Seattle Art Museum (SAM)

The Quick and Easy:

What: Seattle's Center of Art
When: Year round
Where: 1300 1st Ave (between Union and University)
Why: Because, according to Nietzsche, “The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.”

Seattle is not a city known for its art.  That reputation is reserved for places like Paris or New York.  This is a shame, because there is a plethora of great art to enjoy in this area, and you don’t have to go very far to see it.   

The Seattle Art Museum, lovingly referred to as SAM, is located in the heart of downtown Seattle on 1st Avenue.  The building, after recently undergoing an $81 million renovation, is itself a work of art.  It has a light and airy feel and a great flow to it.  There are a remarkable variety of permanent collections to feast your eyes on, including the iconic, three-story “Hammering Man,” hammering diligently four times a minute, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. 

Once you step inside the building, Cai Guo-Qiang's sculpture, “Inopportune: Stage One,” greets you.  The sculpture features several old, white Fords suspended from the ceiling and exploding with neon lights.  It is truly a sight to see those cars tumbling through the air. 

Once you go up to the exhibits, you are greeting with a large collection of Modern and Contemporary art.  These are the SAM’s strong suits.  Many of the artists featured are from the Pacific Northwest.  A must see is Mel Ramos’ painting, “Moose,” which portrays a giant Moose surrounded by a vibrant, pink background.

In the same collection, there is a room dedicated to works that grapple with the challenges of the modern world.  There are amazing pieces in this room, like “Some/One” by Do-Ho Suh, which is a giant suit of armor compiled out of old dog tags.  Anselm Kiefer's “Die Welle (The Wave),” spanning an entire wall, is a haunting mixed media image on canvas, representing a tragic period of German history.
 
On this floor, you'll also find one of the nation's premier collections of Northwest Coast Indian art and artifacts.  SAM’s collection contains the work of several known master carvers and weavers from the 1880’s to the 1950’s. “Thunderbird Mask and Regalia” by Calvin Hunt should not be missed.

There is an equally large collection of African art.  Most of the art is ceremonial, but there are some contemporary pieces as well.  What makes SAM so interesting is that they don’t separate the pieces by the age or type of work.  African ceremonial masks are located right next to a contemporary collection of mannequins wearing modern Nigerian clothing and masks, and videos of dancers projected on one of the walls.  This gives the feeling that culture cannot be subdivided by category.  One’s culture and their art, which reflects that culture, is a giant mixture of everything in their experience from the past and present.  It’s a captivating way of displaying art. 

The last must-see at SAM is the Porcelain room.  Japanese and Chinese merchants sold porcelain to Europeans in the 17th and early 18th century as status symbols.  In the room, they are arranged by color and theme and surrounded by mirrors to make them appear even more spectacular.
A collection of Australian Aboriginal and Oceanic Art is also featured, along with a smattering of European and American art from medieval, renaissance, and baroque periods. The museum has a small collection of Asian Art as well, but most of that collection resides in the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

“Inspiring Impressionism”
      SAM recently opened a new exhibition entitled “Inspiring Impressionism: The Impressionists and the Art of the Past.”  The exhibit features Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Monet, and more.  The goal is to showcase how earlier masters like El Greco, Francisco De Goya, and Diego Velázquez influenced these artists.  Some works in the collection have never appeared on the West Coast before.
     
For impressionists, it was standard for an artist to practice their craft by copying the works of others.  They studied older artists’ creations and then added their own flair, or je ne sais quoi, to the subjects.  The idea behind this exhibition, according to SAM’s Deputy Director for Art, Chiyo Ishikawa “…is that all of art is a link in a long story looking forwards and backward.”
     
Both Francisco de Goya and Alfred Sisley have paintings of dead fish on display. The new cell phone audio tour expounds on these paintings, explaining that, though they are of the same subject, they each emit a different energy.  It’s interesting and educational, if not a little far-fetched.  Supposedly, there is the reflection of the sky in The Pike by Alfred Sisley, but all I saw were fish guts.

Public tours of “Inspiring Impressionism” are held Tuesday – Sunday at 1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m.  There is an additional tour on Thursdays at 7 p.m.  The tour is free with museum admission. 

“Fresh Impressionism”
      Coinciding with this exhibit is the “Fresh Impressionism” exhibit, which showcases how modern artists from the museum’s permanent collection were similarly influenced by their predecessors.  A highlight is a work by Raqib Shaw, inspired by Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights.” Shaw’s painting of the same name recreates Bosch’s original, but renders it underwater, adding references to Hindu mythology, stories from the Brothers Grimm, music, and other aspects of the artist’s own life.  It’s another example of how artists often honor a master with a fresh approach.