CoCA Digital Archive:

1986-1989

1986

CoCA Season Celebration: Einsturzende Neubauten Performance

Event Date: June 8, 1986
Location: 3130 Alaskan Way on Seattle's Elliot Bay waterfront
Performers: Einsturzende Neubauten

  • The German industrial band, Einsturzende Neubauten, performed at Myrtle Edwards Park on the Seattle waterfront. The performance was sponsored by CoCA to celebrate the end of the 1986 curatorial season.We were excited to discover that Seattle Syndrome posted this footage from the show on YouTube. Credits: Spiral Productions.

Feminists & Misogynists

Exhibition Dates: March 7 - April 5, 1986
Location: 1516 2nd Ave at CoCA Performance Gallery
Curator: Robert Costa
Artists: Lydia Lunch and Clint Rain

  • Feminists and Misogynists Together At Last featured works centered around sex and sexism by over 40 artists. Its opening took place on March 7, from 7pm-Midnight, and included performances by Lydia Lunch and Clint Rain. Admission to the opening was $4, or free to members of CoCA.Feminists and Misogynists also featured a panel discussion entitled "Porn in the U.S.A.", held on March 9th. "Porn in the U.S.A." was moderated by Robert Costa, and included Lydia Lunch, Linda Jordan, Cathy Hillenbrand, Ena Swansea, Selma Waldman and John Copoulos as panelists.Admission to the panel discussion was $3, or free to members.

1987

Video Babies and the Mountain

Exhibition Dates: April 3 - May 31, 1987
Location: Capitol Hill, 425 Broadway East, Seattle WA
Artist: Nam June Paik

  • In the spring of 1987, CoCA presented Nam June Paik, considered the father of video art, and the world premiere of his piece “Video Babies on the Mountain: A Simular Video Environment.” The large installation consisted of 50 vintage 1940’s and 1950’s televisions arranged in a loose pyramid with several of Paik’s video babies placed along the structure in various animated poses. The babies were comprised of smaller televisions that played silent, fast moving images, controlled by a video synthesizer. The show was held inside the Broadway Market located at 425 Broadway East in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. A portfolio of ten sketches by Paik was on display at the Linda Hodges Gallery from April 2 to May 3.

    Here's a copy of the exhibition poster from the Cooper Hewitt archives.

    The Nam June Paik archive is held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and features archivists' blogs, curators' talks, webinars, online exhibitions, classroom materials and more. We recommend a visit.

California Natural Foods

Event Date: March 14, 1987 (info on duration of piece to come)
Location: Downtown, 1st Ave at Seneca Street, Seattle WA
Curator: Martha Winans
Artist: Judith Barry

  • This exhibition featured the multimedia artist and art professor, Judith Barry. Her installation was originally conceived in 1980 where CoCA Cola Corporation was throwing a party for their vendors on a dilapidated pier in San Francisco. Barry encountered controversy during the project, as Coca Cola did not agree with her vision and rejected her proposals (which can be seen here.)

    In 1987 the "Coca Cola Natural Foods Hut," a hexagonal structure made up of approximately 10,000 empty Coca Cola cans was re-conceived in Seattle on the corner of First and Seneca streets. The installation was part of the 1987 season which was curated by Martha Winans (at the time, CoCA would bring in a new curator for each season).

    The photograph above is of the "Consumer Parade," part of the opening festivities held on March 14, 1987. According Joan Anderman's review in The Weekly (March 18, 1987), the audience participated in a Parade of Values "from Victor Steinbrueck Park to a grassy plot on the corner of First and Seneca" where Barry revealed her installation. "Parade participants formed a wagon train of grocery store carts around Barry's creation, a wooden gazebo tiled with Classic Coke cans and surrounded by a moat filled with thousands more." John Keister of Almost Live! cut the ribbon while chanting "Work, Buy, Consume, Die!" Johnny Renton of The Rocket newspaper noted that the installation took place in the Rocket's recently demolished space: "...CoCAnuts by the score...stuffed themselves inside the gazebo and waited for something else to happen (April 1987)."

1988

Psychic TV

Event Date: April 1, 1988
Location: 1420 1st Avenue in downtown Seattle
Artists: Psychic TV, Bruce Pavitt

  • The experimental band, Psychic TV, performed "Stations of the Cross" at the Showbox Club in downtown Seattle on April 1, 1988. The evening included local video shorts curated by Bruce Pavitt founder of Sub Pop Records. An announcement for the show, and a whole lot of other interesting information about what was happening at the time, can be found in this Spring 1988 CoCA Newsletter.

Terminal Privileges

Exhibition Dates: April 22 - June 18, 1988
Location: 1309 First Ave, Seattle
Curator: Edward Leffingwell
Artist: Michael Tracy Featured Image: Altar Service by Michael Tracy

  • Michael Tracy, a longtime resident of the border region between Texas and Mexico, specializes in creating art with a Christian tint to it – not the mealy-mouthed spiritualism of the present day, but the true passion and suffering that personified the life of Christ. With this torment, Tracy creates echoes with reality, transposing the life and death of Christ with the modern world. Terminal Privileges is a collection of some of this work. Edward Leffingwell, curator of this exhibition, described Tracy’s work as “an intense investigation of grand themes, ritual, belief, history, society, passion and obsession.” ArtNews referred to this exhibition as “a single audacious exercise in cultural collage.” No matter what the accolades, there is no question that Terminal Privileges is custom designed to make you sit up and think, regardless of your station in life.

