Alistair Bell at Bau Xi Gallery

Alistair Bell's prints at Bau Xi Gallery stand out as a must-see in Vancouver, BC right now. The printmaker, who died in 1997, made intriguing images of maritime life. Both starkly skeletal and richly textured, his work calls to mind Kollwitz, but I was reminded of Osip Mandelstam's poem "Insomnia. Homer. Taut Sails" where the insomniac narrator meditates on the catalog of ships of the Iliad. The variety of boats in Bell's work are reproduced with loving care, and their profusion begins to take on a literary quality. Orange and Black Mooring is above.

Link Roundup

• TJ Norris with a memoriam for all the lost artists of 2008.
• The Henry Art Gallery gets excited about the Museum for Jurassic Technology.
• New Buses for London...
• A little old...Into the Loop on sushi conveyor belt art.
• Christopher Knight picks Franz West and Drew Heitzler as the 2009 faces to watch.

Memorial Service for Terry Toedtemeier

Following the recent death of Terry Toedtemeier, a memorial service will be held at 2pm on Sunday, January 4th at the Portland Art Museum. The PAM website has the details.

Links

• An Alex Katz interview at Per Contra.
• PORT also enjoyed the Corey Arnold show.
• Two Coats of Paints with the top '08 moments in art blogging.
  

L.A. Travel Guide

From the snowed-in confines of Vancouver, BC, here (by special request) is a guide to what look like some must-see sights in the L.A. art world over the holiday...

• Culture Monster enthuses about 'Gouge: The Modern Woodcut 1870 to Now' at The Hammer Museum at UCLA. Billed by as a 'thematic survey' the exhibition juxtaposes the work of recognized masterst (Gaugin) with more contemporary artists (among them a beautiful piece by Anselm Kiefer). Baselitz's 1981 piece The Eagle is above.

• On Beverly Boulevard, Michael Kohn Gallery just took down an exhibition by the ever-intriguing Darren Waterston, and the Prince - Berman show I noted recently won't open until January 15th. A pity...
  
• Forget the turmoil of the recent tabloids - go to LA MoCA and enjoy the art. Louise Bourgeois at the Grand Avenue location and an exhibition of 'sequence' in artists books at the Pacific Design Center. Check out the commendable online catalog.
• Looks like LACMA has been a mixed bag all year and right now is no exception. Alongside their widely chastised exhibition of Vanity Fair portraits, Francis Alys' 'Fabiola' is a thought-provoking must-see for the conceptual crowd and earned an honorable mention on Tyler Green's top shows of 08. Both 'Shell-Shocked: Expressionism after the Great War' and 'The Age of Imagination: Japanese Art, 1615–1868' promise to be interesting historical surveys.
• Another MAN favorite: 'Dialogue Among the Giants' at the Getty. Carleton Watkins is no stranger to the Pacific Northwest, thanks to the two shows at PAM and the Oregon Historical Society that showcased his work.
  

A missed opportunity...

For those who failed to catch Corey Arnold's Fish Work at Charles A. Hartman, it was one of the most compelling photography exhibitions in Portland this year. Quite literally capturing both the 'fish' and the 'work' of deep sea fishing, Arnold's prints capture the sometimes horrific beauty of our society's relationship to the sea as well as making a compelling statement about the very human nature of the fishermen themselves. Loneliness, above, was featured in the exhibition.

Dawoud Bey in Baltimore

Both the Contemporary Museum and the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore opened exhibitions of Dawoud Bey on the 13th. The exhibition at the Contemporary Museum is a companion piece to Portraits Re/Examined: A Dawoud Bey Project at the Walters, which looks like the more interesting of the two; it places the photographs of Bey alongside portraits from the museum collection and is curated by Bey and a group of Baltimore high school students. According to the press release race, class, and identity in historic portraiture are the fundamental questions addressed. 

Both museums should be commended on the project. Working together, working with local schools, allowing a relevant contemporary artist so much space and freedom, exposing the relationship between history and present, influence and practice; refreshing examples of what cultural institutions should be doing.

