MAC collection once again unveiled

For the first time in more than five years, the public is getting a peek at selected works from the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture’s permanent collection.

“MAC Collects: Art for the New Millennium,” runs through Sept. 4. There is a free public gallery talk tonight beginning at 6 p.m.

The museum’s accumulation of about 2,000 objects has been tucked away since 1999 when the former Cheney Cowles Museum closed its doors, to be reincarnated in 2001 as the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.

Last summer a team of three art aficionados – museum art curator Jochen Wierich, artist Bradd Skubinna and art historian Shalon Parker – culled through the collection to make their selections for this sampler.

The result is a show of approximately 50 historic objects, recent acquisitions, newly restored works and a few rediscoveries.

“The goal was to take a fresh look at an eclectic museum collection that has evolved over several generations,” says Wierich.

The six thematic groups that make up the exhibition revolve around nature, American Indians, the figure, dreamscapes, social scenes and Northwest modernism.

“The exhibition is full of surprising juxtapositions and discoveries,” said Wierich.

“Among other works in the collection, there were numerous surprises for me,” said Parker, a Gonzaga University assistant professor of art history. “The print by the early 16th-century German artist Albrecht Dürer was a delight to see, along with an image by the 20th-century French painter Georges Rouault.”

Two portraits by 17th-century Dutch artist Gysbert van der Kuyl were recently restored by Seattle art conservator Peter Malarkey.

By far, Parker said, her favorite images in the show are those by contemporary Pacific Northwest artists including Yuji Hiratsuka of Corvallis, Ore.

“The boldness of form and color in his print ‘Hypnotists’ and the subtleties of its design immediately caught my eye when I first saw it,” she said.

Featured in the exhibit are several recent museum acquisitions of works by Northwest artists. These include abstract landscapes by James Lavadour of Pendleton, Ore.; a richly patterned portrait of Frida Kahlo by Alfredo Arreguin of Seattle; collage ledger art by George Flett of Wellpinit, Wash.; and a mixed media painting by Michelle Forsyth of Pullman.

“I really liked the contemporary pieces including the painting by Michelle Forsyth,” said Skubinna. “It’s something about the way she mixes decorative, aesthetically pleasing materials with an odd, sometimes violent subject matter.”

Two Spokane natives, both currently working in New York City, have pieces in the show. There is a suite of color photographs by Jim Hodges and “Gridlock,” a street scene painted by urban realist Doug Safranek.

Other Pacific Northwest artists in the exhibit are internationally known Jacob Lawrence, Patti Warashina and Faye Jones of Seattle; renowned artist Harold Balazs of Mead; and Northwest Modernists Mark Tobey, Kenneth Callahan and Carl Morris.

Warashina’s hand-built, richly painted clay jar, “Yellow Satyr,” was made in 1990 as a model for a larger piece.

“I was working on a series of ‘Jar Heads’ that were actual lidded containers,” she said recently when she was touring the exhibition.

“I always like to add something whimsical to my work,” she said. “Here it was hair or horns. I really like this piece because of the color and brush work.”

Each object in the show reflects the diversity of the museum’s collection. “There’s a lot of interesting sub-genres,” said Skubinna.

The subtitle of the exhibit, “Art for the New Millennium,” suggests that the museum is preparing itself for the challenge of collecting in the future.

“Over the next 10 months,” said curator Wierich, “visitors will have the opportunity to enjoy, interpret and critique the collection and thereby help determine the future shape of this collection.”