The agency chose to create a unique opportunity to host a series of storefront installations in the windows and in-between building spaces along Broadway between East John Street to the north and about a block south of East Denny Way.
The idea of using vacant storefronts for art installations is a tested strategy for mitigating urban blight. These are known as phantom galleries. One prime example took place in Tuscon. Few people were coming to Tucson's Main Street because there was little going on. At the same time, there was little going on because no one was coming to Main Street.
Vacancies had reached epidemic proportions. Property owners elected to lend their vacant spaces to create temporary gallery spaces. The owners benefited by getting people back on the street and looking at their spaces for possible rent or sale, and the arts community benefited from a doubling of the amount of space available for the arts. And it was free. Within two years Tucson's Main Street was healthy. The program continued for some time as new spaces became available. Even with its ultimate success, which supplanted phantom gallery spaces with permanent uses, the program married the arts to the area.
While temporary in nature, Sound Transit's Broadway public art project has become the temporary installation art center of Seattle. Several high points stand out.
At 903 East John Street, Chris Dacre has created an installation entitled "War is Fun." Both windows on either side of the door are garrisoned with 16 felt toy tanks in bright, neon-pastel colors. The walls are partially covered with mixed-media murals of a cartoon-like black helicopter and the paisley swirling madness it brings. In the center of the space, a soft fabric cruise missile playfully takes center stage.
Next door at 132 Broadway East, Evan Blackwell presents five bulb-like sculptures encased in the storefront as if it were a giant vitrine. Next door, Jennifer Carroll has created a ballet mécanique with ghost dresses dancing and darting from painted flats of an imagined sunset. The kinetic activity of this piece makes it a standout in the exhibition.
At 128 Broadway East, Mark O'Connel uses dots of paint to obscure the installation behind the windows. Next door, the artistic duo, Potts & Phillipsen ambitiously created a 12-channel video installation in the window using old television sets as forms for the delivery of the varied moving images.
Christian French piles more than 30 found sports trophies into the cramped space that is 124 1/2 Broadway East. A disco ball in the back of the display window adds a dynamic luster, which is dimmed a bit by the droning audio of Allan Watts going on about Buddhism and dharma. Kelly Lyles is fabricating an installation one door down that uses fur as a form for modern living.
Tomiko Jones activates the former tobacco shop at 112 1/2 Broadway East with a massively elegant video installation. Two hands are reveling twine in an endless loop. Strands of thick fibrous earthy threads encircle the screen. At night, the video loop is rear projected adding a nocturnal poetic counterpoint to the daylight presence of the piece. The audio element is subtle and adds to the piece. Those fans of Tomiko Jones and her performance-based pieces will be well rewarded by this new work.
Maia Brown uses 115 1/2 Broadway East as a platform for her political views on the Middle East peace process. Dark, somber, depressing, the artist achieves her aims with the bludgeon of sharp iconic imagery. Kristen Ramirez simply papers over the windows next door with repeated posters about Capitol Hill using retro-futurist typography and constructivist design theory.
The former Jack in the Box looks like it came from a bombed-out neighborhood in Beirut. Gretchen Bennett organized displays of several local graphic luminaries affixed to the plywood-covered windows. The panel by Jim Woodring is especially notable.
Jason Pucinelli gives us a kinetic portrait of his father at 1828 Broadway. He is best known for creating an interactive children's forest for the reopening of the downtown Seattle Art Museum on the "stairs to nowhere" and for being the P in the PDL interventional art group.
Joanna Lapore's storefront at 1828 1/2 Broadway has gone to seed, literally. Dandelions, ferns and wheat grass seem to encroach on the former check cashing business allowing the viewer to muse on the ephemeral nature of the low-income service industry.
The old Chang's Mongolian Grill at 1827 Broadway is the canvas on which Ingrid Lahti writes contradicting aphorisms in neon light. "DO NOT/REMEMBER/FORGET" fill the first window. "Forget" "grief" and "Please lie" illuminate the second, while "Go Away/Come Here" fill the third.
The last window simply says "Caution." During the day you can see past the neon signs and into the abandoned ghost of a restaurant.
Steven Vroom writes about visual arts for the Capitol Hill Times. Reach him at editor@capitolhilltimes.com.[[In-content Ad]]