TeenTix Blog Visual Arts

Whether you know it or not, you’ve certainly seen Keith Haring’s art. From being plastered on the subways of New York in the ‘80s to the classic motifs of his featured on brands like Converse and Uniqlo today, it’s no doubt that Haring is a household name, despite the tragic brevity of his career; Haring unfortunately passed away at 30 from complications due to AIDS, only 10 years into his career. The Museum of Pop Culture recently presented a special exhibition called Keith Haring: A Radiant Legacy, with over 240 pieces of his artwork on display, as well as selections from Haring’s personal art collection and work from his close friend and inspiration Angel Ortiz. The exhibit is a thorough, comprehensive overview of the artist’s life, if sometimes improperly structured. 

The first room acts as a landing depot, transporting you straight into the ‘80s.  Cyndi Lauper plays as you walk around the first room and read about Haring in his childhood, early career and life as an art student. Haring’s work is famously recognized for its iconic lexicons, so it’s no surprise that the exhibits start with the early forms of his classic figures, such as his Smiling Face, an iconic early piece which appears in many iterations throughout the gallery. The first room provides context needed to appreciate the rest of his featured work, and elaborates on his signature styles through the three sections of the gallery. Keith Haring: A Radiant Legacy. Photo courtesy of MoPOP.

How many museums not only tell grounded stories with honesty and celebration but welcome their visitors with a community living room and a book vending machine? The Northwest African American Museum is advertised as a “museum that uses Black heritage to cultivate healing and hope for all,” and I sensed that as soon as I walked in. In the main exhibit, screens flash with students and community members naming their heroes, claiming the museum as “ours,” and offering it to all as “yours.” Plaques, posters, and art document Black Americans’ victories, setbacks, injustices, pain, joy, and resilience with respect and love. NAAM is a welcoming, celebratory, healing space, and the art and artists of the exhibit Positive Frequencies embody that.

Positive Frequencies features “iconic Neo-POP artist” C. Bennett, along with local artists Eric D. Salisbury, Myron Curry, and Samuel Blackwell. Bennett’s mixed media pieces line half the gallery, while paintings by Salisbury, Curry, and Blackwell line the other half. Music by artists like Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Nina Simone plays, immersing the viewer in the exhibit’s thesis: music can heal by “transcending societal and cultural boundaries.” All four featured visual artists approached that theme differently, but when all the pieces are viewed as a collection, with the music they sought to capture and elevate playing around them, their connection and power are deep and palpable. Photo courtesy of Elite Collective

“A window to the see, a spirit star chiming in the wind of wonder as you crown me with your iron, aid me on my flight…” it began. It felt like eavesdropping as I listened to the poem be read aloud by the artist himself, Raúl de Nieves, just as I had wandered into the gallery. It was a perfect illustration of de Nieves’ theology: an eclectic blend of spiritualism, Catholicism, self-expression, the cycle of rebirth, life, and death, and the belief that there is wonder to be found in the everyday. I was entirely enchanted by the small fragment that I had seen of de Nieves’ world, enamored by how exuberant it all seemed. The gallery demands that you see it in its entirety for you to see “a glimpse of infinity,” the “foliage of the light,” and “the unreality of the unseen” as the poem outlines.

A Window to the See prompts you to walk through the gallery circularly. Following the 21 stanzas lining the walls leads you in a full circle encompassing the gallery, past each of the three sculptures, beneath the arches of stained glass, with the final stanza leading back into the first seamlessly. The way that the curation plays into the themes becomes even more clear when considering the placement of the three sculptures. Following the poems in order takes you past “Deaths of the Everyday” first, followed by “The Gift” in the middle and “Celebration (Mother)” on the opposite end, nearing the last stanza. The three sculptures are representative of the three stages of life that de Nieves has identified: rebirth, life, and death, and they are presented in that order. This is yet another subversion of commonly held beliefs in Western canon. De Nieves skews this idea by presenting a nonlinear journey through the stages of life, beginning with rebirth and ending in death. Raúl de Nieves: A window to the see, a spirit star chiming in the wind of wonder… [Installation view, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle. 2023]. Photo: Jonathan Vanderweit.

