L O O K:
Georgia O'Keeffe's Abstract Variations at SAM
A new exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum immerses viewers in the early works of one of the great pioneers of American Modernism, Georgia O’Keeffe who was known for her beautifully myopic portraits of flowers, starkly luminous city scapes, and poignant desert renderings. With a style that was all her own, O’Keeffe explored the limits of form, often pushing her subjects past the precipice of figurative representation, and was in fact one of the first American artists to paint pure abstraction.
Abstract Variations features 17 of O’Keefe’s works that span the earlier part of her career, dating from 1910 through 1930. Chief among these paintings is a recent SAM acquisition titled Music, Pink and Blue, No. 1. This painting, gifted to SAM by a late trustee Barney A. Ebsworth, was O'Keeffe's first major oil painting and is an important addition to SAM’s permanent collection. A similar painting titled Music, Pink and Blue, No. 2, on loan from The Whitney, is also on display, bringing the pair of paintings back together again for the first time in recent history, and thus revealing how O’Keeffe sometimes treated her works like musical voicings, with subtle variations in form and color.
This SAM exhibit deftly reiterates O’Keeffe’s pioneering style and highlights her ability to capture the feeling of truly looking at a thing, rather than an insistence on capturing an element of the thing itself. “I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at - not copy it,” O’Keeffe once said when speaking about her artistic process. O’Keeffe’s Abstract Variations will be on display from March 5 through June 28 at Seattle Art Museum. More information on the exhibit is available here.
W A T C H:
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
The premise for this film is simple; Autumn, a seventeen-year-old girl finds that she is pregnant and wants to terminate her unwanted pregnancy. A story that should be simpler is complicated by the fact that she must travel from her rural Pennsylvania town to NYC to have the abortion. Her cousin Skylar agrees to go with her. The film follows Autumn intimately throughout the scary, and at times harrowing experience as she travels to NYC with very little funds and even less experience. Upon arriving in the city, a wider world reveals itself, one that reiterates the sometimes brutal systems of authority, finances, and power.
This film was written and directed by Eliza Hittman who has been lauded by Variety Magazine for her naturalistic yet dreamlike style. Hittman’s two previous films “Beach Rats” and “It Felt Like Love” both follow similar trajectories of youth in crisis, but “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” seems to surpass those films in both substance and style. The film showcases the real impacts of the war on abortion in this country without being didactic, and is particularly pertinent right now. In 2019 12 states passed abortion restrictions, Alabama attempted to ban abortion outright, and just last week, oral arguments began in a supreme court case over a Louisiana law that observers worry could undermine Roe v Wade. The film opens at Siff on March 27.
T A S T E:
Sri Lanken and Indian Cuisine at Rupee Bar
If recent travel bans (or working from home in your pajamas for a few too many days in a row) has you yearning for some exocitism, this bright jewel of a restaurant and cocktail bar might be the ticket. Rupee, a colorful Ballard staple, features a lively blend of Sri Lanken and Indian cuisines. The team behind Fremont’s famous Manolin brought Rupee to life in October of last year, and it’s been met with excellent praise. The dinner menu boasts an array of curries, and playful plates like Deviled Prawns, Kerala Fried Chicken, and Mutton Rolls. Executive Chef Liz Kenyon was recently nominated for the prestigious James Beard Rising Chef of The Year award. Meanwhile, Patrick Thalanos runs the bar program and combines traditional South Asian flavors with PNW-sourced ingredients to create tantalizing cocktails like the King Coconut, made with bourbon and East India Solera sherry, or a barrel aged gin-cardamom infusion called Paan. Rupee is open on Tuesday through Saturday from 4pm to 10pm, and on Sundays from 4pm to 9pm and is walk-in only.