Category Archives: Visual Art

General, Laura Grimes, Visual Art

Just for kids: Museums with a real draw

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By Laura Grimes

One fabulous day recently at the National Gallery in London a whole class of schoolchildren wearing matching blue uniforms were sprawled on the floor drawing intently. They chatted and giggled quietly, but they were focused.

They attracted me like honey. I edged closer and watched them. Some of their drawings were just spindly stick figures. I watched them show each other their work and point to the giant painting they were studying.

A young man sat on a cushioned bench behind them and drew in a sketchbook. I thought he was with the group. A teacher chatted with him. And then she asked all the students for their attention.

She introduced the young man and asked if he would talk. I realized then he just happened to be there. He smiled to all the kids, leaned forward, turned around his sketchbook and held it up. Then a bit shyly but cheerfully he told them all about it.

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Bob Hicks, General, Visual Art

Warhol and Van Sant: peas in a pod?

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By Bob Hicks

Larry Fong, curator of American and regional art at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene, has assembled a provocative and aesthetically stimulating exhibition that brings together Pop icon Andy Warhol and Portland movie director Gus Van Sant through the unlikely lens of the Polaroid camera, a populist aim-and-shoot wonder that both used prolifically.

Gus Van Sant, "boys," 2010 digital pigment print, edition of 5 16.5" x 11.5". PDX Contemporary ArtI review the exhibit, One Step Big Shot, in this morning’s Oregonian. The show is smartly conceived and well-executed, and it looks good in the gallery, coming up with some creative design responses to the museum’s problematically long and narrow main display space.

Gus Van Sant, "boy and girl mystery," 2010 digital pigment print, edition of 5, 46" x 37". PDX Contemporary ArtOne draw: A big-screen version of Warhol’s infamous 1964 film Blow Job, which I hadn’t seen in many years.

Caught somewhere between blatant sexuality and demure tease (it’s a landmark in the gay underground movement that exploded into the mainstream after the Stonewall Riots of 1969) the six-minute film plays breathlessly with the ideas of Adonis and Narcissus. Even now it’s a powerful cultural transgression. It was an absolute mind-blower in 1964. One Step Big Shot continues through Sept. 5, and it’s worth the trip to Eugene.

Meanwhile, you have only a week left to catch Cut-ups, a smaller but intriguing related show at Portland’s PDX Contemporary Art. In it, Van Sant explores photographic collage, creating odd and sometimes discombobulating fusions of gender and personality. The two pieces shown here are from Cut-ups. We are all, apparently, one another. Worth catching, and up through Saturday, May 29.

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ILLUSTRATIONS, from top:

— Gus Van Sant, “boys,” 2010 digital pigment print, edition of 5, 16.5″ x 11.5″. PDX Contemporary Art

— Gus Van Sant, “boy and girl mystery,” 2010 digital pigment print, edition of 5, 46″ x 37″. PDX Contemporary Art

Books, Cities, General, Laura Grimes, Visual Art

London, Part 9: Help! I need somebody!

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By Laura Grimes

The Pantsless Brother and I have had lots of fun encounters in London, where everyone has been friendly and helpful. Here are just two, which both happened today. Others deserve their own posts.

At the end meet the umpteen friends JoJo played with today. So many! He was a busy little monkey!

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TPB and I visited the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace, where The Royal Collection is on public display and exhibits rotate a couple of times a year. The collection is made up of pieces that have been acquired by British monarchs for more than 500 years.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in court dress, about 1854/WikipediaVictoria & Albert: Art and Love is now on display through Oct. 31. A couple of pieces are worthy showstoppers, but it’s the personal stories behind the exhibit that are memorable. Victoria and Albert often gave thoughtful gifts of art to each other and went to great lengths to secretly commission pieces that were of special significance.

Victoria had a portrait made of her for Albert for his birthday. It’s not a formal portrait with fancy clothes and insignia. Her hair is down, her dress is casual and she’s wearing a locket that holds a lock of his hair. It’s sweet and intimate. This was not meant for the masses. It was meant just for Albert.

Continue reading London, Part 9: Help! I need somebody! →

Bob Hicks, General, Visual Art

It’s mourning. Do you know where your weeping medieval alabasters are?

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By Bob Hicks

Like “a troop of fairy-tale dwarfs turned to stone by an evil sorcerer” — or so Ken Johnson describes them in his review this morning in the New York Times — they march, mourning the death of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy (1371-1419). These 16-inch-tall alabaster carvings, which these days do most of their weeping at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon in France, have traversed time and the Atlantic for a tour of seven American museums. Their first stop is Medieval Hall at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they’ve been since March and will stay through May 23.

mourner_75Johnson’s report caught my eye first for the gorgeous photo that the Times ran and then for the story’s mention that the tour was organized under the wing of FRAME (the French Regional and American Museum Exchange), the innovative organization of which the Portland Art Museum has been a leading and vigorous member. The almost forty alabaster carvings in The Mourners: Medieval Tomb Sculptures From the Court of Burgundy will move on to FRAME member museums in St. Louis, Dallas, Minneapolis, Los Angeles (the Los Angeles County Museum of Art), San Francisco and Richmond — but not to Portland.

