PORTLAND, ORE – Americans for the Arts (AFTA) has recognized 37 outstanding public arts projects completed in the United States in 2013, including two artworks managed by the Regional Arts & Culture Council.  A total of 345 projects from across the country were submitted to AFTA for consideration for this year’s Public Art Network Year in Review, the most prestigious national honor in public art.

• Streetcar Stop for Portland by artist Jorge Pardo located just north of the Rose Quarter, at NE Broadway and Weidler. The eccentric multifaceted structure includes over 300 individual panels in shades of gray and brown on the exterior, with warm hues of orange and yellow on the interior, sheltering streetcar passengers and marking the stop in a highly visible and fantastically colorful way. Pardo’s creation provides a “rainy on the outside, sunny on the inside” experience for Portland’s Streetcar riders. The inspiration for the exterior palate derives from an evening photograph Pardo took and then simplified and mapped onto the surfaces. He intended the piece to be best appreciated when it is dark and rainy and the interior lighting creates a warm glow that stands out like a beacon amongst its dark surroundings.
   
• Inversion +/- by Lead Pencil Studio is a monumental scale sculpture in three parts located at the bridge approaches for the Hawthorne and Morrison Bridges in Portland’s Central Eastside Industrial District. The elements draw “ghosts” of buildings demolished in the 1950’s for highway construction, including a cast-iron foundry, a warehouse, and an apartment building. At Hawthorne, two large elements are constructed with a matrix of weathered steel to form the front and back corners of a building. At Morrison the matrix renders the perimeter of the same building form emphasizing the negative space surrounding it.  In reconstructing remnants from the past and building out to the previous property lines, the sculpture explores the scale and complexity of the lost civic fabric.

Streetcar Stop for Portland and Inversion +/- were both funded through the City of Portland’s Percent for Art program, which sets aside two percent of most publicly funded capital construction projects – in this case, the Portland Streetcar’s eastside expansion – for the creation and maintenance of public art.

“We are honored that these two works have been recognized among the country’s excellent and innovative public artworks last year,” said Eloise Damrosch, executive director of RACC. “What I like the most about these two projects is how they engage people along our streets in very different ways – one is human scaled and neighborhood focused, while the other is of much greater size and intended to be viewed from a distance or from below looking upward against the sky. Inversion references the past, while Streetcar Stop is a nod to our future, emphasizing the importance of public transit and sustainability.”

The Regional Arts & Culture Council manages one of the country’s oldest public art programs, with more than 2,000 community-owned artworks in a variety of public places throughout Portland and Multnomah County. The entire collection can be explored online at racc.org/public-art/search and through an iPhone app (publicartpdx.com). RACC and Travel Portland also produce a public art walking tour map for the central city.  In addition to its public art program, RACC provides grants and other services for artists and arts organizations in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington Counties, and helps teachers integrate the arts into the standard curriculum in K-8 classrooms across the tri-county region. Learn more at racc.org. 

For a complete list of all recognized projects, click here.

PORTLAND, ORE — Over the next two weeks, Portland artist Gwenn Seemel will be working on a mural-sized portrait of Kirk Reeves, the Portland street performer and musician who passed away in November of 2012. The 10’ x 30’ foot mural, funded by RACC, will be painted along the east facing wall of a building on the southwest corner of Grand Avenue and Lloyd Boulevard, formerly the location of Rich’s Deli.   

The portrait will show Reeves in his trademark white tux, black sparkly sweater, his trumpet and red sequined hat. The background will be the musical score for the first few bars of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” a song often played by Reeves on his trumpet. The background will contain a rainbow of Seemel’s distinctive energetic marks. 

Reeves regularly performed on the Hawthorne Bridge, playing his trumpet and performing magic tricks to the delight of local commuters. As Gwenn writes on her blog, “…he was always dressed to the nines—white tuxedo with tail, sparkly black sweater, Mickey Mouse hat…He was doing what he loved and he was glad for it.”  Her mural of him will capture his lively presence that was appreciated by young and old alike.

RACC’s public art mural program, financed by the City of Portland, provides funding for murals that reflect diversity in style and media and encourages artists from diverse backgrounds and range of experience to apply. Murals approved through this program become part of the City’s public art collection. For more information, visit racc.org/murals. 
 
 

PORTLAND, ORE – On the surface Jesse Taylor’s Deconstruction Reconstruction: Office project has a simple premise—deconstruct the contents of a typical office space and rebuild/rework the pieces into a formal, abstract sculptural installation. But the artist’s ultimate intent is a bit more involved. Taylor also sees the labor associated with the deconstruction process as “work of joy” and manages to infuse this into his creation: “The act of deconstruction is, in itself, hard work, but it is labor that contradicts all normal purposes of work, to produce products or services related to our economic system. I approach the deconstruction act with the same kind of energy and intention that I would put into the production of a sculpture.” While the individual elements in Taylor’s abstractions remain recognizable as the building blocks of office furniture and fixtures the re-contextualization and new juxtapositions infuse the bits and pieces with fresh perspective, one based each object’s real, unappreciated, shape, form and texture. The end product here is infused not with the essence of something bound for consumption, like so much of the designed world that surrounds us, but rather bestacnedrug.com becomes something born out of mischief and joy.

About the Artist:  Jesse Taylor just completed his thesis year in the BFA program at Oregon College of Arts and Crafts where he studied under noted installation artists Emily Nachison and Bill Will. While his practice is firmly rooted in sculpture and installation, it often crosses over multiple mediums and draws on his earlier study of computers and visual arts at Portland Community College.

About the Installation Space:  Each year the Portland Building Installation Space series reserves several exhibition opportunities for advanced students in fine art.  The format and presentation requirements for the “student” installations are identical to those for established professional artists, the Regional Arts & Culture Council created this separate eligibility category to help introduce emerging talents to the world of public art. 

Viewing Hours & Location: The Portland Building is located at 1120 SW 5th Avenue in down-town Portland and is open 8 am to 5 pm, Monday – Friday.

For more information on the Portland Building Installation Space, including images, proposals, and statements for all projects dating back to 1994, go to www.racc.org/installationspace.