After the success of last year’s Oregon Biennial, Jennifer Gately—the Portland Art Museum’s newly appointed curator of Northwest art—will turn her focus to a series of installations showcasing contemporary local art. Along with the Jubitz Center’s program of installations, this series, called APEX, continues the museum’s renewed commitment to exhibiting contemporary art. And yet, visiting […]
John Motley
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G. Lewis Clevenger
In an increasingly concept-driven art world, abstract painting can come across as a gutless kowtow to the well-trod territory of modernism. These days, explaining away abstraction as an expression of the inexpressible sounds more like a woeful lack of direction than adventurous art theory. It’s a relief, then, to see a gallery full of abstract […]
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Robert Colescott
Born in 1925, Robert Colescott was among a generation of American artists who abandoned figuration in favor of abstract expression. But Colescott, who studied under Fernand Leger in Paris, never adopted the approach of his contemporaries. Instead, he developed his own deeply expressive style, while continuing to paint people, scenes, and discernible stories. Unlike contemplative […]
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A Century of Collage
With A Century of Collage, the Elizabeth Leach Gallery celebrates its 25th anniversary as one of Portland’s most enduringly vital spaces. Fittingly, this commemorative group show displays the gallery’s formula for success: a mix of established international artists and fresh emerging talent. With Collage, luminaries such as Robert Motherwell, Lee Krasner, Kiki Smith, and Ray […]
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Ty Ennis
With standout inclusions in both this year’s Oregon Biennial and the grey/area exhibition at Guestroom Gallery, Ty Ennis has steadily built a reputation as one of the city’s most promising young artists. The Bronze Loss, Ennis’ third solo exhibition at the New American Art Union in as many years, continues to show how rapidly his […]
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Mark Newport
Heroic Endeavors
Invulnerable and morally unwavering, superheroes are the Freudian superego come to life. While normal people struggle to fight traffic or remember relatives’ birthdays, superheroes are busy rescuing the world from destruction at the hands of evil geniuses. There’s a sizable disparity between comic book fantasy and the real world, but such standards of heroism are […]
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Michael Knutson
The Art Gym at Marylhurst University
While the work of Michael Knutson has remained largely unknown to the public, a sprawling mid-career retrospective of the artist’s work just might change that. In a joint exhibition at Marylhurst’s Art Gym and Lewis & Clark’s Hoffman Gallery, this survey spans 25 years and includes everything from his enormous, vibrantly colored paintings to smaller […]
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Hadley+Maxwell
In their ongoing work entitled “The Décor Project,” the Vancouver, BC-based artists Hadley+Maxwell re-imagined the homes of curators, gallerists, and other artists, playing interior decorators for their subjects’ subconscious desires. With an interview that surveyed their subjects on matters from their taste in art (“If you could own any three artworks, what would they be?”) […]
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Diana Puntar
The general rule of thumb for displaying art is to craft an environment that enhances the viewing experience: white walls, strong light, and un-encroaching architecture. So it’s a welcome break from the norm that Brooklyn-based sculptor Diana Puntar’s An Hour on the Sun is turning that concept on its head with a presentation that effectively […]
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The Prince of Darkness
Letting Go with Will Oldham
WILL OLDHAM, WHO RECORDS under the moniker Bonnie “Prince” Billy, is no stranger to Portland. He played Kurt in director Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy, which adapted Jonathan Raymond’s Portland-centric novella for the screen, and was shot in and around the city. Now he’s returning for his encore performance: a three-night residency at the Mission Theater. […]
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MK Guth
Growing Stories
“Of course in retrospect, I see things differently,” explains the titular character in MK Guth’s multi-frame video, “Rapunzel.” “I should’ve been more proactive.” Played by the artist, Rapunzel sits on a sofa, addressing the viewer in a nonchalant, if somewhat rehearsed, confessional. The effect is that the five-minute monologue plays out like a mid-afternoon talk […]
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Pierre Huyghe
Although Pierre Huyghe’s body of work is incredibly diverse, it nonetheless demonstrates the Paris-born artist’s obsession with creating layered narratives—only to expose the entangled network of relationships that compose them. For Huyghe, whose video “This Is Not a Time for Dreaming” marks the Jubitz Center’s fourth contemporary art exhibition since it opened last fall, there […]