Who's Currently On View?

A Public Art History project looking at who is included in the historical and contemporary narratives of public art musuems

[thepaulwhittakerposts]

[frenchtwist]

[emidark]

Pussy temple for the rest of your life.

Surrealist photomontage #4 by Allen A. Dutton, 1970

[publicarthistory]

What with the state of politics this blog will have to go on hiatus until I have the time and resources to pursue the ideas I have for it. Until then, I thought I’d share this amazing work and my recent thoughts on leftist discourse with you.

https://betweenthursdayandfriday.wordpress.com/2017/01/28/pink-pussyhats-and-their-discontents/

[publicarthistory]

Long time, no see!

I know it’s been a while, and somewhere along the way my original url got snatched out from under me, but I have some new ideas about how to explore art historical narratives that I’m going to try and use this space for so stay tuned!

[publicarthistory]

Oliver Lee Jackson (American, born 1935), Untitled (8-21-87), 1987, oil on canvas, Gift of Marcel and Margrit Schurman, © Oliver Lee Jackson, 2003.76

This work is not currently on view.

Of the seven total works by Oliver Lee Jackson in the Portland Art Museum’s collection, one is currently on view.

“For me, painting and color are inseparable. I came to understand the visual force of color. It is necessary to see color as structure and form, and fundamental to composition in painting.” — Oliver Jackson in African Renaissance, 2006

I intend the work to have power, and I want the power to be specific in terms of its effects.  — Oliver Jackson in African Renaissance, 2006

[publicarthistory]

I was in NY this past week and I stopped by The Whitney Museum of American Art to check out the new building and to see their inaugural exhibit “America is Hard to See.” It’s a great survey of the past 100 years or so of American art, and I noticed many artists and their works that I’ve covered on this blog were on view. This is as it should be, and goes to show how inclusive the art historical narrative has become and how much further we can push it in the coming century. I’ve included a few images and their captions but there’s much more to see in person, so if you have the change go see art history in the making at The Whitney before it closes September 27.

From Top to Bottom:

Lorna Simpson b. 1960; Brooklyn, NY                                                                   2 Tracks, 1990                                                                                                         Three gelatin silver prints with frames and two plastic plaques. Edition no. 4/4

Roy DeCarava b. 1919; New York, NY. d. 2009; New York, NY                             Coltrane and Elvin, 1960 Gelatin silver print.   

From a cluster of works in the “Course of Empire” section of ‘America Is Hard to See,’ including Roger Shimomura, “American Guardian” (2007, top left).

Hale Woodruff, Giddap and By Parties Unknown. 1935 linocut on paper. 

“These prints were made as protests against lynching, a form of mob-fueled vigilante execution. In the United States, lynchings became tragically common after slavery was abolished and freed black men gained the right to vote. Most lynchings targeted these men as a means of intimidation; they were often tortured, hanged, and burned. The practice terrorized African American communities; the perpetrators were almost never brought to trial, much less convicted.

During the 1930s, artists from diverse backgrounds participated in campaigns to eradicate lynching; several of the prints on view here, for example, were included in exhibitions to galvanize support for a 1935 anti-lynching bill in Congress. (That bill failed, and it wasn’t until 1946 that a federal court issued a conviction for lynching.) Some of these works focus on the terrifying inhumanity of the mob; others offer unflinching depictions of the aftermath of torture and suffering. While these prints are varied in their stylistic approaches, they are unified in their insistence that - to use the language of our moment rather than theirs - black lives matter.”                                                                         

[medievalpoc]

notcurrentlyonview submitted:

Currently On View at the Portland Art Museum in the traveling exhibition, Gods and Heroes: Masterpieces from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris.

[mod note]

Louis Licherie de Beurie

Abigail Bringing Gifts to David

France (1679)

the placard reads:

Not all the heroes in the Académie’s grand history were men: this reception piece, painted by Licherie for entrance into the Académie, explored the theme of the noble, self-sacrificing wife through a scene from the Old Testament. The wealthy Nabal had refused to pay tribute to his king, David. Nabal’s wife, Abigail, hearing that David is on his way with soldiers, intercepts the group. The painting shows Abigail diplomatically offering gifts, trying to save her husband and her household from destruction. David, in a splendid helmet, is overcome by her intelligence and beauty. In fact, when God strikes down Nabal shortly thereafter, David asks for Abigail’s hand in marriage. At the time Licherie painted this work, David would have been identified with Louis XIV, and Abigail with a wise subject of the monarch. The painting pays homage to the work of Poussin in the clear disposition on the composition across a lush landscape setting, and in the carefully studies poses of each figure in telling the story.

[aboundlesswombofcultivations]

Jeremy Okai Davis, <i>Those Days Are Over</i>

Those Days Are Over began when local artist Jeremy Okai Davis’ landlord gave him an album of photographs left behind by a travel agency. The pictures of friends vacationing in the 1980s inspir,Visual Arts

SEE IT: Those Days Are Over is at Duplex Gallery, 219 NW Couch St., 206-5089. 9 am-5 pm Monday-Friday through May 29.

