Here are some things to tide you over.

The Stranger reports that the much anticipated Paul Allen backed Pivot Center for Art + Culture isn't going to be a full time exhibition space that Seattle had expected. That's disappointing because I liked the interaction of art and science it was supposed to address. I find it all the more interesting because art and science don't have very clear channels of dialog between each other. Whether this is just another adjustment or part of a broader shift in Allen's cultural activity remains to be seen? Still, I am hoping this signals a move into a more innovative direction but it certainly isn't good news for the full time staff Pivot recently announced. Ultimately, those who have the greatest impact on the arts are those who take an idiomatic position then follow it up with dogged determination for about 10-20+ years.

That said the New York Times ran an interesting art and science piece on space. Our perception of spatiality is something that is created through how space is used and not enough is done to explore its influence on us.

The Guardian asks if "hip Portland is over?" First I don't think they know what really is hip about Portland (*hint it is values based on moral distinctions... mostly non-corporate and knowing the true cost of things not just $$$). It isn't and never was the quirk hype that the Portlandia show overplayed. Absolutely though, there is an affordable housing/artspace crisis, but all interesting places including New York, Berlin, Santa Fe, Seattle and London have all faced this phase as well and it comes and goes. I think is good that it has been a relatively sudden issue that built over the past 2+ years rather than a slow bleed. Overall, I want to address this elsewhere and not as just a reaction but I can say that Portland's days of expecting artists to do everything for free ended a few years ago and treating art/artists as a cheap resource needed to go away. For the meantime read this bit I wrote a few years ago about priming the cultural pump in Portland. The indie industrial complex always has a new cheaper less-developed city but that just means we have to be more serious about what we support or else you lose the best talent (much of which actually bought property here and will stay, for now). Basically, raise the stakes institutionally/funding-wise and make it tied to merit and critical thinking.

A very interesting review by Matthew Collings on Artists and Empire at Tate Britain. Imagine if US museums used art and objects to interrogate and question the past like this?

Also by Collings is an interesting article focusing on quantity over quality in the art world today. He's one of my favorite art critics for the precision he applies to art's ambiguities...