ArtsLink

Unveiled for the first time, Dare alla Luce is Greer’s largest and most intricate artwork to date. The room-size installation is featured as part of a larger selection of works drawn from the artist’s last decade of activity. From Skin Tight (1999) to Small But Mighty Wandering Pearl (2006), this survey highlights Greer’s recurring themes of romantic love, eroticism, fetishism and motherhood.   

Greer’s exploration of the sensuality of life is reflected in the sensuousness of her medium. The materials mirror the body in its dual reality of emotional and corporal: soft vs. hard, vulnerable vs. strong, huge vs. delicate. Her formal realm is a soft one, made of crocheted and stitched fairy tales and archetypal myths, addressing the commonality of feeling and thinking of the human condition. Meaning is embodied in the narratives and yet embedded in the very material.

Mandy Greer is a Seattle-based sculptor and mixed-media installation artist, who has earned an MFA in ceramics from the University of Washington. Her work has been shown at the Tacoma Art Museum, Kirkland Arts Center, The Henry Art Gallery, 4Culture Gallery, Soil Gallery, and the Tampa Museum of Art, FL, among other locations. (information from Bellevue Arts Museum)

Friday, June 6 • 6:30 - 7:30 pm • FREE
Free First Friday Lecture Series: Mandy Greer
fiber and mixed-media artist

Jonathan Beller (Critical English; Visual Studies, Pratt Institute) considers the failures of realism to provide figures for the current politico-cultural conjuncture in the Philippines at a variety of aesthetic and analytic levels, including representational style, genre, experience, and medium. Beller explores the confluence of the vertiginous changes brought about by globalization, and the intensification of contradiction in the domain of official politics as the current regime struggles to manage the ongoing crisis of the Philippine State.

Tuesday May 27th
3:30pm
UW Communications Bld 120

Googie say what?

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In recent months, Googie architecture has been brought to the collective consciousness of Seattleites. What is Googie architecture? Why is it significant to our architectural and cultural heritage? What does it mean in the larger context of Modernism? Why should we care?

Docomomo WEWA and its co-sponsors welcome California architecture critic Alan Hess to Seattle. He will examine how Googie architecture successfully combined Modernism and popular culture and why it is important today.

Alan Hess is the author of Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture (2004) and Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture (1985). As a practicing architect and historian, Hess documents the emerging suburban metropolises of the West. As an architecture critic, he has written a column for the San Jose Mercury News since 1986. His most recent books are Julius Shulman: Palm Springs; Forgotten Modern: California Houses 1940-1970; and Frank Lloyd Wright: Mid-Century Modern.

Hess has been active in the preservation of roadside and post War architecture. His writings and advocacy efforts have helped raise awareness and appreciation of mid-century Modern commercial architecture and have led to the preservation of many of these resources.

Tuesday May 20th
6:30pm
$10.00

Swedish Cultural Center
1920 Dexter Ave N
Seattle, WA 98109
(206) 283-1090

Leonard Shlain: Art and Physics
Town Hall Seattle

Leonard Shlain, a surgeon and author, proposes that visionary artists are the first members of a culture to use image and metaphor to see the world in a new way. These preverbal expressions of novel concepts are then later formulated by physicists. His theory is rooted in brain research and in Jungian archetypal unconscious said to be stored in DNA. Using examples of specific arts works alongside the world-changing ideas of great thinkers, Shlain demonstrates how throughout history changes in music and literature synchronized with those occurring in art and physics and explores why these connections occur.

Tuesday 7:30pm
05/13/2008
Admission: $5/Each
Town Hall Seattle
1119 8th Avenue, Seattle
(206) 652-4255

Thursday, April 10, 2008
7 PM at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center
104 17th Ave. S (Off Yesler); Seattle, WA

American Heritage Series is an ongoing series of lectures and discussions that offer new perspectives on the role of African-Americans in American history. This second installment continues to explore the history of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, and Queer (LGBTQ) African-Americans but specifically focusing on transgender history. Gender identity beyond just Male or Female and transgenderism is not new in the African-American community. To be clear, this is separate from ones sexual orientation but generally refers to someone whose “gender identity or expression differs from the sex of their birth, whether they have surgery or not.”

Join moderator Chandan Reddy, Associate Professor, UW Department of English and panelists Dean Jackson, Regional Organizer and Racial Equity Initiative Project Coordinator, Pride Foundation, Vanessa Grandberry, former Program Manager for the HIV education and prevention programs, Transgender Time (T-Time) and 4Every Man and Imani Henry, Artist, Activist, and Staff Organizer at the International Action Center as we provide information and discuss the contributions African-American transpeople have made to our community.

Tickets: $7/$5 for CD Forum & SBP members/students/seniors
Order online at www.BrownPaperTickets.com/event/16718 or call 1-800-838-3006.

