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Inversion +/-, Lead Pencil Studio, 2012-2013
The region’s public art enlivens urban and rural landscapes and promotes dialogue among people of all ages and backgrounds. Through a variety of public-private partnerships, RACC helps acquire and maintain community-owned artworks in public places. A Public Art Advisory Committee oversees RACC’s public art program, which is among the oldest and most highly regarded public art programs in the country.
Posted January 10, 2019
Night Lights, RACC’s outdoor public art series, continues its 2018-19 season with Megan Mckissack’s Untitled work on February 7 at 5:30pm. Mckissack’s Night Lights work was inspired by the current Presidential Administration’s deletion of climate data. Mapping and generating visualizations of Oregon LIDAR point cloud data from the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries and […]
Posted November 19, 2018
Our outdoor public art event series, Night Lights, will feature Roland Dahwen and Stephanie Adams-Santos in December! Happening on December 6 at 5pm, Dahwen and Adams-Santos will present Three Moons/Tres Lunas/3つの月, a two-channel video installation and altar, dedicated to, and made alongside, our elders. In conjunction with the video and text projections, the artists will build several temporary altars. […]
Posted October 17, 2018
Local artists channel Día de Muertos in next installment of Fresh Paint, a temporary murals program October 17, 2018 — PORTLAND, OR – Passersby can now see the newest work-in-progress from Fresh Paint, a temporary murals program, on the exterior wall of Open Signal: Portland Community Media Center on NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard […]
Posted October 15, 2018
Night Lights, RACC’s outdoor public art event series continues with local artists Roesing Ape and Beth Whelan. Following a successful kickoff to the series with Laura Median’s Flying in October, the next Night Lights event will take place on November 1st at 6PM. Titled Windows 11, Ape and Whelan’s work involves a minimalist dance piece inside an architectural projection of […]
Posted September 24, 2018
If you’re around the Foster Powell Neighborhood in Portland, you may have caught a new mural going up at Essex Park on SE 76th and Center St. during the weekend of September 22 and 23. Artist team Rather Severe (Travis Czekalski and Jon Stommel) is heading the mural painting, with design and painting help provided […]
Posted September 20, 2018
Night Lights, RACC’s outdoor public art event series, is back for five months with local artists/collectives projecting their digital media works onto RACC’s building for several hours starting at dusk. Now in its fourth year, Night Lights is a unique event series that celebrates and highlights the intersections of digital technology, art, and place. Laura […]
Posted June 12, 2018
In a city known for murals, how do you get your foot (or art) through a door when you’re an emerging artist of color? Fresh Paint, a partnership between RACC’s Public Art Murals program and Open Signal, offers that door to have artists work in the public space. Last May, Molly Mendoza kicked off the […]
Posted May 31, 2018
In a city known for murals, how do you get your foot (or art) through a door when you’re an emerging artist of color? Fresh Paint, a partnership between RACC’s Public Art Murals program and Open Signal, offers that door to have artist work in the public realm. In our 2017 pilot year, Fresh Paint […]
Posted April 30, 2018
Working with King School students, Ralph Pugay’s installation is up on the pedestrian walkway to Hawthorne Bridge A Long Line of Non-Partial Jurors is now installed in the temporary pedestrian walkway along the SW Main Street entrance to the Hawthorne Bridge. This public art mural was created collaboratively between Ralph Pugay as the lead artist and […]
Posted April 2, 2018
The intricate artworks created by Northeast Portland artists, Arvie Smith and Mehran Heard, will be unveiled on the Natural Grocers façade later this month. by Emilly Prado The Alberta Arts District has been synonymous with culture, creativity and home for much of Portland’s African American community for decades. On April 18, 2018, the long-awaited […]
Posted March 29, 2018
Night Lights’ final showcase of the 2017-2018 season will be a screening of work from this season’s artists in residence Amy Chiao and Chloe Cooper. Since this season of Night Lights began last summer, Amy and Chloe have been building a life-size puppet made from plastic waste and filming its trips through public places in […]
Posted March 14, 2018
The Regional Arts & Culture Council invites artists/artist teams living in the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho to submit qualifications for two separate public art opportunities for Portland Parks & Recreation. These opportunities will be for the newly developed parks located at Glenhaven Park and at Lynchview Park. Artworks created for these parks must […]
Posted February 28, 2018
Night Lights’ second showcase of 2018 includes work from the inaugural class of Open Signal’s Future Forum program, which provides an in-depth learning experience for socially driven media makers to improve their creative practice and teaching abilities as well as increase their engagement with the community. This year’s Future Forum artists include ariella tai, Ashlin […]
Posted December 20, 2017
The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) in Portland, Oregon, invites artists living in Oregon and Washington to submit qualifications for a roster of artists qualified to create murals. Artists remain on the roster for three years, after which time they will be asked to reapply. The deadline for submitting application materials is the first Wednesday of every […]
Posted November 17, 2017
The $195 million, three year long renovation of the Portland Building has begun! Many already know that the City of Portland’s main administrative building is considered one of the first examples of Postmodern architecture, and that its western façade is the home of Raymond Kaskey’s iconic Portlandia. It is less well known however, that hundreds of […]
Posted October 24, 2017
Mauricio Robalino’s “Bird” sculpture was dedicated on Saturday, October 21st as part of the Grand Opening of Luuwit View Park. The Grand Opening was put on by Portland Parks & Recreation and ran from 11 am to 2 pm. Attendance was high despite the rain. Events were officiated by Commissioner Amanda Fritz and began with […]
Posted October 18, 2017
Fresh Paint, a temporary mural wall project, began in early 2017 as part of a new professional development initiative of RACC’s Public Art Murals programming. Three artists have been selected to paint a temporary mural on an area of the exterior west-wall of Open Signal facing the highly-visible Martin Luther King Jr Blvd. Each mural […]
Posted September 27, 2017
Alex Chiu is the next artist to be featured in Fresh Paint, our temporary mural program in partnership with Open Signal. The mural is on an area of Open Signal’s west-wall facing Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. Chiu is the second artist to be showcased in the pilot program and will also be teaching a […]
Posted August 31, 2017
As City Bureaus begin relocating their offices in advance of the Portland Building renovation RACC has also been working to find temporary storage for the many public art works that will be displaced during construction. Portlandia will stay put on the building’s west façade, but the iconic 35 foot high sculpture will be screened off […]
Posted August 24, 2017
Regional Arts & Culture Council and Open Signal to host projections from local artists PORTLAND, ORE — Night Lights, a monthly public art event, continues into its third year of urban intervention. A special launch party will be held at Open Signal on Wednesday, September 20 before the First Thursday series begins on October 5, […]