To: Seattle Subject: Personal

To: Seattle | Subject: Personal celebrates exceptional artistic practice in the first decades of the twenty-first century. It embraces the idea that a museum and its collection are living entities in constant transformation. To: Seattle brings together a selection of works of contemporary art acquired by the Board of Trustees of the Frye Art Museum between 2009 and 2016 during the directorship of Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker. They include significant works commissioned by the Frye Art Museum in conjunction with exhibitions of artists and artist collectives. 

To: Seattle brings together twenty-two artists and collectives in an exhibition that resists any single overarching theme in order to embrace the singularity or commonality among individuals and groups. Through a diverse array of media, the works mobilize the imagination in consideration of the social, political, and cultural forces that have shaped the present. They address tumultuous events such as 9/11 and the 2008 economic crisis as well as the displacement of communities, and racial and social inequity. 

Included in the exhibition are (in alphabetical order) Leo Saul Berk, The Black Constellation, Matt Browning, Cris Bruch, Mark Calderon, Degenerate Art Ensemble, Anne Fenton, Steve Fisk, Implied Violence, C. Davida Ingram, Kahlil Joseph, Isaac Layman, Susie J. Lee, Liu Ding, Jeffry Mitchell, DK Pan, Pan Gongkai, Buster Simpson, Rafael Soldi, Rodrigo Valenzuela, Inye Wokoma, and Maged Zaher. 

Curated by Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker, To: Seattle | Subject: Personal continues the Frye Art Museum’s inquiry into the role of the museum in the twenty-first century, in which the museum supports artistic production as well as exhibits it, and is committed to a multiplicity of voices, including those of citizen- and artist-curators.