Museums
At Your Service Ariel Brice, Gesine Hackenberg, Molly Hatch, Giselle Hicks, Garth Johnson, Niki Johnson, Sue Johnson, Emily Loehle, Caroline Slotte, and Amelia Toelke mess with crockery and other tokens of the domestic table. Bellevue Arts Museum, 510 Bellevue Way N.E., 425-519-0770, bellevuearts.org, $8-$10, Tues.-Sun., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Through Sept. 21.
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Danish Modern: Design for Living A survey of modern style Danish furniture from 1950-60. Nordic Heritage Museum, 3014 N.W. 67th St., Seattle, 789-5707, nordicmuseum.org, $8, Tues.-Sun., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Through Aug. 31.
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Deco Japan This is a somewhat unusual traveling show in that it comes from a single private collection: that of Florida’s Robert and Mary Levenson. The specificity and period (1920–1945) are also unusual. Among the roughly 200 items on view—prints, furniture, jewelry, etc.—we won’t be seeing the usual quaint cherry-blossom references to Japan’s hermetic past. By the ’20s, there was in the big cities a full awareness of Hollywood movies, European fashions, and streamlined design trends. Even if women didn’t vote, they knew about Louise Brooks and her fellow flappers. For an urbane class of pleasure-seekers, necessarily moneyed, these were boom times. The luxe life meant imitating the West to a degree, yet there are also many traces of Japan’s ancient culture within these modern accessories. Think of the sybarites during the Edo period, for instance, and the women depicted here look more familiar—even if they wear cocktail dresses instead of kimonos. BRIAN MILLER Seattle Asian Art Museum, 1400 E. Prospect St. (Volunteer Park), Seattle, 654-3100, seattleartmuseum.org, $5-$7, Weds.-Sun., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Through Oct. 19.
Anne Fenton Recent winner of the Brink Award, the local artist shows two new videos, stencil art, and handmade fibrous objects. Henry Art Gallery, 4100 15th Ave. N.E., Seattle, 543-2280, henryart.org, $6-$10, Weds., Sat., Sun., 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; Thurs., Fri., 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Through June 15.
Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami An exhibit that examines the evolution of origami as an art form around the globe from its origins all the way up to today. Bellevue Arts Museum, Through Sept. 21.
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LaToya Ruby Frazier Born in the declining Rust Belt town of Braddock, Pennsylvania, Frazier’s images have mostly been black-and-white studies of her kin, lending dignity to loved ones struggling with underemployment, disease, and fractured families. She began taking photographs as a teenager during the ’90s, in part as a rebuttal of the historical images of Braddock that showed only its white faces. Born by a River comprises two sections and eras. In the hallway leading to the Knight/Lawrence Gallery, we see about two dozen black-and-white images of her family, often with Frazier posing among them. Look at us, Frazier is saying; this is how we live. The main gallery contains seven large color aerial views of Braddock, taken last year from a helicopter hovering over The Bottom, the poor, flood-prone, and polluted neighborhood where Frazier was raised. There’s a startling micro/macro effect as we pull up high to these impersonal views. Frazier’s family, and others like it, disappear. All we see are scrapped lots and empty fields; rusty old freight cars sitting empty; and the old Carnegie steel mill. The people are conspicuously missing. BRIAN MILLER Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., Seattle, 654-3100, seattleartmuseum.org, $12.50-$19.50, Weds., Fri.-Sun., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Through June 22.
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Liu Xiaodong Having achieved success in Beijing, Liu went back to his emptied-out old village after three decades away, finding stagnation and defeat among his former cronies. The young people have fled to the coast, where the money is. Back in Jincheng, prospects and hopes are things of the past. There he took photos and made sketches for the paintings of Hometown Boy. There’s nothing explicitly political here, yet the paintings read like a socioeconomic portrait of China’s old inland Rust Belt. These are somewhat sad, desultory scenes. Liu isn’t a political artist like Ai Weiwei. He works within the system but is certainly aware of its constraints and discontents, which surely swirl into Hometown Boy’s palette of oils. BRIAN MILLER Seattle Asian Art Museum, Through June 29.
