Japanese artist Yaoyi Kusama’s hallucinatory work is featured in the Elles: SAM exhibit. (Yoyi Kusama, Yellow tree/Living Room, 2010, seen at Aichi Triennale at Nayabashi Venue)

Oh my god! Run! Women are taking over the Seattle Art Museum!

SAM is currently running two related exhibitions devoted to female artists from around the globe.

The first Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou, Paris is a selection of the 200 works that were exhibited at Centre Pompidou in France since 2009. This is a major event for SAM, not only because this is the exhibit’s only stop in the United States, but it is the first time SAM has de-installed its permanent exhibit since the day it moved downtown 2007. Huge!

Bringing a show like this to town is no simple endeavor. It took the Centre Pompidou years to put the original exhibition together and it took SAM two years to organize to bring it to Seattle.

So hats off to the SAM’s staff. To see SAM’s physical space in a new light, filled with the art that is all by women artists is amazing. I enjoyed seeing works by O’Keeffe, Guerrilla Girls, Khalo and learning about works of numerous artists I did not know.

But there were a few parts of the show that cast a shadow on my ability to be fully taken by the work: The language used throughout the exhibitions and in marketing materials, and the lack of global diversity in the selection of artists represented.

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