Happy New Year from the TeenTix Newsroom! This year, we challenge you to explore new artistic mediums, genres, and subjects, all for $5 with your TeenTix pass.

If you’re interested in branching into the visual arts, the Henry Art Gallery has more engrossing, novel exhibitions coming through 2024. Raúl de Nieves’s A window to the see, a spirit star chiming in the wind of wonder… opened at the Henry in September of 2023 and will continue well into summer. We suggest opening your year with the one-of-a-kind multimedia experience to set the tone for many more explosive experiences to come. Music’s rich but often-unexplored history is getting a spotlight at the Northwest African American Museum through their Positive Frequencies exhibit. Check it out to learn more about how music plays a role in Black History.

Steinunn Þórarinsdóttir: Wayfinders, showing at the National Nordic Museum until January 28, is an abstract exhibition about humankind's connection with nature. It features aluminum humanoid statues scattered throughout the museum; some are on the second-floor bridges, surveying the entrance like sentries. Some are worked into other exhibitions, hidden in plain sight; others are secreted away in alcoves, and others still are out in the open or bracing themselves on the wall, waiting for viewers to notice them.

The exhibition also includes a collection of rough watercolors and the artist's summary of what these figures are meant to show. This summary and the watercolors add crucial context; without the information in the overview, the sculptures would still be beautiful, but their intended message wouldn't be as clear. The watercolors depict the statues interacting with invisible forces of nature. photo credit: @photobakery

The concept of “positive fragmentation” existed long before the exhibition at the Bellevue Art Museum. The term was coined by the feminist art critic Lucy Lippard, in her 1978 essay, Making Something from Nothing. Lippard’s essay dissects the disparity in male and female representation in high art. Lippard notes that art produced by women tends to be labeled as hobbyist and nothing more by those discussing high art. She goes on to state that the same can be said for certain art mediums, specifically printmaking, as it is seen as replicable and, thus, less rare or valuable. With Lippard’s idea here in mind, there is a clear intersection for female artists whose primary medium is printmaking, who have gone almost entirely overlooked because of this. Enter “positive fragmentation,” a term Lippard uses to describe the aesthetic of these artists and what their work accomplishes. “Positive fragmentation” is described as eclectic, bombastic, the “collage aesthetic,” and Lippard posits that it lends itself incredibly well to marginalized artists because of its inherent willingness to deconstruct and then reconstruct the notions of high and low art. The exhibit Positive Fragmentation, bearing the same name as Lippard’s theory, aims to the ideas she had outlined, showcasing over 200 prints by 21 contemporary women printmakers that demonstrate the sheer power of the medium, totally averting the preconceived notion that prints are incapable of being expressive and unique.

The exhibition is found on the third floor of the Bellevue Art Museum (BAM), a sprawling space lined wall-to-wall with prints from remarkable artists such as Betye Saar, Wendy Red Star, Louise Bourgeois, and many more. Exhibiting so many pieces in a relatively small space is a difficult task. For many other gallery spaces, the exhibition would have felt confusing and hectic, yet the BAM handles it incredibly well. There is a good flow to the gallery, with the pieces displayed in groups of several smaller subcategories: time, bodies, art history, meaning, subtext, and critique. With this method of display, the viewer feels a sense of cohesion, and it makes the task of displaying such a sheer number of pieces much less daunting. BAM is a smaller space, but this is by no means a negative quality. To an exhibition such as Positive Fragmentation, such a small and intimate setting lends itself well. It makes the exhibition feel all the more personal like the viewer has a greater opportunity to connect with the art, and it neatly avoids the hollow or empty feeling that certain larger spaces often have. Photo courtesy of Coco Allred

Katsuhika Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa (known more widely as The Great Wave) is an instantly recognizable icon of pop culture. Everyone knows the deep Prussian blue waves, crested with curling white seafoam, standing stark against a tan-tinted sky. In the nearly 200 years since the 1830-‘31 production of the piece, it has been studied, recreated, and studied again, with The Wall Street Journal even calling it “possibly the most reproduced image in the history of all art.”

