Notes on Exhibitions of the Past Year: Part 2

Seattle Art Museum

In my previous post, I mentioned a noteworthy piece by the Korean artist, Do-Ho Suh, which was all the more striking because of its setting in the enormous second level space of the Seattle Art Museum. Joining Do-Ho Suh's piece on this floor are two other impressive artworks by younger artists, an atmospheric dark quilted piece by Anissa Mack, "Broken Star," and an astonishing wood carving of a veiled head by Dan Webb called "Shroud." Taken together, the craftl and content of these pieces packed a powerful artistic wallop. This was my first visit to SAM and it was a joy-ride from the get-go, starting with the gargantuan, comic Jonathan Borofsky sculpture, "Drilling Man," outside the entrance, all the way up through the fourth floor collections of African, Pacific Northwest and Aboriginal Australian art.

The permanent contemporary collection at SAM is a standard mix of Dine, Rothko, Warhol, Andre and the usual suspects of 20th Century American art. There were a few surprises, though: an unusually textural and lush Robert Ryman, an extremely fine de Kooning ("Wall Landscape"), a witty Colescott. If you aren't familiar with the artist John Covert, there is a compelling example of his Surrealist doll paintings here as well. The European Galleries, though not a large collection, had a few exceptional pieces, e.g., De la Tour's "St. Francis tended by St. Irene," Cranach's "Judgment of Paris," Tintoretto's Portrait of a "Procurator of San Marco," a Rubens' sketch of the Last Supper.

The standout exhibit at SAM this summer for me was "James Ensor and Georg Baselitz: Graphic Works," in the Wright Galleries for Modern and Contemporary Art. It runs through October 24th, so if you're not already in the neighborhood you probably won't get a chance to see it, and that's a shame. This intelligently conceived show features the graphic artwork of the two artists with an emphasis on political content. Both Baselitz and Ensor's graphic works, including prints and drawings, focus on man's inhumanity to man, exploring the role of the soldier in war. There is a morbidity, a dark focus on fleshly vulnerability in all the works, and also an underlying moral outcry. Having seen the Ensor exhibit last year at Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY, I was struck by the similarities in tone between the two artists, and also the beauty of their line. The exhibit was also a revelation for me since my previous acquaintance with Baselitz was mostly through his well-known "upside-down" paintings of the 1980's; after seeing these graphic works, I gained a newfound respect the East German-born artist.