26 March part deux

Another day in Emerald City.
The rain was kept at bay but the cold wind was in full force.
Went to the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington.
This has always been a space I love. It lacks that air of pretentiousness that often accompanies museums and galleries. The exhibition spaces are intimate and laid out in such a way that inhibit one space from imposing upon another.


Dawn Cerny. Going to Die Shirt. 2007. Ink on paper. 11 x 10 in.


Dawn Cerny’s elaborate narrative installations of small drawings and works on paper contemplate present day social and political issues by focusing on parallel moments in history. Studying the Henry’s collection, Cerny has selected Victorian-era mourning garments and 19th-century landscape paintings to be installed alongside her own work. The ensemble provides an extended meditation on American attitudes toward death, trauma, and war past and present. The installation will include mourning jewelry, ephemera, and journals borrowed from a private collection and seven taxidermy owls from the UW’s Burke Museum.