Despite a crushing pandemic, Portland’s art scene never went away. But it was damaged and left many longtime artistic professional institutions, amateur groups, and hustling individual performers and artists with the task of rebuilding and re-imagining. And so, a “reintroduction” of sorts is necessary for returning Portland audiences, as they sink into familiar or refurbished […]
Fall Arts 2022
Your guide to the triumphant return of the arts community, post-pandemic.
Posted inFall Arts 2022
Fall Arts 2022: The Portland Mercury Reintroduces Portland’s Art Scene
Portland’s art scene is back, and here’s how it’s going to blow your mind this fall.
“It’s like in that Jay-Z song Dirt off Your Shoulder,” I told my boss. “‘Allow me to reintroduce’ Portland’s art scene.” The whole pitch would have gone better if I’d just stopped there, and not tried to explain Jay-Z’s ’90s era “Hov” nickname. Much like the motherfucking greatest, Portland’s art scene never went away. Yet […]
Posted inFall Arts 2022
Portland Comedy Apocalypse
Five local favorites look back on how the pandemic changed their careers and the city’s comedy scene.
The idea was simple enough: Talk to five comedians about the pandemic. Find out how they see Portland’s changing comedy scene. While it seems easy to ask that now, we couldn’t have written this piece six months ago. Coming off the winter surge—no one could say where Portland comedy was going. But now? There’s an […]
Posted inFall Arts 2022
Fucking A with a Capital Abortion
“You cannot do this play without talking about race,” Shaking the Tree’s Samantha Van Der Merwe says.
Shaking the Tree is a staple to Portland audiences. It’s a theater company that both embraces classics and subverts them, where audiences can start from a place of familiarity before leaping into the unexpected. Housed in an unassuming SE Portland warehouse, it has produced memorable versions of Macbeth, and the Bakkai, in addition to inventive […]
Posted inFall Arts 2022
A Decade of the Portland Film Festival
Milestones be damned, PFF wants its own movie theater.
It was nearly a decade ago that Paste called the Portland Film Festival (PFF) a “rising star” that “reflects the beautiful, crazy, eclectic, nutty city it lives in.” Now, going into their tenth year, the festival is looking to make the most of 2022, with additional films and more opportunities for audiences to connect. Clocking […]
Posted inFall Arts 2022
Flashes of the 2020 Protests
The Portland Art Museum’s Perspectives celebrates photographers of color who captured the 2020 George Floyd protests, but images of police violence are strangely absent.
While Perspectives displays mostly images of hope, collaboration, and emotional explosion, it completely lacks examples of the police brutality that underscored the conflict and galvanized Portland’s protests.
Posted inFall Arts 2022
Portland Art Galleries, a Reintroduction
Fall visual art shows, and the galleries that love them.
Whether you’re new to Portland or haven’t left your house in a while, fall is a great time to refamiliarize yourself with the multitude of spaces that make up Portland’s effervescent art ecology. Since the city has a longstanding history of being home to artists, makers, and all types of creatives, this list could get […]
Posted inFall Arts 2022
Your Guide to Fall 2022 Arts Events in Portland
Jonathan Van Ness, Portland Book Festival, and More Top Picks
Cooler weather calls for ducking inside, whether it’s to catch a film at the cinema, see your favorite artist light up the stage in a dark venue, take in a lecture, or peruse an art show. To keep you supplied with a steady dose of culture, we’ve rounded up the most noteworthy arts events this […]
Posted inFall Arts 2022
Start Your Time-Based Art Engines
PICA’s 2022 TBA festival schedule reveals themes of personal journeys, communal healing, cosmic connections, and sensory immersion.
Every September, the Time Based Art Festival (TBA) kicks off what I think of as “art season” in Portland. The Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) brings artists from around the world (and local favorites, too) to their headquarters and various other locations around town to present work that is often beautiful, sometimes challenging, and […]