We're Back: This Week's Highlights

Seattle Art News is back from vacation and ready for spring. Don't forget that the Gates of Paradise exhibition at SAM closes April 6!

This week's post features highlights from the many events happening this week. As always, check the full calendar for all events.

(Also - check out the left sidebar under Regional Arts Headlines (keep scrolling) for a new RSS feed of news, events, and updates from local galleries and museums. Let me know if someone has a blog that you want to see on this page. Enjoy!)

Wednesday, March 26

Seattle Art Museum - A Pivotal Perspectives lecture, “Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Art and Innovation.” In his essay for the Gates of Paradise catalogue, writer and Renaissance sculpture expert Andrew Butterfield addressed the innovation in Ghiberti’s magnificent baptistery doors. Hear Butterfield elaborate more about this topic in conversation with SAM’s chief conservator Nicholas Dorman. 7 pm in Plestcheeff Auditorium. Free and open to the public. Museum admission not required. Please call the SAM Box Office at 206.654.3121 to secure seating. SOLD OUT!

Thursday, March 27

Seattle Art Museum - "Illuminating the Gates of Paradise" lecture. How did the Gates of Paradise make their way from Florence to Seattle? Join Gary Radke, guest curator of The Gates of Paradise as he discusses how new life was brought to this Renaissance masterpiece. 7 pm in Plestcheeff Auditorium. Free with Museum Admission. To reserve your space, please call the SAM Box Office at 206.654.3121. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis and reservations are released ten minutes prior to start time.

Platform Gallery - “Kelly Mark: stupid love” Artist Reception. Toronto artist Kelly Mark, whose work was last seen in Seattle at the Henry Art Gallery in 2006, will be featured in a solo exhibition at Platform Gallery. Mark's video, drawings, installations and sculptures have centered on her awareness of time–its passing, wasting, marking, keeping–through the recording of repetitive tasks and ordinary unnoticed moments. In addition to sculptures and photographs, Mark will be exhibiting "REM" an installation featuring a video mashup consisting of 170 different sources taken from television. Reception 5-7 pm. Exhibit continues through May 3, 2008.


Northwest African American Museum - “Daniel Minter Artist Lecture.” Mr. Minter is the Washington Foundation Artist in Residence at the new Northwest African American Museum, which celebrated its grand opening earlier this month. Originally, from Ellaville, Georgia, Minter is a graduate of the Art Institute of Atlanta. Always attempting to weave the traditional with the contemporary, Minter’s work is often narrative, mingled with threads of Southern folklore and African spirituality. Mr. Minter will be displaying a number of his pieces at the Museum before and after the lecture. Talk begins at 6 pm, wine and cheese reception begins at 7 pm.

Painting by Washington Foundation Artist in Residence, Daniel Minter

Friday, March 28

Gallery IMA - “In The Name of Love: An installation in Gallery III by Carol Milne.” Opening and artist reception from 5-8 pm. Spread out upon white quartz sand, are 32 kiln & hot cast glass grenades, each differ in size and shape, with the tops removable by the pin. Carol explores the ideas and relations between grenades and gifts. These gifts are hot cast grenades with bullet-shaped interiors. Kiln cast bows adorn the tops. On the surface the grenade looks like a fancy gift box, colorful, beautiful, a delight to hold. But a closer look reveals the ominous undercurrents, the danger within. A gift has a giver and a receiver. It's usually given with good intentions, and received with joy. But are good intentions enough? When it's no longer welcome, is it still a gift?


Microsoft Art Collection - A screening of “Ellsworth Kelly: Fragments” directed by Edgar B. Howard and Tom Piper. Ellsworth Kelly’s work is abstracted forms of everyday sights, like the shadow cast by a tree, or the space between two buildings. Kelly uses bright color fields with highly defined edges to represent these subjects, often with one color per canvas. He is widely regarded as one of the most significant abstract painters, sculptors and printmakers still working today. Fragments follows Kelly as he visits Paris, where he spent much of his twenties, as well as detailing the installation of a pair of wall drawings that were commissioned for the United States Embassy in Beijing. The Film Series is held at Microsoft Redmond Campus Building 33 Conference Center. Click here for more information. 6-7:10 pm.

BLVD Gallery - “Residential” series performance by Foscil, Seattle's "Post Baroque Nu-Hop" ensemble. Foscils music is an amalgam of diverse influences touching on the atmospheric production of Wu Tangs RZA, the out-jazz of Miles, and the psychedelic meandering of Zappa. Each performance in the series features a different incarnation of the group. 8 pm.