But there is infinitely more to Hokusai’s legacy than this 10-by-15-inch woodblock print. Katsushika Hokusai, Under the Wave off Kanagawa(Kanagawa-oki nami-ura), also known as theGreat Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjûrokkei), about1830–31 (Tenpô 1–2)Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, William Sturgis Bigelow Collection, 11.17652Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper

It's wintertime! Even in Seattle's bleakest months of the year, vibrancy and inspiration are definitely not gone from Seattle’s arts scene. This month our writers will be putting on their explorer hats and experiencing art from around the globe. So join them on experiences ranging from Indonesian Gamelan to Nordic sculptures to contemporary Seattle experimentation.

Seeking to disrupt and reinvent, NextFest NW 2023 at Velocity Dance is a celebration of experimentation. Northwestern artists Maximiliano, Kara Beadle, Danielle Ross, and Sophie Marie Schatz present a singular yet cohesive experience from dancing, movement, and light. NextFest runs December 7-9 + 14-16, so don’t miss the contemporary event of the season at 12th Ave Arts.

Amid the sublime paintings of Frye Salon, instruments wait in the middle of the room. They cast a poignant presence on viewers, the silence of the room awaiting the cacophony of their mellifluous sounds. Until March 10, 2024, visitors coming to the Frye Art Museum will get to experience LINEAJES, an exhibit focused on the dynamic histories and rhythms of these instruments around the world, taken directly from the collection of Antonio M. Gómez. The exhibit juxtaposes the past and the present, and how the upholding of timeless methods continues to evolve and influence how those instruments are played today. LINEAJES brings to light the artistry behind the design of the instruments, their undeniable impact on the unification of cultural traditions, and the distinctive sounds that have become part of our own identities.

Frye Salon is an ideal setting for the art found within. This venue consists of white walls that are adorned with beautiful paintings, mostly by European artists. These artworks cast a golden shine with their elaborately-crafted frames.

This November, as the clocks fall back and the rain keeps falling, we at the TeenTix Newsroom are turning our attention to tradition: maintaining beloved ones and forging others that are fresh and new. With a TeenTix pass this month, there’s plenty of time to both return to classic stories and explore contemporary ideas.

At Seattle Rep, Little Women runs from November 10 to December 17, a staging of Louisa May Alcott’s adaptation of her own 1868 novel. Following the aspiring writer Jo March and her three sisters throughout each of their lives, Little Women centers on the joy of family. But the cozy community fun doesn’t stop with the play itself; the run includes dates with a Winter Market taking place in the Rep’s lobby, a double feature date in collaboration with SIFF Uptown, and more.

Danish sculptor Thomas Dambo dreamed big for the Pacific Northwest—but his dreams took giant, trollish form. His public art project Northwest Trolls: Way of the Bird King seeks to both highlight indigenous Coast Salish cultures and foster connections with his native Denmark. The project features six giant handcrafted sculptures across the region, each with its own pleasantly peculiar presence. From Vashon Island to Portland, Oregon, each troll invites viewers to appreciate the whimsy and beauty nature offers.

In West Seattle, a troll named Bruun Idun stands ready to serenade our resident orca families. This wooden giant has clearly been crafted with intention: everything from the flowing curves of her fingers to the roundness of her face demonstrates proof of Dambo’s artistic prowess.

