unofficial form of punishment for claims of tax evasion. Which he and his supporters consider a politically motivated attempt to silence one of China’s most high profile and outspoken intellectuals. The impounding of his passport by the Chinese authorities came about in 2011, when he was jailed, without charges, for three months. His effective disappearance gained international attention and protest amongst the international arts community. In his last interview before being detained, "Ai Weiwei: 'China in Many Ways is Just like the Middle Ages'" the artist described the constant state of omnipresent menace and surveillance by the authorities of him and others. In the years following, Weiwei braved periods of house arrest, a beating at the hands of local police that caused a brain hemorrhage, the following prosecution for tax evasion, the shutting down of his online presence within China, the revocation of his design firm’s license, and strikingly, "Ai Weiwei Responds to Chinese Authorities Destroying his Beijing Studio".

When his passport was returned in 2015, he left the country and has not returned since. Now residing in rural Portugal, where he maintains an art studio and farmhouse, Weiwei spoke on his new life as a artist in exile, "Ai Weiwei Finds Peace in Portugal: ‘I Could Throw Away all My Art and Not Feel Much’". Speaking further with The Guardian on everything from living in a dugout in Little Siberia, to his friendship with Allen Ginsberg in New York, Weiwei reveals a life that has driven his restless creativity, "Ai Weiwei: ‘It is So Positive to be Poor as a Child. You Understand how Vulnerable Our Humanity Can Be’". The "Challenging Work" born of this life is on display in Seattle Art Museum's "Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei", his largest survey to date in the United States, which traces his evolution from artist provocateur, to one of the most globally visible critics of authoritarianism. Coinciding with this month's Seattle Art Fair, the show features some 130 works in this "Deep Dive into the Provocative and Creative World of Ai Weiwei" spanning the mediums of performance, photography, sculpture, documentary video, and large scale installation. Some of which are known, like the Tate Modern’s commission of 100 million "Sunflower Seeds", while others are here in their international debut, such as "The Cover Page of the Mueller Report, Submitted to Attorney General William Barr by Robert Mueller on March 22, 2019", and others are variations on existing pieces, like the exacting recreation of the room of his extended detention at the hands of Chinese authorities, first seen in the exhibition entitled "S.A.C.R.E.D." for the Venice Biennale.

Seattle Art Fair at Lumen Field Event Center: Jul 25 - 28 | Forest for the Trees at RailSpur: Jul 24 - 28

Following a two year pandemic hiatus, Seattle Art Fair returned with a new artistic director under the aegis of Art Market Productions who announced that they would continue as sole owner and producer. This was due to the passing of Paul Allen in 2018, wherein the future of Allen's founding of numerous cultural and arts institutions, and significant philanthropic contribution to the city, were made uncertain. By 2020, it was established that Allen's Vulcan corporation would no longer be investing in their cultural branch, with the explicit message sent by the shuttering of their arts and entertainment division, and the layoff of all related staff. This would of course translate as "Vulcan Closes its Arts + Entertainment Division, which Includes Cinerama and Seattle Art Fair". Producing a cascade of concerns related to arts funding and the venues under Vulcan's purview. Most significantly, the question of the  Seattle Cinerama, one of only three movie theaters in the world still capable of showing three-panel Cinerama films, project 70mm celluloid, and present digital ultra-high resolution films in Dolby Atmos Sound. The future of this almost singular venue was resolved last year with the announcement in the Seattle Times that, “SIFF Buys Cinerama, Plans Reopening", and through a deal with the Paul G. Allen estate the cinema reopened this past fall. In the case of Seattle Art Fair, it is now wholly owned and run by Art Market Productions, after the inaugural success of its four year run under Vulcan Arts + Entertainment. On the eve of the fair's 2015 launch, there was abundant speculation as to the nature of the exhibit local philanthropist Paul Allen and the organization he had assembled with Max Fishko of Art Market Productions, would be bringing to the city. At the time there was little that offered insight beyond the press release, which made it out to be half-commercial gallery, half-curated exhibition, featuring some 60 galleries representing local to international dealers with an emphasis on the Pacific Rim.

