Greg Lundgren

{{Infobox person

| name = Greg Lundgren

| image =

| alt =

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| birth_date = {{birth based on age as of date |36 |2006|06|14}}

| birth_place = Bellevue, Washington

| nationality = American

| occupation = Artist and funeral monument businessperson

}}

Greg Lundgren is a Seattle-based artist, author, filmmaker and entrepreneur.

Museum of Museums

Lundgren is the founder of Museum of Museums, a contemporary art center in Seattle, Washington.{{Cite web|last=Streefkerk|first=Mark Van|date=2020-10-05|title=Building a better Seattle with more artists, First Hill's Museum of Museums set to open in November|url=https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2020/10/building-a-better-seattle-with-more-artists-first-hills-museum-of-museums-set-to-open-in-november/|access-date=2020-11-22|website=CHS Capitol Hill Seattle|language=en-US}}

Vital 5 Productions

Vital 5 Productions was a "one-man arts organization" for which Lundgren won a Genius Award in 2003. The program created exhibits, publications and issued grants.{{citation|work=CityArts|title=The Softer Side of Death|date=May 8, 2012|author=Amanda Manitach|url=http://cityartsonline.com/blog/2012/05/softer-side-death|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140509033052/http://www.cityartsonline.com/blog/2012/05/softer-side-death|url-status=usurped|archive-date=May 9, 2014}} In 2007, it was the subject of an eight-week 911 Media Arts Center retrospective called "Straight to Video: the first 10 years of Vital 5".{{citation|title=Straight to Video|url=http://blog.henryart.org/2007/06/05/straight-to-video/|work=Henry blog|publisher=Henry Art Gallery|location=Seattle|date=June 5, 2007|access-date=December 22, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141223015219/http://blog.henryart.org/2007/06/05/straight-to-video/|archive-date=December 23, 2014|url-status=dead}}

Lundgren wrote The Vital 5 Cookbook, published in 2006, as a set of "recipes" for exhibition and self-expression.{{citation|title=The Vital 5 Cookbook|publisher=Vital 5 Productions|url=http://vital5productions.com/projects/v5cookbook.html}} The title may have been a reference to The Anarchist Cookbook.

Lundgren started Vital 5's Arbitrary Art Grants program in 2009, issuing $500 grants to local artists to "serve as catalysts to create large-scale group projects and performances".{{citation|title=10 years of Arbitrary Art Grants|date=December 2, 2012|publisher=Walden Three Seattle|url=http://w3seattle.com/blog/10-years-of-arbitrary-art-grants/}}

In 2015, Vital 5 Productions retrofitted the 3rd floor of the historic King Street Station in downtown Seattle for contemporary art exhibition. This 22,000 square foot space hosted Out of Sight - a survey of contemporary art in the Pacific Northwest concurrent with the Seattle Art Fair. Giant Steps - a 48 Hour Artist Residency on the Moon, a group exhibition and competition, opened in the space on March 3, 2016. The second year of Out of Sight will launch on August 4, 2016.

Lundgren Monuments

His funeral monument business, Lundgren Monuments, opened in 2004, and he opened a "death boutique" showroom on Seattle's First Hill in 2008 including work by other artists such as Jesse Edwards and Michael Leavitt. Lundgren has been noted for "bring[ing] more art and design into the world" of death care, and creating "a renaissance in the funerary arts in 21st-century America".

Lundgren Monuments specializes in large-scale cast glass monuments with the intent of bringing more color, light and diversity into the cemetery landscape. They also design and build modern urns and host group exhibitions focused on contemporary design and alternatives to traditional death care.

An exhibit at Lundgren Monuments in 2010 was called "the first time in history that a group of architects have focused their talents on the cremation urn as an architectural object".

An urn/artwork called The Final Turn, which he collaborated with architect Tom Kundig in designing, was noted in Robb Report and The New York Times, and is shown in Cooper-Hewitt's National Design Awards gallery.

The Order of the Good Death

Lundgren, along with mortician and author Caitlin Doughty, TED speaker Jae Rhim Lee, alternative funeral home director Jeff Jorgenson, and other death professionals, founded The Order of the Good Death, promoting alternative death care and putting Seattle in the forefront of this new endeavor.{{citation|title=Hot topics: Hey funeral directors, move out of the way! | editor=Damon Sayles | work=Funeral Home and Cemetery Executive Briefing|date=December 16, 2014|url=http://www.multibriefs.com/briefs/MV-FuneralEB/MV-FUNERALEB121614.php|accessdate=2014-12-26}}{{citation|title=Members: Death Professionals|publisher=The Order of the Good Death|url=http://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/members/death-professionals|accessdate=2014-12-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170606131408/http://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/members/death-professionals|archive-date=2017-06-06|url-status=dead}}

Awards

The Stranger's Genius Award (Organization), 2003

Books and film

;Books

Lundgren has written two children's books and one book about making art.

