Storefronts Seattle

Shutter
RSVR visual research (Ian Campbell and Benjamin Gray)
409 Maynard Avenue South (overlooking the park) through Summer 2013

Shutter by RSVR visual research (Image: M Richter)

Overlooking Hing Hay Park in the International District, we have installed a new work by RSVR visual research, Shutter. 

The piece is extremely site-specific, reacting to the size and shape of the space that houses it as well as the park over which it sits. The artists (an architect-and-visual-artist team) sought to activate the space for both pedestrians and cars, for daytime and nighttime, and in a non-literal way that spoke to the neighborhood’s Chinese community and visitors alike.

The piece plays with perspective, and with the ideas of empty space, and unfinished space. The roughly torn squares of sheetrock echo the unfinished mid-construction feel of the empty storefront, while the clean, glowing lines of the string pierce them like laser light, offering a crispness of line and a dazzle of color that play against the raggedness of the rest of the piece.

Utilizing a combination of colored and ultraviolet light, the installation jumps out from the background to grab the public’s attention. It also changes shape subtly as you walk past it, and is visible either length-wise or end-on, offering various ways to interact with it.

Artist Meghan Trainor spent a bunch of last year with electrodes stuck to her head. These electrodes were creating an electroencephalogram, recording her brain patterns as she read poetry (Rudyard Kipling’s The Secret of the Machines) and listened to music (Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No 5). She ended up with hours of recordings of what her brain looked like on poetry and music.

When she wasn’t reading poetry and recording her brain, she was building mechanical devices that, based on electrical inputs, could open or close apertures, or spin dials, or lift and release sections of netting… I think you see where we’re headed.

Meghan Trainor’s Ex-Voto Machina

Combining the two projects (they were never really separate) she uses the brainwave recordings as a control track to drive her kinetic sculptures, and the audience sees these objects opening, closing, lifting, dropping, turning, and spinning in response to the electroencephalogram. We are seeing robotic “bodies” respond to the way the artist felt (felt here with all of its emotional connotations) while reading and listening to music.

Meghan Trainor’s Two Fans

They do so in the cold, raw setting of 411 South Maynard Street, an unfinished storefront in Chinatown, a contextual reminder of the meeting of the harsh coldness of the constructed environment and the emotional warmth of these two works of poetry and music.

We would be remiss not to spotlight Susan Brown’s delightful Skeleton City Puppets installation on Thomas Street in South Lake Union, which looked glorious in yesterday’s sunshine.

Paper puppet skeletons loom over brick storefronts mischievously playing with various objects, from butterflies to cakes sourced from a Victorian cookbook.  Puppetry, found images, and a darkly comic joy animate this evolving installation that is changing over time as Susan updates and animates the puppets and their toys.

Please stop by the Thomas street windows (1110 Thomas) and see what she is up to next, and also take in Michael Harrison’s Sentinels project next door!

The Beacon is lit! The Massive Monkees have launched Storefronts’ newest downtown space, a beautiful and gigantic 4,000 square foot retail space – turned – dance studio. The space, in the Milwaukee Hotel in Chinatown, has already started hosting dance classes for kids of all ages (they’ve got a toddler class for kids 2-5!!).

The Monkees are Seattle’s most celebrated breakdance crew. They’ve won the Mayor’s Arts Award. They’ve won the World B-Boy Championships. They’ve won the international b-boy competition R16 Korea 2012 (whatever, yes, it’s a real thing that I didn’t just learn about on Wikipedia). Mayor Nickels declared April 26 the official Massive Monkees day in Seattle. They’ve danced with, and choreographed for, 50 Cent, and Beyoncé, and Public Enemy, and Jurassic 5, and De La Soul. They’ve been featured on MTV a gazillion times. They’re the real deal.

And as of last night, they’re the newest addition to the Storefronts Seattle line-up of pop-up projects. To celebrate the opening of the new studio, they’re offering FREE classes all week to show off the space and to get to meet you, their audience. Drop in and take a class, or drop off the kids and have a slice next door at World Pizza (potato gorgonzola BEST SLICE EVER). Support your neighborhood, because this is an example of your neighborhood supporting you in the best way we know how. Storefronts looks forward to seeing you, and your kids, there this winter!

It goes without saying that the Storefronts Seattle program is all about “street views.”

What was exciting to learn last week, in the course of trying to direct an artist to a project space online, was that Google’s Street Views ™ on the interwebs had finally caught up with “actual street views” in the (literal) public domain.

Check out this little stroll down memory lane, thanks to Google’s plan to photograph every inch of the planet from robot-controlled vans:

John Fleming’s installation on the 100 block of 3rd Avenue South

Kristen Tollefson’s installation at 411 Maynard Avenue South in full bloom

Romson Bustillo’s installation on South King Street overlooking Hing Hay Park

Ben Hirschkoff’s beautiful painting on 3rd Avenue South

It’s that time again, time to take to the sidewalks and celebrate some new work in the Storefronts Seattle program.

Tomorrow night, Thursday January 3 (First Thursday! The First First Thursday of the Mayan Sixth Katun!) we’ll be loitering on the sidewalks in front of two new installations in Chinatown. Please come down and join us for some sparkling cider, some cheese and fruit, and a chance to meet the artists.

At 505 5^th Avenue South, we’ll celebrate Eva Isaksen’s new installation, consisting of hundreds and hundreds of hand-printed sheets of paper, hung in subtle patterns across almost 30 linear feet of display space. Each sheet is almost completely hidden by each subsequent sheet, hinting at content that is elusively unavailable.

Eva will be adjusting the display over the course of the next six months, reacting to the changing light in the area and working to keep the piece lively and reactive.

Just across Fifth South from Eva’s installation, in the lobby of the old Publix Hotel at 504 5^th Avenue South, a quartet of young artists (Danielle Comeaux, Yael Nov, Joana Stillwell, and Ilysia Van Deren) have recently installed their newest collaborative work, Hullaballoon.

The four spent nearly a year collecting deflated balloons, and have stitched them together, Frankensteining together two giant motley curtains of color. The pieces, building on the subtle sadness of a deflated balloon, actually bring a vibrant splash of brightness and color to the dark defunct lobby of the old Publix.

At both sites, we’ll be hosting little receptions right on the sidewalk for passers-by. The artists will be present to discuss their work and receive the public. The receptions will be from 5 pm through 7 pm.

Merry Chrismukkah!

Just in case you think Storefronts has been sitting on our hands during this holiday break, we bring you a brand-new splash of color, and a meticulously crafted installation in Chinatown, for your new year’s celebrations.

Eva Isaksen installing her newest work in Chinatown

Eva Isaksen has spend the past week installing (and will spend the next six months cutting, re-hanging, and generally tweaking) her newest work at 505 5th Avenue South. Isaksen’s abstract arrangements of hand-printed papers represent a new body of work for the well-shown artist (first presented at Foster/White last year) and something of a departure. Her beautiful printings (usually front-and-center in her installed work) are almost completely hidden here, each one obscured by the next printed piece, which is obscured by the next printed piece, which is obscured by the next printed piece… The installation teases the eye as much as it pleases it, offering color, composition, and collage, but ultimately hiding more content than it shows. It’s intriguing, you could spend hours in front of it.

We’ll also be hosting a sidewalk reception for this piece, and for Hullaballoon (see below) next week on January 3, the first First Thursday of the new Mayan calendar. See you there!