The majority of the dialog focused on the fair's relation to the art market, with Brian Boucher's "Why Are Gagosian, Pace, and Zwirner Signing On for the Seattle Art Fair?" and The Observer's "Paul Kasmin and Pace Gallery Join the Inaugural Seattle Art Fair" leading the discussion. With later pieces like Seattle Times "High Art Meets Deep Pockets at Seattle Art Fair", as well as the New York Times recap, "Seattle Art Fair Receives a Boost From Tech’s Big Spenders", and ArtNews "Why the Seattle Art Fair Is Important for the Art World", positioning the event in relationship to the moneyed local tech industry. All of which were little more than discussions of the art market and the inclusion of some of the gallery world's international power players. For insight into the curatorial direction and work to be featured, one had to rely on regional media in which there was no small supply of skepticism expressed concerning the fair being another of Paul Allen's pet cultural projects, both for the good and the bad. The extent of the fair's scope became apparent opening weekend with favorable coverage in both the New York Times and Artforum. The exhibitions and galleries drawn from Asia were among the three day event's greater successes. In addition to the participating galleries Kaikai Kiki and Koki Arts from Tokyo, along with Gana Art of Seoul and Osage Gallery from Hong Kong, the "Thinking Currents" wing curated by Leeza Ahmady, director of Asia Contemporary Art Week produced a premier exhibition of video, film and sound work exploring themes related to the cultural, political, and geographical parameters of the Pacific Rim. With Kaikia KiKi head, Takashi Murakami returning for the fair's second installment, programming his own satellite exhibition "Juxtapoz x SuperFlat", for Pivot Art + Culture. As covered by Trinie Dalton in, "Pacific Objects", for Artforum, "Seattle Art Fair and Out of Sight made a Return" on the occasion of the fair's second year. Continuing the trend of atypical and non-traditional gallery works, the fourth annual Seattle Art Fair presented Mark Pauline the founder of Survival Research Laboratories, joining influential science fiction author Bruce Sterling in conversation.

The author and the outsider artist, technologist and robotics specialist have intersected on previous occasions, notably 20 years prior in the pages of Wired, for "Is Phoenix Burning?". The cultural and economic landscape that Pauline operates in now is quite different than that of the early 1980s, presenting a new set of challenges to his performative art. So there's logic at work in that Pauline would now align himself with gallery culture, and the contextualized space of its presentation. As Wired said, "artistic respectability doesn’t so much beckon as envelop", in response to The New York Times' "Fire-Breathing Robots Bringing Anarchy to a Chelsea Art Gallery". The 2018 installment also saw artistic director, Laura Fried, succeeded by Nato Thompson. For ArtNews, Thompson went on to explain the approach in his curatorial statement, for the 2019 edition which featured works and talks by the Center for PostNatural History, largescale video artists Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib, architecture and installation creators, Bigert & Bergström, and choreographer Morgan Thorson. For 2023, the year's big coup was the challenge as "Seattle Art Fair Pushes the Boundaries of Artistic Expression", by hosting artist provocateur, Dinos Chapman. Who as a member of the Young British Artists movement with his brother Jake Chapman, have been characterized as, "What if Satan and Hitler Opened a MacDonald's in Hell?". With Seattle Art Fair's eighth installment this year, artistic director Nato Thompson returns, programming a series of specific works by, Michael Leavitt, João Artur da Silva, Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg, Julie Alpert, a mixed-media installation by Ruy Cézar Campos, Epiphany Couch, Maria Gaspar, Tori Karpenko, Sam Stubblefield, an open gallery event with Emily Counts, and installations by Michael Rakowitz and Ralph Ziman. With a voluminous body of galleries, more than 80 in total, along with on-and-off site discussions, projects and open studio events. New Artists/New Collectors also presents the work of 10 select artists, Corning Museum of Glass will host "New Glass Review 43", and Seattle Art Museum will be represented by a Pop-Up Gallery. There are also the annual panel discussions, this year including New Artists/New Collectors once again, and observations on Art Appropriation in Today’s Environment. There are also five major satellite events around the city on the weekend of Art Fair, and The Seattle Times have selected from the abundance on offer, "During Seattle Art Fair week 2024, Don’t Miss these Satellite Shows". Their numbers include the return of Forest for the Trees at the RailSpur building in Pioneer Square, the second activation of the Coliseum Theatre after the initial opening from XO Seattle by Actualize AiR, and the two new downtown gallery spaces opened by Base Camp Studios. Photo credit: The Rendon Gallery

