This week in the arts, attend Mar铆a Irene Forn茅s鈥� most celebrated, realistic and feminist works, go to opening night of Clotilde Jim茅nez’s “Apple of My Eye”,聽 learn about the restoration of the miraculous image of the Madonna del Baraccano, listen to a 100-voice gospel choir, and more.
Fefu and Her Friends
November 28 to December 9 | Meany Studio Theater
Professor Valerie Curtis-Newton directs an all-female cast in Mar铆a Irene Forn茅s鈥� most celebrated, realistic and feminist works, Fefu and Her Friends. Fefu turns the 鈥渓adies who lunch鈥� trope on its head, bringing together an extraordinary鈥攁nd regular鈥攇roup of women who, over the course of a weekend in the country, peel away at each other鈥檚 layers, uncovering both the horrors and felicities of contemporary womanhood. Forn茅s said that Fefu’s realism evolved from the fact that she could feel the characters standing around her, that 鈥渙ne can feel the characters breathe.鈥�
Forn茅s, who passed away October 31st at the age of 88, has been called 鈥渢he most important American playwright you鈥檝e never heard of,鈥� and 鈥渋nfluential beyond measure.鈥� She is considered by many to be the mother of U.S. Latinx Theatre. This year marks a national celebration of her work, Celebrando Forn茅s/Celebrating Forn茅s.
$10 tickets for 91探花students |
Clotilde Jim茅nez: Apple of My Eye
Opening Reception, November 29, 5:00 to 8:00 pm / Exhibition on display through December 29 | Jacob Lawrence Gallery
This exhibition shares work by UK-based artist Clotilde Jim茅nez. It features Jim茅nez’s recent collages and charcoal drawings that use fruit, a traditional symbol alluding to sexuality in Western art history, to explore the constraints of sexual identity in Western culture. Using everyday and texturally rich materials such as wallpaper, images cut from magazines, and plastic bags, the collages bring pointed humor and formal rigor to the representation of the Black, queer, masculine body.
As an artist, Jim茅nez was inspired by Jacob Lawrence鈥檚 use of form and color to tell stories, “Jacob Lawrence was one of the few artists who showed me that it was not only possible to depict my life as a Black person in my own way but that it was also important and needed. Jacob Lawrence鈥檚 forms and color palette gave me the courage to look to my own Black American Puerto Rican roots to channel some of that essence into my work while also candidly telling my own story in the time that I live.”
Free |
Colloquia Series | The Madonna del Baraccano: Restoring a Miraculous Image in Renaissance Bologna
November 29, 4:00 PM | Art Building, Room 312
Gloria de Liberali, a PhD candidate in Art History, will talk about the miraculous image of the Madonna del Baraccano, a thirteenth-century fresco depicting the Virgin and Child Christ painted inside one of the bastions of the south wall that used to protect the city of Bologna, and the restored image that we know today by Francesco del Cossa in 1472, and will re-examine the material transformations and will ask what it meant for an artist to intervene on a miracle working image, and how – if at all – its authority and efficacy were affected by physical alterations and stylistic updating.
Free |
Donna Haraway: Storytelling for Earthly Survival
November 29 to December 2 | Henry Art Gallery
On the occasion of the exhibition , the Henry and the Northwest Film Forum have partnered to present this film.
For almost fifty years, Donna Haraway 鈥� scholar, professor, writer 鈥� has been merrily challenging the colonialist and patriarchal underpinnings of orthodox assumptions in gender, science, and trans-species thought. Taking inspiration from feminism, science fiction, environmentalism, and Marxism, in works such as 鈥淎 Cyborg Manifesto鈥� and Primate Visions, she proposes nothing less than new ways of understanding the world and creating the future.
Director Fabrizio Terranova has fashioned an ideal presentation of Haraway鈥檚 history and philosophy. He films her in long takes and spacious frames, granting the audience a full, unfettered perspective on her freewheeling, gesticulating pedagogy. And yet Terranova is too crafty a filmmaker to have made a standard documentary. Throughout, deliberately low-tech green screen and computer graphics effects festoon the screen, subtly manifesting as well as buttressing Haraway鈥檚 ideas. His mischievous intelligence is a counterpart to hers, and the result is a film as playfully provocative as Haraway herself.
$9 tickets for 91探花students |
(Im)migration: Music of Displaced Peoples
December 2, 4:00 pm | Brechemin Auditorium
Free |
Gospel Choir
December 3, 7:30 PM | Katharyn Alvord Gerlich Theater
Phyllis Byrdwell leads the 100-voice gospel choir in songs of praise, jubilation, and other expressions of the Gospel tradition. Byrdwell is Director of the 91探花Gospel Choir, Minister of Music at Mount Zion Baptist Church of Seattle, and a music educator for Lakeside School. She was inducted into the Washington Music Educators Association’s Hall of Fame in 2002 and serves on the Seattle Symphony Board of Directors.
CarolFest
December 5, 7:30 pm | Katharyn Alvord Gerlich Theater