Compare...Bey's 1988 Boy Eating a Foxy Pop (Brooklyn, NY) and the 17th Century Portrait Bust of a Young Boy, by an anonymous Flemish artist.

      

Links

• Jonathon Jones on some good Christmas reading. Compare with Richard Lacayo.
• Heavens be praised, LA MoCA took the Broad option.
• Check out photographs from the excellent Bailey Winters show from OpenwidePdx.
• The Richard Prince - Wallace Berman connection finally gets to be put on display, at Michael Kohn Gallery in LA. NY Times has the story.

Check Out

Check out the overcaffeinated art of Justin Gibbens at Elizabeth Leach Gallery, up until January 3rd. Red Bird of Paradise (above) uses coffee, while other paintings use materials such as green tea.

Terry Toedtemeier

PAM loses another significant curator - after the resignations of Jennifer Gately and Marnie Stark, comes the death of Terry Toedtemeier, photography curator and significant artist in his own right. One of his photographs is below.

Museum of Contemporary Craft

The Museum of Contemporary Craft has fallen on hard times of late, cutting back staff, which is a shame. MoCC and its fellow art galleries in the DeSoto building are a great resource for the artistic community of Portland, and MoCC is one of the better free museums on this coast. Thus I wholeheartedly endorse the scheme to benefit the museum by buying Powell's books through the MoCC website. There are MoCC curators picks, behind the link, as well as catalogs.

News roundup

• Christopher Knight on the best and worst of LA's 2008 art. He joins most of the critically thinking art world in condemning LACMA's slide into ridiculousness. Luckily things may be getting better for MOCA.
  
• If you can make the trip to Eugene, don't miss "Cuba Avant-Garde" at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum. A review from the Oregonian.
• News from Boston: MFA gets a new decorative arts curator, and may lose a Korean reliquary.
  

In honor of the weather...

...which I'm braving to head up the coast to exhibitions at the Frye in Seattle and VAG in Vancouver, here are a few great snow-centric images...


Pierre Dubreuil Duck on the Marsh in the Snow, from 1898.

William Hahn's 19th century Indians in the Snow.

On Kawara at David Zwirner

David Zwirner Gallery in NYC is currently presenting On Kawara's on-going performance project 'One Million Years.' The gallery is looking for volunteers to be part of the performance, so if you're in NYC and want to get involved, you can get in touch with the Northwest's own Julia Guariglia at jguariglia@davidzwirner.com. As readers will know, I'm a big fan of Kawara's work and wish I could make it out there myself.

I've been finding the work of Vancouver-based artist Jay Senetchko compelling lately. His Immovable Messenger is below, Figure Study XIV above.

Apparently PAM's Bruce Guenther has come out in support of a solar-powered Powell's. Does this prophecy a green PAM any time soon? Are we to expect solar panels carpeting the Mark Building? Bldg Blog's post on large-scale dehumidification seems oddly relevant.

At Blue Sky Gallery...

Make sure to stop by Blue Sky Gallery, if only to take in Jennifer Cheek Pantaléon's photographs of Haiti before they come down at the end of November.

Link roundup

• Port on Michael Heizer's Double Negative.
• A little old...Bob Hicks reviews David Reed's Lives of Paintings. I recently attended several lectures by the artist and conversed with him in the exhibit, and concur with Hicks who calls him a "painter's painter" - Reed enriches his art with a deep well of painterly knowledge and a sense of humor.
• Edward Winkleman on how to buy art in a recession, parts 1 and 2.
• Christopher Knight on the critically-acclaimed Morandi show at MoMA.
  

Back in Action

Unfortunately the last month of writing and recording music have left me without ample time to devote to art blogging. That said, I'm now ready to give power slice the attention it deserves...power slice is back in action!

Tuesday links

• Is 'Visual Studies' dead?
  
• Yet another meditation on the contemporary portrait.
• Jeff Jahn on the Todd Johnson show at PNCA.
• D.K. Row on the economy and museums.