Why not?

Continue reading It’s mourning. Do you know where your weeping medieval alabasters are? →

Cities, General, Laura Grimes, Music, Visual Art

London, Part 4: JoJo runs wild

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By Laura Grimes

The Pantsless Brother tried to make a dash for the bathroom this morning without getting dressed first. Too late! I see London, I see France …

As it so happens, he was taking the bullet train from London to Paris that very day.

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I have reams to write about, but I’m just too pooped, so I’ll only post a few quick impressions to keep the LSBs happy.

JoJo found more friends, this time on a plaque near the Tower Bridge commemorating the 50th anniversary, or jubilee, of Queen Victoria’s reign. Can you find JoJo?

JoJo and a plaque commemorating Queen Victoria's jubilee

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Cities, General, Laura Grimes, Visual Art

London, Part 3: Tate and other titters

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By Laura Grimes

JoJo didn’t come out to play much today. It’s possible he was shy, but between you and me, I think he stayed up too late.

He did, however, find this friend in the churchyard at St. Paul’s Cathedral:

JoJo and the angel

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We spent most of our time at the Tate Modern, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this weekend. I should be more inspired to write about it, but I’m not. I was looking forward to this more than anything, but it was crowded, rowdy and noisy. People took photos and answered loud ringing phones. I was in the middle of looking at a painting and a red light appeared in the middle of it from someone’s camera. I was in the middle of looking at something else, and a kid right next to my ear hollered to his friends across the room. People stood in doorways so I couldn’t pass and pretty much annoyed me in every possible way. I like a lot of people in a museum. I don’t like inconsiderate behavior. Only once in several hours did I hear a guard talk to someone.

So I’ll share only one small story:

Dieter Roth (1930-98) has an abstract titled Self-portrait of a Drowning Man (1974) made with acrylic, watercolor and glue on cardboard. The image is copyrighted, so I won’t show it, but you can see it here.

The display caption has this excerpt:

In order to bring the work to London in his suitcase, he cut it into a number of pieces. This gesture was characteristic of Roth’s irreverent approach to the art object. He was especially open to changes that would occur after he had “finished” the work, such as the process of cracking which is visible here.

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Spoiler alert! I’m happy that I found the coolest ruler ever at the Tate Modern. My friend, Holly, and I have long collected rulers for each other. At first we did it unwittingly, but after several years we realized we had a tradition. I can’t show it so that you get the full effect, but you can see it here. You’ll see what I mean.

Cheers!

Cities, General, Laura Grimes, Music, Visual Art

London, Part 2: The political shuffle

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By Laura Grimes

A constant thrum of helicopters filled the air today. I know that sound, and when I hear it I look for it. It’s one thing when the helicopters are moving. It’s another thing when they’re hovering. It means something’s up.

The Pantsless Brother and I shared some van Eyck, Rembrandt and Turner together at the National Gallery and then he took off for Dublin to chase some Vermeer (seriously). After several hours he sent me a note asking what I did when he was gone and I replied that I had just posted this on Facebook:

Cool hanging outside 10 Downing Street today with protesters, tourists, black suits, reporters and police. It’s gotta be one of the weirdest political climates in British history since WWII — a hung parliament, mad party coalition negotiations that quickly flip-flopped, and a sudden change of tenants at the prime minister’s residence.

Here’s the biggest crowd I came upon:

democracy

I couldn’t get a closer shot with a better angle without risking being obnoxious or being in the middle of heavy vehicle traffic. (Now I wish I had done both.) However, just a little farther down the sidewalk I came upon a small group of people who were waiting patiently at an iron gate. It was the opening to Downing Street, otherwise known as where the British prime minister lives. This proved to be the more interesting spot, not that I saw much more than black cars with tinted windows and a security detail. The speeches came a few hours after I left. What was all the hubbub?

Continue reading London, Part 2: The political shuffle →

Bob Hicks, General, Visual Art

Hair today, art tomorrow (well, Monday)

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That prominent inhabitant of Chez Scatter, the Large Large Smelly Boy, recently visited the barber for the first time in close to a year and had his lordly lion’s mane buzzed off. The shearing revealed, to our surprise, the makings of muttonchops: a good pair of sideburns settling in. We see a chin crop in his future. (The moustache is already making inroads.)

"Don't Shave," by Bryan KepleskySo it is with heightened interest that Mr. Scatter notes the opening of Keep Portland Beard, an exhibition of hairy art that opens Monday at The Tribute Gallery near downtown Portland and will luxuriate through May 1. Mr. Scatter has been seeing a lot of minimalism and a bit of Papa Murphy’s art of late (it comes half-baked, and you’re supposed to finish it at home in the oven of your own mind), so the chance to catch a show that glorifies excess suggests a welcome break.

Mr. Scatter tries to keep his own beard well-trimmed, with varying degrees of success: Sometimes it’s just too much bother.

George Bernard Shaw in 1925, when he won the Nobel PrizeHe recalls the story, perhaps apocryphal, about George Bernard Shaw as a lad, observing his father in mid-shave. “Why do you shave your face, Papa?” the little critic is supposed to have asked. Father Shaw stopped, held his razor in mid-air, turned to his son and replied: “I’ll be damned if I know.” Then he wiped the lather from his face and never shaved again. Or so we recall the tale.

