Slog
News & ArtsTuesday, June 21, 2011
Visual Art Notes From A Visit To Portland Art Museum: Why Show Art When You Can Show Cars?
Posted by Jen Graves on Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 8:05 AM
- A fancy car! Because automobiles are alluring and alliteration is alluring and art is not as alluring as all that.
First, the news: Of the seven artists nominated for the $10,000 Arlene Schnitzer Prize (Chris Antemann, John Buck, John Grade, Jerry Iverson, Susie Lee, Megan Murphy, and Michelle Ross), Seattle-based John Grade was the winner. (Full disclosure: I am one of Stranger Genius winner Lee's video portrait subjects in the CNAA exhibition, which I won't be fully reviewing, and which meant that I stood in front of an image of myself nude for 30 minutes straight on Saturday, which is a weird experience.)
2008's winner was Seattle's Whiting Tennis, selected from a cracklingly great crew of artists rounded out by Jeffry Mitchell, Dan Attoe, Cat Clifford, and Marie Watt. Their exhibition was big and bold, a feast spread out in the museum's main first-floor galleries (my review here).
This time, the exhibition is squished into a second-floor corner. (Meanwhile, there are seven artists rather than five, which makes no sense.) Taken together, the work is intensely sedate. If you saw this as the representation of Northwest art, you'd have no idea what's happening here. You'd think Northwest artists were either obsessed with the appearance of technical refinement to the point of being dullards, or stuck in a 1970s corporate-lobby abstraction nightmare.
Not that anyone is likely even to see the CNAA show. It sat empty Saturday while crowds jammed the main first-floor galleries for The Allure of the Automobile—the blockbuster traveling show billed by the museum as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see ... truly rolling works of art"—"16 of the world’s most luxurious, rare, and brilliantly conceived automobiles."
Okay, then.
1
I've booked a trip down - what a great chance to see old art and new in one swoop! (Yes, yes, the juxtaposition is poorly done and too tacky for words, I'm so upset I need a food cart lunch and an artisanal ice cream...)
2
How many column inches could be saved by an editor?
"Popular works museums must show to sell tickets and keep the doors open are not art. Museums should only display real art until bankruptcy removes all art from public view."
See how easy that was?
"Popular works museums must show to sell tickets and keep the doors open are not art. Museums should only display real art until bankruptcy removes all art from public view."
See how easy that was?
3
But what does Gretchen Bennet think? Isn't her opinion needed on all art subjects, or is she drawing more Nirvana pictures?
4
Jen, don't you suspect that the problem is that so much art simply does not speak to people rather than that so many people are behaving like dicks about art? It seems hypocritical of you to put down one type of art while lamenting that others are neglected.
7
Right, because people should rather see giant pieces of fabric with light bulbs stuck inside them than classic cars. What a bunch of uneducated dopes.
8
I know cars are evil and all that but you've gone over the edge if you're denying the artistry in alot of automobiles.
Waste of time typing this I guess but whatever,
Waste of time typing this I guess but whatever,
10
La-zy.
If being a snob means I'd like to see an art museum focus on art and do a great job at it as the largest art organization in the city and the one calling out leaders among living artists, then, guilty.
Otherwise, you'll have to work harder to turn me into the enemy you're looking for.
If being a snob means I'd like to see an art museum focus on art and do a great job at it as the largest art organization in the city and the one calling out leaders among living artists, then, guilty.
Otherwise, you'll have to work harder to turn me into the enemy you're looking for.
11
Automobiles are probably the highest expression of industrial design, which most people familiar with the subject would call "art". A bit demotic perhaps, but still -- not inappropriate. And museums do, in fact, have some obligation to bring people in the doors, which the CNAA exhibit is unlikely to do. It's not that they didn't show it at all. Maybe PAM is the wrong venue?
12
Jen, you've been on the internet awhile, so you probably know this, but: when readers make fun of something, it's not because they are looking for "the enemy" in the writer. It's because they just read something funny.
13
Some cars are beautiful.
Jen obviously forgets this fundamental point of art.
An excellent cursory overview of this point:
http://www.youtube.com/user/HennesyYoung…
Jen obviously forgets this fundamental point of art.