Seattle Art Fair at Lumen Field Event Center: Jul 27 - 30 | Jónsi "FLÓÐ" at The National Nordic Museum: Mar 17 - Jul 30 | Forest for the Trees at RailSpur: Jul 27 - Aug 3

After a two year hiatus, Seattle Art Fair returned in the summer of 2022, with a new artistic director under the aegis of Art Market Productions who announced that they would continue as sole owner and producer. This was due to the passing of Paul Allen in 2018, wherein the future of Allen's founding of numerous cultural and arts institutions, and significant philanthropic contribution to the city, were made uncertain. By 2020, it was established that Allen's Vulcan corporation would no longer be investing in their cultural branch, with the explicit message sent by the shuttering of their arts and entertainment division, and the layoff of all related staff. This would of course translate as "Vulcan Closes its Arts + Entertainment Division, which Includes Cinerama and Seattle Art Fair". Producing a cascade of concerns related to arts funding and the venues under Vulcan's purview. Most significantly, the question of the  Seattle Cinerama, one of only three movie theaters in the world still capable of showing three-panel Cinerama films, project 70mm celluloid, and present digital ultra-high resolution films in Dolby Atmos Sound. This threat to the longevity of the almost one-of-a-kind venue was only resolved this past May with the announcement in the Seattle Times that, “SIFF Buys Cinerama, Plans Reopening", through a deal with the Paul G. Allen estate, reopening of the cinema is scheduled as soon as this fall. In the case of Seattle Art Fair, it is now wholly run by Art Market Productions, after the inaugural success of its four year run under Vulcan Arts + Entertainment. On the eve of the fair's 2015 launch, there was abundant speculation as to the nature of the exhibit local philanthropist Paul Allen and the organization he had assembled with Max Fishko of Art Market Productions, would be bringing to the city. At the time there was little that offered insight beyond the press release, which made it out to be half-commercial gallery, half-curated exhibition, featuring some 60 galleries representing local to international dealers with an emphasis on the Pacific Rim.

The majority of the dialog focused on the fair's relation to the art market, with Brian Boucher's "Why Are Gagosian, Pace, and Zwirner Signing On for the Seattle Art Fair?" and The Observer's "Paul Kasmin and Pace Gallery Join the Inaugural Seattle Art Fair" leading the discussion. With later pieces like Seattle Times "High Art Meets Deep Pockets at Seattle Art Fair", as well as the New York Times recap, "Seattle Art Fair Receives a Boost From Tech’s Big Spenders", and ArtNews "Why the Seattle Art Fair Is Important for the Art World", positioning the event in relationship to the moneyed local tech industry. All of which were little more than discussions of the art market and the inclusion of some of the gallery world's international power players. For insight into the curatorial direction and work to be featured, one had to rely on regional media in which there was no small supply of skepticism expressed concerning the fair being another of Paul Allen's pet cultural projects, both for the good and the bad. The extent of the fair's scope became apparent opening weekend with favorable coverage in both the New York Times and Artforum. The exhibitions and galleries drawn from Asia were among the three day event's greater successes. In addition to the participating galleries Kaikai Kiki and Koki Arts from Tokyo, along with Gana Art of Seoul and Osage Gallery from Hong Kong, the "Thinking Currents" wing curated by Leeza Ahmady, director of Asia Contemporary Art Week produced a premier exhibition of video, film and sound work exploring themes related to the cultural, political, and geographical parameters of the Pacific Rim. With Kaikia KiKi head, Takashi Murakami returning for the fair's second installment, programming his own satellite exhibition "Juxtapoz x SuperFlat", for Pivot Art + Culture.

