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Wednesday, 16 April 2008 | Levent OZLER
SAM Launches a New Contemporary Art Program
The Seattle Art Museum is launching a new contemporary art exhibition program entitled SAM Next. The program will present a series of three exhibitions each year introducing audiences to emerging or under-appreciated artists working in the Northwest, around the United States and internationally.
The first in the series will feature the work of Oscar Tuazon and Eli Hansen and will be on view at SAM Downtown April 19 through October 26, 2008. For SAM Next, the artists will build an architectural fragment in the gallery entitled Kodiak. This structure will allude to another fragment Tuazon and Hansen are building in a remote wilderness location, and the viewer will be called upon to imagine the differences and commonalities between these two fictional places.
The SAM Next opening will be celebrated at SAM Remix on May 2. Tuazon and Hansen will speak at 6:30 p.m. in the Nordstrom Lecture Hall. SAM Remix, an event that occurs every first Friday of the month, features KEXP DJ Kid Hops in the Brotman Forum from 6 to 9 p.m and a cash bar from TASTE Restaurant. The event is free with admission. Tuazon (b. 1975) and Hansen (b. 1979) are brothers from Tacoma, WA, who have been working collaboratively, as well as independently, for several years. Hansen is a practicing glass-blower who works at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma and has apprenticed with well-known artists in the field such as Sonia Blomdahl. Tuazon attended the prestigious Whitney Independent Study Program and also lives part of the year in Paris where he runs a gallery called Castillo/Corrales. Tuazon won the Betty Bowen Award in 2007.
Their recent collaborative projects have revolved around do-it-yourself architectural concepts and utopian, off-the-grid communities. In objects and installations (often utilizing hand-blown glass) their work offers intriguing proposals for new forms and structures. One of their works, Crystal Math (2007) entered SAM's collection in 2007.
The second exhibition in the SAM Next series will feature Enrico David and will open on November 8, 2008. David (b. 1966) is an Italian artist who has been based in London for many years. David was recently featured in a solo exhibition at London's Institute of Contemporary Art and has exhibited widely, but this will be his first solo exhibition in the United States. Known for work that combines personal narrative as well as a range of craft, David has created a body of work that is mysterious, idiosyncratic, and yet deeply humane. Ideas of loneliness, vulnerability, and loss coexist in his work with imagery that is also joyous and often theatrical. Sculpture, installation, collage, photography, performance and painting all figure into his wide-ranging work. A major sculpture, Wayne Shire (2006) entered SAM's collection in 2006.
SAM Next is curated by Michael Darling, the Jon and Mary Shirley Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.
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