Keep Portland Beard is the brainchild of Michael Buchino, proprietor of the quirky online Beard Revue, which displays and grades public displays of hirsute vitality. No, we didn’t know it existed, either. After happily wasting a few minutes at the site, we’re glad we know now.

Buchino has curated a show that includes artworks by Rachel Caldwell, Erin Dollar, Chad Eaton, Chris Hornbecker, Jamie Reed, Ashley Goldberg, Bryan Keplesky, Brooke Weeber, Ian Seniff, Kyle Durrie, Lloyd Winter, Santiago Uceda, BT Livermore and Patrick Weishampel, in addition to himself. You can see their bios here.

And if this seems to you like a thin idea for an art exhibition, give it a chance: It might grow on you.

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ILLUSTRATIONS, from top:

— “Don’t Shave,” by Bryan Keplesky

— George Bernard Shaw in 1925/Wikimedia Commons

Bob Hicks, Books, Environment, General, Visual Art

Art: the Pleistocene made us do it

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Komar and Melamid, Most Wanted Painting, United States

Mr. Scatter apologizes for his recent silence. He’s been a little scattered.

One of the things he’s been doing is reading The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution, by Denis Dutton, the philosopher of art who is also founder and editor of the invaluable Web site Arts & Letters Daily.

Denis Dutton, The Art InstinctThe Art Instinct talks a lot about the evolutionary bases of the urge to make art: the biological hard-wiring, if you will. Dutton likes to take his readers back to the Pleistocene era, when the combination of natural selection and the more “designed” selection of socialization, or “human self-domestication,” was creating the ways we still think and feel. To oversimplify grossly, he takes us to that place where short-term survival (the ability to hunt; a prudent fear of snakes) meets long-term survival (the choosing of sexual mates on the basis of desirable personal traits including “intelligence, industriousness, courage, imagination, eloquence”). Somewhere in there, peacock plumage enters into the equation.

There’s a lot to like and a little to argue about in this book, which comes down squarely on the biologically determined as opposed to the culturally determined side of the art-theory fence. Mr. Scatter is an agnostic on this subject, although he leans slightly toward the Darwinian explanation, if for no better reason than that he finds Barthes, Derrida, Foucault and their academic acolytes a bit fatiguing, and he sees no reason why we should consider the analysts of art more important than the artists themselves. Mr. Scatter says this despite his own penchant for analyzing stuff. Besides, The Art Instinct uses a lot of anthropological evidence in support of its argument, and long ago Mr. Scatter was actually awarded (he hesitates to say “earned”) a university degree in sociology and anthropology, although he usually just says “anthro” because that’s the part that seems to have stuck with him in his later adventures in life.

Continue reading Art: the Pleistocene made us do it →

Bob Hicks, Cities, General, Visual Art

A contemporary art museum for Stumptown?

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At Portland Architecture, Brian Libby has posted an intriguing piece (citing an original story by Nathalie Weinstein in the Daily Journal of Commerce) about a possible contemporary art museum in a proposed gateway tower to the Pearl District.

At this point the proposal, developed by a group of Portland State University graduate students, is something of a pipe dream: there’s a recession going down, and developers are still pretty much in hunker-down mode.

John Baldessari, “Stonehenge (with Two Persons) Blue,” 2005. Mixographia print on handmade paper. Jordan Schnitzer CollectionBut as Libby points out, the museum part of the proposal gets interesting when you consider two things:

1. The new museum’s collection would be built from the holdings of Portland arts patron Jordan Schnitzer.

2. Schnitzer is president and CEO of Harsch Investment Properties, which owns the two parcels in question, between West Burnside and Northwest Davis streets and Northwest 13th and 14th avenues.

Schnitzer is a significant arts player on the Portland scene, and more and more, along the West Coast. His name is on the University of Oregon’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. His primary focus as a collector is contemporary prints, and he’s serious about it. (Libby’s post includes interesting passages from an interview with Schnitzer by The Oregonian’s D.K. Row). The son of important regional patrons and collectors Arlene and Harold Schnitzer, Jordan Schnitzer has displayed genuine enthusiasm for getting his own continually evolving collection out to museums and educational institutions around the Northwest: He wants people to benefit from what he’s pulled together.

Obviously this is a “soft” report: Nothing concrete is happening. But who knows what might be going on behind the scenes? Portland has longed for a contemporary art museum for a long time, and Schnitzer has both the collection and the educational interest to get something kick-started. In general, metropolitan areas with multiple museums have stronger art scenes, so a viable contemporary art museum would have a ripple effect. Right now, Portland has the Portland Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Craft. Our nearest big-town neighbors, Seattle and San Francisco, have much more diverse museum scenes, and that’s made a big difference to their entire arts scenes.

So. Pipe dream or not, let’s keep an eye on this one and see if anything develops.

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ILLUSTRATION: John Baldessari, “Stonehenge (with Two Persons) Blue,” 2005. Mixographia print on handmade paper. Jordan Schnitzer Collection