The magnificent new Seattle Art Museum (SAM) opened downtown in 2007. It has 268,000 square feet of space – with expansions planned in the future. It has approximately 2,400 pieces of art on display. You have a child or children with a sense of wonder and creativity, lots of energy and a limited attention span.
Where do you start?
Don’t try to see it all at once. Instead, break it up into several visits.
Follow your child’s lead. If he’s fascinated with the African animal masks, stay and look at them for as long as he wants to. He’ll remember more than he would if you’d rushed him from exhibit to exhibit. On the other hand, if your child sees something exciting in another room and wants to explore it, don’t insist that she look at everything in the room you’re in before she moves on. You want the experience to be joyful and exciting, not a chore or a bore.
Children learn on many levels, not just the visual. A great way to maximize the experience would be to read aloud a book or two about one of the geographic areas before you go, then to explore just one of the exhibits carefully. Go to the hands-on art area and let your child create something in the spirit of what’s he’s seen.
The good news is that many of the exhibits are clearly designed with children, as well as adults, in mind (and there’s free admission for children 12 and younger). “I love the idea of children walking in and just beaming,” says Mimi Gates, SAM’s director. “I really love the sense of whimsy that’s scattered around.”
Here’s a virtual tour of the museum, complete with “Don’t Miss It” attractions and a few warnings about pieces that may upset children. Try the scavenger hunt lists for four of the exhibit areas to keep kids interested in the art as they move from room to room.
>b>Flying Free
Drop in anytime for a small, delightful dose of free art on the first two floors, including changing displays and chances for children to drop in and make their own art in the Open Studio. This may be enough for many preschoolers, especially for the first visit.
Can’t Miss: Cai Guo-Qiang’s Inopportune: Stage One (2004) in the Brotman Forum long gallery – Seven white cars somersault across the ceiling, undercarriages fully exposed, fiber-optic lights bursting from them. (Two more cars have their wheels on the ground.) Some art critics found it tacky and out-of-place. Kids will find it awesome. One car, filled with spent fireworks and other junk, is up a partial flight of stairs in the Ketcham Forum Gallery.
Art Ladder – The museum’s grand staircase has been renamed, but is still guarded by the Chinese “civilian guardians” and the Ming Dynasty camels. Find seasonally changing works of art on the landings and at the top of the stairway.
Play and puzzle spaces – Brightly colored foam chairs and stools, with puzzles and manipulative toys for preschoolers, are scattered throughout the free areas. Let your younger child slow down and process what she’s seen.
Modern & Contemporary Art Third Floor, paid admission. This collection takes up half of the third floor, in bright airy rooms that give the art lots of room to “breathe.” The huge range of contemporary art is highly accessible to kids because they don’t bring any preconceived ideas about how art “should” look, and they can see that any expression of their own imaginations is artistic.
Don’t Miss: The fun range of pop art in the long hallway, from Andy Warhol’s Double Elvis and a colorful, joyful circle of flower faces to a “Tokyo pop” piece. The sign that says “Go” is also a piece of art.
Katharina Fritsch’s Mann and Maus in the northern-most gallery – It’s a giant black mouse sitting on a sleeping man under a comforter, more amusing than scary.
Do-Ho Suh’s Some/One in the same gallery – The jaw-dropping giant ceremonial robe is made out of thousands of dog tags.
The Knight/Lawrence Gallery in the northeast corner of the Contemporary Art section – Jacob Lawrence’s bright, graphic portraits of builders, runners and people living their ordinary lives delight children and help them see things in a slightly different way.
Warning to Parents: The gallery with Mann and Maus and Some/One also contains a large painting of a cowboy holding a gun to the temple of a man who is squirming on the ground and screaming for his life. It may be difficult to screen your child from this painting if you’re visiting this gallery or the adjoining art glass display.
Contemporary Art Scavenger Hunt Try to find: • A piece of art that makes you happy • A piece that makes you sad • A girl in a yellow dress (Knight/Lawrence Gallery) • A man with a kite (Knight/Lawrence Gallery) • Two glass doggies (in glass display case) • The numbers 30 and 60 (Thermometer, in the Virginia and Bagley Wright Gallery) • Three black holes (Elegy to the Spanish Republic, 124, Wright Gallery) • A giant black swan (Moor Swan, in the Lyn and Jerry Grinstein Gallery) • A big orange square (Study for Homage to the Square Accordant, in the Poncho Gallery) • A parrot with bright red legs (Barcelona, in the Poncho Gallery)
Native Art of the Americas Third Floor, paid admission This magnificent collection is shown to great advantage in the expanded space.
Can’t Miss: Colorful button blankets, the platform side of a house, totem poles and a stage full of huge masks, many with animal faces.
