Northwest Passing

March 23, 2012 - March 30, 2012

Project Space, Seattle, WA

Solo Exhibition, Seattle, WA: Kevin and Jennifer McCoy present Northwest Passing, an exhibition and performance featuring completely improvised tours of Northwest master works. Northwest Passing in an exhibition that presents work from six classic Northwest Artists as a way to ask what we mean by that very phrase “Northwest Art”. The works in the exhibition, borrowed from local government, corporate and private collections, will be paired with a series of improvised stories performed by actors and other community participants who attempt to interpret the works on display. In this project, passing has several connotations. The performers stories pass as legitimate accounts, even though they lack any foreknowledge of the work in question. As in the transgendered sense, they are passing for experts that they may not be. Passing also points to the eclipsing of this great, first generation of Northwest Artists. The exhibition asks if their artistic ideas have passed, or if they are still in play. Finally the show is about our relationship to the Northwest. I was born and raised here, went to school here. Jennifer and I were married here and lived here for a time. Do we pass as Northwest artists? The exhibition includes works by Guy Anderson, Kenneth Callahan, Morris Graves, Helmi Juvonen, Mark Tobey, George Tsutakawa.