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Collective Process: The Artists Behind the Metamorphosis Mural

Christian J. Barrios, Angennette Escobar, Hector H Hernandez, Victor Hugo Garzo stand before Metamorphosis Mural in progress and a digital mural
March 2022: Christian J. Barrios, Angennette Escobar, Hector H Hernandez, and Victor Hugo Garzo stand before "Metamorphosis Mural" in progress and a digital mural by Garza.

“The focus on the collective within art and art-making has shaped and inspired the community partnership work for this exhibition.” Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection is an exhibition rich with layers of communal and artistic camaraderie that helped build the vision for the formation of post…  Read more

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Spring 2022 Miller Family Free Days Announced

March 20, April 24, June 19 Timed-entry ticket reservations for March 20 are available beginning March 16 The Museum is pleased to share three upcoming Miller Family Free Day opportunities for visitors to reserve free admission tickets to the galleries. March 20 (ticket reservations available beginning 3/16) Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism, timed-entry…  Read more

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The Northwest Film Center is now PAM CUT // Center for an Untold Tomorrow

The Portland Art Museum announced tonight a new name for the Northwest Film Center—PAM CUT // Center for an Untold Tomorrow. The new name, which was revealed during the third annual Cinema Unbound Awards on March 8, positions the 50-year-old organization for a more expansive future.  Founded in 1971 as the Northwest Film Study Center,…  Read more

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Write Around PAM: Jason Hill

Image Description: Photo of eight Black dancers posing in a multi-level human sculpture on a gray stage in bright white light. Four dancers form a foundation. One in the center with black calf-long leggings and a black tank top stands with legs apart, toes pointed. To the right another dancer wears a red tank top and black leotard. They stand on their left toe with their right leg extended behind. The dancers behind embrace the leg and rest their heads on it. To the left of the central dancer with legs apart is a dancer with bright red leggings. Their left foot is extended behind and right foot forwarded and angled to the right. They lay their head on the center dancer’s shoulder. To the left is a dancer wearing a black leotard and a brightly colored shirt with puffy sleeves. It has multiple rounded rectangles in teal, blue, and red, with white and red accents. The dancer stands on their right leg, left leg bent with toes extended behind their back, with their arms outstretched and fingers gently curved. Behind the line of dancers, a single dancer wearing light gold shorts with black dots stands on their toes, facing the audience with left arm extended, palm out, fingers raised upward, but gently bent. At the right end of the line of dancers is a dancer wearing a black leotard with short sleeves. They stand facing the right with legs apart, toes pointed. They hold another dancer on their left leg. This dancer’s right leg extends over the base dancer’s shoulder as that dancer holds the left thigh and ankle. The dancer looks upward, wearing black briefs and a red sports bra with white sides and white and black striped base, leans to the right, left arm extended, right arm bent at the elbow with palms facing out and fingers gently bent. Behind, a dancer on the ground wearing a black speedo leotard and a large puffy black and red scarf holds the shoulder of the dancer in the full black leotard with their right arm and extends their left arm upward, palm facing forward, fingers extended.
Jason Hill, Lion King, 2019, Pigment-based inkjet print. Courtesy of the artist.

Jason Hill is an artist and educator currently living in Portland, Oregon. He took this photo in winter 2019, during a day in Eugene with the off-Broadway cast of The Lion King. “I am most amazed by the discipline, momentum, and grace of dancers,” he says. “These images are a testament to the power and…  Read more

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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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Community

Brooke Jacobson In Memoriam

It is with sadness that the Northwest Film Center and Portland Art Museum share the passing of Brooke Jacobson, co-founder of the Northwest Film Center. Along with Bob Summers, she co-founded the Northwest Film Center in 1971 and was responsible for developing programs such as Filmmakers in the Schools until 1974.  When asked about her…  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