Yves Saint Laurent
Photo Courtesy of Guy Marineau-Seattle Art Museum
If you’re planning to visit Vancouver, Seattle or Portland this year, allow us draw up a list of arts events to add to your itinerary. The Pacific Northwest is teeming with exhibits that range from Picasso to Yves Saint Laurent.
The birth of modern culture in Vancouver
What do artist Pablo Picasso, dancer Trisha Brown, architect Frank Gehry and a range of hip-hop musicians have in common? Their works are all part of the multimedia megashow “MashUp: The Birth of Modern Culture,” which has taken over all four floors of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Tracing the idea of cultural mash-ups, from early 20th-century collages through present-day digital cutting and pasting, scanning and hacking, “MashUp” is a fascinating cacophony of sounds, images and films.
Pablo Picasso’s Bust of a Woman (Dora Maar), 1938, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1966 © Picasso Estate/SODRAC (2016) Photo: Lee Stalsworth
There’s the Jamaican sound mix known as “dub,” British Columbia artist Brian Jungen’s eerie First Nations-inspired masks made of human hair and Nike Air Jordan shoes, and Andy Warhol’s iconic Marilyn Monroe prints, alongside Surrealist photomontages and movie clips by Quentin Tarantino.
The entire exhibit will be on view through May 15, with the galleries on the two upper floors remaining open through June 12.
If you’ll be in Vancouver later this year, mark your calendar for a totally different show at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Running from June 11 to October 2, “Picasso: The Artist and His Muses” will explore the influences of numerous personalities on the noted artist’s work.
When you’re ready for refreshments after your museum visit, pop into Bel Café at Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star Rosewood Hotel Georgia for coffee and a pastry; it’s just across the street from the art gallery. Or if it’s closer to happy hour, the bar at Four-Star The Sutton Place Hotel, a short stroll from the museum, offers buck-a-shuck local oysters, addictive fish-sauce-infused chicken wings, and B.C. wines by the glass.
Yves Saint Laurent in Seattle
The Seattle Art Museum will go fashionista this fall, with an exhibition centering on designer Yves Saint Laurent. “Yves Saint Laurent: The Perfection of Style,” on display from October 11 through January 8, 2017, will feature more than 100 haute couture garments, ready-to-wear clothing and accessories, drawings, photos and other multimedia elements drawn from the collection of the Fondation Pierre Bergé–Yves Saint Laurent. The exhibit will illustrate Saint Laurent’s working process and the development of his designs across his 44-year career.
In another notable exhibition coming up this year, the Seattle Art Museum will showcase important photographs of the mid-20th century with “Go Tell It: Civil Rights Photography,” which will run from April 30 through January 8, 2017.
Andy Warhol Self-Portrait, Photo Courtesy of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc & Artists Rights Society
After your museum visit, walk up the hill to Shuckers, the classic oyster bar at the Four-Star Fairmont Olympic Hotel, for a plate of bivalves and a glass of honey ale. A local brewery produces the pour with honey from the hotel’s rooftop beehives. Or simply walk across the street to Five-Star Four Seasons Hotel Seattle’s relaxed Goldfinch Tavern for a made-in-Seattle Interurban IPA, a wagyu burger and panoramas of Elliott Bay.
Andy Warhol in Portland
The Portland Art Gallery is planning an autumn exhibit about pop culture icon Andy Warhol, slated to be the largest display of the prolific artist’s work seen in the Pacific Northwest. On view between October 8 and January 1, 2017, “Andy Warhol: Prints from the Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation” will include 250 Warhol prints, representing 40 decades of his work.
When you’ve finished taking in the pieces, head for the Driftwood Room, the swanky, 1950s-style cocktail lounge at Forbes Travel Guide Recommended Hotel deLuxe, for one of its signature champagne cocktails. As you sip, you might ponder how Warhol himself might have appreciated a bubbly beverage like the Rose-Colored Glasses (gin, rose syrup, lemon and champagne) or the Springtime in Paris (elderflower liqueur, rhubarb bitters and champagne).
