Category Archives: Visual Art

Bob Hicks, Cities, General, Theater, Visual Art

O where, o where has our little blog gone?

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"Portrait of an Extraordinary Musical Dog," oil on canvas (presumed), by the British artist Philip Reinagle, R.A. Dated 1805. From the collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Image courtesy of janeaustensworld blog.

By Bob Hicks

You out there, you poor wayfaring strangers stranded at the offramp of the Information Superhighway with a flat tire or a blown gasket or a speeding ticket from a Washington State Trooper who had his radar gun pointed the wrong way but also had a quota to fill and liked the looks of your out-of-state license plates …

Oh, wait. That’s us.

Months ago, in another cyber age, it seemed as if we were punching pithy posts onto this site with precipitous regularity, exploring the inner recesses of our odd obsessions and the outer recesses of the culture at large. And people visited. Like Elvis of Nashville and Jesus of Nazareth we even had “followers,” although we preferred to think of them as congenial partners in crime. Are any of you still here? Have you remained faithful, or at least hopeful? Or have we twittered your allegiance away?

Where has the summer gone, and why have we so adamantly exercised our right to remain silent?

Truth is, there’s been nothing adamant about it: It just sort of turned out that way. Life got hectic, kids were released from their school jail cells, travels beckoned, and our habit of recording our contemplations in this semi-public forum took it in the shorts. Don’t go away: We’ll try to do better from here on in.

To catch you up a bit, here are a few highlights of things we did and mostly didn’t write about.

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Bob Hicks, General, Visual Art

Holbein’s Madonna sells for $70 million

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By Bob Hicks

Many of you will remember Hans Holbein‘s exquisite 1528 painting Madonna with Basel Mayer Jakob Meyer and His Family, often known as the Darmstadt Madonna, which was the centerpiece of the Portland Art Museum’s blockbuster exhibition Hesse: A Princely German Collection in 2005.

holbein-madonnaJudith H. Dobrzynski passes along the news on her blog Real Clear Arts that the Hesse family has sold its most famous asset to German billionaire Reinhold Wuerth, and gives a fascinating recap of the painting’s history in the process. Dobrzynski links to Bloomberg’s news account. Other sources confirm the painting will land in Wuerth’s private museum, which is open to the public, in an old German church. Bloomberg and Dobrzynski give a price of “at least” $70 million, and Dobrzynski notes that it might have been as high as $165 million — a staggering sum, even in the masterpiece market — if the German government had allowed it to be sold out of country.

At the time of the Portland exhibition it was known that the Hesses were facing a mammoth inheritance tax bill and despite many years of caring for the Holbein — including protecting it from destruction during World War II — had been exploring selling the work. The Getty at one point reportedly was interested, but German law forbidding the sale of masterworks outside the country put an end to negotiations.

The Hesses were good stewards. Presumably, Wuerth will be, too. And best of all, the painting will remain available to the public. Portlanders were lucky to see it when they did.

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Art Scatter has also been following the adventures of Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, who has lectured at the Portland Art Museum and who was ousted as that country’s minister of antiquities after this year’s Egyptian revolution, only to be reinstated. We wrote about the shifting situation here, here, and here.

Well, we can’t keep up.

Three days ago, Hawass once more got the boot. The story, from Smithsonian.com, is here.

Then, just hours ago, he was reinstated yet again, according to lezgetreal.com. The Daily Beast confirms the report.

Art Scatter doesn’t know what to say, except that it reminds us of the days when George Steinbrenner kept hiring, firing, and rehiring Billy Martin as manager of the Yankees. People said Steinbrenner and the volatile Martin deserved each other. We hesitate to draw any parallels to Hawass and the revolutionary leadership.

Dance, General, Martha Ullman West, Visual Art

Dance-plus: random notes from all over

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Drawing of the RMS Mauretania, from a cigarette card, ca. 1922-29. New York Public Library/Wikimedia Commons

In the past few months Art Scatter’s chief correspondent, Martha Ullman West, has been (as The New Yorker likes to say about its own correspondents) far-flung. We could tell you how much flinging she’s been up to, but it seems more appropriate to let her tell you herself. We will mention, however, that one of her flings was up the freeway to Seattle, where the national Dance Critics Association held its annual meeting and presented her with its Senior Critic’s Award, an honor that recognizes her position in the loftiest echelon of the profession. Congratulations, Martha, once again.

