Seattle’s art scene flowed like a gurgling stream in 2024, with currents and whirlpools keeping things lively. Below, we recapped some of the most remarkable exhibitions of the year, the most notable comings and goings, and other big moments from this year in the local visual art scene.
Beginnings and endings
Perhaps the story of the year: Bellevue Arts Museum announced its closure on Sept. 4. The news followed leadership turnover, financial woes and emergency fundraising efforts. While the museum is closed, the building remains operational, with private event rentals and art fairs.
Bellevue, Washington – July 2nd, 2014
Davidson Galleries, one of Seattle’s oldest art dealerships, both closed and reopened this year. After a Jan. 12 fire damaged hundreds of works of art, including etchings by Picasso and Rembrandt, owner Sam Davidson and his staff spent most of the year assessing and restoring their inventory. In September, following the original, prefire plan, Davidson Galleries reopened just a few blocks away from its old Pioneer Square home, relaunching with a hope-filled group exhibition called “Welcome Home.”
And they say that all good things must come to an end; South Lake Union’s MadArt was a very good thing. Since its 2009 founding by Alison Milliman, guided by director Emily Kelly, MadArt sponsored the creation of large-scale, site-responsive installations by dozens of local and national artists. The space closed with a celebratory group exhibition and it will be missed.
Finally, the much-appreciated art newspaper PublicDisplay.ART had a tumultuous year.
The publication seemingly folded, with publisher Marty Griswold announcing that the final issue was published in March. Later last spring, though, Seattle tech entrepreneur Andrew Conru offered to bankroll PublicDisplay.ART through his Conru Art Foundation. Then, in October, scrutiny was aimed at Conru’s non-arts-related funding, including funds sent to an organization that promoted the alleged genetic superiority of certain ethnic groups.
In the latest edition of PDA, Griswold said the reports about Conru’s funding were “profoundly disappointing and unsettling — and head-scratching.” He wrote that, had his staff known in the spring what they learned in the fall, they’d have “remained a part of Seattle’s history.”
Instead, “now we are faced with two unthinkable choices,” Griswold wrote: “Silence a publication that has invested three years in celebrating diversity in the arts, or continue to fulfill our mission and publish PublicDisplay.ART, for the foreseeable future, with funding that has previously supported organizations we find reprehensible.”
The publication will continue with funding from Conru, while demanding “accountability and transparency to ensure that his gift giving practices are not in conflict with our values and mission.”
The only constant is change
Seattle University is on the threshold of several new arts adventures.
As part of a huge gift from the philanthropist Richard Hedreen (whose late wife, Betty, went to Seattle University), SU will build a museum around a donation of art valued at more than $300 million. The university said in March that it is the largest gift of art ever given to a college and the largest gift of any kind given to a Washington university. (And it’s just one of two recent massive art donations to the school.)
Beneficiaries of those gifts may include students and faculty of Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts, which announced this month that it will join forces with SU. (Full disclosure: I work at Cornish and teach occasionally at SU.) The campuses will remain in their current locations, Cornish in South Lake Union and SU on First Hill, with resources and facilities shared by students of the merging schools.
Students work inside the print studio at Cornish College of the Arts on Dec. 4, 2024. Earlier this month, Cornish and Seattle University announced they will merge. (Ken Lambert / The Seattle Times)
Seattle Art Museum also had a newsy year, with the appointment of Scott Stulen as its new director and CEO in June and the December resolution of more than two years of bargaining (and 12 days of striking) by its unionized security guards.
Saving the best news for last: Wa Na Wari bought the house!
Founded in 2019 as a gathering space for Black art and community, Wa Na Wari (which means “our home” in Kalabari) has long been housed in a rented Craftsman home in the Central District. After years of fundraising alongside excellent arts and educational programming, Wa Na Wari’s leadership team purchased the property outright in 2024.
India Sky (a born-and-raised Seattleite) performs at Wa Na Wari in the Central District on Sept. 13, 2024. (Ivy Ceballo / The Seattle Times)
Exciting exhibitions
There were innovative, relevant art exhibitions all around Puget Sound this year, including a cluster of standout shows at Seattle’s wonderful, free Frye Art Museum. Still on view are exquisitely powerful solo shows by Hayv Kahraman (“Look Me in the Eyes,” through Feb. 2) and local art hero Mary Ann Peters (“the edge becomes the center,” through Jan. 5).
Longtime local artist Mary Ann Peters is shown with her 2024 sculpture, “impossible monument: gilded,” part of her still-running solo show at Seattle’s Frye Art Museum, “the edge becomes the center.” (Ken Lambert / The Seattle Times)
Other notable solo exhibitions from this year included “Hank Willis Thomas: LOVERULES” at the Henry Art Gallery and “Anida Yoeu Ali: Hybrid Skin, Mythical Presence” at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, while Seattle Art Museum’s “Poke in the Eye” featured Northwest ceramics and other craft-based forms that exuded rebelliousness and humor.
And, down at Tacoma Art Museum, the tender and moving group exhibition “Soft Power” showcased how textiles can hold and declare expressions of care, critique and resistance.
Neighborhood art hubs
Belltown may have emerged as the belle of Seattle’s art ball in 2024.
That’s thanks in part to Base Camp Studios. Expanding with its Base Camp 2 space, the group added studios for a stellar lineup of 29 artists. Both Base Camp locations have hosted intriguing shows and events, including the hit retail parody STÖR, full of artists’ takes on home goods.