Ain’t No Party Like the One We Got
photo by Chris Lynch
We came to party. We did. We came for fabulous. We got it. We came to see beautiful people. The supply seemed endless. We came for the art. Art was the center of the universe.
Last Friday’s SAM Remix was a party unlike any we’ve ever attended. The good people at Seattle Art Museum - bless their brave hearts - opened the doors to a sold out crowd ready, willing, and able to turn SAM’s pure white halls into a colorful and strange world of self-art, snapshots, house music, alcohol, rock and roll personas, and even karaoke.
The theme for the evening was Alter Ego, perfect for the Museum’s current Kurt Cobain and Andy Warhol Exhibits. The two famous men explored self-creation in both their mediums and in their lives. We did our best to play around with their legacies, and it made for a fantastically wonderful, bewigged time.
People weren’t themselves Friday night. Or perhaps they were more themselves than ever. True to the Alter Ego theme, snapshot booths and a karaoke room begged the audience to become the art. In the Warhol exhibit, the photographed could pin their own single frame photos to the gallery wall. And in the “Pop Lab,” karaoke singers covered classic tunes, impersonating whomever they pleased.
An experiment called “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” set up in a bright corner room, expertly explored the brevity of fame. The experiment gave anyone the opportunity to sit in front of a video camera for two minutes while the muted video streamed to various locations in the building. Happy partiers donned random props and danced on their chairs while others sat wordlessly, everyone bringing whatever part of them they chose to display to the Remix world.
There was always more to do and see around the corner. The temptation to explore quickly set in immediately after entering the Museum. KEXP DJ Riz spun some quality house music that had small crowds grooving every now and again throughout the evening. Like quick sand at the entrance, the music nearly trapped and kept us chilling in the lounge, but we pressed on. By 11:30, the dance floor had drawn almost everyone in again.
There are people who feel they need to learn things when they go to a museum, academics. We certainly fall into that category and jumped at the opportunity to take one of the ten Warhol and Cobain exhibit tours. Each tour was led by a different guide, including gallery artist Alice Wheeler, Project Runway winner Seth Aaron Henderson, KEXP DJs, musician Seth Nelson, et al. We could have made a night of simply following each tour but were already running out of time.
SAM’s South Hall mini-stage stood as the acme of spectacle with drag performances and the “Pop Culture Fashion” runway show presented by the New York Fashion Academy. The drag performances, as they almost always are, were crowd pleasers. The runway show, however, was the event of the evening. Fourteen designers, including Seattlest contributor Cameron Levin, contributed to the show, which featured dozens of dazzling models.
Like any good festivity, there was more to do than could be done, more places to be in than one could be. One would have needed to be five people simultaneously to enjoy it all. So we missed the episodes of Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes, the lectures by Project Runway’s Seth Aaron Henderson and artist Roy McMakin, and other performances.
The most pleasing aspect of this SAM Remix, was that whatever our persona or self-creation, self-realization or true identity, there was more than enough to satisfy. We were the art, and we were the audience, and we all felt a little bit famous.
And there’s great news for anyone who couldn’t attend. The ongoing exhibits Kurt and Warhol’s love fear pleasure lust pain glamour death were absolutely captivating, and though the 15 minute glitter of Remix has been all swept up, the exhibits last until September 6th.
For those interested in attending SAM's next Remix, sign up now for the event August 27th at Sculpture Park.
Come back later this afternoon for Seattlest’s photo rundown of the event!
