The past two weeks have been nothing short of fucking delightful. We’ve sneakily delivered cakes loaded with candy, googly eyes, neon sprinkles, and all manner of sugary bits and bobs by Arts Editor, and secret confectionary genius, Emily Nokes, to this year’s six Genius recipients. I’m not a gifted liar—even white lies come out of me with shifty facial tics and tells—so it was an extra-strenuous task to fool literal artistic geniuses by luring them into our office to surprise them with an expletive-laden cake and a $10,000 check.
That’s right: We’re giving away a total of $60,000 to six different individuals or groups—no-strings-attached cash to blow on rent, or art supplies, or a trip to Mexico—because we care about artists and we want to make our city a place where they can thrive.
If you weren’t around Seattle circa 2003–2016, you missed the Stranger Genius Awards‘ decadent and rowdy parties I can’t remember with crystal clarity, because they’re that good, but the photos prove I was definitely there. Now you, too, can attend a Genius Award party, on September 12, at the Moore Theatre. If you have even a toe in Seattle art community—or just love the arts, or love a good fête—you would be utterly remiss to miss it. This is your invitation. Get your tickets here. Don’t forget to dress up, whatever that means to you personally.
In the meantime, here’s some other things you definitely should not miss (and probably should get dressed up for).
Through September
AMcE Creative Arts mastermind A. McLean Emenegger has an eye for pattern, color, and off-kilter narrative wormholes where the viewer gets to choose their own John Berger-esque adventure. That’s exactly what Self. Reflexive.—“a collection of paintings and drawings exploring inner realms in specific and ambiguous terms”—is about. The artists at this group show plumb the nonlinear and weird. Ian Brownlee’s one-frame, maximalist depictions of weddings and funerals explode with subplots and inscrutable dérives to the point they’re practically an endlessly searchable Where’s Waldo of existential plot. Gegam Kacherian’s neon, vaguely apocalyptic geometric dreamscapes serve an updated take on Surrealist dives into the Freudian dark, while Michael Lazarus’s prismatic abstractions look like they could be encrypted with Magic Eye imagery (you decide if they are). “Compulsive drawer” Hibiki Miyazaki’s pastel imagery of chimeric critters beset by memento mori skulls feels vaguely wrong, but absolutely accurate.
August 22
This Saturday, make the trek to Coffin Farm for the sixth Coffin Farm Summer Show, a sculpture park installed across 15 acres of a farm located at the edge of Renton city limits that’s owned and operated by three generations of artists. (Yes, their family name is actually Coffin.) It’s like our own mini Storm King Art Center, only closer, and decaying in a way that feels less of monuments and more of nature and nurse logs. Being able to survey the gradual decline and decomposition of sculptures from previous years, as they fade into the earth, is one of the unique attributes of this place. Sculptures and earthworks peep out from the old-growth cedars or rise from a field, amid a herd of friendly goats.
There’s no overarching theme, says Von Coffin, who, along with his father and family, curates the Summer Show. However, a few threads have emerged, including several pieces involving sound and/or performance. The 31 artist line up includes Silas Morrow and Rebecca Novack, who perform or manipulate collected field recordings. Marijke Keyser has constructed a custom marimba from reclaimed hardwoods. Noelle Whitaker and Jonas Anderson are digging a partial embankment and installing old organ pipes recovered from Seattle City Hall. Darrell McKinney is making something with a large rock (that’s all I’ve been told). Alex Tedlie Stursberg and Sarah Steeves are coming down from Vancouver, while LA-based Jordan Loeppky-Kolesnik has journeyed north to install a piece suspended over the pond, partially submerged in water. Artists are sending work from Glasgow, Scotland (Jacky Cheetham), Philadelphia (Koda Smith), and Boston (Yolanda HeYang). Getting to the farm is its own little trek—DM or email the farm for address—but it will be worth your while.
August 27
I love the current exhibitions at the Henry so much I wrote a whole article about it. On the 27th, they’re throwing a fete to celebrate their summer shows (music, drinks!). Exhibits include Eric-Paul Riege’s ojo|-|ólǫ́, Joiri Minaya’s textile-lush To Hell with Hibiscus, a showcase of newly acquired prints by America’s favorite female Abstract Expressionist, Helen Frankenthaler, and Day-to-Day: Rhythm, Routine, Resistance, a reframing of works in the Henry’s permanent collection that includes masterpieces like Nayland Blake’s scathing Negative Bunny and Leslie Martinez’s Pathfinder’s Ridge in This Quadrant of the Sun, made of luscious peaks of fabric, paper, shimmering crushed charcoal, rock, sawdust, wood ash, iron oxide, and acrylic paint. They’re also raising a glass to the addition of a new exterior mural, screen-skin field: Seattle (Henry Art Gallery), by Tishan Hsu.
August 28
Mary Anne Carter and Lilia Deering, the masterminds behind IKEA-spoof STÖR, are doing it again with another pop-up art exhibition and retail experience called Inconvenience Store. Where STÖR—in all its Swedish meatball glory—fleshed-out the sprawling Base Camp 2, their new venture inhabits the husk of a former 7-Eleven at 3rd and Pine, now the ground floor of Parnassus, the new office highrise-turned-art-space. Inconvenience Store will feature handmade twists on familiar goods and products, organized by department (Food & Pantry, Beauty & Personal Care) by over 50 artists, including Colleen Louise Barry, Shiloh Davies, Emma Kates-Shaw, Maayan Haim, and more.
When you’re finished, meander to Pike Place. Lately my mind has been blown by the transformation of our public downtown spaces into a stage for live music. It almost feels like, you know, this is a music city. Last month it was stumbling onto Constant Lovers doing their weird sax-rock jam at Night Shift in the market. Last week it was RuPaul DJ’ing in Occidental Square, aka Brick Park, where the color-flooded plein air dance floor filled with scantily-clad gays felt like Pony had turned inside out and spilled into the streets. According to the event organizers at Hometeam, the Brick Park concerts will continue for the foreseeable future, and the Night Shift music series (in tandem with the Downtown art walk) will also hang around. The August 28 Night Shift show, featuring DJ Snax, The Petty Party, and The Long Winters, starts at 3 p.m. and ends at 9 p.m. Get out and enjoy stuff before the long winters actually settle in!
