Speaker #1. Last night, South African-based photographer Roger Ballen spoke at the Henry Art Gallery and I missed it. I’m disappointed I did, because his photography makes me curious. It’s a small consolation this morning to note that he has an informative web site with dozens of images, interviews, and articles. Here are a few of his works:

Speaker #2: Last week Seattle had a visit from Dennis Oppenheim that came and went quickly, and left in its wake the promise of large orange traffic cones that will go on display at the Olympic Sculpture Park on May 14. They were formerly in New York City. (Is there much more to say than that they are large orange traffic cones?) I did not catch Oppenheim’s talk, but I got an email the next day from a disgruntled listener:

Mr. Oppenheim’s lecture was dumbed down horribly for the audience of about 30 people, most of whom I have seen in attendance at other more brilliant lectures around town, and who can be heard chatting eagerly with each other before said lectures about what country they were just visiting and what artwork they saw while they were there. Normally I would excuse an artist for giving a remedial lecture to a group of well informed adults simply because it was taking place in a public library. However in this situation it seemed that Mr. Oppenheim, being a local boy-wonder and all, knew many members of the audience before giving this lecture.

What burns me the most about this lecture is how Mr. Oppenheim sounded almost apologetic for creating work that exists in “real time.” It seems that he was maybe going with the flow, doing what the cool kids were doing at the time and seeming to make fun of the fact that he had done it at all. I guess it’s time to take him out the history books. Unfortunately I think that the only reason he gets shortlisted for public art commissions is because he got the MOMA stamp of approval back in the day.

Despite my negative lecture experience I still plan to go see the work at Gallery4Culture, and his earlier works like Annual Rings (1968), and Reading Position for Second Degree Burn (1970) were not ruined for me.

Side note: I just ran into Mr. Oppenheim while he was standing out in front of the sculpture park. He was there taking a look at the potential sites for his traffic cones to sit. I asked him about the cones because he didn’t talk about them at all last night (I had thought that the lecture was meant to educate about the work that is being brought to Seattle). He doesn’t feel that this work is representative of his general oeuvre. Unfortunately he was whisked away by a dude in a Jaguar before I could ask him if he thought the work would play nice with the other works in the sculpture park. He had been in the middle of casually reminiscing about how the work had functioned in NYC in this time of paranoia that we live in. His summation was that they were not received well.

It’s old news…

…but it’s still a lovely work.

Erwin Wurm’s “House attack” on the MUMOK says everything that needs to be said about that kind of house and the values it represents.

^{Chuck Close’s Self-Portrait (2006), 103 by 79 inches, jacquard tapestry based on a daguerreotype}

In next week’s paper, I’ve got a piece coming out about Chuck Close, who right now has a show at Tacoma Art Museum with the poet (and his old friend) Bob Holman. But before that, this weekend, Close will be in town, at the Pantages Theater in Tacoma, giving an informal talk with Holman (Sunday at 2 pm), and the two of them together are said to be something like Laurel and Hardy, so get down there. (“It’s a dog and pony show, and I’m not sure whether I’m the dog or the pony,” Close told me.)

Links here to video of Close’s interview with Charlie Rose in
2007 and audio of Holman reading “Elizabeth Murray,” the praise poem he wrote for his wife.

^{Saul Becker’s Vista (Study) (2006), 30 by 22 1/2 inches, ink and gouache on paper}*

At Platform Gallery. (Gallery web site here.)

^{*Aislinn, this one’s for you. I have no idea whether you’ll like it, but at least you know I’m thinking of you this morning.}

Maxwell Anderson (who, yes, is grandson of the playwright) was in Seattle a few weeks ago to discuss issues of international art repatriation at Seattle Art Museum—in conjunction with the Roman Art from the Louvre show that’s closing this weekend.

We caught up with him at an absurdly late hour after his talk (11 pm PS, 2 am his time), but he was as eloquent as ever. The fact is, Anderson is one of the smartest and most up-to-date museum directors in the business, and in this podcast, he describes many of the philosophies that make him so good. One of the best things about him is that despite the crazy workload of a museum director these days, Anderson makes time not just for doing the job, but for thinking about how to do the job.

Just listen.

And check out the best museum web site in the country at the museum where he’s director in Indianapolis. Next year, the IMA will open its 100-acre art and nature park, which sounds something like what the Olympic Sculpture Park could have been but isn’t. Anderson says it won’t be about “trophy hunting and monument building.”

Oh, and here he is doing one of his regular YouTube videos about the art at the museum. (Yes. Imagine a director making time to do that.)

Last year, Seattle-based Mithun Architects designed the Center for Urban Agriculture, tailor made for a site on 9th Avenue and Olive Way downtown. “We wanted to demonstrate that a project of this type is feasible in a downtown setting,” says Mithun’s Bonnie Duncan. Behold, a vertical farm for the city.

Fantastic, is it not?

Each residential unit is retrofitted from a combination of two or three recycled shipping containers to create studio and one- and two-bedroom apartments. The CUA employs a “shelf system” within its superstructure to speed construction time through off-site assembly and crane erection techniques.

The CUA reintroduces 1.35 acres of native habitat, farmland and community gathering space to its urban environment. Birds, insects and native plants would inhabit the 22,000 square feet of planters and upper terraces. The use of native plants increases the variety of insects that support the food chain. For example, maple trees support 18 species of insects while native oaks support 1,800 species of insects. The goal is to increase biodiversity in the city that will begin to support broader species of birds. A 19,000 sq. ft. chicken farm operates on the CUA’s lower terrace.

Other than the fact that it relates poorly to the street (which could be easily remedied), here’s the problem: Nobody has stepped up to the plate to build the thing. “Every once in a while there are murmurings; we just have to find a developer who is up for it,” says Duncan. “I could get a call from the Sheik of Dubai to say that he needs a 100-story high-rise farm—that could be where it happens first.”

Seattle, don’t let Dubai show you up again.

^{Tony Weathers’s Guns N’ Butter (2008), brass rods, butter, wall installation}

At Crawl Space. (Gallery web site here.)

^{Katina Huston’s Mechanical Repeat (2008), ink on mylar, 36 by 36 inches*}

At Davidson Contemporary. (Gallery web site here.)

^{*Hint: See the pedals?}

^{A photograph from Andrew Miksys’s Roma series}

At Nelson Hancock Gallery in Brooklyn.

^{Napoleon Sarony and Benjamin Richardson’s The Actor Henry E. Dixey (circa 1884), albumen print}

At Henry Art Gallery. (Museum web site here.)