Arts Spotlight
Editor’s note: In this monthly feature, our arts and culture writers take a deeper look at the local arts scene, shining a spotlight on issues and trends, both local and national, and the art makers in our community.
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“No!!!!!!” “Whyyyyyyy” “This is so disappointing.”
Not everyone used as many exclamation points or emojis. But the comments under the March 22 Instagram post in which Amanda Donnan announced that her position as chief curator at the Frye Art Museum had been eliminated, made it clear: The news came as a shock to the Pacific Northwest arts community.
A day earlier, the Frye had sent out a media release to announce that Donnan, who joined the museum in 2017 and most recently served as chief curator and director of exhibitions, would be leaving. The museum will hire a senior curator instead — a lower-level position. The institution also plans to recruit a director and curator of collections, a newly created role.
This personnel reshuffling comes a year after Jamilee Lacy took the reins as the museum’s new executive director. It’s not unusual for staff to leave in the wake of a leadership change, but Donnan’s departure — and the restructuring — is raising eyebrows in the local arts community. (Donnan declined to answer questions about her exit.)
The news is notable: Curators don’t always get the flowers or the headlines but they’re highly influential in steering an institution’s most visible “product” and fostering relationships with local and international artists and tastemakers.
“I’m part of a large community of U.S. curators who have followed the Frye closely since Amanda began her program there,” said Dan Byers, the director of Harvard University’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts.
“In an increasingly homogenized museum landscape, Amanda’s exhibitions at the Frye stood out on a national level,” said Byers, who also teaches curatorial studies at Harvard. “She championed little-known artists who would go on to make major contributions and organized deeply thoughtful group exhibitions around unexpected and urgent themes.”
Indeed, over the last seven years, Donnan was instrumental in raising the Frye’s national profile with an exciting and ambitious program. She also pulled off what some see as an impossible balancing act in our somewhat isolated corner of the country: championing homegrown talent while bringing in on-the-rise artists from elsewhere.
Donnan wove the Pacific Northwest art scene into the international web through invigorating two-person or group exhibits like “Group Therapy” and “Dress Codes” and gave local voices more visibility on a giant billboard on the museum’s exterior.
“The museum had already done a lot with Seattle artists before my time and was beloved in the community,” Donnan told me. “I wanted to bring that into dialogue with what’s happening nationally to give local audiences exposure to fresh perspectives and local artists more visibility outside our region. I think it has to be a two-way street. … to be noteworthy and honor the larger conversations artists here want to be, and are part of.”
During her tenure, she also organized timely shows of important voices, such as the first major survey of Duane Linklater, a leading contemporary artist who is Omaskêko Cree.
The exhibit’s unforgettable coup: the team partially demolished a wall in the museum, stripping off its drywall and exposing the electrical system. With red powder coat on steel studs, they spelled out “What Then Remainz,” a reference to a question by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor during a case about Native sovereignty.
“That work,” Donnan said, “will live on inside the museum indefinitely and keep on asking difficult questions about the land such institutions are built on and for whom.”
It’s one reason she’s proud of the show. Another is that the show later traveled to esteemed art institutions in Chicago and the Bay Area, a first for a Frye exhibit and a significant stamp of approval.
Donnan’s work at the Frye won her the respect of a wide swath of artists and peers, both locally and nationally. David Strand, a local curator who worked (and shared an office) with her for years in the Frye’s curatorial department said her “quick wit, intellectual rigor and thoughtfulness” brought both levity and creative thinking to their often stressful work days.
“Amanda brought a strong curatorial vision to the Frye along with the soft skills to execute that vision in a manner that was supportive [of] both the staff and the artists being exhibited, which is a rarer combination than it should be,” Strand wrote in an email. “It feels like a blow and marks a major loss for not only the museum but for Seattle as a whole.”
Artists, too, expressed support. “The warmth she holds for the artists she showcases is greatly admirable,” said Colleen RJC Bratton, a Seattle-based artist.
Bratton highlighted Frye exhibits by Srijon Chowdhury and Rafael Soldi — both PNW artists who are well-respected internationally but had yet to be celebrated locally — as examples of Donnan’s impact.
“Soldi and Chowdhury were able to expand upon concepts and narratives in bigger ways than they had before in part due to Donnan’s advocacy,” Bratton said. “It is a great loss for the Frye and for Seattle, and honestly very confusing for the artistic community.”
“What does it say about the Frye that [the position of] someone so adept and caring would be ‘eliminated due to restructuring’?”
The Frye, meanwhile, says it is “decentralizing” its curatorial program to better serve as a platform for a diverse range of voices and to more actively build connections between the exhibits and its permanent collection.
Ingrid Langston, a Frye spokesperson said the museum plans to add guest curators and artist-curators from Seattle and around the world (alongside the museum’s in-house curators) to the mix.
In response to the arts community’s concerns about the restructuring and Donnan’s departure, director Jamilee Lacy sent this statement: “We appreciate the passion artists feel about the Frye — all we ask is for folks to be patient and continue to let us know how we are doing over the next year.”
“We cherish our relationship with artists and the arts community and will continue to deepen our commitment to supporting local artists through more robust collecting and display efforts and building strong contextual relationships between artists elsewhere and those who call Seattle and the Pacific Northwest home,” Lacy said in the statement.
It’s unclear what’s next for Donnan. Many agree her talents will land her a great gig. But at the same time, there aren’t that many Frye-level museums in the region. Will a talented curator leave Seattle? Or, as Bratton suggested to Donnan in an Instagram comment: “Can we just start a new museum for you to curate for?”
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This coverage is partially underwritten by the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust. The funder plays no role in editorial decision making and The Seattle Times maintains editorial control over this and all its coverage.