As covered by Trinie Dalton in, "Pacific Objects", for Artforum, "Seattle Art Fair and Out of Sight made a Return" on the occasion of the fair's second year. Continuing the trend of atypical and non-traditional gallery works, the fourth annual Art Fair presented Mark Pauline the founder of Survival Research Laboratories, joining influential science fiction author Bruce Sterling in conversation. The author and the outsider artist, technologist and robotics specialist have intersected on previous occasions, notably 20 years prior in the pages of Wired, for "Is Phoenix Burning?". The cultural and economic landscape that Pauline operates in now is quite different than that of the early 1980s, presenting a new set of challenges to his performative art. So there's logic at work in that Pauline would now align himself with gallery culture, and the contextualized space of its presentation. As Wired said, "artistic respectability doesn’t so much beckon as envelop", in response to The New York Times' "Fire-Breathing Robots Bringing Anarchy to a Chelsea Art Gallery". The 2018 installment also saw artistic director, Laura Fried, succeeded by Nato Thompson. For ArtNews, Thompson went on to explain the approach in his curatorial statement, for the 2019 edition which featured works and talks by the Center for PostNatural History, largescale video artists Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib, architecture and installation creators, Bigert & Bergström, and choreographer Morgan Thorson. For Seattle Art Fair's seventh installment, artistic director Nato Thompson returns, with this year's edition looking to present a series of specific works by Lauren Bon, Jeffrey Gibson, Eunsun Choi, Sasha Stiles, Marita Dingus, Sharita Towne, Tariqa Waters, Catalina Ouyang, Fox Whitney, and a installation by Dinos Chapman, a prominent artist from the Young British Artists movement. As a duo with his brother Jake Chapman, Dinos work has been characterized by Wired as, "What if Satan and Hitler Opened a MacDonald's in Hell?". The final weekend in July, "Seattle Art Fair Pushes the Boundaries of Artistic Expression", with a voluminous body of galleries, more than 70 in total, along with on-and-off site discussions, projects and and open studio events. Elsewhere in the city on the weekend of Art Fair, there are six major satellite events to take in representing regional work, including the return of the Forest For the Trees exhibition. And across town, the National Nordic Museum hosts the immersive audiovisual installation space "FLÓÐ" by Sigur Rós member, Jón Þór Birgisson through the end of the month. Photo credit Pinault Collection.

Seattle Art Fair at Lumen Field Event Center: Jul 21 - 24 | Forest for the Trees at RailSpur: Jul 21 - 24

With the passing of Paul Allen in 2018, the future of Allen's founding of numerous cultural and arts institutions, and significant philanthropic contribution to the city, were all made less certain. By 2020, it was made clear that Vulcan would no longer be investing in their cultural branch, with the explicit message sent by the shuttering of their arts and entertainment division, and the layoff of all related staff. This would of course translate as "Vulcan Closes its Arts + Entertainment Division, which Includes Cinerama and Seattle Art Fair". Producing a cascade of concerns related to arts funding and the venues under Vulcan's purview. Most significantly, the Seattle Cinerama, one of only three movie theaters in the world still capable of showing three-panel Cinerama films, and project 70mm celluloid, which to-date remains in limbo. The Seattle Times editorial of last year called for an investment intervention, "Seattle Needs a Hero to Save Beloved Cinerama". Seattle Art Fair has weathered the shuttering of Vulcan Arts more evenly, as a co-producer of Seattle Art Fair since its beginning, Art Market Productions announced in 2021 that they would continue as sole owner and producer. In advance of the Seattle Art Fair's inaugural success in 2015, there was abundant speculation as to the nature of the exhibit local philanthropist Paul Allen and the organization he had assembled with Max Fishko of Art Market Productions, would be bringing to the city. At the time there was little that offered insight beyond the press release, which made it out to be half-commercial gallery, half-curated exhibition, featuring some 60 galleries representing local to international dealers with an emphasis on the Pacific Rim.

The majority of the dialog focused on the fair's relation to the art market, with Brian Boucher's "Why Are Gagosian, Pace, and Zwirner Signing On for the Seattle Art Fair?" and The Observer's "Paul Kasmin and Pace Gallery Join the Inaugural Seattle Art Fair" leading the discussion. With later pieces like Seattle Times "High Art Meets Deep Pockets at Seattle Art Fair", as well as the New York Times recap, "Seattle Art Fair Receives a Boost From Tech’s Big Spenders", and ArtNews "Why the Seattle Art Fair Is Important for the Art World", positioning the event in relationship to the moneyed local tech industry. All of which were little more than discussions of the art market and the inclusion of some of the gallery world's international power players. For insight into the curatorial direction and work to be featured, one had to rely on regional media in which there was no small supply of skepticism expressed concerning the fair being another of Paul Allen's pet cultural projects, both for the good and the bad. The extent of the fair's scope became apparent opening weekend with favorable coverage in both the New York Times and Artforum. The exhibitions and galleries drawn from Asia were among the three day event's greater successes. In addition to the participating galleries Kaikai Kiki and Koki Arts from Tokyo, along with Gana Art of Seoul and Osage Gallery from Hong Kong, the "Thinking Currents" wing curated by Leeza Ahmady, director of Asia Contemporary Art Week produced a premier exhibition of video, film and sound work exploring themes related to the cultural, political, and geographical parameters of the Pacific Rim. With Kaikia KiKi head, Takashi Murakami returning for the fair's second installment, programming his own satellite exhibition "Juxtapoz x SuperFlat", for Pivot Art + Culture.

