CURATORIAL COLLABORATIONS

Hear directly from the curators and creative forces behind SAM’s collection and exhibitions in person at Seattle Art Museum or from the comfort of your home via Zoom! Collaboration is a key aspect of bringing any endeavor from concept to reality, and this season will focus on how our curators work with each other and across departments, as well as outside our organization with artists and cultural leaders.

One Wednesday each month between January and June
6–7 pm lecture in Plestcheeff Auditorium, PLUS livestream via Zoom
Doors at 5:45 pm; please enter at 1st and Union

Ticket sales directly support this series and help SAM continue to provide engaging member lectures and receptions. Lectures will be recorded and made available at a later date.

Pricing is the same for both in-person and virtual tickets.

Single ticket: $5

Conversations with Curators is Presented by

Masks are no longer required to enter the museum, but visitors are encouraged to wear them for their personal safety and comfort. Additionally, the vaccine verification requirement to enter the museum is no longer in effect per the latest guidance from Public Health—Seattle & King County. Learn more here.

In the event that we are unable to gather in person for any of the lectures, we will continue to offer the program in an online format. Your ticket confirmation email will include the zoom registration link in case the in-person option is canceled.

Installation view of Frisson: The Richard E. LanG and Jane Lang Davis Collection at Seattle Art Museum, 2021, photo: Natali Wiseman.

SAM Media Lab 2021, Photo: Liz Brown

Feb 16

ABOUT TIME: TIME-BASED MEDIA IN SAM’S PERMANENT COLLECTION

Carrie Dedon / Assistant Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art
Liz Brown / Senior Objects Conservator

How do museums, tasked with caring for artworks in perpetuity, adapt when contemporary artists use constantly evolving technologies? Time-based media—artworks that unfold to viewers over time, such as video, audio, or digital works—are a unique category in museum collections that pose challenging questions. Hear from curatorial and conservation perspectives about how SAM takes a team-based approach to care for and exhibit these works at SAM.

COVID-19 UPDATE: Out of an abundance of caution due to the rise in local cases, the in-person component for the February lecture has been canceled. This program will be offered exclusively online via Zoom.

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New Clothes for the Emperor (II), Edition 5 of 6, 2009, Naiza Khan

Image of square greyscale abstract painting with dark brushstrokes in the center and lighter brushstrokes surrounding

The Chinese Court-Celestial Exhibitors Explaining Their Wares. Page 84. Centennial Exhibition Philadelphia, PA. Frank Leslie’s historical register of the United States Centennial Exposition (detail), 1876, edited by Frank H.Norton

May 18

SHIFT: DEFINING AMERICAN ART FOR OUR TIME – A CONVERSATION WITH WENDY RED STAR

Theresa Papanikolas / Ann M. Barwick Curator of American Art
Barbara Brotherton / Curator of Native American Art
Wendy Red Star / Artist

This fall, SAM will present a transformation of its American art galleries, created through an unprecedented collaboration among SAM curators and staff, artists, and advisors from the Seattle community. Portland-based Wendy Red Star has been working closely with curators Theresa Papanikolas and Barbara Brotherton on this project. Red Star’s practice operates at the intersection of Native American culture and colonialist histories and modes of representation. For SAM, she working on an exciting new concept that reframes American landscape and portraiture specifically in terms of Seattle and its original occupants. Join her and the curators in conversation about her work, SAM’s new American art galleries, and what it means to rethink American art for our times.

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Four Seasons series: Indian Summer, 2006, printed 2016, Wendy Red Star

Photo of Gilbert Mbeng

Images: New Clothes for the Emperor (II), Edition 5 of 6, 2009, Naiza Khan, black & white digital photographs on archival Canson Infinity paper, 33 x 22 ½ in., Gift of Dipti and Rakesh Mathur. The Chinese Court-Celestial Exhibitors Explaining Their Wares. Page 84. Centennial Exhibition Philadelphia, PA. Frank Leslie’s historical register of the United States Centennial Exposition (detail), 1876, edited by Frank H.Norton. Frank Leslie’s Publishing House, New York, 1877. Four Seasons series: Indian Summer, 2006, printed 2016, Wendy Red Star, Archival pigment print on Sunset Fiber rag, Sheet: 23 × 26 in. (58.4 × 66 cm), Image: 21 x 24 in., Gift of Loren G. Lipson, M.D., 2016.13.4. Photo of Gilbert Mbeng.

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

Learn more about Equity at SAM