The other fair, which is free to the public, is being hosted by the arts nonprofit called Forest for the Trees. They will be taking over six floors and 80,000 square feet of the historic Railspur building in Pioneer Square.
The exhibit is filled with the work of more than 100 local artists and organizers had only two months to put the whole thing together.
Austin Bellamy Hicks and Julianne Johnson, founders of XO Seattle, curated the exhibit’s sixth floor. “We curated it mostly by text,” Hicks said. “And most of the art in here, even though it was such a quick turnaround, is art that was created for the show.”
An art exhibit on the 5th floor of the Forest for the Trees gallery.
Al-Baseer Holly working on a painting titled “From the Bottom,” which appears in the Forest for the Trees art exhibit.
Artist Rachel Hayden works on a currently untitled painting appearing in the Forest for the Trees exhibit.
Johnson said that artists walked into the space, which includes an outdoor plaza, and immediately felt inspired to create new pieces.
Gage Hamilton, founder of Forest for the Trees, said his event includes the work of artists who wouldn’t traditionally be included in an event like the Seattle Art Fair.
“There’s people represented here that wouldn’t be represented there,” said Hamilton. “There’s a lot of locals. There’s various levels of artists. There’s no commercial galleries here.”
The Seattle Art Fair and Forrest For The Trees are both downtown Thursday, July 21 through Sunday, July 24. Forrest For The Trees is free to the public through the weekend.
Forest for the Trees Organized a Massive Seattle Art Fair Alternative this Weekend
By: Jas Keimig
Amanda Manitach and LeleBarnett are pulling together a powerful exhibition at 419 Occidental. BROOKE FITTS
Earlier this month, I stepped out of an elevator and onto the empty fifth floor of a Pioneer Square building with timber beams, brick walls, and beautiful light streaming in through massive windows.
Curators and artists Amanda Manitach and Lele Barnett led me around the enormous space, telling me about their vision for filling it: an enormous uterus you can climb into here; a repurposed pro-abortion American flag there. All these works would be part of their group survey show called Howl, featuring large-scale pieces by women and non-binary artists that largely address reproductive rights in the wake of the heinous Supreme Court overturning Roev Wade.
“It was just a gut impulse,” Manitach told me, regarding their theme. The two had started planning the show right around the time of the Court decision’s leak to the press.
“That’s just what curators do,” added Barnett. “You have to pay attention to what people are thinking about… It seemed like an obvious choice.”
Jite Agbro installing “P.L.U.A.” for the Howl exhibition. BROOKE FITTS
Howl is just one of several shows going on this weekend at RailSpur, a new “microdistrict” in Pioneer Square run by Denver-based real estate developers Urban Villages. Organized by the public arts non-profit Forest for the Trees (FFTT), more than 100 artists and curators are taking over eight floors and the alleyway of a recently renovated building called 419 Occidental–nearly 77,000 square feet of space! The temporary and (mostly) FREE art/block party runs from today, July 21 to Sunday, July 24. Taking place as an alternative to Seattle Art Fair (SAF) the same weekend, FFTT is a badass showing of some of the best artists working in the city today.
If you’re thinking that this concept sounds a lot like OutofSight, you’re not wrong. From 2015- 2017, the Greg Lundgren-led project also occupied a building in Pioneer Square during the same weekend as Seattle Art Fair, to show off the artistic brilliance of the PNW. Like Out of Sight–which many of these artists worked on or showed work in–this RailSpur art activation is just as much about showing off the wealth of artists Seattle has to offer.
Johnson and Hicks standing on the building’s balcony. Kelsey Fernkopf will have several neon artworks outside. BROOKE FITTS
The seeds for thismulti-floor arts fest were sown about a year ago when FFTT president Gage Hamilton and RailSpur property manager Henry Watson got in touch about potential art activations at 419 Occidental. Originally, their discussions revolved around a residency on the ground floor–but about two months ago, Hamilton realized that Urban Villages was still searching for tenants as the building sat vacant, and he had an idea. “We wanted to fill the entire building with art,” Hamilton said in a recent phone interview.