At The Edge

Exhibition Dates: July 8 - August 20, 1988
Location: 1309 First Avenue in downtown Seattle
Curator: Beth Sellars
Artists: Russell Rosander, Joseph Schneider and Clarice Dreyer
Special Guest: William S. Burroughs

Just Plain Folk

Exhibition Date: July 10, 1988
Location: Kane Hall, University of Washington, Seattle

  • Just Plain Folk was a panel discussion held at Kane Hall at the University of Washington. Among the topics discussed were religious implications in visionary artwork, the influence of folk art on contemporary artists, academic prejudices towards untrained artists, and a survey of contemporary visionary and outsider artists. The panelists consisted of curator and artist Roger Manley of North Carolina State University, novelist and visual artist William S. Burroughs of Lawrence, Kansas, writer and curator Tom Patterson of the Southern Arts Foundation and the Jargon Society, curator Beth Sellars of the Cheney Cowles Memorial Museum in Spokane, WA, local folk art dealer Mia McEldowney and regional artists Ed Wicklander and Merrilee Tompkins.

Seattle: Before and After

Exhibition Dates: October 7 - November 7, 1988
Location: 1309 First Avenue in Seattle's in Sodo
Curator: Larry Reid Artist & Panelists: Listed below. Featured Image: Performer: Johanna Went | Photographer: Unknown

  • Artists: Lise Apatoff, John Cage, Ford Crull, Chuck Close, Nick Fennel, Bill Hoppe, Sheila Klein, Christine Larsen, Steve Larson, Michael Lawson, Michael Lucero, Gale McCall, Mark Michaelson, Ries Niemi, Susan Nininger, Peter Santino, Bob Seng, Debra Sherwood, Roger Shimomura, Thurman Statum, Kim Steele, Charles Stokes, Mark Strath, Merrill Wagner.

    Panelists: Chris Bruce (curator, Henry Art Gallery) moderator Alfredo Arreguin, Sherry Markovits, Susan Nininger, Peter Santino

    Seattle: Before and After was the first exhibition in CoCA’s first ever fall season as the organization moved away from a four-month season to year-round programming. Curator and Program Director Larry Reid (currently manager of Fantagraphics bookstore) pulled this show together with a shoestring budget after Seattle Arts Commission denied funding for the show. Before and After looked to explore the question of leaving town to further one’s career. Twenty-four former Seattle artists were brought to CoCA to present two artworks, one created during their formative years spent in Seattle and one created after they moved elsewhere. Hung side by side, the viewer was meant to compare them and question the reason behind the differences. Hoping to answer some of the questions raised during the exhibit as well as to discuss the pros and cons of being an artist in Seattle, a panel discussion titled “To Leave or Not to Leave”, was held on October 9. For opening night, Roger Nelson (previously faculty at Cornish College, not the other Roger Nelson) performed some of John Cage’s work on the artist’s prepared piano. This was followed by a performance by Johanna Went, featuring Mark and Brock Wheaton, who were members of Seattle’s seminal new wave band, Chinas Comidas. This was Went’s first Seattle performance in five years.

1989

Modern Primitives

Exhibition Dates: June 23 - August 26, 1989
Location: 1309 First Avenue in downtown Seattle
Curators: V. Vale and Andrea Juno
Artists: Bobby Neel Adams, Dan Micoletta, Bill Samon, Leslie Gladsjo and others.

  • "Modern Primitives: An Investigation of Contemporary Adornment and Ritual" featured tattooing and body decoration of a variety of subcultures. The exhibition was curated by V. Vale and Andrea Juno, founders of Re/Search Magazine who called it "an investigation of contemporary adornment and ritual." The exhibit presented the photographs by Bobby Neel Adams, Dan Micoletta, Bill Samon and others of Modern Primitives luminaries such as Fakir Musafar and Tattoo Mike Wilson. The exhibition ran June 23-August 26 and the opening night reception featured live tattoo demonstrations by Madame Lazonga, tattoo and fashion show, sword swallowing and fire eating performance by circus performer, Captain Don Leslie and films by Leslie Gladsjo. "Modern Primitives" was part of a series curated by CoCA Program Director Larry Reid as a response to the National Endowment for the Arts funding cutbacks and the politically repressive climate of the period. In an unpublished interview, Reid mentioned that there was a constant line of people waiting to pay $1 to see the exhibit (CoCA Members free).

CoCA Cabana

Event Series Dates: May 26 - December 1989
Location: 1305 First Avenue in Seattle's downtown
Artists & Curators: Listed below

  • "CoCA Cabana" was a performance event series featuring national and regional artists that occurred several times in CoCA's history (first in 1987) and featured artists in the fields of literary and performance art, experimental film, and music. Events were held cabaret style, in an intimate environment at the CoCA gallery on First Avenue.

    The 1989 performance series was kicked off with literary artist Kathy Acker on May 26; she also held a workshop for local artistshis article and writers. According to CoCA Director, Larry Reid, riot-grrrl Kathleen Hanna took Acker's workshop; it was so influential that it inspired Hanna to start the band Bikini Kill. You can learn more about that historic meeting in this article in the New Yorker and in the Sini Anderson film The Punk Singer.

    Other artists/performers included:

    First Series (summer 1989)

    • Film and Video presentation by Mark Pauline and Jonathan Reiss of Survival Research Laboratories.

    • Comedy and performance art by Susy Schneider and Robert Thomas

    • Multimedia Performance by Roger Shimomura

    • SUBPOP showcase organized by Bruce Pavitt and John Poneman featuring this mind-blowing lineup (note that it was only SUBPOP's second year in business): Black Supersuckers, Cat Butt, Tad, Gwar, Dickless, Dwarves, Mudhoney, and Nirvana

    Second Series (fall 1989)

    • Performance artist Karen Finley

    • A film presentation by filmmaker Klaus Maeck. You can check out one of his films here.

    • "Counterfeit Masterpieces of Twentieth Century Art" curated by Charles Krafft and featuring 50 regional artists and opened with a Gala Halloween Masque Ball entitled "Come as You Art"

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