This Week's Events: Jan 21 - Jan 27, 2007

From underground comics, to Renaissance masterpieces, to cutting edge contemporary art, Seattle's museums have something for everyone this weekend.

Wednesday, January 23

Henry Art Gallery – “Art Dialogue: Postulating the Possibilities of Practice.” Join Guest Curator Ken Oshima and Seattle architect George Suyama in the East Gallery for an informal conversation about the Henry's SANAA exhibition and their experiences working in both the United States and Japan. Saké Nomi will host a sake tasting in the Henry's Baci Café following the conversation. 7 pm. Free, but space is limited, reservations required. Call 206-221-3244 or e-mail rsvp@henryart.org. Update: This event is full to capacity and reservations are no longer available.

Thursday, January 24

Gage Academy of Art – Another monthly installment in the informative and fun Artist's Tool Kit Series, “Art Biz Basics,” featuring the gallery owner of Howard House, speaking about his professional expectations when reviewing artists for gallery exhibition. 12:30 – 2 pm, in the Geo Studio, Room 304. Free and open to the public.

Friday, January 25

The Teacup – “Drink Me, Eat Me” artist reception. ArtXchange gallery presents encaustic photo paintings by Seattle artist Liv Browning, on display at the Teacup on Queen Anne through Valentine’s Day. Join them for the artist reception, snacks, and a good cup of tea at the Teacup from 6-8 pm. The Teacup is located at 2207 Queen Anne Ave N Seattle, WA 98109.

Blue Bottle and Heart, encaustic photo paintings, editions of 20, by Liv Browning

Seattle Art Museum – A special film screening of “Pilchuck Founders Totem Pole,” a production of Pilchuck Glass School. . Students and artists from around the world collaborated to create a totem pole that represents the school’s founders: artist Dale Chihuly and patrons John Hauberg and Anne Gould Hauberg. Noted glass artist Preston Singletary, who directed fabrication and installation of glass elements in the Pilchuck totem pole, will answer questions after the screening. 7-8 pm in the Nordstrom Lecture Hall. Free with Museum Admission. To reserve your space, call the SAM Box Office at 206.654.3121.

Saturday, January 26

Frye Art Museum – New exhibition “R. Crumb’s Underground” opens today. “R. Crumb, a pioneer of underground “comix” and founder of Zap Comix, has been key to the dramatic transformation of comic books into an adult literary form. Cultural critic and lifelong student of human nature, Crumb tackles in his art issues and obsessions that bubble beneath society’s surface: sex, drugs, race, violence, and government repression." The community opening celebration will last January 26 and 27. At 2 pm on the 26th, ‘comix’ historian Patrick Rosenkranz presents “Robert Crumb and the Underground Comix Revolution.” For this lecture, Rosenkranz discusses how Crumb and his Zap Comix colleagues came to be the spark that lit the comix revolution of the 1960s and passed the torch on to generations of cartoonists who followed their bold lead. Free and open to the public.

Henry Art Gallery – The Henry opens two exciting new exhibitions this weekend: “Dawn Cerny: We’re all going to die (except for you)” and “Jean-Luc Mylayne.” Dawn Cerny’s elaborate narrative installations of small drawings and works on paper contemplate present day social and political issues by focusing on parallel moments in history. Studying the Henry’s collection, Cerny has selected Victorian-era mourning garments and 19th-century landscape paintings to be installed alongside her own work. Cerny will be working in the open studio format during the run of the exhibition. One gallery will be outfitted as a combination of waiting room, library, and studio space. For more than thirty years Jean-Luc Mylayne has explored the intimate bond between subject and photographer through a non-traditional approach that combines exacting conception, visionary inventiveness, and infinite patience. Mylayne eschews telephoto lenses; he spends days and even weeks in the field with the birds, allowing them to become acclimated to his presence and thereby achieving a proximity and intimacy with his subjects that is unprecedented in traditional wild-life photography. Both exhibitions run through April 27, 2008.

Jean-Luc Mylayne. No 186, January February 2004. C-print. Image courtesy of the Henry, the artist and Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York.

Seattle Art Museum – An amazing gift to Seattle art lovers, “The Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti's Renaissance Masterpiece” opens. Michelangelo is credited with dubbing them “the gates of paradise,” and sixteenth-century artist and writer Giorgio Vasari called them “the finest masterpiece ever created, either in ancient or modern times.” Three stunning panels from Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise, one of the most celebrated works of the Italian Renaissance, will be on view at SAM Downtown. This exhibition marks the first time that the gilded bronze panels have traveled to the United States since their creation over 550 years ago. The Gates of Paradise exhibition will present the three panels within the context of their 25 years of restoration, nearly as long as it took Ghiberti to create the work.

Blue Star Café – “Seattle Art Party.” Art Parties Seattle will be hosting a gathering of artists and art lovers for art viewing, socializing, drinks and food. Exhibiting artists include Marty Gordon, Sharon Wilfong, Kay Keilson KEO, Mark Eaton, Doug Keith, Quata Cody, Robin Jordan, and Ron Kenny. 6-10 pm. The Blue Star Café is located at 4512 Stone Way N., Seattle 98103.

OKOK Gallery – The gallery presents Seattle musician “Nick Dewitt” for the final performance in a three part series of sound-based artwork. Dewitt will accompany Spring and Summer from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with a monster drum kit adorned in a rococo baroque costume. This ambitious and outrageous performance will be a fitting finale to a month that celebrates sound’s varied potentials and possibilities. 7-9 pm.

Sunday, January 27

Seattle Art Museum – “Feldman and the Artists,” a Pivotal Perspectives series event. Join music scholars Alex Ross, Kyle Gann, Jonathan Bernard and Elena Dubinets for a discussion of the contributions to contemporary culture made by the iconoclastic composer Morton Feldman. Presented by the Seattle Chamber Players and the Seattle Art Museum, this forum will be followed by performances in the Third Floor galleries. 10am – 1pm. Free with Museum Admission. Reservations required. Please call the SAM Box Office at 206.654.3121.

Frye Art Museum – The community opening celebration for the Frye's newest exhibition, "R. Crumb's Underground," continues with a screening of “Crumb,” Terry Zwigoff’s fascinating 1994 documentary profile of comix artist Robert Crumb. Crumb’s life is examined without flinching, as the mysteriously jovial artist recalls his difficult childhood—and his family members reveal a troubling portrait of widespread damage. The riveting Crumb is about art, but it is also a nightmarish vision of an American family. 2 pm. Free and open to the public.