So? He just straight up asked if he could do it–and Urban Villages was down for the project. The microdistrict had been redeveloped with an eye towards Pioneer Square’s artistic roots, anyway. Watson believed there was “no better way to embrace the grit and authenticity of the neighborhood than with an art exhibit that brings the community together,” as he wrote to me in an email. For no rental or usage fees, RailSpur handed the keys to Hamilton and his close collaborator Dominic Nieri of ARTXIV. They had just a few weeks to fill the tens of thousands of square feet of empty building space with art.
Rather than curate the humongous 419 Occidental all by themselves, Hamilton and Nieri decided to hand over each floor to a different set of curators–all mostly local to, or at least familiar with, the Pacific Northwest region–to do with as they please. “I wanted to give a variety of experiences and perspectives to make it seem like every floor is different,” said Hamilton. “We didn’t want anything to feel repetitive throughout the space.”
Ariel Parrow’s sculpture at XO Seattle can be read variety of different ways. BROOK EFITTS
Thus, every floor will have its own, specific vibe. Some simply feature one singular vision, like on the sixth floor, where Oakland and San Francisco-based artist Christopher Martin is restaging floor-to-ceiling banners from his inaugural exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco, entitled Ancient as Time. In the stairwell, Christopher Derek Bruno is installing “Its~Olafur-You+ME,” an eight-floor light installation.
On the third floor, A Black Art Ecology of Portland’s Sharita Towne is bringing the work of conceptual artists maximilianoand rubéngarcíamarrufo. GasparYanga–named after a freed enslaved African in Mexico who formed a marooned society in modern-day Veracuz–is a three- channel video maximiliano and marrufo have been working on for five years. The immersive work explores queer temporality, Black liberation, and the idea that time is constantly folding in on itself.
“[Yanga’s] story isn’t a story from 400 years ago, but it’s contemporary and maybe even in the future,” said maximiliano in a recent interview. “So much of Black liberation is based on being able to imagine a future. We have to dream it before we can start pursuing concrete things to make it a reality.”
Overwhelmingly–and kinda in the spirit of SAF–this weekend is all about group shows, with a specific focus on local artists. Well, except for Miami-based Axel Void’s mostly national and international 19-artist presentation on the fourth floor, 12,143, which represents the space’s actual square footage. The press release promises that it’s “avoiding any agenda other than the beauty and absurdity of this happening itself.” On the bottom floor, Hamilton’s FFTT gave 16 artists, including scene stalwarts StevieShaoand BasoFibonacci, a 7’x7′ blank canvas and told them to go to town.
Former Seattleite and LA-based artist No Touching Ground and Shout Your Abortion collaborated on this wheatpaste that will be in Howl. BROOKE FITTS
Then we have Manitach and Barnett’s sprawling Howlon the fifth floor. Having attended a lot of art fairs themselves, both have always preferred the satellites exhibitions “that feel a little more DIY and scrappy and less commercial,” said Barnett, over the crush of halogen-lit stadiums.
Their hope with this 13-person exhibition that features a lot of already-shown work is to give visitors a bit more time and space with each object. “It’s an opportunity for contrast,” said Manitach.
Once you step out of the elevator, you’ll be greeted with one of Manitach’s ethereal,13-foot text- based drawings that uses a haunting quote from actress Frances Farmer. Close to the far windows is a partial restaging of Jite Agbro’s “P.L.U.A.” that took over MadArt earlier this year. Attendees can also climb into an enormous red uterus–cleverly titled “Where are you from?”— made by Fumi Amano, in case you missed it at Method Gallery in September.
Meanwhile, AmandaJamesParker’s Félix González-Torres-inspired “Untitled (Portrait of Félix González-Torres)” fills an entire hallway with balloons that visitors can take with them over the course of the weekend.
Part of XO Seattle’s show will be outside, which makes for some interesting interactions.BROOKEFITTS
XO Seattle has what is perhaps the most ambitious group show in the building; it will run for a month and cost $10 for entry. Designed and curated by Julianne Johnson and Austin BellamyHicks of SERIES 001, this “love letter” to the PNW’s creative community features over 80 artists across two floors and 14,000 square feet of space. “We couldn’t resist,” laughed Johnson. “We made it the biggest show we could imagine.”
