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Scott Fide's head of modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe rests on its side in the lobby.
Made of light-blue cardboard, it sets a corpselike tone. The subject is dead, but what about his "less is more" legacy?
With holes punched like acne craters, drippy yellow glue and scribbles simulating saggy fatigue, Fife's rough handling provides an answer. The world is tired of the architect's relentless purity.
Welcome to "Swallow Harder," an exhibit of contemporary art drawn from the holdings of Seattle collectors Ben and Aileen Krohn. With 44 works from 26 artists, the exhibit represents less than a sixth of what the Krohns have purchased since the late 1990s.
Rare is the collecting couple that doesn't feature a driver and passenger. In the Krohns case, he drives, and she engages the view. Last year, she gave him a warehouse. At the rate they're collecting, he'll soon need another.
Rarer still does a Seattle museum focus the spotlight on one collector, especially one comparatively new to the game.
Such shows run the risk of seeming to flatter, but the Frye has a better reason to present this exhibit now. Curated by Robin Held, "Swallow Harder" is a core sample of contemporary art at its most vigorous and challenging.
To date, the Krohns have bought largely in the United States. What sets them apart from most of the others interested in similar material is that they treat Seattle artists as equals instead of also-rans.
Whatever the art's origin, the Krohns favor the edgy, and so does the Frye.
Yes, the Frye.
Under Held, the Rip Van Winkle of art museums has transformed itself into a laboratory of contemporary experiment.
Personally, I'm delighted, but what are longtime Frye faithfuls thinking? There is no other museum with a core collection dedicated to historical anti-modernists that also features challenging work from the current age.
Held says the Frye always has explored representational art, and all she's doing is expanding the idea of what it constitutes.
That's true, but it's also true that the Frye skipped the 20th century. In the 21st century, against all odds and thanks to new administrative management, the museum has come out swinging. Roll over Beethoven, and give Tchaikovsky the news.
Within "Swallow Harder" are polarities. The icky and sticky shake hands with the cool and detached. The detached are outnumbered but hold their own.
Photographer Alice Wheeler's "Genderf..k Kurt" and "Genderf..k Courtney" nail the changes that have sprung up in the wake of the Cobain cultural earthquake.
Things fell apart, including gender roles. Cross-dressing freaks are now chic icons. Through Wheeler's lens, they leer at us with joy, and we leer back. Say it loud. We're free and proud.
In this show, there's a lot of fooling around with soft porn. In Dean Sameshima's six prints (hung high around the galleries), a fetching young man runs through the hand signals of 1970s gay bar culture. In Matt Greene's ink-on-paper "Rave," hippy hedonism is condensed into inky clusters.
Jason Salavon's title cannot be printed here, but there are 76 of them layered on top of each other. The photographic print is misty and vague but actually specific, the longer you look at it.
Steven Miller tosses vats of cold milk onto the upper torsos of naked male friends and photographs their surprise. He's created an up-to-the-minute Pop with a "Silence Equals Death" subtext.
Tender: Jeffry Mitchell's untitled pickle jar glows with tender animal conjugations, and Claire Cowrie's bunnies shine as they leak away, in sculptures and on paper.
Also tender: Marcelino Goncalves' oil paint "Boys," an updated Fairfield Porter with all of Porter's radiance and none of his hesitation.
Stuart Hawkins' "Untitled (Toilet Paper)" is amazing. In this photo, a soggy mess is a monumental land form.
Anthony Goicolea gets inside a teenage boy experience and freezes the frame in "Stigmata." Vincent Valdez turns the same material into a nightmare. So does Chris Doyle, but his nightmare looks like fun, assuming it's survivable.
Other messy paintings fade in the face of Patrick Holderfield's "Untitled 89," free-form line culminating in orgiastic, dark-blue smears.
Psychedelic art failed to make the art leap and stayed on the street. More than 30 years later, Assume Vivid Astro Focus (aka Eli Sudbrack), brings new life to the old look in his videos and wallpaper. It's happening, baby.
Finally, the Cool School: Leo Saul Berk's maps that are real places; Victoria Haven's reductive hills that are rich in possibility; and Mark Mumford's vinyl lettering that gives the show its title: "Swallow Harder. Swallow Harder."
At the Frye, the audience is swallowing as hard as it can.
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