As covered by Trinie Dalton in, "Pacific Objects", for Artforum, "Seattle Art Fair and Out of Sight made a Return" on the occasion of the fair's second year. Continuing the trend of atypical and non-traditional gallery works, the fourth annual Art Fair presented Mark Pauline the founder of Survival Research Laboratories, joining influential science fiction author Bruce Sterling in conversation. The author and the outsider artist, technologist and robotics specialist have intersected on previous occasions, notably 20 years prior in the pages of Wired, for "Is Phoenix Burning?". The cultural and economic landscape that Pauline operates in now is quite different than that of the early 1980s, presenting a new set of challenges to his performative art. So there's logic at work in that Pauline would now align himself with gallery culture, and the contextualized space of it's presentation. As Wired said, "artistic respectability doesn’t so much beckon as envelop", in response to The New York Times' "Fire-Breathing Robots Bringing Anarchy to a Chelsea Art Gallery". The 2018 installment also saw artistic director, Laura Fried, succeeded by Nato Thompson. For ArtNews, Thompson went on to explain the approach in his curatorial statement, for the 2019 edition which featured works and talks by the Center for PostNatural History, largescale video artists Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib, architecture and installation creators, Bigert & Bergström, and choreographer Morgan Thorson. Nato Thompson returns as the artistic director for Art Fair's sixth's installment the final weekend in July, which will feature an expanded body of galleries, more than 80 in total, along with on-and-off site discussions, projects and and open studio events held around the city. Concurrently, and much in the way of the excellent Out of Sight exhibition which brought attention to the local art scene, this year the Forest for the Trees four day event in which, "100-plus Artists Convert Pioneer Square Building in Seattle into Huge Art Festival" will also be something to behold. Photo credit: Lisson Gallery

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

Seattle Art Fair at CenturyLink Center: Aug 1 - 4

In advance of the Seattle Art Fair's inaugural success, there was abundant speculation as to the nature of the exhibit local philanthropist Paul Allen and the organization he had assembled with Max Fishko of Art Market Productions, would be bringing to the city. At the time there was little that offered insight beyond the press release, which made it out to be half-commercial gallery, half-curated exhibition, featuring some 60 galleries representing local to international dealers and an emphasis on the West Coast and Pacific Rim. The majority of the dialog focused on the fair's relation to the art market, with Brian Boucher's "Why Are Gagosian, Pace, and Zwirner Signing On for the Seattle Art Fair?" and The Observer's "Paul Kasmin and Pace Gallery Join the Inaugural Seattle Art Fair" leading the discussion. With later pieces like Seattle Times "High Art Meets Deep Pockets at Seattle Art Fair", as well as the New York Times recap, "Seattle Art Fair Receives a Boost From Tech’s Big Spenders", and ArtNews "Why the Seattle Art Fair Is Important for the Art World", positioning the event in relationship to the moneyed local tech industry. All of which were little more than discussions of the art market and the inclusion of some of the gallery world's international power players. For insight into the curatorial direction and work to be featured, one had to rely on regional media in which there was no small supply of skepticism expressed concerning the fair being another of Paul Allen's pet cultural projects, both for the good and the bad.

The extent of the fair's scope became apparent opening weekend with favorable coverage in both the New York Times and Artforum. The exhibitions and galleries drawn from Asia were among the three day event's greater successes. In addition to the participating galleries Kaikai Kiki and Koki Arts from Tokyo, along with Gana Art of Seoul and Osage Gallery from Hong Kong, the "Thinking Currents" wing curated by Leeza Ahmady, director of Asia Contemporary Art Week produced a premier exhibition of video, film and sound work exploring themes related to the cultural, political, and geographical parameters of the Pacific Rim. With Kaikia KiKi head, Takashi Murakami returning for the fair's second installment, programming his own satellite exhibition "Juxtapoz x SuperFlat", for Pivot Art + Culture. As covered by Trinie Dalton in, "Pacific Objects", for Artforum, "Seattle Art Fair and Out of Sight made a Return" on the occasion of the fair's second year. Continuing the trend of atypical and non-traditional gallery works, the fourth annual Art Fair presented Mark Pauline the founder of Survival Research Laboratories, joining influential science fiction author Bruce Sterling in conversation. The author and the outsider artist, technologist and robotics specialist have intersected on previous occasions, notably 20 years prior in the pages of Wired, for "Is Phoenix Burning?". The cultural and economic landscape that Pauline operates in now is quite different than that of the early 1980s, presenting a new set of challenges to his performative art. So there's logic at work in that Pauline would now align himself with gallery culture, and the contextualized space of it's presentation. As Wired said, "artistic respectability doesn’t so much beckon as envelop", in response to The New York Times' "Fire-Breathing Robots Bringing Anarchy to a Chelsea Art Gallery".