How does one immortalize something impermanent? How does one create a physical form for something theoretical? When confronted with emotions and ideas so inexpressible it’s entirely overwhelming, how does an artist convey them clearly through art? On September 29, I had the privilege of attending the public opening of the Henry Art Gallery’s fall exhibits, where I was able to witness L.A.-based artist Kelly Akashi’s newest exhibition, Encounters. The ethos of Encounters explores humanity’s interaction and connection with its surroundings: nature, the unknown, and each other. These interactions are by definition fleeting; small moments in time in which two bodies, whether human, terrestrial, or celestial, are intertwined through touch. Akashi’s sculptures give these impermanent interactions a permanent existence, creating a body for something formless.

The exhibition can be found on the bottom floor of the Henry, taking up a sizable portion of the space. Visitors are encouraged to walk amongst Akashi’s sculptures, carefully displayed across the gallery space. These sculptures are not displayed on pedestals or behind glass as in a traditional gallery but are rather placed directly on the floor. The proximity to the art makes the viewer feel as if the sculptures they are encircling and studying are merely other members of the crowd. The sculptures themselves are mounds of clay, carefully folded in a way evocative of the very earth the clay came from. Many of the sculptures are topped by bronze casts of the artist’s hands; some hold folded flower-like items, others coiled ropes, and others delicate blown-glass branches. Along the walls of the space are prints of Akashi’s work, showing a unique form of photography in which crystals are grown on film. Finally, projected across the back wall of the gallery is simulated footage of the collision of the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies, creating an optical illusion as the back wall appears to expand, making the viewer feel miniscule in comparison. Kelly Akashi: Encounters[Installation view, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle.2023]. Photo: Jueqian Fang.

With the first installment of articles from the TeenTix Newsroom coming out in the next few weeks, the Press Corps is writing about works that talk about the tensions between one’s dreams and one’s past as well as the different forms that one’s dreams may take.

At ArtsWest, we’ll be covering Matt & Ben, a look at Matt Damon and Ben Affleck before their fame, in their Good Will Hunting era, pursuing their dreams. Though being a comedic take on the two Hollywood headliners, Matt & Ben reminds us to not let our dreams be deferred but to take on the oncoming year in storm.

Ikat: A World of Compelling Cloth is an exhibit that is very easy to brush over, though it is located prominently on the top floor of the Seattle Art Museum (SAM). The grandeur of the traditional European classic pieces awaits just beyond the door to the left, as well as a ceramics exhibit that will take your breath away. Next to these galleries, Ikat seems to be very ordinary indeed. Of course, it does open with a majestic display of woven strands dropping down from the planks at the top, resembling an optical illusion. As you turn around this display, each angle presents you with a different view of the threads and their scale, leaving you feeling somewhat disoriented. Justifiably, the piece takes up much of the entirety of the main room, allowing you to soak in its splendor and intrigue. PONCHO (DETAIL), 20TH CENTURY, AMERICAS (BOLIVIA, CHARAZANI), Photo curtest of SAM

When you move on to much of the rest of the exhibit, though, you see a strikingly different approach being taken with the presentation of the pieces. The first thing you notice is the bright colors of the walls, surrounding and enveloping the pieces they surround. It's almost difficult to view the art on its own, seemingly messily done.

Resisters: A Legacy of Movement from the Japanese American Incarceration is an unintentionally misleading gallery. The impersonal nature from which history is often told is drastically subverted in this exhibit, featured at the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience from October 14, 2022, to September 17, 2023. The gallery is a special exhibition designed by Scott Méxcal, written by Tamiko Nimura, and developed by Mikala Woodward. The exhibit is structured similarly to a maze, where you—placed into the shoes of Japanese Americans facing these aggressions—are led through the passage of time without being able to anticipate what will come up next.

Stories in history that are fraught with tragedy are often dulled down into easy, comprehensible individual values when they are retold. Retellings frequently pick and choose their facts simply by virtue of being a retelling. It would be impossible to cover every single event without meticulously recreating it step by step, as some parts are naturally lost over time. To only cover the certain pieces of the exhibit that remain would be an injustice to all the stories left untold—and to cover the entire exhibit as if it is a holistic record of internment camps would do the same. Instead of picking and choosing a few specific stories, this exhibit and review ask the viewer to put themselves through the experience of internment and view each possible story offered through their own lens. You can hear the recorded testimonies throughout the exhibits echoing through history, just as the exhibit is set up as a timeline that prevents you from seeing what's left to come.

