Portland Art Center, R.I.P.
The Portland Art Center closes—who is to blame?
July 23rd, 2008
From Seattle, with Gusto | Kinga Czerska and John Dempcy show Portlanders how it’s done.0 comments
July 16th, 2008
A Summer Serenade | At New American Art Union, Jacqueline Ehlis shines in one of the year’s best shows.0 comments
June 25th, 2008
Heart Of Glass | Henry Hillman Jr. explores Relationships—in art and life.0 comments
June 18th, 2008
Lowbrow Writ Large | The Contemporary Northwest Art Awards capture the zeitgeist—too well.0 comments
June 11th, 2008
Divine Phantasmagoria | Tilt’s group show is simply...Divine.1 comment
May 21st, 2008
The Aftermath of Experience | Multimedia virtuoso TJ Norris conjures 1980s Manhattan, even as he embalms it.0 comments
May 7th, 2008
(Im)material World | Two artists break on through— the fourth wall.0 comments
April 23rd, 2008
Late-April Roundup | See these shows before they come down!0 comments
April 16th, 2008
Installation Situation | Two effective installations shine at Marylhurst and Portland State University.0 comments
April 9th, 2008
Live Review: Cap Auction Saturday, April 5 | Great people watching; not so great art.2 comments
 PAC ANIMALS: David Gold (left) and Gavin Shettler. IMAGE: chrisryanphoto.com |
[January 23rd, 2008]
You know what they say about things that seem too good to be true. When I first walked into Portland Art Center’s gargantuan 10,000-square-foot space in the Goldsmith Building 2 1/2 years ago, I had a feeling this might be one of those things, a feeling born out by this weekend’s announcement that PAC is shutting its doors, ostensibly for good. The circumstances leading up to this closure have been the subject of much gossip and armchair quarterbacking, and ultimately have exposed the weakest links in a local art scene often presumed to be unqualifiedly strong. The closure does not come as a terrific surprise, given that its seeds were sown in an expansiveness that was perhaps overzealous. Also, with its recent mass resignation, PAC’s board of directors left executive director Gavin Shettler and director of programs Kelly Rauer twisting in the wind, with little choice but to cut the noose.
I have covered Gavin Shettler since 2002, when he presided over an eponymous gallery at the Everett Station Lofts. Through his subsequent association with the Modern Zoo and PAC, he has proven himself one of the finest curators in the Northwest. He has a gift for conceptualizing, organizing and installing shows, as well as a likable personality and a strong sense of integrity. In my experience, Gavin Shettler is a guy you could give a briefcase with a million dollars in it, leave it with him overnight, and not have to count it the next day. That being said, excellent curatorial skills and being a stand-up mensch of a guy do not necessarily a great fundraiser or nonprofit director make. Fully competent as the Center’s creative point-person, Shettler was probably in over his head as administrator and money man. Eventually, perhaps inevitably, his reach wound up exceeding his grasp, especially in an anemic collector climate largely focused on the Portland Art Museum and, to a lesser extent, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art.
One of Shettler and his followers’ key missteps was trying to grow PAC too big too fast. If you are the Emperor of France, great; if you try to conquer Europe, you will find your Waterloo. I always liked PAC’s previous location on Southeast Belmont Street: smallish, intimate, yet with ceilings high enough to accommodate major installations such as John Mace’s creepy medical nightmare, The Sending . It was, in short, the perfect size for an emerging visual arts organization. The move to Chinatown in 2005, seductive as developer David Gold’s offer was, will go down as overambitious. The space was a great, wondrous cavern, the programming wildly generous, the shows consistently well-staged and conceptually engaging. The first-floor Main Gallery, as well as the second-floor Light and Sound Gallery and Open Space Community Gallery, provided superb opportunities for artists to exhibit works that would neither be shown nor saleable in commercial galleries in a city such as Portland: Harvest Henderson’s chandelier hung with dangling apples; Viktor Popovic’s mountain of jumbled chairs; Adam Bailey’s glowing salt pillars; Abi Spring and TJ Norris’ sinuous mirrors; and Scott Wayne Indiana’s 37 axes chopping into the ceiling. These and other shows, and the gorgeous, lofty Goldsmith Building itself, seemed to be sustained by the sheer willpower and charisma of Shettler, Rauer and their trusty volunteer staff.