Last year’s Seattle Jewish Film Festival was so popular that the number of days and events have been upped considerably for the 2008 celebration. Opening this Thursday, April 3rd, the festival showcases Jewish identity through an aesthetic lens. SJFF uses the magical medium of film to both entertain and educate moviegoers about complex issues facing Jewish people and world communities alike, while challenging conventional perspectives. SJFF strives to build bridges of mutual understanding between diverse groups by creating forums for engaging in respectful dialogue about timely subjects and concerns.

Information and film times, locations available: http://www.seattlejewishfilmfestival.org/

Opening Night “Bar Mitzvah Bash” Cocktail Party hosted by Tom Douglas
Thursday, April 3, 5:30-7:30 PM
Location: PALACE BALLROOM
Address: 2100 5th Avenue (@ Lenora, across from Cinerama), Seattle
Phone: (206) 448-2001
Website: http://www.tomdouglas.com/ballroom

Josiah McElheny makes installations and discrete sculptures that explore crucial moments in the development of modernity, its visual and theoretical undercurrents. His interest in the history of modern science finds its fullest expression in The Last Scattering Surface. Working with astrophysicists at Ohio State University over several years, McElheny has created a vivid tangible model of the Big Bang, the explosion postulated to represent the beginnings of organic matter. Characteristically the form also quotes visual culture, specifically the gigantic chandeliers of New York’s arch-modern performance space, Lincoln Center. In celebration of the exhibition’s opening, McElheny will discuss The Last Scattering Surface and the relationships between concepts such as history, fiction, and memory at play in his work.

When he was named a Macarthur Fellow the Foundation described his work as “objects of exceptional formal sophistication, exquisite craftsmanship, and conceptual rigor.”

TICKETS

$10 members / $15 general / $12 students and seniors at Brown Paper Tickets

Location: Kane Hall, Room 220

Date & Time: April 4, 7:30 PM

The UW World Series presents a discussion about dance, Pacific Islander identity, and the ongoing artistic growth of traditional cultures. This free, public event is held in conjunction with the performances of Black Grace on April 3-5, 2008, at Meany Hall. Panelists include Neil Ieremia (Black Grace Artistic Director), Kerry Watt (New Zealand Consulate General), Rochelle Fonoti (Anthropology), Tanz Chalmers (Seattle-Christchurch Sister City Association), and Lorraine Morehouse, cultural specialist in Maori tradition.

Price: Free

Location: Kane Hall, Room 220

Date & Time: April 2nd, 6:30-7:30 pm

Fern Gully was a must-watch any day when I was home from school sick. Batty’s rap was so cool for an eight year old. Do I still remember some of it? Of course!!!!

Yo - The name is Batty
The logic is erratic
Potato in a jacket
Toys in the attic
I rock and I ramble
- My brain is scrambled
Rap like an animal
But I’m a mammal… something something!!

So do as the fairies did and stop that mean Tim Curry, I mean, industrial revolution.

—–
VOLUNTEER ON EARTH DAY

Global To Local is a benefit that will take place on the evening of April 22 at Benaroya Hall. Featuring Mayor Greg Nickels, world renown nature photographer Art Wolfe, and others, Global to Local will be an evening to celebrate the environment.

Proceeds from the event go to Project Earth Care , a high school student environmental organization, and will be used to fund various environmental projects in the Seattle / King County area. A portion of every $25 ticket sold will go to purchase 2,500 native trees which will then be planted in Seattle greenbelts and parks by students from Seattle Public Schools.

The benefit is linked to An Inconvenient Ride, a group of Sealth High School students and teachers who will spend the month before Earth Day biking across the country, visiting sister cities that have committed to Mayor Nickels Climate Action Now program. The riding of bicycles symbolizes not only alternative transportation, but a sense of commitment to the environment as well.  

Your reward : Immense gratitude of involved students and teachers, trees planted throughout Seattle greenbelts and parks, a healthier environment, and more good karma than you’ll know what to do with.

If interested or if you have any questions, please contact Lou at chicagoexpat@yahoo.com or 206/403-7050. We’re involved in the planning and set-up now and will be going full throttle through Earth Day.

I have to break my self-imposed restriction of blogging for the night (silly finals papers!) and post news of this exciting event being hosted by the always brilliant Seattle Arts and Lectures Series.

Remember the book The Giver that thoroughly startled you in 6th grade? Ever read the difficult (in subject matter) Number the Stars when learning the history of the Holocaust? If any of these stories are familiar to you, then you will undoubtedly recognize the author’s name– Lois Lowry.

A superstar in serious children’s literature (admittedly, R.L. Stein’s Goosebumps series is in a different category), Ms. Lowry will be speaking at Seattle Arts and Lecture’s Town Hall this Saturday, March 15th, at 1pm.

The event includes a reading of Ms. Lowry’s new book, a multimedia presentation, and a Q&A session geared towards younger questions.

105 South Main Street
Suite 201
Seattle, WA 98104
P: 206.621.2230
F: 206.623.0065

Student tickets are $9.00 and available through phone at (206) 621-2230 ex. 10 or online at http://www.lectures.org