Boredom? Hardly. First Thursday In Review
An invigorating show at Portland Art Center belies its title.
January 27th, 2010
Jenene Nagy At Disjecta | Portland’s Christo goes big.0 comments
January 13th, 2010
The Dregs Marylhurst Art Gym | Two artists sift through a dead man’s life.4 comments
December 30th, 2009
Best Of Visual Arts 2009 | 2009 kicked the Portland art scene’s ass—but it kicked back. 0 comments
December 9th, 2009
Mel George At Bullseye, Reiner Riedler At Blue Sky | Wishing you were someplace—anyplace—else.0 comments
November 18th, 2009
China Design Now Portland Art Museum | PAM’s new show unwittingly plays into the worst stereotypes of Communist China.3 comments
October 7th, 2009
The Century Project At Bamboo Grove | Photographer Frank Cordelle wrestles with body acceptance.74 comments
September 30th, 2009
High Art | Tom Cramer resurrects the psychedelic ’60s.3 comments
August 19th, 2009
Shits & Giggles At Launch Pad | Jeremy Okai Davis paints the halcyon days of summer.0 comments
August 12th, 2009
Manor Of Art At Milepost Five | A hundred-plus artists turn a former nursing home into an aesthetic free-for-all.1 comment
July 29th, 2009
Marking Portland Portland Art Museum | Tattoo art graduates from bohemia to the blue-hairs.0 comments
![]() Expropriation/Absence of Myth by Harvest Henderson at Portland Art Center. |
[April 12th, 2006] One of the most invigorating shows in an all-around amazing month for visual arts is Portland Art Center's group show, Boredom: I Learned It by Watching You (an odd title for a show that is far from boring), curated by painter Josh Arseneau and arts activist Gabriel Flores. The show's most striking, albeit most logorrheically titled, piece is Harvest Henderson's chandelierlike expropriation/absence of myth (i dreamed we all rose at once to destroy and reclaim it), which consists of 303 apples suspended from the ceiling in tiers of concentric circles. Witty and well-executed, familiar yet inscrutable, the piece reminds us how gifted an installation artist Henderson is; she has a knack for work that is conceptual but not arid, thought-provoking but still satisfying visually and spatially. Downstairs from Boredom is a continuation of last month's PAC exhibition, highlighted by Shawn Busse's Metronome (white ceramic violins, emblazoned with bar codes, lined up in a row) and Kay Hwang's Generation II (bowling-pinlike forms protruding from the wall). The quality of the downstairs and upstairs shows will come as a revelation to anyone who thought PAC was still mired in transitional doldrums. The doldrums are done; PAC has arrived, with an unbeatable Old Town location along the motel-Compound-Backspace axis and the able curatorial stewardship of director Gavin Shettler. PAC has at last begun to fulfill its promise as a vital grassroots institution for the visual arts and is now playing the role that PICA abdicated in 2003. 32 NW 5th Ave., 236-3322. Closes April 23.
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Another strong group show, Elizabeth Leach's Fresh, sparkled with Chandra Bocci's Sparkle Fallout a darling vignette of ballerinas and faux pearls beneath a fanciful mountainscape. Adam Sorensen scores a knockout with his sumptuous semi-abstract painting Shade of Ghost Tree. Rounding out the show is Sean Healy's King of the Jungle Gym, a photo mural showing an autumn scene in super-saturated yellows and oranges. Healy has evolved into a sophisticated artist who makes statements that are at once bold and winkingly understated, beautiful and snarky.
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