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By Martha Ullman West

It’s a long time since I’ve made my presence known on Art Scatter (except to comment, lazy me). Since I last posted, on April 10, I’ve seen quite a lot of dancing, a Greek ruin or two or three, Maltese, Sicilian and Spanish museums, the Holy Grail (or not…), a clip aboard ship of the latest royal wedding extravaganza. I also received a prize, for which I had to give a lecture, and that little task made me think about all of the above and more.

Just before I skipped town on April 23, I witnessed Anne Mueller dance ballet for the last time opening night of Oregon Ballet Theatre’s final show of the season, still at the top of her form, showing her range in Trey McIntyre’s funky Speak, Nicolo Fonte’s Left Unsaid, and Christopher Stowell’s Eyes on You. More down the line about the opening ballet in that program, Balanchine’s Square Dance, which I also saw New York City Ballet perform in May.

Earlier in the week, at Da Vinci Middle School’s spring concert, a motley batch of middle school-age boys, seven of them, performed, identifiably, Gregg Bielemeier’s idiosyncratic juxtaposition of small precise movement and space-eating choreography, improvising within the form. At an age when going with the flow ain’t a goin’ to happen, they did just that, and it was lovely to see.

And then I was off on a cruise of what was originally supposed to be the Barbary Coast and include Tunisia, where I’ve long wanted to go, but world events interfered so Sardinia and Menorca were substituted, as well as extra time in Valencia, where in addition to one of the Holy Grails (housed in the cathedral there) we saw a parade in traditional garb — little girls in ruffled dresses and mantillas, elderly gents trying to manage their swords — and after that, in Granada, the magical Alhambra. That’s a place I’ve wanted to see with mine own eyes since my father rendered in paint how he imagined it looked in the Middle Ages.

Allen Ullman, "Granada," 1966, oil and casein. Courtesy Martha Ullman West.

Continue reading Dance-plus: random notes from all over →

Bob Hicks, Dance, General, Journalism, Music, Theater, Visual Art

The first thing let’s do, let’s kill the critics

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By Bob Hicks

Bless me, reader, for I have sinned.

For 40 years Moses wandered in the wilderness. And for roughly the same amount of time I have stumbled through the landmines of contemporary culture, wearing the sackcloth of the most extreme form of penitent journalist.

Honore Daumier, "The Critic"I have been a critic.

Well, apparently I have. That’s what everyone tells me. Lord knows I’ve denied it over the years. For a long time, when people called me a critic, I’d correct them. “I’m a writer,” I’d gently explain, “and these days I happen to be writing about theater.”

It did no good. No one believed me. And “Writer Who Writes About Theater” doesn’t fit in a byline, anyway.

A few years ago I was chatting with Libby Appel, who at the time was artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. “You know, I’ve never really thought of myself as a critic,” I told her.

Libby’s eyebrow arched. (Sometimes eyebrows actually do that.) “Oh, you’re a critic,” she said emphatically.

I like to think she was delivering a description, not an accusation. I like her and respect her, even though I’ve sometimes argued in print with shows she’s directed, and I think the feeling’s been mutual. Still. There was no question in her mind. I was, without doubt, One of Those People. And Those People occupy a curious position in the artistic firmament. “Critics never worry me unless they are right,” Noel Coward once commented. “But that does not often occur.”

Then again, what exactly is right?

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Bob Hicks, General, Visual Art

Cars, beasts & museums: art by design

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"Flayed Man," Richard Barnes/Blue Sky GalleryRichard Barnes

By Bob Hicks

It’s Friday, the morning’s dead trees have been delivered, and they bear proof that Mr. Scatter’s been a busy beaver lately (although he does not claim responsibility for chewing through the timber that became the newsprint that bears his words).

1937 Talbot-Lago T150-C-SS “Teardrop” Coupe Lent by Arturo and Deborah Keller Petaluma, California Friday’s A&E magazine of The Oregonian includes Beautiful Bodies, Mr. Scatter’s cover story on the Portland Art Museum‘s new show The Allure of the Automobile, plus a review of Richard Barnes’s new show of behind-the-scenes photographs of natural history museums at Blue Sky Gallery and a brief look at the first group photo exhibit in the new gallery space at Newspace Center for Photography. Such a lot of stuff!

Since the cars are hogging the cover, let’s take a look at Barnes’s beasts first.

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Bob Hicks, General, Visual Art

YU, new art and the transparency issue

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UPDATE: Jeff Jahn, who has followed the fortunes of YU from its beginnings, has kicked in with his own take at PORT. He argues that YU has “a general art world sophistication several tiers above” some earlier attempts at a nationally linked contemporary arts center, but also that it is severely harmed by its lack of a community board — its three-member board is also its three-member staff. Row made the same point in his Oregonian story, and it’s worth stressing: an independent, unpaid board is essential. ALSO: Some excellent points from Barry Johnson of Arts Dispatch in the comments below this post. Be sure to give ’em a look. Of note: Is YU hamstrung by its main donor’s restrictions?