Art Fair's fifth installment the first weekend in August will feature an expanded body of galleries, more than 100 in total, along with it's program of talks, on-and-off site performances and collateral events around the city. These under the umbrella of the fair's Project series, presenting immersive and large-scale works spanning sculpture, performance, and installation. Featuring works and talks by the Center for PostNatural History, largescale video artists Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib, architecture and installation creators, Bigert & Bergström, and choreographer Morgan Thorson. This year's Projects offering a platform for presentations beyond the art fair booth under the premise of "exploring identity, modes of play, and technology" in and around adjacent neighborhoods of the city, framed by Artistic Director Nato Thompson's curatorial statement, "Here Explodes the Wunderkammer"; "A room of research, the early Wunderkammers, or cabinets of curiosities, or Kunstkammers, or even wonder rooms of the 16th and 17th centuries, presented an architectural prodigious display of artifacts garnered and pilfered from across the seven seas. Wrapped up in natural history, a high dose of colonialism, aesthetics, alchemy, a pinch of theology and its important counterpart, intimate curiosity. Fast forward to this intersectional 21st century where the mutability and interwoven qualities of all forms of life and non-life are distinctively embedded in literary, political, artistic, and scientific discussion. The Philip K. Dick-inspired rise of artificial intelligence aggravates the understanding of what constitutes intelligence, or even human for that matter."

2018 marked a major year for Art Fair and its parent institution, with the future of Allen's founding of numerous cultural and arts institutions, and significant philanthropic contribution to the city, made less certain with his passing this past October. Last year also saw artistic director, Laura Fried, succeeded by Nato Thompson. For ArtNews, Thompson went on to explain the approach in his curatorial statement, that the fair “is a wild ecosystem of different approaches. We’ve got technology, we’ve got dystopia, there’s utopia, we have gender, we have indigenous culture, we have a certain kind of interest in historical conditions. There’s a lot of different through-lines of the project, and we’re very excited about it.” Supported by the regional body that makes up the Art Fair's Dealer Committee, consisting of Wahei Aoyama and Akira Wang of Yufuku Gallery, Jane Beebe from PDX Contemporary Art, the James Harris Gallery and the Charles C. Davidson Gallery. In the way of a regional counterpoint to Art Fair's global expansiveness, Scott Lawrimore of Lawrimore Project, Bridge Productions, and Vital 5's highly qualitative Out of Sight exhibition discontinued in 2018. Since 2015, this 22,000 square-foot survey of contemporary art read like a who's-who of the best work seen originating from the Pacific Northwest. Credited as the "The Real Seattle Art Fair is Out of Sight" in local press, this representation of work, "Out of Sight, Into Mind: Art on the Margins of the Seattle Art Fair", will again be sorely missed.

Seattle Art Fair at CenturyLink Center: Aug 3 - 5

In advance of the Seattle Art Fair's inaugural success, there was abundant speculation as to the nature of the exhibit local philanthropist Paul Allen and the organization he had assembled with Max Fishko of Art Market Productions, would be bringing to the city. At the time there was little that offered insight beyond the press release, which made it out to be half-commercial gallery, half-curated exhibition, featuring some 60 galleries representing local to international dealers and an emphasis on the West Coast and Pacific Rim. The majority of the dialog focused on the fair's relation to the art market, with Brian Boucher's "Why Are Gagosian, Pace, and Zwirner Signing On for the Seattle Art Fair?" and The Observer's "Paul Kasmin and Pace Gallery Join the Inaugural Seattle Art Fair" leading the discussion. With later pieces like Seattle Times "High Art Meets Deep Pockets at Seattle Art Fair", as well as the New York Times recap, "Seattle Art Fair Receives a Boost From Tech’s Big Spenders", and ArtNews "Why the Seattle Art Fair Is Important for the Art World", positioning the event in relationship to the moneyed local tech industry.