An excellent cursory overview of this point:
http://www.youtube.com/user/HennesyYoung…
14
#10 Since when is design not art? I can't think of a major museum doesn't include design in their collection, whether it be furniture or posters or industrial design. It's only because this is car design that you're complaining, and so yeah, you are a snob. Also, congratulations on getting more than 5 comments on one of your posts. You should pop a bottle of champagne to celebrate the occasion.
16
What Fnarf @11 said. The point needing to do better at evangelizing serious art is well taken, but the implication that auto design is not art brings to mind Ebert's uncharacteristically clueless assertion that video games are not art.
18
SF's and NY's MoMA, as well as the Tate Modern all have permanent industrial design collections, and the de Young hosts fashion retrospectives—it's all relevant in the right context. There's no reason cars, selected for their design merits, can't be a perfectly welcome exhibition.
If your only complaint is that the CNAA wasn't curated well, then that's valid. Also, video art? C'mon.
If your only complaint is that the CNAA wasn't curated well, then that's valid. Also, video art? C'mon.
19
It seems to me that the issue here is not the fact that cars are in a museum, I mean SAM has 4 ford Tempos on display and I know they have flashy-light-explosion-thingy's coming out of it but they're still Fords...The issue is that the exhibit of local artists that should be a celebration of our area's talent sucked (in the authors opinion). Who's fault is that though? Maybe PAM needs to do a better job at displaying local artists.
That being said, classic cars to some are like Picasso's to others. Please don't hate - the amount of time, innovation, and care that goes into these classics (especially pre ww2 European coaches) is second to none and should be celebrated. And I doubt any director gives a damn what an art critic thinks about the merits of classic cars as art when people are lining up to visit their museum. And who know, its possible that some of those gear-heads stray from the main exhibit and take something away from the other pieces of art on display.
That being said, classic cars to some are like Picasso's to others. Please don't hate - the amount of time, innovation, and care that goes into these classics (especially pre ww2 European coaches) is second to none and should be celebrated. And I doubt any director gives a damn what an art critic thinks about the merits of classic cars as art when people are lining up to visit their museum. And who know, its possible that some of those gear-heads stray from the main exhibit and take something away from the other pieces of art on display.
20
@2, very few museums generate enough ticket revenue to be much more than a rounding error in their budgets. Ticket sales are just numbers you use to show granting agencies you're serving the public.
@10, design is not art, it's design, and @16, video games are not art, they're video games. Both fields are intensely creative, and worthy of plenty of attention. (Minecraft!) But when museums without expertise or experience in the fields try to make exhibitions around them, it rarely works out well (Examples: the Armani show at the Guggenheim, the videogame part of "Krazy!" at the Vancouver Art Gallery.)
@10, design is not art, it's design, and @16, video games are not art, they're video games. Both fields are intensely creative, and worthy of plenty of attention. (Minecraft!) But when museums without expertise or experience in the fields try to make exhibitions around them, it rarely works out well (Examples: the Armani show at the Guggenheim, the videogame part of "Krazy!" at the Vancouver Art Gallery.)
21
@11: Containerized shipping is the highest expression of industrial design. Or the highway cloverleaf. The point is, industrial design makes things that do things. Art does not.
When art people look at design, they typically only appreciate its formal qualities, ignoring the functional aspects of design. And when designers fancy themselves as artists, you generally get bad sculpture (the Experience Music Project), which I think you and I will agree is a bad result.
When art people look at design, they typically only appreciate its formal qualities, ignoring the functional aspects of design. And when designers fancy themselves as artists, you generally get bad sculpture (the Experience Music Project), which I think you and I will agree is a bad result.
22
@10
Maybe the largest arts institution in a city should try to appeal to the largest audience?
I'll come at this from my passion, brewing. There are us hardcore, ultra small and out there appeals to us. Sell traditional gueze and lots of experimental unconventional stuff and we'll come to you. You can't build a business on us. Then there's another tier, they like the greatest hits, the Sierra Nevadas and Mannys of the world but will occasionally go fir something more daring. You could do o.k. Just going after them. But sell 5 kegs of Bud a week while offering something fir everyone, that's long term survival.
