SAM VSO Union is holding a rally outside the museum’s downtown location to show the museum’s insulated board of trustees that the community of Seattle is watching!

We are excited to invite you to a unique and inspiring event that blends art and advocacy! On October 29th, we will be hosting an Art Show & Union Fundraiser at Hotel Crocodile, Belltown.

This event is not only an opportunity to showcase our collective talent but also a crucial step in supporting our ongoing efforts. There will be Art available for purchase from our fellow talented and artistic colleagues, Food and Music!

Donations are needed to cover our ongoing legal fees and other union expenses, and your contributions ensure that we can continue to advocate for a better workplace and protect the rights of our community. Bring Cash. Please and Thank you!

Doors at 5pm, Music starts at 7pm

21+ Event

CALDER: IN MOTION, THE SHIRLEY FAMILY COLLECTION

NOV 8 2023 – OCT 20 2024

Closing Day for the Shirley Family Calder Collection, one of the most important private holdings of Calder's art and the result of 35 years of thoughtful collecting.

A new Calder exhibit "Following Space: Thaddeus Mosley & Alexander Calder" will open November 20th.

Meot: Korean Art from the Frank Bayley Collection

Aug 28 2024–Mar 9 2025

Seattle Asian Art Museum

The essence of the Korean term meot encompasses charm, style, elegance, beauty, and creativity, along with highly refined aesthetic sensibilities.

In tribute to Frank Bayley (1939–2022), a generous art patron and distinguished collector of East Asian art along with Western prints and drawings, this exhibition highlights Korean artworks created by seven of his close artist friends, alongside traditional works that he cherished for nearly half a century. Featuring over 60 artworks, including ceramics, calligraphy, paintings, and wooden works, the Meot exhibition illustrates Bayley's collecting vision: he admired both the continuity and innovation within traditional artworks and contemporary artistic expressions of Korean art. Similarly, the contemporary artists featured in the exhibition explore creativity while delving into Korean identities in their works and practices.

Meot: Korean Art from the Frank Bayley Collection is organized by the Seattle Art Museum. The exhibition is guest curated by Hyonjeong “HJ” Kim Han, Department Head and Joseph de Heer Curator of Arts of Asia at the Denver Art Museum.

On August 1st VSO Union members will head to Pike Place Market and meet up with Rachel the Pig at 12PM. We’ll be handing out flyers and buttons/stickers to folks in the market.

Come say hi!!

We will not rest until a fair contract is provided. And if you can’t make it please consider donating or send a letter to the museum. —> linktr.ee/samvsounion

All VSOs are welcomed to attend partial or full bargaining sessions with us and SAM’s representatives. It’s a great way to learn how close we are to our first contract. Please email us if you want to attend.

Jan 18 – Jul 7 2024 at SAAM

Tacoma-based international artist Anida Yoeu Ali makes her SAM debut with this solo exhibition that celebrates performance, public encounters, and political agitation as powerful art forms. In her work, Ali enacts fantastic mythical heroines as assertions of feminist, queer, and alternative visibilities. These personas are hybrids of different religious aesthetics to disrupt ideas around otherness. Her performances are invitations for viewers to wander, witness, and joyfully experience moments that transcend the ordinary. Central to many of her performances is her use of textiles, a practice rooted in her Cham-Muslim refugee migration experience—her family fled Cambodia with only the clothes on their backs.

Hybrid Skin, Mythical Presence explores two of Ali’s iconic performances: The Buddhist Bug and The Red Chador. The colorful, transformative garments worn by the artist and others during the performances—which the artist considers “artifacts” rather than artworks when not enacted by her—are on view. Video, photography, and other installation art bring viewers into previous performances of the works from site-specific locations around the world.

Join us for another Free First Thursday picket outside the Downtown Seattle Art Museum. Then head inside and enjoy free admission to the museum!

We will not rest until a fair contract is provided. And if you can’t make it to our picket, please consider donating or send a letter on our behalf —> linktr.ee/samvsounion

Seattle Pride commemorates the 50th anniversary of Pride celebrations in Seattle with the theme "Now!" — in honor of the original rallying cry for gay rights and queer visibility and is a powerful reminder of the LGBTQIA+ community’s resilience and legacy, both past and present. Seattle’s 50th annual Pride Month celebration will close out with the annual Seattle Pride Parade beginning at 4th Avenue and Pike Street and wrapping up at 2nd Avenue and Denny Way near Seattle Center.