Native Art Scavenger Hunt Try to find: • A dress made of cedar bark (how would you like to wear it?) • The man in the moon (Song for the Moon) • A snake crawling up a pole (Cane) • An orca (Kak basket, in the basket display case) • A canoe sailing into a whale’s mouth (also in the basket display case) • A wolf in a circle of fire (Walking Through My Fire) • A man with a tree growing out of his head (Uthl-Mecako) • A brown bear helmet with real bear teeth (Xoots Shadaa – Brown Bear Helmet) • A bird with a face on the under side of his beak (on the stage with masks) • A man with bird feet (mannequin in Thunderbird mask and full regalia)
Also on the third floor, you’ll find American Art and the adjoining Knudsen Family Room, where your children can take a break to dress up like kings or queens, have a pretend tea party, read a book or put together a puzzle. The small Australian and Oceanic Art Exhibit includes different kinds of “totem poles” and some paintings that will make you dizzy if you stare at them for more than a minute. The Asian Art Gallery contains a full Japanese Tea House. In the Textiles Gallery, there’s a pile of blankets reaching almost to the ceiling, reminiscent of the Princess and the Pea.
African Art Fourth Floor, paid admission Take the escalator up to the fourth floor to encounter African Art, the most spectacular exhibit in the new museum.
Can’t Miss: The Ultimate Spectacle – At the top of the escalator, see a group of costumed, masked dancers wearing outlandish mixtures of Western clothes, African ornamentation and traditional masks. As is true in much of the continent, there isn’t a clear line between old, tribal customs and modern life – they’re all wonderfully mixed together. Check out the girl in the Catholic school uniform and argyle socks with an animal mask. Actual performers are projected on a video screen to one side of the display. Next to the staged area is a traditional display of fantastical animal/human masks, including a 14-foot serpent. Children can turn around and see a video projection of dancers, at child height, performing with these types of masks.
Driving to the Next Life (coffin car) – A painted, white model of a Mercedes Benz was used to carry a dead person around the streets in Ghana in a funeral procession.
Nuclear Family by Yinka Shonibare is a vivid tribute to Victorian dress with West African accents – fancy dress-up on steroids.
African Art Scavenger Hunt Try to find: • A lady with a (red) alligator purse (costumed group at top of escalator) • Person with a necklace made of bones (same costumed group) • A chimpanzee mask (display of masks to the right of costumed mannequins) • An antelope riding another antelope (mask display) • Action figures and toy animals (display case in room with elevators) • Man with an elephant on his head (in display case directly across from elevators) • A yellow lion (stool in main room across from costumed dancers, with Nuclear Family) • A hat made of buttons (main room) • A chair with baby leopards holding up the seat (main room) • Armadillos and elephants (embroidered in Cloth of the Great, in main room; how many other different animals can you find in this piece?)
European Art Fourth Floor, paid admission European Art is jarringly displayed next to the African Art, and suffers by being much tamer on the surface. Children will have to pay more attention to appreciate its richness.
Don’t Miss: The Doge’s Palace and the Grand Canal, Venice by Luca Carlevariis and Market Scene by Paul Bril for their unbelievably intricate detail and layered perspective.
The tempestuous Triumph of Neptune by Luca Giordana, an outstanding example of the lushness of Renaissance art.
The Italian Room in the northeast corner of the floor, an entirely reconstructed room in incredibly intricate wood carvings from 1550-1600 Lombardy.
The Porcelain Room – With 1,000 pieces of European and Asian porcelain displayed in wall to ceiling glass cases, it’s too much for anyone to take in, let alone children. Try looking at child height for a: lion, sheep, peacock, windmill, fish, dragon and elephant.
Warning to Parents: There are plenty of naked ladies in this section. Of course, they’re tastefully and artistically rendered, but it’s best to be prepared ahead of time for questions and comments. There are lots of virgin and child paintings in the gallery of medieval religious art and a few of the crucifixion of Christ, but they are not particularly graphic.
European Art Scavenger Hunt Try to find: • At least three paintings with dogs in them (there are lots, including The Doge’s Palace and two others in the same room) • A shaggy white cow (Mercury & Argus) • An ostrich (Ostrich, a drawing) • Horses riding in waves (The Triumph of Neptune) • Another man in the moon (mantle clock in the center of Joshua Green Gallery) • A cauliflower and artichokes (The Origin of the Cornucopia) • An orange coming unpeeled (Banquet Still Life) • A man holding keys (Virgin and Child with Saints Paul and Peter, in the medieval/religious area) • A fish balancing on a book (Saint Ulrich, in the same area) • A calf with wings (St. Luke the Evangelist, in the religious/medieval area)
Also on this floor, you’ll find Ancient Mediterranean & Islamic Art, including Greek, Roman and Egyptian busts, votive figures, mosaics and Grecian urns.
The southern half of the fourth floor is devoted to the Special Exhibition Galleries and features rotating exhibits, most lasting a few months. Call or check the Web site for current offerings.
Wenda Reed is a Seattle journalist and art lover who has enjoyed finding different ways to introduce her children to art.
Editor's Note: This article first appeared in the July 2007 issue of Seattle's Child.