By Bob Hicks

The Oregonian’s D.K. Row set off a micro-explosion with his front-page story in this morning’s paper about the cloudy picture at YU Contemporary Art Center, the fledgling nonprofit in the inner east side’s old Yale Union Laundry Building. Central to the issues that Row called into question: the center’s three principal figures (four if you count the building’s owner, who is divorced from one of the founders) have repeatedly sidestepped questions about the organization’s finances and structure.

D.K. is taking a bit of a beating in the online version’s comments thread, with people accusing him of making something out of nothing or, worse, engaging in some sort of hatchet job in an effort to kill off a good idea. Yet there’s very little in the story that I haven’t heard a lot of arts people saying privately for months. Few people think there’s anything nefarious going on. A lot of people wonder whether the founders aren’t in over their heads, and question both how much money this project is going to cost (the building will be very expensive to operate) and where the money’s coming from. I’ve also heard more than a few people ask the exact question that is central to Row’s story: Why won’t the people at YU just say what the financial situation is? D.K. didn’t invent these questions. He simply had the impertinence to ask them in public.

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Bob Hicks, General, Visual Art

It’s First Thursday: can you see your art?

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Storm Tharp, Bokashi, 2011 softground print, edition of 12. 30" x 22"/PDX Contemporary ArtBokashi, Storm Tharp/PDX Contemporary Art

By Bob Hicks

This evening is First Thursday, Portland’s monthly movable feast of gallery-hopping, and Mr. Scatter published this guide in this morning’s Oregonian. Lots of options, and as usual it’s just part of the picture: a lot of gallery openings and other art events aren’t included.

Well, it’s a big town. You can list all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t list all of the people all of the time. And that’s probably a very good thing: no sense exploding your brain with too much information.

Hiroshige, from "100 Views of Edo," Wikimedia CommonsSo of the 40 zillion or so images we might show you, we’ve chosen just one: Storm Tharp’s Bokashi, above, a 2011 softground print in an edition of 12 in the group show Oomph at PDX Contemporary Art. And we’re showing this one not just because we like it but also because it comes with a small but intriguing art-history connection, as PDX’s Jane Beebe points out. “One can see the influence of Japanese prints and masks in the trajectory of Storm’s artistic thought and work,” she writes, and then adds: “also I think it is interesting that Bokashi can refer to swipe….. the swipe of the eyes in the print.” She passes along as evidence this image (from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo)  by the legendary 19th century Japanese printmaker Hiroshige, along with this explanation from Wikipedia:

Bokashi  is a technique used in Japanese woodblock printmaking. It achieves a variation in lightness and darkness (value) of a single color by hand applying a gradation of ink to a moistened wooden printing block, rather than inking the block uniformly. This hand-application had to be repeated for each sheet of paper that was printed.

The best-known examples of bokashi are the shadings of a color often used by Hiroshige on landscape prints to depict the sky at the top of the print.

Most of the galleries participating in First Thursday are open from 6 to 8 or 9 p.m. Put on your walking shoes. And remember two things. First, most of the shows will be up all month, so don’t worry about hitting all of them (or any of them, for that matter) tonight. Second, a lot of other good exhibits aren’t taking part in First Thursday at all. Weekend jaunts are good.

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  • Storm Tharp, “Bokashi,” 2011 softground print, edition of 12. 30″ x 22″/PDX Contemporary Art.
  • Hiroshige, from “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo,” Wikimedia Commons.
Bob Hicks, Film, General, Visual Art

‘The way research works is, it takes you down a road. You then follow that road.’

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By Bob Hicks

That quotation comes from Claudia Dreifus’s interview in this morning’s New York Times with Ellen Bialystok, a cognitive neuroscientist who’s spent almost 40 years studying the ways that speaking two languages keeps your mind sharp, even possibly delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms. (Does that mean that Europeans and Quebecois are smarter longer than most Americans?)

Mel Blanc gives himself a close shave for a KGW radio gig. Photo courtesy of Noel Blanc.It strikes Mr. Scatter that what Bialystok has to say about research is equally true for that branch of creativity we like to refer to as artistic. An idea takes hold. You follow it. It leads you somewhere that might utterly astonish you. But once you’ve identified it, you need to trust it to lead you where it will. It’s not blind faith. But it is faith. Which doesn’t mean it won’t sometimes lead you down a dark alley for an artistic mugging. But those are the chances you take.