Johnson and Hicks have brought together a mix of painting, sculpture, neon, murals, and sound baths. On a high wall above the space, Nikita Ares has installed four enormous, color-soaked paintings. Smack dab in the middle of the floor, Greg Kucera Gallery has lent one of Dan Webb’s masterfully goopy wood carvings to bless the exhibition. Emily Counts assembled a sculptural garden of her whimsical ceramic works that catch the light of a nearby window.
Co-curators MosesSunand Photon Factory’s ErikMolanobrought their own specific flavors to the show. Sun pulled together a Vivid Matter Collective pavilion, featuring the works of artists who painted the Black Lives Matter mural on Capitol Hill. Molano was in charge of immersive installations, curating a light and color therapy installation by Rosie Alyea called Double Rainbow.“It’s the perfect opportunity to actually have a new canvas,” Molano told me about XO Seattle’s space.
With its multiple installations and clash of mediums, XO Seattle’s overwhelming emphasis for this exhibition is having a good time. La Dive will be providing the booze in a month-long pop-up bar, Hrvst House will spin the tunes on their Friday night opening event, and the XO Seattle folks are pulling together the viiiiiiibe.
“A big part of the way we present art is that it’s a party,” said Hicks. “We’re trying to break away from the gallery and museum system and show that you can have something as sophisticated as a gallery or museum, but it can be just a bit more loose.”
Forest for the Trees’ massive 418 Occidental takeover is happening from today through Sunday, July 24. It’s all free—except XO Seattle, which will run for one month and cost$10 entry. Learn more about the entire endeavor here.
The ‘Forest for the Trees’ exhibit will feature 7 floors of art, more than 100 artists, live music, bars and roof-top installations.
by: Margo Vansynghel
Artist Emily Counts installs her artwork featured in the “Forest for the Trees” exhibit opening in a vacant building near the Seattle Art Fair in Pioneer Square on Monday, June 27, 2022. (Amanda Snyder/ Crosscut)
When Seattle curators Julianne Johnson and Austin Bellamy Hicks first stepped out of the elevator and into the sprawling Pioneer Square space, they couldn’t help but gasp. The double-height ceilings. A grand wooden staircase leading up to a balcony
dense with native plants, plus a nearly 360-degree view of Elliott Bay and the Seattle skyline. And most of all: space. Lots of it — 14,000 square feet, more than most curators could ever dream of. If there ever was a perfect place to show art, this was it.
The recently rehabbed RailSpur building, a vacant office–tower-to-be just steps away from Seattle’s King Street Station, will be the site of one of the most monumental and ambitious art exhibits Seattle has seen in years. Envisioned by a group of local artist-curators, ForestfortheTreeswill coincides with and stand as a counterpoint to this year’s Seattle Art Fair (July 21-24). In contrast to the fair, tickets for ForestfortheTreesare free, and you might even be able to afford more of the art.
“Having it during that time period is specifically because there’s gonna be a lot of art enthusiasts and patrons in the area,” says Seattle artist Gage Hamilton, known for his work on the celebrated SoDo Track mural corridor. He’s one of the main producers behind the event. “This is the thing next door that’s maybe a little bit more experimental and immersive.”
The name ForestfortheTreesis a play on the old adage — “but the goal is [also] to
help create an environment that gives space for artists to grow,” Hamilton says. Viewers may experience an expansive feeling as well. “We hope people can get lost a bit in the work,” he adds. From giant flags to sprawling murals, a stalactite made of sugar, neon and ceramic sculptures plus countless paintings and a massive uterus sculpture, Forest for the Trees will be a feast for the eyes meant to rival the visual overdose the art fair usually brings.
Since its inception in 2015, Seattle Art Fair weekend has become a staple of the city’s cultural summer, in part because independent artists and galleries made good on Seattle’s DIY reputation by staging their own, more locally focused “satellite” exhibits during the for-profit fair.
