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Daily Art Moment: Valentine’s Day

Sage Sohier, Gordon and Jim with Gordon’s Mother Margot, 1987, pigment print, 15 9/16 x 23 in. horizontal b&w photo with hot flash depicting 3 figures seated on a floral couch, the central male with his right arm around the elderly woman and left arm reaching out to male seated further away who is grasping it in both hands.

The Feast of St. Valentine’s Day has been celebrated in many different ways for well over a thousand years. No matter how you may feel about our contemporary version of Valentine’s Day, which tends to center romantic love, this can be a helpful reminder that love and connection are critical to our humanity. Photography has…  Read more

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NW Film Center reopens Whitsell Auditorium with matinees celebrating Cinema Unbound Awards honorees

The Whitsell Auditorium at the Portland Art Museum will reopen on February 26, 2022, with weekend matinee programming from the Northwest Film Center featuring work by this year’s Cinema Unbound Awards honorees—Not Content To Be Contained: Work by the Cinema Unbound Awardees 2022. The Northwest Film Center’s annual Cinema Unbound Awards honor groundbreaking multi-media artists,…  Read more

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Write Around PAM: Dan Flavin

Image description: Untitled (to Donna) 2, 96 ¼ x 96, fluorescent light. An installation of fluorescent lights positioned in a corner consisting of two bright yellow lights running horizontally at floor and knee level and two fluorescent lights running horizontally at each end with the light component facing the wall. The horizontal lights are bright blue at the right and mauve at the left. All four lights cast their colors on the corner walls and floor.

Artist Dan Flavin used only fluorescent tube lights arranged to create light, color, and space. He explained, “One might not think of light as a matter of fact, but I do. And it is, as I said, as plain and open and direct an art as you will ever find.” untitled (to Donna) 2 illuminates…  Read more

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Daily Art Moment: Judy Pfaff

Image descriptions: Judy Pfaff, Untitled, 1981, contact paper and paper; 23-½ x 33 in. 1. A detail shot of spikey irregular paper shapes in metallic magenta, silver, electric yellow, copper, and neon orange layered atop each other. 2. Thinly cut paper swirls and zig-zags in clouds of energetic colors layered in a riotous abstract collage. A metallic silver and black background grounds the rectangular composition. From top right, spikey black, neon orange, and electric yellow spikey shapes pour into a swirl of black and white curls. From the left, a red spiral emits an orange spray with yellow and metallic electric blue accents. From the bottom, a whirlpool of white and black lines erupts into orange and black zig-zags. They coalesce in a metallic copper spiral lined with white circular shapes.
Judy Pfaff (American, born 1946), Untitled, 1981, contact paper and paper, image: 23 1/2 in x 33 in, Museum Purchase: Funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and Contemporary Art Council. Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon, 81.52

Judy Pfaff is an innovator, acclaimed for her groundbreaking work in installation art during the 1970s. At a time when minimalism was prized, she approached spaces with maximal intention, filling galleries with maze-like accumulations of materials in linear and geometric shapes. Some have called it “painting in space.” Pfaff’s works on paper, like the one…  Read more

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Write Around PAM: Zhang Hongtu

Image description: After Shiato’s Landscape Album: Shitao-Van Gogh, from the series Ongoing Shan Shui. Zhang Hongtu. 2002. Oil on canvas. 48”H x 36”W. Colorful landscape of a river, plant-covered rock surfaces, a path leading to a building, and large mountain peaks in the background with fluffy white clouds above. There are thirteen columns with five black Chinese characters along the top with three red seals and four columns of several smaller black characters on the left with three red seals below. Multiple colors are layered together with distinct brush strokes. The clouds are fluffy and made up of white strokes with yellow, purple, and blue mixed in, and darker blue outlines. Below five rock peaks that are thin and rounded on top can be seen behind a large hill covered in greenery. At the base is a field of tall green reed-like plants. At the edge of the field is a white two-story structure with a dark brown roof. A white solid fence with golden vertical beams spaced evenly throughout sits in front of the structure with an arch that opens in front of the structure. A single tree with long branches and a few sparse leaves grows at the arched entrance. Yellow, gold, orange, and brown strokes are layered to create the ground around the fence. On the left and right borders, tall rock faces stretch nearly the length of the canvass and have various colors of greenery growing on the surface. Below, blue, green, and white dots make up the body of water that runs through the landscape. The reflection of the rocks and greenery can be seen in the water. On the right a narrow brown pathway with black steps runs between the rugged, plant-covered rocks. The brush strokes create a sense of movement throughout the painting - as if the clouds are rolling by and the greenery is blowing in the wind.

Zhang Hongtu’s Ongoing Shan Shui series explores categories of “East” and “West” in a distinctive way, reflecting his own life lived in two cultures. Here, he reimagines an album leaf by the great seventeenth-century artist Shitao—a small work in ink on paper—in the brilliant colors and brushwork of the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. Take…  Read more

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Daily Art Moment: Jess Perlitz

Image description: Burned Beast, Jess Perlitz, burned basswood, 48 x 30 x 54 inches. A sculpture of a four-legged, horse-like creature depicted standing with one front leg slightly raised, its head tilted to the left. The beast has a long neck, small upright ears, large deep-set eyes that appear almost closed, a short snout with a broad mouth. The creature’s legs appear to be jointed at the shoulder, and end in thick hooves. The animal is dark charcoal in color and the surface shows the uneven marks of carving. It stands directly on the floor next to a white wall that has dark smudges that roughly correlate to the beast’s silhouette.

