Ivan McClellan Photographer Ivan McClellan grew up watching Western movies and Bonanza reruns, and going to rodeos with his family in Kansas City. But as a kid, he never saw earnest depictions of cowboys that looked like him. “I didn’t know a thing about Black cowboys,” says McClellan in a recent interview with the Mercury. […]
Visual Art
Posted inVisual Art
Portland Art Museum Reopens With Upcoming Ansel Adams Exhibit, Kahlo and Rivera in 2022, and More
Frida Kahlo, Diego on my Mind, 1943. After a rocky pandemic year, the Portland Art Museum (PAM) is reopening with a vengeance. The museum reopened to limited-capacity visitors last week—and today, PAM shared new details on a stacked lineup of programs and exhibits from now through the the first half of 2022. On May 5, […]
Posted inVisual Art
Q&A: After 18 Years, Matt Bors Is Retiring His Weekly Political Cartoons
A Matt Bors comic strip from an old print edition of the Mercury. Blair Stenvick Cartoonist Matt Bors announced last week that he’ll no longer be creating and publishing weekly political cartoons—18 years and over 1,600 cartoons after the former Portlander and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist first started making them. Bors is very much staying […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
TBA:20 Begins This Weekend to Make Note of a Time We’ll Never Forget
Complete Works, A Midsummer Night’s Dream Forced Entertainment, Courtesy of Portland Insitute for Contemporary Art [UPDATE: Two in-person, outdoor events from this festival that the Mercury recommended have been postponed, due to hazardous wildfire air. Michael Bernard Stevenson Jr.’s Grandmother(s)’s Kitchen Presents: Bring Your Own Blanket Free Community Picnic, scheduled for Sunday, September 13th, and […]
Posted inVisual Art
Black, Very Black, and Also Very Beautiful
Vanity Fair and Vogue This week, not one, but two major American magazines commissioned three prominent Black artists to paint the cover of their September issue. Vogue chose Kerry James Marshall and Jordan Casteel (both of whom I’ve written about before) to paint covers inspired by the word “hope.” Vanity Fair commissioned Amy Sherald, best […]
Posted inNews
Portland’s Yale Union Arts Center Gives Its Building and Land to a Native Organization
The Yale Union arts center. Courtesy Yale Union Yale Union, a Portland art center established in 2010, announced yesterday that as of 2021, it will no longer exist. Its historic building, its 9,400 square-foot exhibition space, its approximately 20,000 square feet of office space, and the land it sits on have been repatriated to the […]
Posted inCops
The Hard Gaze: A Photo Essay Documenting Portland Protests
Hannah Dugan [Editor’s Note: Hannah Dugan is a photographer here in Portland, and has been documenting the many marches and rallies against police brutality. Here she shares some of her more memorable shots, and describes what she sees when she looks at them and the meaning they hold.] Hannah Dugan I am struck by this […]
Posted inNews
With No Immediate Plans to Reopen, Portland’s Art Galleries Get Creative
A scene from a past exhibition and performance at C3:Initiative by Cannupa Hanska Luger. C3:Initiative / Sam Gehrke When Gov. Kate Brown first unveiled her framework for reopening Oregon’s economy after coronavirus closures, a few businesses were identified to open first: Furniture stores, jewelry stores, boutiques, and art galleries. For Elizabeth Leach, owner of Elizabeth […]
Posted inVisual Art
RACC and Nat Turner Project Offer a Lifeline to Regional Artists
Naomi Shigeta’s All the World’s a Stage RACC As artists of all stripes continue to adjust to the reality of this pandemic and the impact it has had on their ability to create and earn a living from their work, two local arts organizations are stepping up with offers of financial help. Both the Regional […]
Posted inBooks
The Best Things to Do While Staying Home and Staying Safe: Thurs May 14
Beyond Now: A Virtual Fundraiser for PICAPICA is an absolute good for this community, and for anyone who values art in all its forms, and wants to make sure they’re supporting creative acts and local arts. With over 30 artists sharing new performance, video, and visual works, as well as conversations with creators, dance parties, […]
Posted inVideo Games
The Best Things to Do (While Staying Home and Staying Safe) in Portland: Tues May 12
The Salon of ShameThe “Salon of Shame” is a Seattle institution, and one not about to be cut short by coronavirus. Indeed, the cheerful exploitation of our younger selves’ awkward adventures in adolescence translate just fine online, and so: “Shame Across America,” (streaming at 6pm, $17) an online compilation of the finest cringe comedy a […]
Posted inVisual Art
Body Worlds & the Cycle of Life Is Dead Bodies, Be Cool
GUNTHER VON HAGENS’ BODY WORLDS “Blech!” a man said loudly, as I rounded a corner in Body Worlds & the Cycle of Life. Any number of the nearby exhibits could have offended him: Plastinated organs were stacked neatly in a glass case, showing how tightly they fit together inside our chests. A ruby network of […]