The most ambitious and influential among those was Out of Sight, which — under the tutelage of local curator and art-space maven Greg Lundgren — brought together a cabinet of wonders of local art in rehabbed vacant Pioneer Square buildings during its three-year run from 2015 through 2017. (Other satellite approaches to the Seattle Art Fair have included Georgetown gallery Studio
A group of curators installs a neon artwork by Kelsey Fernkopf on the roof of the RailSpur building. The artwork will be featured inthe “Forest for the Trees” exhibit in Pioneer Square, which runs July 21-24. (Amanda Snyder/Crosscut)
“We are modeling [our exhibit] after Out of Sight,” co-curator Johnson says, standing near the space’s grand staircase, which seems to be leading up to the sky. “Which was basically like: ‘Hey, Art Fair, you overlooked the Pacific Northwest scene — so we’re going to do it ourselves.’” The official Seattle Art Fair’s lineup this year is more local, Johnson admits. Still, for her, the interest lies in doing something that is not as slick as a fair. “We’re really interested in keeping it kind of weird,” she says, “highlighting people who haven’t shown before — just opening up space for people.”
Hicks and Johnson’s 14,000 square feet of art, dubbed XO Seattle(“a love note to the Pacific Northwest arts communities”), is just one facet — and one floor — of Forestfor the Trees.
The show is so massive and includes so many people that it’s near impossible to summarize without launching into a list of numbers and names: The building’s seven floors, alley and rooftop deck will be filled with immersive installations, large- scale murals, group exhibitions, dance performances and live music. This is courtesy of a dozen curators and more than a hundred local artists — a true who’s who of Seattle art, including Moses Sun and the Vivid Matter Collective, Nikita
Left: Neon artwork by Yale Wolf featured in “Forest for the Trees” exhibit. Right: Work by Stevie Shao featured in “Forest for the Trees” exhibit. “The excitement and the energy is something that I haven’t felt in the last couple of years — because of the way people have been separated,” says Forest for the Trees co-producer Dominic Nieri. (Amanda Snyder/Crosscut)
Forest for the Trees co-producers Hamilton and Dominic Nieri, who runs a Seattle- based art production company and artist residency program called ARTXIV, were originally tasked with creating a few permanent installations for the new building as part of an art-forward strategy by the building’s developers, Urban Villages. But, during a tour, an Urban Villages representative mentioned that construction delays had left the building empty for now. “Gage and I, naturally, were compelled to do something crazy,” Nieri says. So they asked the developers: “Do you mind if we take over the whole building?”
They agreed. “And then it was like: ‘OK, now, what do we do?’ ” Hamilton says. Since then, Hamilton and Nieri have been working nearly round-the-clock to make it all happen in a condensed time frame. (“We’ve got four people on air mattresses on my floor right now,” Hamilton wrote via text recently. “It’s like camp.”) “Normally, you [need] anywhere from 12 to 18 months for this,” Nieri says.
Knowing they had 70,000 square feet to fill, Hamilton and Nieri reached out to half a dozen (mostly) West Coast curators, each of whom they gave carte blanche to transform “their” floor as they saw fit.
Hamilton is curating the first two floors. On the ground floor, visitors will walk into a kind of atelier where, in the week leading up to Art Fair weekend, 16 local and national artists — including Stevie Shao, Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, Brandon Vosika
— will be painting mural-sized canvases on site. The second floor, for now, is a “mystery exhibit” Hamilton declined to discuss, except to say that there will also be a bar and that it will be “a good place to go if you need a break from the exhibits and parties.”
Seattle artist Gage Hamilton’s work is featured on the first floor of the expansive exhibit opening near the Seattle Art Fair. Other artists on the first floor will be painting directly onto canvases. (Amanda Snyder/Crosscut)
Taking the elevator up another story: The third floor will be dedicated to and named after Gaspar Yanga, an enslaved African man who led one of colonial Mexico’s first successful uprisings of enslaved people. The Portland-based artists behind the project, rubén garcía marrufo and maximiliano, will pull from their “mixed cultures” to envision an immersive, liminal space.
During a recent visit, the sprawling wooden floors of the third floor were still bare, save a few pieces of white ceramics wedged in between the planks and a splayed- open suitcase. “The suitcase, for now, is how we are transporting our art,” garcía marrufo says, explaining they took the bus up from Portland.
