PORTLAND, ORE — While researching the history of art installations at the Portland Building (the program dates back to 1994 and has presented over 130 exhibitions in the gallery space adjacent to the building lobby) artist Yoonhee Choi was intrigued by the fact that the walls of the gallery are covered with hundreds of layers of paint. Choi began to wonder what these layers might look like if displayed in cross-section. As her idea developed, she considered how she might mine the archeological stratigraphy in a manner that would get visitors thinking, in profound terms, about all those past art installations:

“When I heard there were hundreds layers of paint under the surface of the wall, a wonderful, evocative sectional image of those paints instantly came across my mind reminding me of archeological stratigraphy. I was excited by the idea of selectively revealing this history and of using the concealed strata of paint to inspire the creation of a new topographical landscape within the space that explores the condensed scale and time of human interventions: 20 years of history within millimeters of wall surface.”

Choi will mark her own installation by applying a fresh top-coat of gray paint before cutting into the walls to reveal the history concealed within the strata. By systematically excavating (with utility knives and carving tools) and formally presenting the “unearthed” layers in a museum case, and on a specially built display wall, she’ll create a wordless homage to all the artists before her who have labored earnestly at the site in the name of art.

About the Artist:  A resident of Portland, Oregon, Yoonhee Choi studied at Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts after receiving a Master of Architecture degree from Yale University and a Bachelor of Engineering in City Planning from Hong-Ik University in Seoul, Korea. Her projects, which range from small collages to room-sized installations, express multiple scales of spatial experience as they explore the potential of the unexpected materials she uses.

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. The exhibition will open September 15 and run through October 10.

A Conversation with the Artist: Friday, September 19th from 4pm – 5pm; Yoonhee Choi will be on-site at the Portland Building to discuss STRATAscape.

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.
 
 

PORTLAND, ORE – Ritual 660’, a deftly crafted installation by artist Abigail McNamara, engages the observer’s aesthetic senses while it asks us to contemplate a largely unconsidered aspect of our workday world. McNamara’s installation, which opens August 11th at the Portland Building, employs a floor to ceiling wall of string—each strand coated with beeswax and pigment—to elegantly graph the pedestrian traffic at one of the city’s busiest downtown building complexes.

“The patterns of the working world are carefully constructed. We follow the familiar pathways of prescribed norms—nine to five, Monday through Friday, one hour for lunch. The masses move together along this framework. I am examining this strict human-made structure to reveal the organic forms which underlie it.”

Each string in Ritual, 660’ represents a single minute of a day at the Portland Building. From 7:00 am to 6:00 pm on June 29, 2014, McNamara observed all of the comings and goings through the building’s entrance. To give form to her findings, she devised the floor to ceiling string-graph and waxed the individual strands to indicate the size of the flow both in and out of the doors. Those entering were indicated above a knot in the string, thoseexiting were indicated below the knot; colored form was placed within the strings to expose the shape of the daily migration.

McNamara sees her installation as a way to comment on the organic patterns and forms that can be derived from our daily lives:

“Activity ebbs and flows within the established workday. Bodies move in swarms or in solitude along currents. The shapes of these movements oppose the rigid structure of the work week. Paths build upon one another as each person moves in, out, and through the building. Individuals gradually flow from here to there and the populace of the building swells and shrinks like changing tides.”

About the Artist:  A native of Missoula, Montana, Abigail McNamara received her B.A. in Studio Art from Lewis & Clark College in 2012. She has exhibited her work nationwide and recently received a Career Opportunity Grant from the Oregon Arts Commission to support the execution of her upcoming installation at Duplex Collective in Portland.  In 2013, she was selected as an artist-in-residence by Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts as well as Grin City Collective. She currently works and lives in Portland.  For additional information and images of her work visit: abigailmcnamara.com

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.

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.