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Remember the Rain

Aug 18 2023–Oct 13 2024

Seattle Art Museum

A popular Haitian proverb says: “Remember the rain that makes your corn grow.”

his expression of gratitude, remembrance, perseverance, and an understanding of the connectedness between heaven and earth speaks to the themes that resonate across the works in this gallery. The belief in a close bond between the spiritual and earthly realms is vibrantly expressed in Haitian Vodou flags, or drapo, which draw upon influences from Yoruba beadwork, Roman Catholic vestments, and Masonic aprons. Their sequined compositions reference loa (major divine beings) of the land and sea; divine twins who liaise between heaven and earth; and the Sky Father, represented by a serpent, who is believed to be the creator of all life. Meanwhile, a group of mid-century Haitian paintings speak to earthly concerns. Boldly colored and graphically rendered, each painting presents a narrative scene that draws on different vantage points of Haitian life: the relationships between landscape and community and between the celestial and the earthly environment, and the mundane thrums of daily life.

Artists beyond Haiti in this gallery similarly engage these ideas. José Bedia’s work explores the possibility of a universal language of the cosmos, rooted in global Indigenous and Afro-Cuban traditions. Betye Saar’s use of found materials draws on her lifelong interest in mysticism and spirituality, looking to African ancestral figures, stories, and mythologies. Nearby, the stone sculptures of small animals by James Washington, Jr. form a quiet sentinel overlooking their environment: earthly in material and subject but resonating with what the artist described as a “spiritual force.”


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Jacob Lawrence: American Storyteller

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Remember the Rain

Aug 18 2023–Oct 13 2024

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Seattle Art Museum

American Art: The Stories We Carry

Oct 20 2022–ongoing

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Yirrkala: Art from Australia’s Top End

May 10 2024–ongoing

Seattle Art Museum

Impressionisms: The Global Nineteenth Century

Mar 27 2024–ongoing

Seattle Art Museum

Chronicles of a Global East

Oct 20 2022–ongoing

Seattle Art Museum

SAM on Paper: Rembrandt’s Etchings

Mar 27 2024–ongoing

Seattle Art Museum

Pacific Species

Dec 22 2022–ongoing

Seattle Art Museum

Conscious Constructions

Apr 29 2011–ongoing

Seattle Art Museum

Art and Life Along the Northwest Coast

Nov 26 2014–ongoing

Seattle Art Museum

Deities & Demons: Supernatural In Japanese Art

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Seattle Art Museum

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Seattle Art Museum

Cosmic Beings in Mesoamerican and Andean Art

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Seattle Art Museum

Porcelain Room

May 5 2007–ongoing

Seattle Art Museum

John Grade: Middle Fork

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Seattle Art Museum

Only Connect: The Art of Devotion

Apr 29 2011–ongoing

Seattle Art Museum

Following Space: Thaddeus Mosley & Alexander Calder

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Seattle Art Museum

Joyce J. Scott: Walk a Mile in My Dreams

Oct 17 2024–Jan 19 2025

Seattle Art Museum