That’s all, folks: Meanwhile, Mr. Scatter has a story in this morning’s Oregonian about the Oregon Jewish Museum‘s new show That’s All, Folks: The Mel Blanc Story, celebrating the life and times of the Portland kid who grew up to be possibly the greatest Hollywood voice actor of all time, supplying the sounds of cartoon characters ranging from Bugs Bunny to Pepe LePew.

Logo for the radio hit "Hoot Owls," which featured Blanc. Courtesy Mark Moore, NW Vintage Radio Society.Blanc made a name for himself in Portland radio with shows such as KGW’s Hoot Owls (it was a huge hit in the 1920s and early ’30s, drawing audiences of more than a million a show) before heading for Hollywood and cartoon immortality. Blanc was far more than bilingual: He spoke in about 400 different character voices, which, as Ellen Bialystok might have predicted, kept him alert and peppy until he died at age 81 in 1989.

One story goes that after a string of successes he asked his bosses at Warner Bros for a raise. No can do, they told him: We can’t afford it. So he asked that he be given a nameline in the credits and they said sure. That’s how he became the first voice actor to be featured in a cartoon’s credits, paving the way for the likes of Jack Black, Eddie Murphy and Robby Benson, the onetime teen heartthrob who revealed big-league Broadway chops as the voice of Beast in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

So: No money, but you can have a byline? Sounds like blogging.

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  • Mel Blanc gives himself a close shave for a KGW radio gig. Photo courtesy of Noel Blanc.
  • Logo for the radio hit “Hoot Owls,” which featured Blanc. Courtesy Mark Moore, NW Vintage Radio Society.
Bob Hicks, Dance, General, Visual Art

Any way the wind blows: fresh air in town

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UPDATE: Barry Johnson reviews TopShakeDance’s “Gust” on Arts Dispatch.

TopShakeDance's Dana Detweiler in "Gust." Photo: Todd StephenTodd Stephen

By Bob Hicks

Feels like spring. Finally. Mr. Scatter is cavorting about town in short-sleeve shirts, anticipating the day after the Rose Festival’s Grand Floral Parade, when the rains might taper off for good and we can start thinking about summer. O gray, gray Puddletown: We’ve had about enough of you. Let the colors begin.

In this morning’s Oregonian Mr. Scatter reviews Gust, the new hour-long piece by Jim McGinn’s contemporary dance troupe TopShakeDance, at Conduit. Gust is also weather-driven: It’s about wind, which can be fierce in the skeleton of winter but really knows no season, and it’s quite good. Repeats tonight and next Thursday-Saturday, May 26-28. Tickets here.

Also recent in The Oregonian: In Friday’s A&E section Mr. Scatter reviewed the latest show by painter Jay Backstrand, one of the Oregon art scene’s grand old lions, and also provided a quick glimpse of recent work by a somewhat younger lion, Tom Cramer. Both exhibits are at Laura Russo Gallery through May 28.

The country ladder of success: Of course, around Puddletown a marginally nice day in spring is often an excellent excuse for a drive out the Columbia River Gorge, where the weather’s a little drier, the temperature’s a little warmer, and the views are slap-your-forehead spectacular. Plus, these days, there’s good coffee, good wine, and good stuff to eat.

Folks around Hood River have been busily promoting the valley’s spring charms, and one good bet looks to be Mosier artist John Maher‘s installation Running Fruit Ladders, a half-mile stretch of brightly colored 14-foot-tall orchard ladders that runs along Highway 35 (the back route to Mt. Hood) in front of the White House and Mt. Hood Winery. The ladders are continuing to run through May, so you still have a chance. Besides looking, we assume, really cool, the installation is a nice reminder of the high valley’s rich tradition of growing and harvesting some of the best fruit in the land. It’s also an obvious nod to Cristo and Jeanne-Claude‘s Running Fence, which famously rippled across Sonoma and Marin counties in the 1970s. Mr. Scatter had the great good fortune of running across that spectacular exhibition unawares, with no prior knowledge that it existed, and being utterly gobsmacked. The experience remains one of the artistic highlights of his life.

John Maher's "Running Fruit Ladders." Artist's rendition.

Photos, from top:

  • TopShakeDance’s Dana Detweiler in “Gust.” Photo: Todd Stephen.
  • John Maher’s installation “Running Fruit Ladders.” Artist’s rendition.