Openings & Events

User Profile This collection of 25 artists’ work marks the opening of the new Hall Spassov Gallery in the old Grover/Thurston space. The show is meant to act as a showcase of the new gallery’s aesthetic, hence the name “User Profile.” First Thurs opening reception, 5-8 p.m. Hall Spassov Gallery, 319 3rd Avenue South, 223-0816, hallspassov.com. Through July 31.

Mystic Modernism of the Pacific Northwest Coinciding with SAM’s show on the same topic, Seattle artREsource collects work from the School of Northwest Mystic painters, alongside contemporaries of the movement, Paul Horiuchi and George Tsutakawa. First Thurs opening reception, 5:30-8 p.m. Seattle artREsource, 625 First Ave, Suite 200, 838-2695, seattleartresource.com. Through August 30.

Carolyn Hopkins

Smoke Signals compiles drawings, sculptures and video made by the artist during time spent at Blue Lake in Oregon, where a recent forest fire ravaged the landscape. The work explores the artist’s deep seated connection with place. First Thurs opening reception, 5-8 p.m. Punch Gallery, 119 Prefontaine Place South, 621-1945, punchgallery.org. Through August 2.

Ellen heck, Shigeki Tomura and Harold Keeler Woodblocks exploring female identity, Japanese watercolors of moments in nature, and lithographic odes to the city of Seattle. First Thurs opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Davidson Galleries, 313 Occidental Ave S., 624-7684, davidsongalleries.com. Through August 2.

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Event name Event particulars. Event venue.

Event name Event particulars. Event venue.

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Summer Field Studies TK see if you can glean this weekend’s stuff from website. See website for details. Henry Art Gallery, 4100 15th Ave. N.E., 543-2280, henryart.org. Free.

Through Sept 14.

Ongoing

Artcade Vintage arcade consoles are strewn across the gallery floor with video game art accompanying them. Vermillion, 1508 11th Ave., 709-9797, vermillionseattle.com. On view through June.

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.

Rachid Bouhamidi

Fanfare for the Area Man collects the Los Angeles artist’s colorful, busy paintings. Blindfold Gallery, 1718 E. Olive Way, 328-5100, blindfoldgallery.com. Through July 5.

Romson Regarde Bustillo In his show Dugay na, the Filipino artist creates brightly colored works on paper, intricately cut and designed with patterns, some of them narrative. The title of the show translates as “no longer new” or “a long time now.” Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, 550 Winslow Way E., 842.4451, biartmuseum.org. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Daily through Sept. 24.

Alli Curtis

The Decay of an American Dream captures photos of homes and businesses after foreclosure and bankruptcy in wake of the financial crisis. A/NT Gallery, 2045 Westlake Ave., 233-0680, antgallery.org. Through June 29.

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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., 789-5707, nordicmuseum.org, $8, Tues.-Sun., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Through Aug. 31.

Rachel Debuque and Danielle Peters Performing as Candied Calamari, the local duo will be “engaging in sacramental action in a futuristic landscape.” In the back space: Julie Alpert’s Look-Alikes, a drawing series based on a pair of identical lamps. SOIL Gallery, 112 Third Ave. S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), soilart.org. Through June 28.

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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. The country opened itself late, at gunpoint, to the West, and industrialized quite rapidly. 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. We may think that, particularly during the ’30s, the country was concerned with militarism and colonial expansion, but these objects reveal the leisure time and sometime frivolity of the period. 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), 654-3100, seattleartmuseum.org. $5-$7, Weds.-Sun., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Through Oct. 19.

Marc Dombrosky

Who throws their sister to the wolves under the bus? takes a collection of unrelated items, and attempts to forge momentary, fragmentary narratives by placing them all in the gallery in new, unexpected contexts. Platform Gallery, 114 Third Ave. S (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 323-2808, platformgallery.com. Free. Through July 26.

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.

Zaria Forman and Rena Bass Forman A mother and daughter show two separate series centered around the effects of climate change—one through pastel drawings, and one through photography. Winston Wachter Fine Art, 203 Dexter Ave. N. 652-5855, seattle.winstonwachter.com Through July 17.

David French He displays new paintings. Also on view: work by Susan Bennerstrom. Linda Hodges Gallery, 316 First Ave. S., 6

24-3034, lindahodges

gallery.com. Through June 28.

Alan Fulle He shows new work in Blocks and Stripes: Sculpture in Paintings. Traver Gallery, 110 Union St., 587-6501, travergallery.com. Through June 28.

Steve Gawronski and Scott Mayberry Gawronksi’s scultpure series explores the word “dig,” while Mayberry’s acrylic paintings delve into the interplay of technology and nature. Core Gallery, 117 Prefontaine Pl. S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 467-4444, coregallery.org. Through June 29.

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Aaron Haba From Camano Island, he uses boat-building techniques for the creations of Vessel. Method Gallery, 106 Third Ave. S., (Tashiro Kaplan Building), Through June 28.

I Heart Comic Art An art show of local indie comic artists, with art on sale and live music from Lucas Morais of Astral Twins. Caffe Vita, 1005 E. Pike St., 709-4440, caffevita.com. Through June 30.

Robert Marchessault His Forest for the Trees is a series of realistic oil paintings of trees against stark skylines. Foster/White Gallery, 220 Third Ave. S., 622-2833, fosterwhite.com. Through July 2.

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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. B.R.M. Seattle Asian Art Museum, through June 29.