Jess Perlitz’s Burned Beast is a mismatched creature, resembling an ill-fitted hobby horse with visible seams and dowels. The basswood has been hand-chiseled and sanded, and burnt in the final stage, at once creating a pragmatic and protective seal, while also signaling a kind of ritual act. The “shadow” is created by rubbing charcoal on…  Read more

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Write Around PAM: Jeppe Hein

Image description: Please Participate. Jeppe Hein. 2015. Neon tubes and transformers. 88 inches x 210 inches. Words in white neon mounted on a white gallery wall in seven rows. The lettering is simple and approachable in all capitals. The words are: Row 1: Please. Row 2: Participate, Be, Grateful, Enjoy, Focus. Row 3: Meditate, Feel, Open, Up, Interact, Smell. Row 4: Try, Breathe, Forgive, Wish, Be, Aware. Row 5: Smile, Wonder, Dream, Taste, Do, Yoga. Row 6: Kiss, Love, Yourself, Search, Relax, Touch. Row 7: Sving, Choose, Your, Way, Expect, A, Miracle. Below nine, white, rectangular transformers sit on a shelf below the words with electrical cords connecting each one to several words. The upper left corner of the image shows an opening in the wall and light from the gallery above.

We are venturing into a new year, and while our resolutions may not last, our intentions can, especially with the help of a pen and paper. Danish artist Jeppe Hein is known for creating playful, interactive works. His Please Participate feels like a great place to start. Take a moment to sit with this piece.…  Read more

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Daily Art Moment: David Park

Image descriptions: The Cellist, David Park, 1959, 56 in x 56 in, oil on canvas. 1. A detail of the figure’s right hand gently grasping a bow as it plays a cello. The brushstrokes are wide, generously applied, in strokes of burnt sienna, sage, black, navy, white, and yellow. 2. An overall shot of a square oil painting of an abstracted seated figure playing a cello, rendered in thick impasto-like brushstrokes that just come together to render the scene. The figure is comprised of mostly white brushstrokes and their clothing is black, against a background of sage, orange, cadmium red, dabs of yellow, blue, and navy. The figure's eyes are downcast playing the cello, left arm grasping the cello’s neck and right arm holding the bow. The figure recedes into the background at moments.
David Park (American, 1911-1960), The Cellist, 1959, oil on canvas, 56 in x 56 in, Museum Purchase: Funds provided by Ronna and Eric Hoffman. Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon, 86.77

While he was a young artist, David Park experimented with the predominant style of the day: abstract expressionism. However, he made a decisive turn toward representation and broke away from the fashion of the 1950s American art world. Park favored painting the figure either alone or in groups, using thick layers of paint and blocks…  Read more

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Daily Art Moment: Renée Sintenis

Image description: Dog (New Year’s Greeting Card), 2 13/16 x 4 3/8 inches, drypoint on paper. A print on light tan colored paper depicting a small scruffy coated dog curled up with its head resting on the floor. The dog is illustrated using relatively few black lines, showing a textured, wiry coat. The dog is laying down with its paws tucked under its body and head tucked back towards its hind leg. One paw does peek out from behind the pup’s head at far right. Upright pointed ears mimic a pointed snout accented with whiskers and a tiny nose. The dog’s unruly coat gives it a scruffy, slightly bedraggled appearance. The black lines that compose it have an uneven and ragged edge adding to the dog’s unkempt presentation.
Renée Sintenis (German, 1888-1965), Dog (New Year's Greeting Card), mid-20th century, drypoint on paper, plate: 2 13/16 in x 4 3/8 in; sheet: 4 3/4 in x 6 1/2 in, Gift of Mrs. Thomas C. Colt, Jr.. Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon, 51.197

Happy New Year! Artists have long marked the occasion by sending original prints to their friends and family. In this example by German sculptor and printmaker Renée Sintenis (1888–1965), the pup looks exhausted by the festivities. The artist took advantage of drypoint’s ability to create a raised ragged edge to capture ink (known as the…  Read more

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Daily Art Moment: William H. Walker

Image description: The New Year’s Edition (of the Oregonian), William H Walker, gelatin silver print, image 7 x 8 3/4 inches, sheet 7 1/16 x 9 ¼ inches. This black and white photograph depicts a newspaper vendor and customers at an outdoor newsstand on the sidewalk of a rainy street. At center right, a makeshift table holds mounds of large rolls of newspaper broadsheets. Three oversized broadsheets hang from the table and are half the length of the figure bent over the table. The figure, standing at the photo’s center, wears long dark overcoat and trousers with a hat. Behind them and to the left stands another figure, again in dark clothing and hat. The newsstand sits on the angled sidewalk which runs from the lower right to the upper left of the photo. Further down the sidewalk at far left is a streetlamp and another newsstand table heaped with rolled papers. In the distance, at far left another dark clad figure approaches. The background appears misty and the sidewalk shines with the fallen rain. At right, the hazy outline of buildings across the street are just discernible.

Curiously, this photograph is one of only two in the Museum’s permanent collection that includes “New Year” in its title. Made by Portland-based photographer Will Walker, it depicts people selling and purchasing copies of the New Year’s Day 1918 edition of The Oregonian. Thanks to @multnomahcountylibrary and its online research resources, I looked through the…  Read more