In your perfect world, would it be better if 200 people LOVE the museum while no one else goes?
Maybe the largest arts institution in a city should try to appeal to the largest audience?
I'll come at this from my passion, brewing. There are us hardcore, ultra small and out there appeals to us. Sell traditional gueze and lots of experimental unconventional stuff and we'll come to you. You can't build a business on us. Then there's another tier, they like the greatest hits, the Sierra Nevadas and Mannys of the world but will occasionally go fir something more daring. You could do o.k. Just going after them. But sell 5 kegs of Bud a week while offering something fir everyone, that's long term survival.
In your perfect world, would it be better if 200 people LOVE the museum while no one else goes?
23
better than a bunch of shitty ford escorts hung from the ceiling with stupid lights sticking out of them at random angles
24
I once worked for PAM. In my experience, the Museum has a ton more programming surrounding the Allure show than they typically do for any other "art" exhibit. I am not questioning the merit of such an exhibit. Allure may be a "cheap shot" at capturing an audience but it's still art. But it's the museum's absence of smart programming and other involving educational events around all the rest of their usual exhibits that boggles me. It's that measure that I think shows how empty the curatorial muscle is at PAM.
25
Ms. Graves is exactly correct, as is Eric F. above.
PAM's auto show is a travelling Mercedes/BMW publicity furniture show, the extension of a marketing campaign that originated with BMW's Art of the Motorcycle at the Guggenheim in 1998; They are essentially using the cultural cache of art museums as showrooms for their brand — the show is a creature of carefully orchestrated cross promotion and it illustrates perfectly the position art museums occupy in our corporate-dominated consumer culture.
The degree to which you're okay with this is going to correlate directly with both your expectations of who is or ought to be shaping the agendas of our cultural institutions and how experienced a viewer of art you are. It should tell you something that whatever line of official BS the directors are pushing every museum professional from curator to guard loathes these shows completely. Art critics and academicians laugh at these shows. And artists themselves can't be found anywhere near them.
PAM's auto show is a travelling Mercedes/BMW publicity furniture show, the extension of a marketing campaign that originated with BMW's Art of the Motorcycle at the Guggenheim in 1998; They are essentially using the cultural cache of art museums as showrooms for their brand — the show is a creature of carefully orchestrated cross promotion and it illustrates perfectly the position art museums occupy in our corporate-dominated consumer culture.
The degree to which you're okay with this is going to correlate directly with both your expectations of who is or ought to be shaping the agendas of our cultural institutions and how experienced a viewer of art you are. It should tell you something that whatever line of official BS the directors are pushing every museum professional from curator to guard loathes these shows completely. Art critics and academicians laugh at these shows. And artists themselves can't be found anywhere near them.
26
The Portland Art Museum mislisted a free night while the Allure exhibit was going on in a family calendar. When I showed up with my kids for our free night, they told the gentleman on a bike in front of us that we couldn't come in because they had to change the rules because of the popularity of this Allure exhibit...and now offer limited, web only tickets. So, because of this Allure exhibit, no fourth free Fridays and they can't even be bothered to fix their listings. Thanks for wasting our time and money! They then told the guy in front of us they had to do this so that they wouldn't have "thousands traipsing through" the musem...which is both wishful thinking and really snotty and scornful of the public. My kids complained on the way back that they hate the art museum....can't blame 'em. I was pretty insulted. They shouldn't have this exhibit if it interferes with their mission statement of providing the public with access to art.
When I wrote that they had another mislisting of a "free night", they did not respond with an apology or fix their listing. This actually makes me a bit suspicious that this is quite intentional -- wanting to appear to have "free nights" on when they don't. I don't see how this museum stays afloat, or is really an art museum... as it's main purpose now seems to be that of keeping the traipsing public away from smudging their fingers on antique luxury automobiles.
When I wrote that they had another mislisting of a "free night", they did not respond with an apology or fix their listing. This actually makes me a bit suspicious that this is quite intentional -- wanting to appear to have "free nights" on when they don't. I don't see how this museum stays afloat, or is really an art museum... as it's main purpose now seems to be that of keeping the traipsing public away from smudging their fingers on antique luxury automobiles.
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