The space is dim; the artists have blocked many of the windows with black paper. Soon, the whole place will be dark. For now, though, one window is still uncovered, offering a front-row view of Lumen Field — the setting of the sixth edition of the Seattle Art Fair — just about 1,000 feet south. “I’ve been told that’s where the art fair is,” garcía marrufo says.
“It was a fun chance to be adjacent to this art fair, which feels really formal,” maximiliano chimes in. “This will be this place that you go when you’re done wearing a tie,” adding: “I’m just really excited for all the different art and energy that will be brought to the building and all the different floors.”
And not just to the floors: Seattle color gradient artist Christopher Derek Bruno will be installing an 8-story light and sound installation called “Its~Olafur-You+Me” in the stairwell.
Curator Austin Bellamy Hicks, right, holds work by Priscilla Dobler, left, featured in “Forest For The Trees” exhibit opening near the Seattle Art Fair in Pioneer Square. (Amanda Snyder/Crosscut)
While some of the floors are still in progress, Seattle curators Lele Barnett and Amanda Manitach, responsible for the fifth floor, have a locked-in artist roster. The idea for the show Howl, a survey of mostly local female-identifying and nonbinary artists, was born in the wake of the leak of the Roe v. Wade draft
Because of the subject matter and the constraints of the space — which is huge, but doesn’t have a ton of straightforward wall space — Barnett and Manitach opted for “big pieces that could take up space and not have to sit on a wall,” Manitach says.
Visitors will be able to climb into a larger-than-life uterus sculpture by local artist Fumi Amano. Megan Prince will enlist local volunteers to help her build a sprawling string installation woven between the building’s wooden columns. Local artist Nina Vichayapai is installing a lush fabric garden and Amanda James Parker will let a bunch of balloons loose in the space. In a collaboration with Shout Your Abortion, Los Angeles artist No Touching Ground will wheat paste an image of the American flag — its stars white pills, the white stripes overlaid with red text reading “Abortion Pills forever” — across a large piece of wall.
“Artists are messengers; they express our collective hurt and healing,” Manitach wrote in an email. “For that reason I think this year the art fair and evening we’re doing around it is going to be charged — poignant.”
The work of artist Tina Randolph hangs on the wall in the Pioneer Square RailSpur building, as part of the “Forest For The Trees” exhibit opening near the Seattle Art Fair in Pioneer Square. (Amanda Snyder/Crosscut )
Up on the seventh floor, XO Seattle (which is the only show that will charge admission and will run through August) will feature an impressive roster of more than four dozen artists, including Mary Anne Carter, Sean Hamilton and Emily Counts, as well as some lesser-known names. Also enlisted were Erik Molano of Photon Factory and Moses Sun of Vivid Matter Collective as co-curators, who will put their own stamp on the show. Expect paintings and sculptures, but also an immersive “rainbow therapy lounge,” a Vivid Matter Collective pavilion and multiple installations — including one made from actual sugar — across the interior and sundeck.
“We’re gonna put a beautiful Phillip Levine bronze sculpture made in the ’60s and ’70s [here],” Hicks explains on a recent, sun-drenched afternoon on the balcony. “We’re going to put a Kelsey Fernkopf neon portal door over there,” he continues, gesturing toward the building’s western, water view side. “The city makes such a good backdrop to everything,” Johnson says.
That includes a pop-up bar on the rooftop, courtesy of Capitol Hill establishment La Dive (known for its boozy slushies). And more than two years after the pandemic devastated the local arts scene, partying amid the art feels apt. In a way, this XO show — and ForestfortheTreesat large — is a jubilant comeback, a celebration of the richness of the local art scene.
“The art scene in Seattle is unbelievable, and I feel like it gets underlooked or not given the respect it deserves … but you just pick up a rock and there’s art being made,” Hicks says.
“We are so lucky to live in a wildly creative city,” Johnson adds. “There’s just so much work to show.”
Installer Kate Fernandez hangs up an artwork by RYAN! Feddersen, which will be on view during “Forest For The Trees,” a sprawling exhibit opening near (and during) the 2022 Seattle Art Fair. (Amanda Snyder/Crosscut)
