Six new Seattle art spaces defying COVID

A secret basement. A front-yard mailbox. A museum of museums. The show goes on, in unconventional ways. by Margo Vansynghel & Agueda Pacheco Flores. For the full article in Crosscut, please click here.

Woman in black coat attaches a wooden, carved disk to a white box

Artist Tyna Ontko attaches her hand-carved wooden art piece to Sun Spot, a pocket-sized white-box gallery founded by local artist Paul Nelson.

For the cultural sector, the bad news isn’t exactly news. More than seven months into the pandemic, things are looking rough. Many art workers are still unemployed and, without more support, some fear a slew of indie art spacesmusic venues and museums might shutter forever. 

But there’s also a glimmer of good news. Proving that creativity can flourish in the face of adversity, at least six new art spaces have opened across King County in recent months, despite and in some cases inspired by COVID-19 closures. From a long-awaited, 8,000-square-foot museum on Capitol Hill to what is perhaps the tiniest art space in King County, here are six new exhibition spaces — several of which upend the idea of a traditional gallery — where the art show goes on, despite the pandemic.

Seattle’s new Museum of Museums is located in a former medical office building owned by the nonprofit Swedish Health Services. It took arts entrepreneur Greg Lundgren more than a year to renovate the building’s 8,000 square feet. 

Seattle’s new Museum of Museums is located in a former medical office building owned by the nonprofit Swedish Health Services. It took arts entrepreneur Greg Lundgren more than a year to renovate the building’s 8,000 square feet. 

The former medical office

“I’m totally stressed,” says arts entrepreneur and curator Greg Lundgren, as he pets a stuffed toy (panda body, giraffe head) displayed in the gift shop of Seattle’s soon-to-open Museum of Museums. He pauses. “But it’s not my first rodeo.” 

Lundgren’s rodeo usually goes like this: Find an empty property slated for future development or otherwise languishing, fix it up and reopen it as an innovative space for local art. But transforming a derelict midcentury medical office into a contemporary art museum amid a pandemic? That’s next level, even for Lundgren. 

Man in black T-shirt in front of wall with small colorful paintings

The museum — with three floors of galleries, a gift shop, permanent outdoor art and a four-seat theater —  should have opened a year ago. Lundgren signed a lease on the expansive space at the border of Capitol Hill and First Hill in June 2019. But he soon hit a serious permitting snafu that dragged on for months. And then, you guessed it: the pandemic. Next: Look, don’t touch: Seattle museums reopen at last

“If there were a giant earthquake it would not surprise me,” Lundgren says dryly, as he gives me a tour of the space. Artworks for the inaugural show, Goodwitch/Badwitch (curated by Bri “The Hoodwitch” Luna and Lundgren), lean against walls, awaiting installation. 

Upstairs, an immersive, candy-colored installation by Neonsaltwater and Brian Sanchez is still in progress; for now a palm tree shimmers through a sheet of hot-pink frosted glass. Downstairs, selfie lovers can bask in the fully floral bathroom by artist Elisa Maelen. In the gift shop, bathing, bare-breasted “Bigfeet” creatures in local painter Crystal Barbre’s 20-foot-long mural await eventual visitors. Although the pop-up show Mask Parade is already open on weekends to the public, the museum fully opens (at 25% capacity and by appointment) to members later this month, and in November to the general public. If all goes right, that is. 

Pink wall with painting and chairs

“We’re all charting new territory,” Lundgren says. “I feel like we have machetes and we’re just going through the jungle.”

Others might have given up, turned around and gone home. Not Lundgren. His conviction that Seattle is both artistically and monetarily rich — and that he can foster a stronger relationship between artists and collectors to avoid a creative brain drain — keeps him going. 

In the stairwell at MoM, a black decal on a rare bare wall encapsulates Lundgren’s point: “There is no version of a great city with a declining artist population.”

About the Authors & Contributors

Margo Vansynghel

Margo Vansynghel is a reporter at Crosscut focused on arts and culture. Find her on Twitter @Margo_vs or email at Margo.Vansynghel@crosscut.com.

Agueda Pacheco Flores

Agueda Pacheco Flores is a reporter at Crosscut focused on arts and culture. Find her on Twitter @AguedaPachecOH or email at agueda.pachecoflores@crosscut.com

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