Portland
Art Museum
1219
Park Ave., 226-2811
Free
admission through Sept. 17.
I recently experienced a very satisfying city museum. The
St. Louis Art Museum is free to the public, well-curated
and big. It was the kind of museum experience I relish--large
collections of well-placed work that lead into other rooms
with more surprises. It was similar to going to MOMA or
the Met in New York, only a bit smaller. Every time you
visit, you see some of your favorites, and then explore
the mini-shows as well as the blockbusters. You leave exhausted
and fulfilled.
In the very recent past, a trip to the Portland Art Museum
could be a comparatively quick and unsatisfying trip. The
permanent work on display was a bit staid, and unless the
big show on view was engaging, the whole thing felt small
and piecemeal. But the "Project for the Millennium" has
finally given the city what it needs. Even without the newly
opened Center for Native American Art and the Arlene and
Harold Schnitzer Center for Northwest Art, the museum's
new galleries lend a heft and depth to the institution.
Now with the new and final wing, we have world-class work
and housing for our own local art history.
The focus on Northwestern art is important to the current
status of art in Portland. Gallery owners and old-timers
can talk until they're blue in the face about the importance
of Portland's art history, but until a museum lends it credibility,
it won't stick. Well, now the museum has given its validation.
It attempts to show the important local artists, their contributions
and their place nationally. Artists, collectors and sympathetic
citizens could now track the line from Columbia River basketry
and Northwest Coast carving all the way to Dale Chihuly
and Tom Cramer.
The Native American collection is solid, especially in
terms of local tribes. It's a nice lead-in to the American
chapter of the region's art. Beginning in the late 19th
century, the third-floor galleries lead us through the pioneering
generations of the Portland art scene. One of the most important
and apt galleries is the WPA gallery. The Depression-era,
government-funded works capture the character in the area's
art. The work depicts a stoic romanticism--hardscrabble
lives of rain and labor. The gallery is filled with blocky,
modernist depictions of workers and buildings. There is
a somber earnestness that, to be sure, is part of the times,
but the mood also exists in works by current artists like
Henk Pander, Michael Brophy and James Lavadour. Every nuance
of gray must exist in those paintings.
Aside from the ever-present gray, a mystical attachment
to the landscape runs through almost all the work. The artists
looked not east to Europe but west to the mountains and
ocean. They deliberately sequestered themselves in the dank,
working-class towns of the Northwest. The trade-off was
relative obscurity and artistic freedom.
The fourth floor houses work from the last 40 years. After
all the dark C.S. Prices, the brooding Charles Heaneys,
we have the vibrantly defiant Feast of Stephen by
Lucinda Parker or Michele Russo's Poppy, figurative paintings.
It is a pleasure to see artists like Michael Brophy or Laura
Ross-Paul put into context with the earlier generation.
Another fine inclusion (that highlights many other exclusions)
is a large painting by Isaka Shamsud Din. Brothers Fhree
depicts an African-American crowd at a bar. It gives us
a view of Portland that is largely ignored.
I am thrilled to see these artists getting their due. The
implication of a continuum from the indigenous to the contemporary
is important. A nice touch is the Rick Bartow piece in the
stairwell. Bartow is not pigeonholed as native artist or
contemporary artist. He is both, successfully. Will seeing
this work give you a stronger sense of a regional aesthetic?
Yes. Will it add to a sense of purpose for a young artist,
or a collector? It might. It would be nice to see some newer
work added to the historic pieces on display. It is difficult
to understand from an early Peter Voulkos covered jar, for
example, just how he revolutionized ceramics. Likewise,
from some early work of Morris Graves, it's hard to see
how he had such a strong impact on Abstract Expressionism.
There are points where the collection feels very spotty.
But these are quibbles.
So now's the time to go and get lost in the museum, find
some favorites. Now we know how, regionally, we got here.
We also know that many of the current artists in the permanent
collection are due for mid-career exhibitions. And now,
of course, PAM has more space in which to foster a lively
connection with young artists, beyond the Oregon Biennial.
If PAM keeps it fresh and invigorating, Portland will now
have the museum it's been waiting for--a venerable house
that remembers the stories of the past while it talks passionately
with the present.
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