Day after day on this beautiful stage at the Henry Art Gallery attempts a new take on modern art that unfortunately falls quite flat—despite the interactive 3D aspects of the exhibit. Sarah Cain presents a set with couches positioned for the viewer to look upon the stage, as the name suggests. Viewers are allowed to enter both portions of the exhibit, which takes advantage of the Henry's expansive ceilings to appear all-encompassing. The piece is considered a subversion of serious abstract art, in that much of the strokes that build up the world of this set appear childish and sloppy.

A common critique of abstract art is that it is, in fact, childish. The intention of the exhibit seems to twist this view by intentionally attempting to be less serious, overemphasizing the shock factor of its components in this effort. Cain expends so much energy in trying to convey what the portions of her piece represent, that the overall impact is actually rather underwhelming. Much of the time spent attempting to glean the meaning of the stage simply concludes with "this portion was meant to represent the sky, or the sun, or the grass." Though she clearly tries to launch opposition to the standards of abstract art, Day after day falls short.

An afternoon at Ballard’s National Nordic Museum, a brand-new TeenTix partner, left me oriented and disoriented — both, I would say, in a good way.

The disorientation was immediate and obvious. Within minutes of collecting my free ticket — the National Nordic doesn’t charge on the first Thursday of every month — I pushed through the heavy doors of their new exhibit FLÓÐ into pitch blackness. FLÓÐ was designed by Icelandic singer Jónsi as an immersive museum experience meant to simulate the ocean, but none of that was clear to me as I walked in. All I knew was that it was very, very dark, and that I nearly walked into a fellow museum-goer who hissed a quiet “excuse me” (visitors to FLÓÐ are asked to remain as silent as possible).

Then the lights came up, sort of. FLÓÐ is lit by a single strip across the ceiling, which darkens and brightens and undulates in time with the sound, which is composed by Jónsi and evokes the ocean without really sounding like the ocean. Instead of the crashing of water, it’s made up of choral recordings and vaguely electronic sounds, but it moves up and down like a wave. Sometimes the music and the lights are regular and rhythmic, like a calm sea, and sometimes storms seem to sweep through. Occasionally, the pitch darkness returns.Courtesy of the National Nordic Museum

Eventually, you’ll catch your bearings in FLÓÐ — it’s really just a long room, with a strip of lights on the ceiling and speakers along the walls — and start to get bored. I’d encourage you to linger, even after that. When I forced myself to stay, and keep watching the lights, I stopped thinking about lunch or my article assignment or what-have-you and focused on the ocean.

Still, FLÓÐ is a place you stay only for 10 or 20 minutes, maybe a few more if you’re exceedingly patient and meditative. It’s a good metaphor for my general experience of the National Nordic: a lovely place to drop into, one with a relatively low barrier to entry, that rewards a short visit or a longer one and that rewards multiple viewings. Regardless of whether you end up at the National Nordic on a regular day or a free-admission first Thursday, FLÓÐ will cost you $5 — either included in $5 general admission though the TeenTix pass, or as an add-on to your free ticket to the rest of the museum.

The rest of the museum is where I got better oriented in Nordic culture. The National Nordic does a very good job of generalizing where it’s appropriate and emphasizing individuality when it’s helpful. The rest of the ground floor is an exhibit broken down by country, highlighting a cultural practice from each county. It was useful for me, someone with only a passing familiarity with most Nordic countries, but it seemed just a bit reductive — not all of Danish culture can be encapsulated in the trendy notion of hygge, for example.Courtesy of the National Nordic Museum

This exhibit included a panel about the indigenous Sámi people, whose cultural region, called Sápmi, extends into Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. On the back wall played a video about the experience of Nordic people of color and their relationship with the stereotypes and ideals of their home countries.

