Staff Picks
There are two types of people: those who wear their most sensible, hike-ready footwear to attend the Seattle Art Fair and the surrounding hubbub — a constellation of satellite fairs, exhibits and parties — and those who just want their outfit to work.
I personally love seeing the ’fits at the fair, so please stuff a pair of comfy shoes in a bag and go for fashion!
Whether at the fair or around Pioneer Square, July is prime time for people- and art-watching. Here’s what you should see and where you should go.
‘Agents of Change: 2026 Neddy Artist Award Exhibition’
The Neddy Artist Award program offers one of the largest unrestricted awards for artists in the Pacific Northwest, two gifts of $30,000 and six of $3,000, to Puget Sound visual artists every year. All eight of this year’s finalists are now showcasing their work in a show assembled by the established local curator Ellen Ito, who has an excellent eye for weaving together ideas and visual narratives that may seem disparate on the surface. “These eight artists actively position their practices and themselves as agents of change,” she writes in the exhibition statement. “They initiate transformation by challenging the status quo, each fostering innovative ways of thinking, operating, seeing, and feeling.”
Through Sept. 12; The Behnke Family Gallery at Cornish College of the Arts, 1077 Lenora St., Seattle; free; cornish.edu/behnke
‘Grand Gesture’
Did you know that one of the Pacific Northwest’s biggest public art collections is owned by the Port of Seattle? Established in 1968 as the first airport public art program in the country, it has expanded into a wide-ranging collection featuring work by locally, nationally and internationally recognized artists, from Holly Ballard Martz and Barbara Earl Thomas to Sabine Marcelis and Soo Sunny Park. This exhibit, curated by the Port of Seattle’s senior art program manager and curator Tommy Gregory, is a grand gesture amid the World Cup, Seattle Art Fair and First Thursday Art Walk that doubles as a PSA that a local nonprofit plans to print a comprehensive monograph featuring the Port of Seattle’s public art collection.
July 2-Aug. 3; Railspur Studios, 419 Occidental Ave. S., Seattle; free
Seattle Art Fair
This summer, the 10th edition of the art fair started by Paul Allen returns to the city’s Lumen Field Event Center. This year’s milestone fair brings back Seattle’s Roq La Rue, Harris Harvey, Winston Wächter Fine Art and Woodside/Braseth, alongside a roster of international galleries. This year, the fair highlights textile and fiber art. Major cultural partners like the Pacific Northwest Quilt & Fiber Arts Museum and galleries like J. Rinehart Gallery are showing Tininha Silva’s immersive, site-specific fiber installation that simulates an underwater environment with floating hand-dyed forms and softly moving fibers that invite visitors to walk through the work, becoming a part of it.
Hours vary July 23-26; Lumen Field Event Center, 800 Occidental Ave. S., Seattle; $49.98 for single-day tickets, $81.02 for fair passes; seattleartfair.com
Assembly Art Fair
This Seattle Art Fair alternative launched by two prominent Seattle galleries will be an intimate and somewhat selective affair. Taking place at West Canal Yards, a development along Seattle’s historic ship canal, the satellite fair will gather about a dozen galleries from the region, some of which are skipping the Seattle Art Fair this year, as well as galleries from Los Angeles and Dallas. Participants won’t get traditional gallery “booths” — whitewall rooms in a convention center — but rather take over vacant spaces around a central shared atrium. Otherwise, the fair will be open to the public, with food from Old Salt, Dick’s Drive-In, MoMo’s Mediterranean and Finn the Food Truck.
Hours vary July 23-26; West Canal Yards, 1100 W. Ewing St., Seattle; assemblyartfair.com
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yakimaherald.com ’