Capitol Hill’s biggest event—one day only—is on Saturday, June 29, 2024. Join in for local and regional talent, food vendors, beer gardens, and a celebration in Seattle’s historic LGBTQIA+ neighborhood.

June 28 2024 - Jan 5 2025 at SAM

One of the 20th century’s most impactful American artists, Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000) is celebrated for his deftness as a visual storyteller. From serial elaborations of landmark events in American history, to genre scenes that capture the value of community, he perfected the devices of narrative and figuration at a time when abstraction dominated.

This focused exhibition brings together works by Lawrence from SAM’s and local collections in a series of case studies that survey the essential themes—family, community, history, human rights—that inform the artist’s works.

Seattle celebrates Pride on the last Sunday in June as part of the annual Pride Month festivities. This tradition commemorates the Stonewall Riots, which occurred in June 1969 and marked a pivotal moment in LGBTQIA+ history.

The Stonewall riots, also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall, were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Although the demonstrations were not the first instance in American history when people in the queer community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities, they have become the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.

An art-filled dinner party unlike any other, Party in the Park is SAM’s most anticipated fundraiser of the summer, combining playful art, incredible food, and stunning scenery for an unforgettable experience at SAM’s Olympic Sculpture Park

Special Exhibit at SAM June 21 - Sept 2

“IT WAS ALMOST LIKE ANTI-ART. . . A REBELLION.”– Patti Warashina

Tune in to an alternative art history you may not know. Organized by the Seattle Art Museum, Poke in the Eye celebrates the aesthetic practices that emerged across the West Coast in the 1960s and ’70s. Reacting against the sleekness, formality, and coldness of East Coast movements like Pop Art and minimalism, artists on the West Coast—particularly in Seattle and the Bay Area—began creating artwork that was intentionally offbeat. These artists used traditional craft techniques and bold color, centered figuration and narrative, and often employed an irreverent sense of humor. "Poke in the Eye" draws primarily on SAM’s collection to present an inclusive view of this countercultural style that continues to reverberate today.

Juneteenth (June 19th) marks the day in 1865 enslaved people in Galveston, Texas found out they had been freed — after the end of the Civil War, and two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. It was designated a federal holiday in 2021.

Support Museum Workers’ Fight for a Living Wage on Free First Thursday!

Join us in front of the museum on 1st Ave and Union St to learn more, get a button, and then go inside and enjoy free admission to the museum.

Ryan Durr and Tahlia Segura, spokespeople for the Seattle Art Museum Visitor Security Officers Union (SAM VSO), joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast to discuss their journey to forming a union. They also spoke about the reason for being an independent union and some of the main issues they want to fix with a first contract.

Listen to the episode on here to learn more about the SAM VSO unionization efforts.

America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports.

Learn more and listen to more podcast episodes on their website at awf.labortools.com

Jan 18 – Jul 7 2024 at SAAM

Tacoma-based international artist Anida Yoeu Ali makes her SAM debut with this solo exhibition that celebrates performance, public encounters, and political agitation as powerful art forms. In her work, Ali enacts fantastic mythical heroines as assertions of feminist, queer, and alternative visibilities. These personas are hybrids of different religious aesthetics to disrupt ideas around otherness. Her performances are invitations for viewers to wander, witness, and joyfully experience moments that transcend the ordinary. Central to many of her performances is her use of textiles, a practice rooted in her Cham-Muslim refugee migration experience—her family fled Cambodia with only the clothes on their backs.

Hybrid Skin, Mythical Presence explores two of Ali’s iconic performances: The Buddhist Bug and The Red Chador. The colorful, transformative garments worn by the artist and others during the performances—which the artist considers “artifacts” rather than artworks when not enacted by her—are on view. Video, photography, and other installation art bring viewers into previous performances of the works from site-specific locations around the world. During the run of the exhibition, Ali will enact the works in two separate performances: The Red Chador will be performed on March 23, 2024 and The Buddhist Bug will be performed on June 1, 2024.