March 10, 2016
Gallery Goers Outing March 23, 2016, Seattle Art Museum
Hello Gallery Goers,
The spring blooms are showing up nicely and the spring is here! Hope all is very well and you will be able to join us for the following outing.
INTRODUCTION:
On Wed., March 23rd, we are planning first to have an early lunch (optional) at the Nordstrom Café located at the Nordstrom Department Store, 4th floor at the Westlake Mall, Seattle.
In general, planning group lunch at downtown is now a large financial challenge along with accepting limited menu options. For this reason, the Nordstrom Café proves to be a good choice. We will have access to the full fresh menu, good service and there will be no room charge!
Our lunch arrangement is somewhat an easy option for our members who will plan to use the public transportation.
For those who prefer to drive, the parking at near the Westlake Mall or Russell Investments Parking Garage near the SAM may be workable. However, the parking rates are rather high. For details please see the Transportation Section.
After lunch, we will take a bus ride from the inside of the Metro Tunnel to go to the University Street Station and then take a short walk to the Seattle Art Museum (SAM).
We will have a public docent tour of a very interesting exhibition focused masterfully about “Human Identity” especially the brown skin persons, titled: PORTRAITS OF POWER-Kehinde Wiley: New Republic. For details, please see the Exhibition Section.
THE DEADLINE FOR THIS OUTING IS THURSDAY March 17th, SO, WE CAN PROVIDE THE HEAD COUNTS FOR LUNCH AND CONVEY THE SIZE OF OUR GROUP TO THE SAM.
PLEASE RESPOND TO ME AT wagarma@gmail.com or 206-546-8251 AND MAKE YOUR RESERVATION FOR LUNCH (OPTIONAL) AND THE SAM TOUR.
TIME TABLE:
SIGN-UP DEADLINE WITH MIMI IS MARCH 17th.
LUNCH: ARRIVAL TIME IS SHORTLY AFTER 11:00 AM.
WE WILL LEAVE THE CAFÉ AT ABOUT 12:30 PM.
PLEASE BE AT SAM, 4TH FLOOR AT 12:55 PM., AT THE SPECIAL EXHIBITION GALLERIES ENTRANCE. HAVE THE SAM TICKET READY.
TOUR STARTS AT ABOUT 1:15 PM.
TOUR DURATION IS USUALLY ABOUT 45 MINUTES TO ONE HOUR.
THERE IS A VERY INFORMATIVE VIDEO (OPTIONAL) TO SEE AFTER THE TOUR. Please see the Exhibition Section below for more info.
TRANSPORTATION:
The transportation is on your own and you may like to arrange your own cluster groups.
BY BUS:
For those who wish to join for lunch, you can take your area bus to the Metro Tunnel and exit at the Westlake Mall Station and take the Nordstrom’s elevator to the 4th floor Café.
For those who wish to only join for the SAM tour, you will need to exit at the University Street Station and walk to the SAM.
BY CAR:
Carpooling is encouraged.
For those who wish to have lunch, there are many parking options near the Westlake Mall. The rates are for 3-4 hours $19 and 4-6 hours $23, as of 3-7-16 and subject to change.
For these who wish to join only for the SAM tour, the closest parking option to the SAM is the Russell Investments Parking Garage, 206-264-8444. Drive Westbound on Union Street, pass 2nd Ave., and turn left into the underground Parking Garage. The parking rates are subject to change. The rate for 3-4 hours is S24 as of 2-24-16.
LUNCH AT THE NORDSTROM CAFÉ:
Nordstrom Café has changed its settings to a South East Asian esthetics. The menu is almost the same as before… fresh food, mouthwatering choices, and good service.
There are 2 kinds of soups ($4 a cup); 8 kinds of fresh salads (from $11 to $15.25); 3 kinds of pizzas ($11 to $12); 7 kinds of sandwiches (from $10.50 to $13.50); and 6 entrees (from $11 to $16.25).
GRATUITY 20%
For group lunch, please note that it is a norm to pay 20% gratuity. Each person will order his/her lunch at the counter. The bill includes only the lunch price and the tax. Please add the gratuity.
TICKET PRICES:
A SAM member will get his/her ticket free of charge. For an adult non-SAM member the ticket is priced at $19.95 and the ticket for a senior non-SAM member is $17.95.
SAM has indicated that there is no need to secure tickets ahead. But it is good idea to arrive on a timely manner to secure your tickets, and meet up at 4th floor by 12:55 pm.
SAM EXHIBITION TOUR:
It is important to mention, because of the nature of the Public Docent Tours, we are unable to know if there will be any changes, which could impact us, for this free program, ahead of time. Chances are all will go fine.
FREE SMARTPHONE EXPERIENCE AND AUDIO TOUR FOR THE LOW AND NO VISION VISITORS:
If you are interested to use the above after our Public Docent Tour, please check with staff, inside near the exhibition entrance, for set up.
THE FILM: AN ECONOMY OF GRACE:
This is a documentary film (about one hour) in regard to Kehinde Wiley’s art work. It is shown inside the Exhibition Galleries. There is limited bench seating.
I have been told that one can view this film also at the PBS Website.
THE EXHIBITION:
This is a stunning exhibition visually and intellectually. From the artistic point of view it is very original and beautiful. And from the intellectual point of view, it is a great sensitivity training experience, in learning that “Art has not been always for the Art’s sake”! Below is a highly informative Article from the SAM Home Page.
“KEHINDE WILEY: A NEW REPUBLIC
Kehinde Wiley is one of the leading American artists to emerge in the last decade and he has been ingeniously reworking the grand portraiture traditions. Since ancient times the portrait has been tied to the representation of power, and in European courts and churches, artists and their patrons developed a complex repository of postures and poses and refined a symbolic language. This language, woven into all aspects of a portrait, described the sitter’s influence and power, virtue and character, or profession. In his consideration of portrait traditions, Wiley has been especially drawn to the grand aristocratic portraits of the 18th century.
The artist began his first series of portraits in the early 2000s during a residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem. He set out to photograph and recast assertive and self-empowered young men from the neighborhood in the style and manner of traditional history painting. Since then he has also painted rap and sports stars but for the most part his attention has focused on ordinary men of color in their everyday clothes. Trained at Yale in the 1990s, Wiley was steeped in the discussions concerning identity politics during this decade and he brings his personal insights and theoretical studies to his practice.
Wiley’s portraits are highly stylized and staged, and draw attention to the dialectic between a history of aristocratic representation and the portrait as a statement of power and the individual’s sense of empowerment.”
Hope to see you on March 23rd and enjoy this special day together. Thank you, Mimi Wagar