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.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.
Portland Art Center 417 NW 9th Ave., 224-0521. Closes May 27.