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Modernism in the Pacific Northwest: The Mythic and the Mystical Summer is usually the season for tourist-friendly blockbuster shows at SAM, like Japanese fashion last year, traveling from other institutions. This one is entirely local, celebrating the native quartet of Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan, and Guy Anderson. How did the Northwest become a school? Isolation, for one thing, since prewar Seattle was remote and provincial when the four got their start. Institutions also played a part: Cornish, the UW, and especially the brand-new SAM helped form a community of artists and collectors. (SAM founder Richard Fuller was particularly instrumental, employing and buying from the Big Four.) Seattle had a little bit of money then, but it was dowdy old money, two generations removed from the Denny party—derived mostly from the land, the port, and timber. What Tobey and company brought to national attention during the war years and after was a fresh regional awareness and reverence for place. This meant not simple landscapes, but a deeper appreciation for the spiritual aspect of nature, traces of Native American culture, and currents from across the Pacific—including Eastern religion and Asian art. Many of the paintings here, publicly exhibited for the first time, come from the 2009 bequest of Marshall and Helen Hatch. They, like Fuller and the Wrights, were important collectors and patrons of the Big Four during the postwar years. What they preserved can now be a fresh discovery to all new Seattle residents unfamiliar with the Northwest School. BRIAN MILLER Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3121, seattleartmuseum.org. $12–$19. Weds.-Sun. Ends. Sept. 7.

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Fabrice Monteiro You can’t get more summery than this photo exhibit by the Belgium-born, Senegal-based photographer, called Gorean Summer. It’s named for the pleasure island of Goree, located two miles from the bustling city of Dakar. Today a UN World Heritage Site, the tiny island was for 400 years a notorious slave-trading hub. For that reason, in Monteiro’s black-and-white images, there are both somber, history-minded tourists and joyous day-trippers out for sun and fun. The past and the present mix like lovers on the strand, and you can’t really separate the two. Surf and sand are likewise intermingled, echoing Monteiro’s own background: A former model, he’s from a mixed-race marriage, and he’s explored the legacy of slavery in prior photo series. But this show is nothing but cheerful, with youngsters, dancing, preening, swimming, and surfing on the beach. Maybe it’ll inspire you to visit Alki or Golden Gardens—where the water, unfortunately, won’t be nearly so warm. BRIAN MILLER M.I.A Gallery, 1203 Second Ave., 467-4927, m-i-a-gallery.com. Through July 26.

Cheri O’Brien

Dog Stories is exactly what it sounds like–a multimedia series featuring reverent renderings of all sorts of canines. Jeffrey Moose Gallery, 1333 Fith Ave., 467-6951, jeffreymoosegallery.com. Through Aug. 16.

Alexander Petrov and Kurt Kemp A collection of Russian painter Petrov’s surreal works alongside Kemp’s equally as bizarre paper collages. Davidson Galleries, 313 Occidental Ave. S., 624-7684, davidsongalleries.com. Through June 28.

Kate Protage and Dan Hawkins

Urban Explorers showcases the work of two adventurous artists who thrive on journey’s through the wilds of the city. Protage takes pictures of the city at night, and then recreates them as oil paintings. Hawkins, who has ventured in urban ruins and decaying buildings across the world, documenting them on photographic film. SAM Gallery, 1300 First Ave., 654-3121, seattleartmuseum.org. Free. Through July 20.

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Skyspace James Turrell’ Skyspace stands on two concrete pillars in the Henry’s erstwhile sculpture courtyard. On the exterior, thousands of LED fixtures under the structure’s frosted glass skin create slowly shifting colors, making the pavilion a spectacular piece of public art every night. Inside, the ellipse of sky seen through the chamber’s ceiling suddenly appears to be very, very close, a thin membrane bulging into the room. Wispy bits of cirrus clouds passing by appear to be features on the slowly rotating surface of a luminous, egg-shaped blue planet suspended just overhead. Emerging from the Skyspace, I find the night wind and the light in the clouds come to me through freshly awakened senses. A dreamy, happy feeling follows me home like the moon outside my car window. DAVID STOESZ Henry Art Gallery

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The Unicorn Incorporated/Your Feast Has Ended Local artist Curtis R. Barnes is represented by some five decades of work in The Unicorn Incorporated. An artist, illustrator, muralist, and community advocate, he co-created the Omowale Mural at Medgar Evers Pool in 1972, a very visible manifestation of the flowering of African-American artists during that era. Then, controversially the mural was destroyed in 1995, but some its design elements will be on view during this big career retrospective, his first. Three artists are represented in Your Feast Has Ended: Seattle’s Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes (son of Curtis R. Barnes), Sitka’s Nicholas Galanin, and Nep Sidhu, a Briton now based in Canada. According to the Frye’s manifesto, the three will “offer a visual cogitation exploring continuum, identity, ritual, and adornment and signal that natural, cultural and human resources have been appropriated, exploited, suppressed, depleted, or eradicated.” Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Ave., 622-9250, fryemuseum.org. Free. Tues.-Sun. Through mid-September.

Wan Quingli In Inked, by the San Francisco-based Chinese artist, traditional calligraphy and line drawings have been tweaked to comment upon the modern world. They’re whimsical but rather obvious (actual mouse meets computer mouse, etc.), too gentle for satire. Seattle Asian Art Museum, Through June 29.

Betsy Williams and Birdie Boone Two ceramic artists from New Mexico show their wares, inspired respectively by the traditions of Japan and the culture of Virginia. KOBO Gallery (at Higo), 604 S. Jackson St, 381-3000, koboseattle.com. Opens Sat., June 21. Through July 13.

Cait Willis The “glitch” paintings in her Catastrophe Museum are based on the writings of J.G. Ballard, resulting in messy “white noise” paintings. Ghost Gallery, 504 E. Denny Way, 832-6063, ghostgalleryart.com. Through July 7.