Bellevue Arts Museum is living up to its acronym. Coming off the re-imagined Bellwether Arts Week, BAM isn’t slowing down as we move into Bellevue Magic Season.
What makes BAM so unique among our region’s art museums is its unlimited potential – because it has no permanent collection, the featured artworks are ever-changing, fresh and new. Benedict Heywood, BAM’s Executive Director, said recently that this makes the museum more of an art hall, with an orientation focused on the experience of the audience, rather than the showing of a particular collection of works. Benedict also highlighted BAM’s focus on art, craft, and design, making the museum a, “show of all human creation”, from the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
At its core though, BAM is Bellevue’s art museum, “a jewel on the Eastside, and a human need” said Mona Lee Locke at the BAM Breakfast for Community Leaders. The museum is an architectural anchor downtown, one of Steven Holl’s first designs in the states, and this winter it will also be a source of light. For the first time in 15 years, the third-floor windows will be opened, allowing light to emanate from the building. There is also an addition of two exterior neon sculptures, tubes filled with naturally glowing noble gases, on display throughout the Bellevue Magic Season.
Other upcoming exhibitions include the Biennial Glasstastic, a juried exhibition focused on the works of established and emerging Northwest artists, craftspeople, and designers with an emphasis on new work. If you’d like to be one of the first to see it, RSVP to the free Preview Party on November 8th where you’ll also have access to view Dylan Neuwirth’s OMNIA, a decade in the making project tracing a metaphoric life-cycle, and the Polaroid collections of Robert E Jackson: Personal, Private, Painterly.
Bellevue Arts Museum is free the first Friday of each month, students are invited to visit for free every second Wednesday. Find more info on hours, admission, and membership here.
