Victoria Haven: art ltd.

REPORT: Seattle
by Suzanne Beal
Mar 2013

It all started with a single work of art. The sale of Louise Bourgeois' Spider Home in 2012 provided the necessary seed money to create The New Foundation Seattle, a private foundation founded by creative philanthropist and art collector Shari D. Behnke, dedicated to advancing Seattle's contemporary art scene. The sale of Spider Home brought in $566,500--not enough to carry the foundation indefinitely. But it laid the seed. Since launching in July of 2012, they've strengthened the position of contemporary art and production in Seattle through the support of individual artistic development; connected the work of Seattle artists to institutions outside the region; paid for nationally acclaimed curators to visit local working artists; granted funding to the University of Washington's School of Art to develop their contemporary art curriculum and present a series of public lectures on contemporary art practice and theory; and purchased works of art by Seattle artists for permanent collections both in and outside the region. "Gifting works to the foundation is a way of repurposing art," explains Behnke.

The foundation consists of three primary programs: Acquisitions, Education, and Public, all of which move fluidly between one another. "We're looking to challenge the system in which we've both operated," explains Yoko Ott, curator, organizer, former Executive Director of Open Satellite and current Foundation Director. "How can this transaction be made meaningful by envisioning the needs of artists and the programs that support them?" Christie's Auction House must have considered it a cause worth supporting. They waived out-of-pocket costs associated with the sale of Bourgeois' work, featured it in a two-page spread in their September 19, 2012 catalog, and offered an overview of the foundation along with an explanation as to how the chunk of change received for Spider Home would be put to good use.

While envisioning how they could best serve the artistic community, Behnke and Ott took a mom and pop survey of museum-worthy artists in Seattle, and then found ways to get the word out. For example, inviting curators from the New Museum and Walker Art Center for an all-expenses-paid trip to Seattle, during which virtually all of Seattle's institutions, including the Seattle Art Museum, The Frye, and The Henry, had the work of the region's artists hanging alongside works from their permanent collections. Once there they also visited the studios of numerous local artists deserving of wider recognition, including Victoria Haven, Whiting Tennis, Isaac Layman, and Wynne Greenwood.

Behnke is no stranger to the art of supporting artists. She and husband John Behnke are the money and minds behind the Neddy Award, which gives two $25,000 unrestricted awards annually to artists living and working in the greater Puget Sound region; and The Brink, a $12,500 non-restricted biennial award given to an emerging visual artist working in Washington, Oregon, or British Columbia. Neddy Award winners have included artists such as Jeffry Mitchell, Claire Cowie, Whiting Tennis, Charles Kraft, and Akio Takamori, while The Brink, launched in 2008 most recently awarded funds to video artist Isabelle Pauwels from Vancouver. This last recognizes and encourages visual artists whose early work shows a high level of creativity and originality and holds clear promise of expressing new ideas and perspectives over the long term. Recipients are given a solo exhibition at the Henry, (located on the University of Washington Campus), and a work of their art will be acquired for the museum's collection. In a sense, The New Foundation Seattle takes the Brink's model--one that combines community engagement, educational opportunity, and acquisition, and places it within the broader, national context. By opening up the Seattle's (studio) doors, Ott and Behnke have substantially increased outside access to the wealth of artists living and working in Seattle.

Ott explains, "We're trying to move the focus away from the object, or the assets, and towards purposeful actions in the community. It's not only extending the goodwill, but also rethinking the purpose of works of art." In Bourgeois' Spider Home, a female spider stands protectively over her offspring--not a bad metaphor for a work whose sale supports artists in the Northwest that follow in Bourgeois' wake, in no small part by fostering a web of resources, all with their eye on Seattle.

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