Want more? Here's everything we recommend this month: Music, Visual Art, Literature, Performance, Film, Food, and This & That.
Timothy Siciliano: The Lunch Before the DĂ©tente
THROUGH FEB 28
It’s kinky, it’s neon, it’s fascism. Timothy Siciliano spent the past three years creating a suite of paintings that hold a mirror to our times—a campy hot take on corruption and carnival rendered in luscious hypercolor. His war generals and dominatrix figures populate a sadomasochistic fever dream with echoes of The Night Porter, while other moments harken to Weimer-era artists like Otto Dix, who painted the grotesqueries of their zeitgeist with unflinching color and a dash of gallows humor. You’ll want to linger with cacophonic compositions dripping bullet shells and blossoms, gender-ambiguous bulges, leather, chains, and ruby pearls of blood. But don’t fret: He doesn’t gild the fascist lily with all sugar and sex. There are plenty of flies swirling around literal shit. Siciliano proves that in trying times, clowning the bad guys can be a pleasure. (studio e) AMANDA MANITACH
Scent Lending Library
THROUGH MARCH
What does God’s sweat smell like? Or the anoxic cold of Eau De Space? Smell for yourself at the Scent Lending Library, an olfactory exhibition that arrived at Fogue after its five-month run at Olfactory Art Keller in New York. While determining the base note of divine perspiration may involve a smidge of poetic license, NASA did actually work with chemists in 2008 to recreate the smell of the void (as relayed by space-walking astronauts), and Australian-born documentary filmmaker turned olfactory artist Donna Lipowitz has bottled these distillations for your sniffing pleasure. There are over 100 scents to explore (70 of which are available to check out for two weeks at a time), including delightful nose poems like Old Luggage, Bermuda Triangle, and American Psycho, as well as more classic fare, including the oldest continuously produced perfume, Guerlain’s 1889 Jicky. The sensory excursion to the world right under our nose is the perfect antidote to algorithm purgatory. (Fogue Studios & Gallery) AMANDA MANITACH
Samantha Yun Wall: What We Leave Behind
FEB 5–OCT 4
Overlapping figures of female bodies emerge and dissolve in Samantha Yun Wall’s velvet monochrome worlds. The Portland-based artist (and winner of the 2024 Betty Bowen Award) is a master of rendering images in ink and conté, where layers of shadow intertwine with stark black silhouettes. Wall’s imagery reflects the artist’s multi-ethnic background, blending Korean folk stories with elements from Eurocentric mythology to create scenes that seem plucked from an untold fairy tale. Her solo at Seattle Art Museum features new works haunted by the iconography of the pasqueflower, a motif throughout Korean lore, which Wall has entwined with the memory of a lost grandmother. While there, pause for Song Cycle, a newly installed kinetic sculpture by Chris Kallmyer, which uses vintage train-station signage to generate ever-revolving cascades of poetic fragments—words clacking and flipping through a mechanical stream of consciousness. (Seattle Art Museum) AMANDA MANITACH
Once Removed 01: Art in Vacant Spaces
FEB 21
It’s the first installment of what is whispered to be a recurring event (yes, please) granting artists free rein in a transitional site slated for demolition—in this case, a house in Greenwood. The project was conceived by Sammy Skidmore and ZoĂ« Hensley, two gallerists with day jobs at commercial galleries wanting to expand into unconventional spaces while showcasing work too large, too experimental, or too existential for the white cube. Artists for the inaugural edition (probing themes of sex, power, and the poetics of space) include Nadia Ahmed, Rachael Comer, Jenikka Cruz, Gaeun Kim, and Ali Meyer. The free, all-ages party starts at 6 p.m. and goes late, with music by DJ spicycherrypop and Friends of the Road Ensemble. (DM @once__removed for address) AMANDA MANITACHÂ
More
Excellence in Fibers X Through Feb 14, Schack Art Center, free
Welldweller: New Works by KEMC Through Feb 14, Specialist Gallery, free
Dan Webb: Yespalier Through Feb 21, Greg Kucera Gallery, free
Aisha Harrison: Porous Body Through Feb 22, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, free
Black History Month Exhibition Through Feb 26, M. Rosetta Hunter Art Gallery, free
Austin Lewis Through Feb 28, James Harris Gallery, free
Crystalline Lens - Curated by Allyce Wood Through Feb 28, SOIL, free
Group Show: Landscapes Through Feb 28, Winston Wächter, free
Kandis Susol Through Feb 28, Winston Wächter, free
New Nordic: Cuisine, Aesthetics, and Place Through Mar 8, National Nordic Museum
Susan Meiselas: Crossings Through Mar 22, Photographic Center Northwest, free
The One-Two Punch: 100 Years of Robert Colescott Through Mar 29, Tacoma Art Museum
Boren Banner Series: Camille Trautman Through Apr 12, Frye Art Museum, free
Priscilla Dobler Dzul: Water Carries the Stories of Our Stars Through Apr 19, Frye Art Museum, free
Jonathan Lasker: Drawings and Studies Through Sept 27, Frye Art Museum, free
A Room for Animal Intelligence Through Nov 1, Seattle Art Museum
Ten Thousand Things Through Spring 2027, Wing Luke Museum
Ash-Glazed Ceramics from Korea and Japan Through July 12, 2027, Seattle Art Museum
Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads (Bronze) Through Oct 2027, Olympic Sculpture Park, free
Chris Kallmyer: Song Cycle Ongoing, Seattle Art Museum
Gossip: Between Us Ongoing, Tacoma Art Museum
Haunted Ongoing, Tacoma Art Museum
Qiu Zhijie: Map of the History of Science and Technology Ongoing, Olympic Sculpture Park, free
Indira Allegra: The Book of Zero Opens Feb 4, Jacob Lawrence Gallery, free
Susan Bennerstrom: The Light Is Never the Same Twice Opens Feb 5, Patricia Rovzar Gallery, free
Worlds Seen and Unseen: Paintings by Gary Faigin Opens Feb 5, Harris Harvey Gallery, free
Wallflowers Opens Feb 7, Frye Art Museum, free
Legacy: Highlights from the Permanent Collection Opens Feb 14, Tacoma Art Museum
Project NW: Ralph Pugay Opens Feb 14, Tacoma Art Museum
Early Warnings
Beyond Mysticism: The Modern Northwest Opens Mar 5, Seattle Art Museum
Actualize AiR and SOIL Collaboration: Imprints and Echoes - Curated by Julia Anderson Opens Mar 5, SOIL, free
Aimee Lee: Tethered Opens Mar 6, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art
Crafting Futures: Emerging Artists Invitational Opens Mar 6, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art
George & David Lewis: Deeply Rooted Opens Mar 6, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art
Interwoven Narratives Opens Mar 9, M. Rosetta Hunter Art Gallery, free
Water Ways: Healing the Circle of Water and Life Opens Mar 26, Schack Art Center, free
Boren Banner Series: Chloe King Opens Apr 15, Frye Art Museum, free
Monochrome: Calder and Tara Donovan Opens May 13, Seattle Art Museum
Tom Lloyd Opens May 16, Frye Art Museum, free