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Willpower and charisma, however, are not enough to run an arts organization, especially in a town that pays enormous lip service to its “creative class” but consistently refuses to put its money where its mouth is. This is a town reverberating with jackhammers and pile-drivers as new condo towers go up in every quadrant—condos largely appointed with cheaply framed posters, prefab Urban Outfitters “art,” and bland, interior-decorator claptrap instead of serious contemporary art made by serious local artists, sold in serious local galleries. “Yuppies” and “hipsters” may be straw men, but if you have been to Anthropologie on a Tuesday afternoon or District on a Friday night, you know these dubious creatures are alive and well in the Pearl, blessed with an overabundance of money, cursed with an underabundance of taste. These are not the people who came to PAC openings or supported its programming. The people who cared most about PAC were the artists who showed there and the scrappy art groupies who loved challenging work. PAC’s charm and downfall was that it engaged a slice of the community brimming over with passion but short on cash and connections.
Much has been made of Henry Hillman Jr.’s ill-fated, eleventh-hour effort to rescue and reorganize PAC late last year. Hillman and the Board were not satisfied at Shettler’s bookkeeping or communication skills, and Shettler was ticked that Hillman thought he should resign. I know Hillman, and I know Shettler. I respect them both. I have never examined PAC’s check registers, nor do I believe a PAC without Gavin Shettler in at least some capacity would be worth going to. On the other hand, a PAC with Shettler as head curator and a more experienced financial director, both working in tandem with a proactive, well-connected board—now there’s something that might’ve worked. But at this late hour, such speculation is too little too late. As Peter Fonda says to Dennis Hopper at the end of Easy Rider , “We blew it.” One of the best arts organizations in the Northwest is no more, thanks to a massive clusterfuck: a tsunami spawned by the collision of deep currents of artistic talent with a shockingly shallow pool of well-to-do art lovers who actually walk the walk—and a captain who steered the ship into the big wave anyway. Alas.
What is not wrong is that Oregon is ranked 48th in the nation in its support of the arts. No prejudice against condos, just the truth! Portland does not support its arts institutions see also, Oregon Symphony, PSU school of Fine and Performing Arts, the various chamber music groups, Trinity Consort, Opera Theater Oregon, etc... Maybe we should charge a luxury sales tax on purchases made at Anthropology, IKEA, Crate and Barrel. Just a thought...
Hey "BS" just stop. I have been in alot of these condos you speak of being paid to hang the "art" you think people have. These are people that pay my company $60 an hour because they can't use a hammer and a level. So yes you condo dwellers are the same people that pay me more an hour to hang a piece of "local art work" than you paid for it at urban outfitters... I bet you're the same guy who says that the Lawrence "Gallery" is the best thing in portland...
Richard, I recently "found" the Portland Center for the Visual Arts, a similar ambitious arts org before your time, which was located just across the street from PAC, in the top floor above the BackSpace, in a gray archival box in a storage room of the PAM library, that is, in it's current incarnation, a set of records, board minutes, membership lists, unpaid bills, unanswered correspondence. Humbling to see an organization which is the lively product of uncountable volunteer hours, brilliant ideas, wild visions and hard work.
I don't know if PAC will be remembered so long or so fondly as PCVA, the work wasn't uniformly as good, I suppose - caused by the times, not the organizations.
I'll go poke around in the archive in twenty years or so to see the remains of PAC. Same detris probably, like looking through a dead man's wallet for his reassuring smile.
BSS
You don't know me and you don't know the art I have on my wall. A Both you and zh demonstrate the narrow mindedness that so many “open minded” people live by. Just like religions are tolerant, its BS. I could say plenty of things about Gresham, the East Side, etc. that are all clichés. But I don’t because I know they are just that, clichés.
Your reply demonstrates clearly and completely that you are prejudiced against “condo dwellers”.
Thanks for proving my point.
