The Curator's Eye
- — June 1, 2010
Go Figurative
For its twentieth-anniversary Best of Gage show on June 18, Gage Academy, Seattle’s bastion of figurative art, will pack all three of its floors with about six hundred guests and two hundred student artworks. Guest juror Derrick R. Cartwright looks at the one-night gig as intrinsic to his day job as Seattle Art Museum director. “Any encyclopedic museum,” says Cartwright, “has multiple responsibilities. I view this kind of juror service as part of my broader role as SAM’s director, just as I view jury service in our judicial system as part of the civic role we all perform. I do have to say that I have been impressed by what I have seen. I don’t have a special stake in figurative art per se, but I think it is important to support the best work of any kind.”
Deborah Scott, Balance, 2010, oil and mixed media on canvas
|
In a post-postmodern era, figurative art is the Rodney Dangerfield of genres: it gets no respect. But it’s hard to argue with Gage’s success. “Our budget went from $49,000 to $1.6 million,” says cofounder Pamela Belyea. Cofounder Gary Faigin studied at Paris’s École des beaux-arts, exhibited at the Frye and Linda Hodges, and is art critic for KUOW and Artdish.com. And the aesthetic imprimatur of Cartwright is huge. “We are honored to have him,” says Gage student Deborah Scott, a portraitist. “I ask my sitters, in this case Teatro ZinZanni performer Greg Sipila [above left], to select an archetype that reflects their current outlook using characters from fairy tales, tarot or mythology. Greg selected the Two of Pentacles card. This type of collaboration ignites my imagination.” If it ignites yours, bid for it at the Gage Vernissage at five p.m., before the main crowd arrives at six. • |
FOCAL POINTS Number of Gage students in 1990: 44 |
