The latest in the OCAC saga is that PSU has decided not to acquire the rival-ish school. As a public school this PSU idea was always a long shot for the private OCAC but not impossible (it takes a bold vision and Portland isnt known for bold institutional thinking). Still, the school needs to be saved, as OCAC is a crucial, even unique entity. The main issue I see is one of vision in the face of a higher education system that is broken, forcing schools to constantly grow enrollment if they dont have prodigious endowments. Vision comes from leaders and OCAC currently does not have a visionary leader... just an understandably spooked board and an interim president (faculty member thrust into this). Plenty of people want to see this school saved but perhaps the best answer is to bear down and draw a line in the sand with a direct campaign. This will take a vision statement and plan that people can rally around (not something that Portland boards ever do). The school itself is quite unique being craft centered and that needs to be highlighted as the asset it is. Let's remember PNCA was in a similar state before Tom Manley came in and helped that school realize some of the untapped momentum it was sitting on. In my mind OCAC needs to remain small and specialized to survive the current crisis in higher education but it also needs to pragmatically innovate. This is something that requires vision... I can see several ways to make the school an innovation leader so it can reposition itself and shore up its fundamentals. The enrollment itself has been stable... unlike Marylhurst University which closed last year. Hopefully the board recognizes... (more)

Contemporary female artists are obsessed with the grotesque... Louise Bourgeios, Eva Hesse and Maria Lassnig were just early pioneers that Marlene Dumas, Tracy Emin, Wangechi Mutu and Kara Walker (to name just a few) have built upon. It is a huge genre in the Northwest too and overdue for a regional survey.

Sarah Cain has a lot of good painting moves down in LA.

NPR has a great general story about how reaching out to others unlike you generates creative thinking. It is an important reminder.

Herzog and de Meuron has revealed their wooden/brutalist mashup design for Vancouver's new art gallery downtown. The use of wood is something PAM should take note of for their coming expansion.

Portland Architecture chats about Will Martin (designer for Pioneer Square) with a co-worker.

Jerry Saltz on Dana Schutz's latest paintings. I believe the Whitney curators screwed up by not giving the work the right kind of context but as our interview with Schutz shows, bodies are part and parcel of her ouvre. Just because she is white doesn't mean she cant touch that subject matter but it did require far more context in the exhibition.

There is a showdown brewing between W.A.G.E. and the Whitney Biennial and its based on the growing sense that artists are underwriting exhibitions by wealthy museums. It is wrong and artists should be compensated fairly for these shows... everyone else at the museums, including installers are paid, why not the artists?

Just blocks away from Oregon's capital building, an exhibition titled Enrique Chagoya: Reverse Anthropology, From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art is one of the most relevant exhibitions in this incredibly loaded period of history. Through blending; economics, anthropology, race and a surprising amount of serious humor Chagoya gave PORT's Victor Maldonado an incredible one on one interview. The exhibition is on view in Salem through January 27.


Enrique Chagoya's Bato character (all photos Jeff Jahn)

V: Enrique, what are you working on in your studio?

E: I am painting a codex. I've been working on some textures and some faces and I just needed to put some finishing touches on because the paint is drying. I needed to get that done for the day.



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With one foot firmly in 2019 now is a good time to look at what the Portland art scene has on view with some short reviews.



Residual Membranes at PCC's Paragon Arts Gallery (fg) Exuviation

Amanda Triplett is a serious talent and everyone should take note of this exhibition at PCC Cascade's Paragon Arts Gallery. Combining recycled fabric crafts and coupling it to some of Eva Hesse's postminimalist forms she joins a few of my favorite artists like Ellen George and Laura Fritz as artists who explore the borders of the natural and unnatural through material comportment. It is a form that seems ill understood by a lot of dudecentric artworld dialogics.

The most standout work here, Third Skin, is a riot of oranges and pinks made from reclaimed fibers arrayed like the offspring of a fishermen's net and the small intestines of a Jabberwocky make it both fantastical and a

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Zaha Hadid's estate is in turmoil. This isn't good for anyone involved, her legacy involves both her kin and those who made her firm great.

These new city rules for brick and mortar buildings in Portland is terrible and threatens to destroy so many venues that make Portland a creative hub. City Council must act in a way that acknowledges the way cultural buildings... even if old and less earthquake resistant are the backbone of our position as a creative center. The arts involve risks, lets acknowledge them and support them.

A new movement in British art, research architecture?

Italy's government wants a sculpture at the Getty back.