The closure of the Portland Art Center is symbolic of the whole art scene in Portland. After living there for two years and subsequently moving on to California, I found the art establishment(PADA), and the local artists with their brushes stuck up their butts, and their minds wavering in a somnambulistic art-dream world where they somehow felt anointed the new players in the game of art, yet Emperor Portland has no clothes.
As an African American sculptor I found the lilly-white galleries deficient in cultural diversity, and creativity. PAC was not only overly ambitious, but wanted to be out there in the forefront--didn't work. A city that touts itself as being progressive, but doesn't incorporate its vast cultural heritage, is a city with dead white art.
Jerry Harris
Chico, California
BSS
I live here and have been in many condos. I have also been in many houses in many other parts of the city. There's plenty of bad art everywhere. I am an artist, I do have some idea of good art and bad art, and I have seen plenty of good art in condos, not the commercial crap you claim "we all own". And I have seen more than my share of crap everywhere else.
I know first hand that most of this city doesn’t support the arts, so the blame you place on “condo dwellers” is unjustified and clearly demonstrates the prejudice I mentioned before.
Thanks for proving my point.
You’re probably one of those guys who think that when an artist is successful that they’ve sold out and now suck. Face it, you just hate people with more money than you regardless of the person or how hard they worked. That is prejudice.
BS, you have great balls!
I agree entirely and propose that we reinstate the lettre de cachet (or perhaps préjudice?). So when those of us of means spot prejudice in our goings-about we can have the perpetrators incarcerated for a nominal fee. Of course, there will need to be an effective means of "final disposal". No doubt, BS will be able to propose some "final solution". Thus, this pesky gentrification issue can be skirted entirely, all under the auspices of disposing of prejudice!
I LOVE YOUR BALLS!!!
As with Jerry Harris, I found Portland artistically lacking and ended up moving to California. As an actor in "artsy" Portland, I was often dismayed by the poor turnouts that local theater would get. Richard Speer is correct that while Portlanders may love to pay lip service to the arts, they aren't always big on following through with their pocketbooks.
As it were, a lot of people here in LA are under the impression that Portland, now a media darling, has a thriving arts scene. Guess they'll just have to find out the hard way.
I am one of the "scrappy art groupies" to which Mr. Speer refers, having visited the PAC regularly during its brief tenure.
The "underabundance of taste" in Portland's art world is as salient among artists themselves as among collectors. PAC, reflecting its milieu, showed some wonderful things (Second Skin by J.D. Perkin and Anne Thompson was a favorite of mine), but these were the exception.
Portland's jejune artists (and Richard Speer) must stop blaming the Pearl and assuming that their town is filled with philistines who only shop for things that go well with the couch. Stop feeding your egos with notions of being misunderstood innocent geniuses, make something truly beautiful, and maybe the New York Times will write about you as well as the Stumptown Annex and Tin House.
Oh, and if I see one more goddamned deer or squirrel drawn on a piece of brown paper, or college-educated graffiti, I will do something quite drastic. So there.
Many months later, nobody seems to really miss PAC's exhibitions. They werent indicative of the best that Portland has done. The New York times does write about Portland artists all the time, but never the ones PAC promoted.
The sad truth is Gavin's ego kept him from taking a golden opportunity and he never really learned the lessons he needed to really matter.
The PCVA is still remembered and PAC remains as some clueless project that doesnt know it requires a clue. Good riddance.
Even in a tribute to an unfortunate failure in the art community you can't help but slam and at the same time misrepresent "condo dwellers". You presume they are all "yuppies" and �they have no taste�. You are so ignorant. There is a wide range of people who live in condos and there is a lot of really good, local art hanging on many of those walls.
If you judge condo dwellers by the people who visit District and Anthropology you are looking in the wrong place. Most of those people come in from Gresham and other distant parts of the city to party. Some locals visit those establishments but not nearly as many as you assume.
I assume you consider you self reasonably open-minded. But your caricature of condo dwellers betrays a deep-rooted prejudice. Race or dollars, prejudice is prejudice.
Your tribute to PAC would have been much more genuine if you hadn�t laced it by indirectly blaming �yuppies� and �hipsters� for not supporting it.
Portland Art Center is going to be missed. Your prejudice against �condo dwellers� is tasteless and wrong.