Upstairs was my favorite exhibit, a long and comprehensive timeline of Nordic history. It was exceptionally well-done: accessible to an outsider, clear, and rich with more information than I could conceivably read in a single sitting. The curation of the objects in the room also benefited from the National Nordic’s wide-ranging look at history, featuring everything from Viking longboats to brightly-colored Scandinavian chairs and bicycles.

It’s the objects that really shine at the National Nordic, the clothes and the furnishings and the memorabilia and the doohickeys. It’s easy to get distracted staring at the rigging on a model ship or the stitching on the traditional dresses on display. Everything is vibrantly colorful and interesting and simply lovely; the Scandanavians know what they’re doing when it comes to design. At the National Nordic, take time to stop reading and look up from the plaques, timelines and information to appreciate everything visual that’s on offer.

It’s conceivable to see the entire museum in an hour or two, and that includes time to stop by Freya, the café and bakery on the first floor that serves unique Nordic baked goods. The National Nordic is great to drop by during an afternoon out in Ballard — walk around the shops, grab some lunch, then stop at the museum for a little while. (Just don’t try for lunch at Rachel’s Bagels, as your erstwhile TeenTix writer did, because while they’re open until 1pm, they were nearly cleaned out of bagels at noon. Let that one be a breakfast activity.

The beauty of the National Nordic is the beauty of FLÓÐ: it can be enjoyed relatively briefly, but there’s a lot of depth to it, benefitting both a short and a long visit. For just $5, you too could find yourself both oriented and disoriented in Nordic culture. This summer, take that principle and have a museum summer. Grab your TeenTix pass, find a cool little spot, and add some gallery-gazing, sonic-immersion-experiencing and baked-good-eating to your days out and about in Seattle.Courtesy of the National Nordic Museum

Even though we’re on the tail ends of the UW cherry blossoms, the spirit of reinvigoration, renewal, and reinvention remains in the air in the Seattle arts scene. In April we traveled from Jet City Improv to the Henry Art Gallery quintessential spring atmospheres. We hope you’ve been taking advantage of the nice weather and visiting all of our amazing arts partners!

We first see this theme of reinvention at the Henry with Thick as Mud, an exhibit that explores how mud represents the relationship between humanity and geography. The multimedia showing explores the violence inflicted against the environment as well as the potential for preservation and reinvigoration. Similarly, Ikat at the Seattle Art Museum uses an immersive experience to remind us of the importance of the tangible in terms of fashion. SAM describes this as “A radical departure from today’s factory-made cloth, Ikat serves as a reminder of the power of slow fashion and the sacredness of clothing as art”.

This month on the TeenTix blog, we’re featuring events that force viewers to reject surface level understanding of life. These arts events venture underground, focusing on stories that have previously been untold, underrepresented, or underappreciated.

SIFF starts off on March 1st with the 2002 film Whale Rider, the story of a Mayori girl battling against stereotypes with the hopes to one day become chief. Similarly, Seattle Public Theater delves into stereotypes and their harm through the musical 110 in the Shade. The source material of the show was written in the 1950s and centers the theme of uncovering, as the main character Lizzie uncovers her own personal truths.

The Reorient: Journeys through Art and Healing display at the Wing Luke Museum features four Asian artists who use their different mediums as ways of telling their stories of immigration and finding purpose. These artists are able to express their gratitude, nostalgia, and defiance through dyed fabric, sculptures, ink-wash paintings, using color and unorthodox shapes to suggest the tone or emotion of a work and appeal to audiences.

First entering the exhibit, there is plenty of blank wall space, wherein only after you turn in either direction can you see the paintings of Victor Wang. His style of art holds a strong influence from his time spent working at a photography studio, as most of his pieces were made using pen ink on photographic paper later blended together with solvent, a liquid used to develop photographs. His use of unconventional materials in his paintings reflect his background as a photo color-corrector and almost makes it look like Wang pulled the art out of the canvas.