The George Lindemann Journal by George Lindemann

by Peter Plagens 

Crystal Schenk

Crystal Schenk’s ‘Artifacts of Memory,’ at Linfield College’s MillerFine Arts Center.

Portland, Ore.

In what U.S. city might you find an “alternative” art exhibition space on a 200-ton, 135-foot decommissioned crabbing ship? Or another in an industrial area, founded and run by an undergraduate from a small liberal-arts college? Where else, for that matter, would a mayoral candidates’ forum take place at an art school, moderated by the graduate design program’s chairman? Naturally, it would have to be where practically everybody rides a bicycle, a place touted as the country’s “capital of conscience.” If you answered Portland, Ore., you probably own more than one plaid shirt. But Portland isn’t all ecology and “community” (a word I heard many times during my recent visit). It has a history as a tough logging town and still has one of the largest per-capita concentrations of strip clubs in the country.

This residual roughness and collective spirit is reflected in Portland’s ever-growing art scene, characterized by a plethora of “alternative spaces.” Just what is an alternative space? Philosophically, they’re less about art’s being—art objects displayed and for sale—than they are about artists becoming—creating circumstances free from market pressures and the need to hobnob with the rich (who are, after all, the only people able to buy even modestly priced art with any regularity).

Jeff Jahn

FalseFront

Such spaces are often off the beaten track. FalseFront, for example, describes itself as a place that’s “positioned off in residential Northeast Portland and housed in a renovated neighborhood storefront … [and] provides the regional contemporary artist and curator an exhibition space away from the accustomed gallery setting.” 12128, the former crabber, is moored just outside the city at Multnomah Yacht Repair. Its 30-square-foot on-deck exhibition space, roofed with translucent cloth, will next feature erstwhile sculptor Dan Gilsdorf’s text-art venture in “an algorithmic series of sentences that instruct rather than describe.” Recess, guided by Reed College senior Tori Abernathy, sees its “curators merging to cultivate their own audience under their own terms and to shake up the foundations.” Its most recent exhibition consisted of an installation (blue plexiglass panels and a white plexi box) by Zoë Clark, who’s also one of the curators at 12128. Yes, the art scene here can be a little cozy.

Sometimes that’s not a bad thing. Installation artist Laura Fritz is the significant other of Jeff Jahn, proprietor of “Port,” one of the best art blogs going and my guide through a lot of the Portland scene. Ms. Fritz’s “Entorus” comprises mostly abstract—and, at first, barely perceptible—images projected on the walls and floor of a darkened room temporarily set aside in an office-building basement. It was one of two truly memorable artworks I saw during my brief tour. If you think that’s skimpy, remember that these days a stroll through New York’s Chelsea gallery district probably wouldn’t yield much more.

Jeff Jahn

From left, Zoë Clark, Caitlin Ducey and Kyle Thompson outside 12128, a decommissioned crabber.

Artsies in Portland seldom utter the word “gallery” without preceding it with “commercial”—reminiscent of the way people in Southern California used to say “snow skiing.” Portland’s art galleries—at least the ones I sampled in the Pearl District—have more of a goods-for-sale vibe than the feeling of standing up for particular aesthetics. In size and plain-white-cubeness, the Elizabeth Leach Gallery most closely resembles a serious New York or Los Angeles gallery. Charles A. Hartman Fine Art and PDX Contemporary Art, both recommended to me as standard-bearers, offered fairly conservative painting (respectively, Eva Speer’s realist chunks of ocean garnished at the edges with “unfinished” skeins of combed paint, and the twee veggies of Tina Beebe’s “Of Gardens” exhibition). Both shows were quite respectable but hardly as weirdly compelling as Ralph Pugay’s wickedly faux-naive little pictures (one title, “Chicken Pox Orgy,” should convey the flavor) at a funky place on the north side called Rocksbox—which is, naturally enough, yet another alternative space.

As in Los Angeles or Chicago, many of the artists here teach at one of the local art schools or college art departments: among them, Pacific Northwest College of Art (where the candidates’ forum was held, and where painter and 2012 Guggenheim Fellow Arnold Kemp teaches); the Oregon College of Art & Craft; Lewis & Clark College (where 12128’s owner, Kyle Thompson, teaches chemistry, and where the strongest undergraduate exhibition I’ve seen in a long time was being held); and Linfield College, about 30 miles out of town. In the Linfield gallery resides a truly poetic stunner, Crystal Schenk’s installation, “Artifacts of Memory.” Open until May 5, it comprises two dense, horizontal arrays of closed artificial flowers hovering at eye level. The upper field hangs from the rafters on barely visible strands of monofilament, while the lower field strains up from the floor. Although the work’s mechanical secret lies in hidden magnets, its beauty is elegantly obvious.

Joe Macca’s “Two-Man Show” at Marylhurst University’s “Art Gym,” on the other hand, is an example of a less felicitous side of Portland’s art scene, common to mid-size art worlds: a schizophrenia in which participants want to both play the art game as it’s contested in New York or Miami and thumb their noses at it at the same time. The bigger part of Mr. Macca’s show consists of finely tuned color abstractions on crisp, square panels. But the artist can’t quite bring himself to stake his entire worth on straightforward, muted, color-field painting. In a smaller section of the show, he displays (to quote the press release) “postcards and studio flotsam [that] run the gamut from rude and crass jabs at his fellow artists to mockingly self-aggrandizing promotions.” One example is a fictional conversation between Mr. Macca and Richard Diebenkorn, who speaks from heaven. This is so undergraduately callow it probably wouldn’t have made the cut at Lewis & Clark.

To be blunt, Portland’s art scene has a lot of no-no on its lips but yes-yes in its eyes. Storm Tharp, one of Portland’s bigger stars who sports that regional artist’s badge of honor, inclusion in a Whitney Biennial, has said, “If it becomes an art capital, I might have to move back to the Snake River.” He’ll probably have to call for the moving van sooner than expected. Portland might be, as Mr. Jahn puts it, “a lot of soggy people drinking a lot of coffee,” but you can feel it in the drizzly air: It’s livable, lefty and crammed with those unpolished launching pads known as alternative spaces. For the foreseeable future, anyway, artists will keep heading to Portland.

Mr. Plagens is a New York-based painter and writer. He writes the bi-weekly gallery-review column for the Journal.