There’s something very magical realism about walking into a space expecting to experience one thing, only to be met with a fully different sensory onslaught.
Bijan Berahimi, the graphic designer and creative behind Portland’s Fisk Gallery, has done just that with his new exhibit, Eyes & Ears: A Survey of Visuals in Music 2020-2024, which feels like a full sensory experience exploring the relationship between graphic design and music.
Hosted inside the Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA)’s Center for Contemporary Art & Culture (CCAC), the exhibit features iconic graphic design made for musicians like Kedrick Lamar, Chappell Roan, Sega Bodega, Eartheater, André 3000, et al. for albums, tours, merch, and music videos from 2020-2024. I sat down with Berahimi in the exhibition space to learn about how it came to be, his creative curation process, and where he wants to take Eyes & Ears next.
PORTLAND MERCURY: When entering the exhibition, it doesn’t feel like we’re in Portland, it feels like we’re in a New York or LA gallery.Â
BIJAN BERAHIMI: I’ve always felt like a bit of an outsider in Portland. I grew up in LA, and I’ve always wanted to bring more global projects and programs to Portland because that’s what I was used to seeing at the Getty, kind of connecting dots from around the world. When I came to Portland—which is known for its DIY and community-driven art, which is beautiful and I really enjoy that—as an outsider, it made sense to bring in a different perspective. Throughout the last decade of hosting and curating shows in Portland, I’ve always tried to bring the outside in, making the city’s art scenes stronger and more interesting, helping people feel like they aren’t missing out because they’re not living in LA or New York.
I don’t often see a lot of graphic design in the CCAC space at PNCA, how did it come about that you were able to use it?
I taught adjunct here from 2016-2020 and was involved in setting up the PNCA lecture series for design. Even after I stopped teaching here, I continued to help curate the lecture series.
This semester, CCAC is dedicated to the graphic design program, which hasn’t happened in a long time. It’s really rare that graphic design gets this space, it’s typically fine art, performance, multimedia, etc., so I jumped at the opportunity to curate an exhibit here.
You’re known by and connected to artists and designers from around the world, what was your curation process like while pulling Eyes & Ears together? Did you personally know all of the artists in the exhibit?
I knew, or had worked with about half the designers and artists now featured in the exhibit. I also wanted to use this opportunity, because I don’t live in LA or New York and am not often bumping into major art people at parties and galleries, to reach out to designers and creatives that I have been admiring, but who I don’t get to engage with regularly. I wanted to feel more connected to my industry, to establish more real connections—something that felt important and healthy for me.
It feels like the musicians featured are pretty genrefluid. You have trans experimentalists, high femme pop girlies, spiritual jazz heads, pop-punkers, and the biggest names in hip-hop all represented. Was there selection criteria that you kept in mind?Â
The show was supposed to feel eclectic, I knew I didn’t want the exhibit to be one genre or one note. There’s a lot of musicians in here who are genrebending, there are a lot of different genres represented and that’s how a lot of people listen to music now. I listen to everything—I listen to pop, I listen to rap, I listen to indie, I listen to folk. There’s so much happening in music right now as far as genres—where people are coming from, if the musicians are independent or on a label—realities that are changing and expanding constantly.
Often, with music exhibits, they’ve been so zoomed in, like the psychedelic posters from the ’60s up at Portland Art Museum right now. It’s an amazing show, but I think music is often too narrowly curated, presenting specific movements.
The current music landscape feels so large that a narrow style of curation didn’t make sense for this exhibit. So the thought was to feature art and artists I had been observing over the last few years regardless of whether it was pop or indie or hip-hop, I didn’t want to be bound by genre.
A musician's music can sound like anything, and their campaigns can look like anything. To use Charli xcx’s Brat as an example, it was literally a movement. These artists have to consider everything: live shows, choreography, styling, makeup, album packaging, music videos, stage design, merchandise, TV appearances… It's a lot. It requires hiring multiple full-time people. With that said, there’s a lot to show. This is just scratching the surface of what artists and musicians are capable of. There’s a really special energy working with people in music, and when I reduced this exhibit to its essence, I really wanted to celebrate the work regardless of music genre or scene.
I also wanted to highlight the importance of tangible art. All of these artists believe in their music so much that they print tour posters, press vinyl, and make eye-popping merchandise. They don’t just confine their music to social media and streaming platforms when they absolutely can, they believe in their music and their messages so much that they want it out there in the physical world. Seeing these posters blown up to massive scale, with the colors jumping out at you, is special. We don’t see this all that often since the advent and domination of social media.
What’s next for Eyes & Ears? Are you wanting to take it on the road?
I’m definitely thinking and working towards expanding Eyes & Ears. A lot of my projects have been more rigid, so working in this more museum-like space was really refreshing—I had access to a lot of resources I often don’t have because I do everything myself at Fisk. Looking ahead, I really want to push for the longevity of Eyes & Ears, which will hopefully include a digital space where artist interviews and stories can live, highlighting the designers and creatives behind these and other music projects.
I also want to travel an expanded version of the exhibit to New York and LA that would include a whole room of posters, a dark room for the music videos to be played in, and vinyl listening stations so people can interact with the records.
Eyes & Ears is up in the Pacific Northwest College of Art’s Center for Contemporary Art & Culture, 511 NW Broadway, until Thurs, April 3. Gallery hours: Mon-Sat, 10 am-4 pm, FREE.
Bijan Berahimi gives a lecture on Tues, March 11, 6:30 pm with Chicago-based designer Crystal Zapata, giving a lecture on Tues, April 1, 6:30 pm. Both lectures will be hosted at PNCA.
