Nov. 1–24
Joseph Parker
At Cornish College of the Arts’ BFA exhibition last spring, Joseph Parker’s acrylic images—digital “overlaps” of digitally altered photos—were presented on printed fabrics. Hung faux-thoughtlessly like handkerchiefs with the fabric’s folds and creases nearly overlapping, the works resisted legibility. Parker, who’s trying to “queer the world” through art, creates “gender body overlays” in which bodies overlap and fold into and onto each other, forming Rorschach-like creations that harken back to Picasso’s famous painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon or evoke the bygone glam of ’60s-era movie posters.
Linda Hodges Gallery
Through Nov. 16
Drawn Out
When we think of drawing, we think of an accumulative effort rather than one of subtraction. Not always true, argues artist-curator Zack Bent with surprising curatorial choices for this show about “drawing and mark-making.” He’s included the work of Hanita Schwartz, who currently creates her “paintings” by abrading the pages of a book (a survey of 19th- and 20th-century art) with a cleaning agent, and Ko Kirk Yamahira, who undoes and adds to the modernist legacy by delicately unraveling painted canvases to their bare threads.
SPAC Gallery
Nov. 17–June 2, 2019
Library of Black Lies
To grasp the breadth of LA-based Edgar Arceneaux’s practice, you need to know a couple of things. One: His research-based New Financial Architectures for Creative Communities project aims to help artists reconcile social justice ideals with participation in a capitalist system. Two: In the installation Until, Until, Until… Arceneaux includes the audience in a reenactment of Ben Vereen’s infamous 1981 Inauguration blackface performance. Now, he leads visitors into a labyrinthian shack-cum-mirror palace that doubles as a faux library to challenge the concept of historical veracity.
Henry Art Gallery
Nov. 1–Dec. 22
Margie Livingston: Extreme Landscape Painting
In recent years our ideas around labor, and specifically female labor, have shifted. This is one of the things I think about when facing the paintings of award-winning Seattle artist Margie Livingston. She straps painted canvases to her back with a self-fashioned harness to drag them behind her during processions—recently for 10 consecutive days, dragging them for up to five miles. After the ground engraves its subtle patterns, layers of paint are revealed underneath and the soft scratches evoke Livingston’s distinctive “landscape painting.”
Greg Kucera Gallery
Through Dec. 9
This is Our Home, Where We Belong
“Going home to the Diné and Skokomish Reservations where my families live gives me strength knowing we’ve been here for thousands of years,” writes Denis Emerson (Diné/Twana) in the announcement for this show featuring work by Caroline Edwards (Swinomish), Karen Engel (Shoalwater Bay), Kimberly Miller (Skokomish) and Abbey Pierson (Cowlitz), who reflect on belonging, identity and environmental justice. Seattle Public Library, as part of its partnership with the year-long, Indigenous-led arts project yehaw, also hosts artist residencies, live art-making and community engagement activities led by Fox Spears and others.
