Weekend arts & culture picks: a dazzling exhibition at the Frye, live music, and outdoor theatre

Most Fridays on KUOW's All Things Considered, we're giving recommendations for the weekend. Today, our guide is Margo Vansynghel, arts & culture reporter for Crosscut.

Black Refractions: Highlights from the Studio Museum in Harlem

"It’s just a totally dazzling show. There are about 90 artworks by 80 artists and it ranges from the 1920s to today. There's sculpture, photography and painting and video and tapestry.

There's Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas, Kehinde Wiley, and Jacob Lawrence, of course. I think everyone will find something they like in this show. And even the work that was made about a century ago feels incredibly contemporary."

The Campfire Festival

"It kind of marks the comeback of in-person theater. The performers will sing and speak through microphones from the portico, or the balcony, of the Rainier Arts Center, and the audience will be seated on the lawn below. You’ll be sitting in your pod of course, so you’re also socially distanced.

It's organized by the theater collective, The Williams Project, and they're known for staging in original locations, like churches and cafeterias. They’ve created four half-hour shows that they’re going to present outdoors. Each night or afternoon, you'll see two different shows. And I would say that all of them seem really intriguing."

Artists Behind Glass

"This is happening tonight [Friday] on Capitol Hill at the Vermillion Art Gallery and Bar. The idea is that musicians perform inside the gallery. There's a big window. So it's a bit like a fishbowl situation, and the audience is outside on the street.

I was there two weeks ago, and it was my first concert with an audience in more than a year. The sky was getting dark. Inside there was a light show. There were I think two dozen people. And then by the time we were like five songs in, it had grown to 50 people --- people just walking by on Capitol Hill and being like, 'music, please!'"