{{citation| first=Greg | last=Lundgren | title=The Vital 5 Cookbook: Recipes for the Contemporary Artist, Curator & Troublemaker | year=2006 | publisher=A Vital 5 Production | isbn=978-0977908004}}
{{citation| first=Greg | last=Lundgren | title=Greenview Cemetery | year=2012 | isbn=978-0977908011}}
{{citation| first=Greg | last=Lundgren | title=Maybe Death is Like a Light | year=2012 | isbn=978-0977908028}}

;Film

Lundgren's feature length one-take film CHAT, starring Rosalie Edholm as a camgirl sex worker, was screened at the Northwest Film Forum in July, 2014, and again in September for Seattle's Local Sightings Film Festival.{{citation|title=Greg Lundgren's CHAT puts the "work" in sex work | author=Chris Burlingame | date=September 25, 2014 |work=The SunBreak|url=http://thesunbreak.com/2014/09/25/greg-lundgrens-chat-puts-the-work-in-sex-work/}}{{citation|title=Sex in Seattle | date=July 30, 2014 | author=Amanda Manitach | work=CityArts | url=http://www.cityartsonline.com/articles/sex-seattle| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010061917/http://www.cityartsonline.com/articles/sex-seattle| url-status=usurped| archive-date=October 10, 2014}}

References

{{reflist|30em|refs=

{{citation | title=Maker of glass tombstones sees life in cemeteries |author=Nick Eaton | date=June 14, 2006 | newspaper=Seattle Post-Intelligencer | url=http://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/Maker-of-glass-tombstones-sees-life-in-cemeteries-1206208.php}}

{{citation|newspaper=The Stranger|title=Cookbooks and Tombs: Vital 5's Greg Lundgren Believes in Art|author=Jen Graves|date=July 6, 2006 | url=http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=40099}}

{{Citation | title=Greg Lundgren and the Art of Living | work=Vanguard Seattle | date=September 11, 2013 | url=http://www.vanguardseattle.com/2013/09/11/seattle-artist-greg-lundgren-and-the-art-of-living/}}

{{citation| title=Death boutique, wine and cheese, tra-la! | date=June 11, 2008 | work=Seattle Twist | author=Marlow Harris | url=http://seattletwist.com/2008/06/11/deathcare-boutique-wine-and-cheese-tra-la/}}

{{citation| title=Modern Homes for the Dead | journal=Funeral Business Advisor | date=September 8, 2014 | url=http://funeralbusinessadvisor.com/modern-homes-for-the-dead/funeral-business-advisor |quote=Greg Lundgren has been designing and championing high craft, modern urns, and brought some of the leading 21st century architects and designers into the conversation. Architects like Tom Kundig, Lorcan O’Herlihy, George Suyama and Eric Kahn. Designers such as Stefan Gulassa, Mark Mitchell and Arne Pihl. This conversation is very much alive and changing the way we consider our last home. Do the people you love reside in cardboard boxes? Lundgren Monuments believes that with death comes the opportunity to bring more art and design into the world, that monuments and urns help define our cultural heritage, and at present, we are failing in our approach to death and the legacies we leave behind.}}

{{citation|journal=Robb Report Home & Style | title=Urn Style | author=Samantha Brooks | date=May 15, 2013 |url=http://robbreport.com/home-and-design/urn-style|quote=Easily mistaken for a purely decorative object, the Final Turn is actually an urn. The Seattle-based architect Tom Kundig, of Olson Kundig Architects, created the piece with the designer Greg Lundgren, of Seattle’s Lundgren Monuments ... }}

{{citation|url=http://ndagallery.cooperhewitt.org/gallery/The-Final-Turn/7698071 | publisher=Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum |work=National Design Awards gallery|date=March 19, 2013|title=The Final Turn (product design)}}

{{citation|title=A Work of Art Where You Can Rest in Peace| author=Julie Lasky | newspaper=The New York Times|date=December 12, 2012|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/garden/a-funerary-urn-designed-by-tom-kundig.html}}

{{citation| work=Archinect.com | date=June 25, 2010 | url=http://archinect.com/features/article/99482/showcase-death-by-rock-and-roll | title=Death by Rock and Roll}}

{{citation| title=The Architect and the Urn exhibit | work=ArchDaily | date=June 4, 2010 | url=http://www.archdaily.com/63304/the-architect-and-the-urn-exhibit/}}

{{citation|title=The Art of Dying: How One Guy in Seattle Is Changing What Happens When We Die | author=Brendan Kiley | newspaper=The Stranger | date=July 17, 2008 | url=http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-art-of-dying/Content?oid=620532}}

{{Citation | title=2003 Stranger Organization Genius Vital 5 | author=Emily Hall | newspaper=The Stranger | year=2003 | url=http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Special/Genius?view=geniuses&oid=15926}}

{{citation|title=Straight To Video | author=Regina Hackett | newspaper=Seattle Post-Intelligencer | date=June 4, 2007 | url=http://blog.seattlepi.com/art/2007/06/04/straight-to-video/}}

{{Citation |last= Kiley |title= It's Time to Think About Your Demise; An Interview with Caitlin Doughty, Author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Doyenne of Death |first= Brendan |newspaper= The Stranger |date= September 17, 2014 |url= http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/its-time-to-think-about-your-demise/Content?oid=20613253 |accessdate= September 18, 2014 }}

{{citation|title=Enough Talk About Your Youth—Let's Talk About Your Death: Seattle Is at the Forefront of Innovative Thinking About What to Do with Dead Bodies|first=Brendan|last=Kiley|newspaper= The Stranger |date= September 17, 2014 |url=http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/enough-talk-about-your-youthandmdashlets-talk-about-your-death/Content?oid=20607997}}

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