All of which were little more than discussions of the art market and the inclusion of some of the gallery world's international power players. For insight into the curatorial direction and work to be featured, one had to rely on regional media in which there was no small supply of skepticism expressed concerning the fair being another of Paul Allen's pet cultural projects, both for the good and the bad. The extent of the fair's scope became apparent opening weekend with favorable coverage in both the New York Times and Artforum. The exhibitions and galleries drawn from Asia were among the three day event's greater successes. In addition to the participating galleries Kaikai Kiki and Koki Arts from Tokyo, along with Gana Art of Seoul and Osage Gallery from Hong Kong, the "Thinking Currents" wing curated by Leeza Ahmady, director of Asia Contemporary Art Week produced a premier exhibition of video, film and sound work exploring themes related to the cultural, political, and geographical parameters of the Pacific Rim. With Kaikia KiKi head, Takashi Murakami returning for the fair's second installment, programming his own satellite exhibition "Juxtapoz x SuperFlat", for Pivot Art + Culture. As covered by Trinie Dalton in, "Pacific Objects", for Artforum, "Seattle Art Fair and Out of Sight made a Return" on the occasion of the fair's second year.

Art Fair's fourth installment the first weekend in August will feature an expanded body of galleries, more than 100 in total, along with it's program of talks, on-and-off site performances and collateral events around the city. These under the umbrella of the fair's Project series, presenting immersive and large-scale works spanning sculpture, performance, and installation. This year's Projects offering a platform for presentations beyond the art fair booth under the premise of "exploring identity, modes of play, and technology" in and around adjacent neighborhoods of the city. The series includes the presentation of a functioning satellite by Trevor Paglen, Anishinaabe artists Charlene Vickers and Maria Hupfield in a megaphone broadcasting performance, and Mark Pauline the founder of Survival Research Laboratories, joining influential science fiction author Bruce Sterling in conversation. The author and the outsider artist, technologist and robotics specialist have intersected on previous occasions, notably 20 years prior in the pages of Wired, for "Is Phoenix Burning?". Decades later, much of the contemporary SRL press focusing on the changed cultural and political landscape, and the difficulty of staging Pauline's elaborate, destructive spectacles. Indicative of The Verge's "Terrorism as Art: Mark Pauline's Dangerous Machines". Gone is the era in which the Bay Area was a countercultural hub, and institutions like SRL and RE/Search could easily secure inner city public space for performance. As a product, there's a logic at work that Pauline would now align himself with gallery culture, and the contextualized space of it's presentation. As Wired said, "artistic respectability doesn’t so much beckon as envelop", in response to The New York Times' "Fire-Breathing Robots Bringing Anarchy to a Chelsea Art Gallery".

Previous artistic director, Laura Fried, has been succeeded by Nato Thompson, supported by the core dealer committee of local gallerists, James Harris and Greg Kucera. For ArtNews, Thompson went on to explain the approach in his curatorial statement, that the fair “is a wild ecosystem of different approaches. We’ve got technology, we’ve got dystopia, there’s utopia, we have gender, we have indigenous culture, we have a certain kind of interest in historical conditions. There’s a lot of different through-lines of the project, and we’re very excited about it.” This year's national and international big gallery players are represented by New York's Lidia Andich of Gagosian Gallery, Robert Goff of David Zwirner, Galerie Lelong & Co and Adams and Ollman. Previously offering a regional mirror to the global expansiveness of Art Fair, Scott Lawrimore of Lawrimore Project, Bridge Productions, and Vital 5's highly qualitative Out of Sight exhibition will not be returning in 2018. Since 2015, this 22,000 square-foot survey of contemporary art read like a who's-who of the best work seen originating from the Pacific Northwest. Credited as the "The Real Seattle Art Fair is Out of Sight" in local press, this representation of work, "Out of Sight, Into Mind: Art on the Margins of the Seattle Art Fair", will be sorely missed. As a small consolation, Studio e has organized the group exhibit Studio e 1Room, running concurrent and adjacent to Art Fair. Featuring a cross-section of the regional talent and work that would otherwise have been showcased in the setting of Out of Sight.