The Mike Hascall Retrospective was a rare look at fifty years of work by a beloved Seattle artist who chose to release nearly his entire archive back into the community.
Presented at Common Area Maintenance and Common Objects, the exhibition and online auction invited visitors into the full sweep of Hascalls practice, from early experimental drawings to large scale paintings and mixed media pieces.
Instead of holding his work in storage, Hascall offered each piece at accessible prices to support CAM and our efforts to preserve cultural space.
The result was a gathering that brought together longtime followers, new audiences, collectors, students, neighbors, and many emerging artists who were encountering his work for the first time. The retrospective became both a celebration of a lifetime of art making and a deeply generous act of care for the next generation of artists in Seattle. If you want, I can also write a shorter version for the exhibition index or expand this into full catalog text.
