ArtSEA: Best bets for the Seattle Art Fair

In short: You are going to get your steps in, so make sure your fabulous art-going outfit includes comfortable shoes.

ArtSEA: Notes on Northwest Culture is Crosscut’s weekly arts & culture newsletter.

You can read all about Forest for the Trees (showcasing 80+ Northwest artists including Moses Sun, RYAN! Feddersen, Barry Johnson, Nikita Ares, Baso Fibonacci, Stevie Shao, Dan Webb and Jite Agbro) in the story Crosscut’s Margo Vansynghel wrote last week. It’s recommended reading, especially since Margo just won the prestigious Rabkin Prize for visual arts journalism (say congrats if you see her at the art fairs!).

As the more established event, Seattle Art Fair is known for its international flavor, with booths from Tokyo, Paris, Seoul, London and Toronto, as well as New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. It always provides enlightening context to see what’s happening in the wider art world. But having written about Northwest arts for the last couple decades, I tend to root, root, root for the home team (sidebar: How ‘bout those Mariners?!) when wandering the miles of aisles at SAF. 

Among the 76 galleries showing work in the dizzying array of tidy white cubes are 20 hailing from Washington — from Seattle’s 61-year-old Woodside/Braseth Gallery to Bellingham’s 2-year-old Geheim Gallery. I’ll share just a few of the things I’m eager to see in person.