[publicarthistory]

A brief interlude here to mention a great show in a Portland gallery by a local artist! 

[publicarthistory]

Arvie Smith (American, born 1938), Dem Golden Slippers, 2007, oil on linen, Gift of Donna Hammar, © Arvie Smith, 2010.80

This work is not currently on view.

BUT! There’s an exhibition of Arvie Smith’s work at Mark Woolley Gallery in Portland, OR opening Saturday May, 16 and running through July 12.

“My grandparents raised me in Texas. He was a college history prof in an all-black college. She was head teacher and principal for a separate-but equal grade school. The KKK burned down my ‘uppity’ grand uncle’s farm. Great grandmother was a slave in N. Carolina. Great grandfather stowed away on a ship from Jamaica and made a home in Texas. At 13, I was sent to South Central LA, where my mother worked three jobs to create a home for my siblings and me. I had never been in a world where children disrespected their elders. As a gang member, I was able to protect myself and my siblings. Gang membership offers black males a sense of fraternity and a sense of being in the absence of father figures, then and now. My post-Obama work captures the celebration, the amazement, the hope. Although the idea that blacks are seen as inferior continues. Obama’s election invites African Americans to say: ‘I can be President. I see and feel the audacity of hope; the encouragement that yes, I am in no way inferior nor am I a second-class citizen. I am somebody.’ Blacks depend on the largest of the dominant culture for recognition. In life, we filter everything. Before we speak we must consider the consequences of our words. No black person feels secure in their position. Through art there is freedom. I expose the slights, discrimination, condescension. I speak unfettered of my perceptions of the black experience. By critiquing atrocities and oppression, by creating images that foment dialogue, I hope my work makes the repeat of those atrocities and injustices less likely.” - Arvie Smith

[publicarthistory]

Joe Cantrell (American and Cherokee, active 20th century), Untitled, before 1993, dye destruction print, Gift of Lillian Pitt, © unknown, research required, 93.58.19

This work is not currently on view.

http://www.portland5.com/antoinette-hatfield-hall/events/joe-cantrell

[publicarthistory]

José Betancourt (American, born Cuba, born 1954), Susan Weil (American, born 1930), Winter Weave, 2011, cyanotype, The Blue Sky Gallery Collection; Gift of Christopher Rauschenberg, © unknown, research required, 2011.114

This work is not currently on view.

[terresauvage]

I do not distinguish between culture and environment, art and craft. Nor can I believe in categorizing work by living artists as either ‘traditional’ (valid anthropological artifact) or ‘contemporary’ (valid fine art object). Such distinctions are at best irrelevant; at worst, they are racist.

-Git’ksan artist Doreen Jensen, on aboriginal art (via terresauvage)

[publicarthistory]

Sorry for the drop off in posts. I fell behind on my research, but I’m getting a lot done today! Here’s a list of 30+ Native American artists on view. Going to be investigating this list in the coming days. PAM does have a significant Native American Arts collection, including contemporary works, and I know there’s quite a bit on view in their Native American Galleries, but I’m curious to what degree those artists are integrated into their American Art History narrative through their American and Contemporary galleries. Obviously there’s more than one way to curate, just as there’s more than one way to tell a story.

[publicarthistory]

Kaila Farrell-Smith (American, Klamath, and Modoc, born 1982), After Boarding School: In Mourning, 2011, oil on canvas, Museum Purchase: Funds from Native American Art Council, © 2011 Kaila Farrell-Smith, 2012.100.1

This work is on view.

[publicarthistory]

Elizabeth Catlett, Singing Their Songs, from the series For My People, Illustrated book of six lithographs with text by Maragaret Walker; bound in imported red Japanese linen over heavy boards, housed in a cloth-covered clamshell box, 1992.    

This work is not currently on view.

http://www.orartswatch.org/10-artists-not-currently-on-view-at-the-portland-art-museum/

[publicarthistory]

Paul Horiuchi (American, born Japan, 1906-1999), Memories, 1964, mixed media collage, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Cyril Spinola, © unknown, research required, 2000.56

This work is not currently on view.

[publicarthistory]

Jacob Lawrence (American, 1917-2000), The First Book of Moses, Called Genesis, 1989, illustrated book of eight color screenprints with letterpress text from the King James version of Genesis; clothbound and housed in a cloth-covered clamshell box, The Carol and Seymour Haber Collection, © artist or other rights holder, 2008.73.1a,b

"And God Created Day and the Night and God put Stars in the Sky"  

This work is not currently on view.

[publicarthistory]

Robert Miller (American, born 1948), Allen Goldsby - Sculptor, 1986, gelatin silver print, Gift of the artist, © Robert Miller, 2012.164.34

This work is not currently on view