Portland Artists and Curators on their Favorite Shows from 2024
Talking Book (1988) by Senga Nengudi and Maren Hassinger from Las Vegas Ikebana at the Cooley Gallery at Reed College.
Toward the end of the year, I started asking curators and artists around town which shows from the past 12 months they were still thinking about. Despite the gallery cycle’s monthly turnover, what boundary-erasing installation, ingeniously harmonious suite of paintings, or simultaneously hilarious and affecting performance was still rolling around their subconscious? Instead of the straightforward “Best Shows of the Year” roundup, I hoped their thoughts, collaged together, could serve as something like a highlight reel.
For most, homing in on a single show was impossible. Kristan Kennedy, artistic director and curator of visual art at PICA, told me “choosing one is like choosing children!” and instead listed off her own memory string:
I’m thinking about the perfectly balanced and drooping spotted socks in B. Wurtz’s show at SE Cooper Contemporary, Lenny Beach’s installation CRT and the Search for God (MK1) at PNCA, Timothy Yanick Hunter’s vertical video at ILY2, Shelley Turley’s smeary memento mori at Helen’s Costume, and Patricia Vázquez Gómez’s sound installation of broken bits of language and Vo Vo’s woven words in the Oregon Biennial at Oregon Contemporary.
It was a fragmentary year, Kennedy said: a blur swirled with extremely bright lights instead of a calendar punctuated by discrete events. “I know I’ve failed the assignment,” she wrote. But in truth she had made the assignment. With some gentle nudging, I was able to get some figures in the local scene—many of whom created or organized some of my favorites from the year—to scribble out their thoughts about the individual shows that stuck with them. Collected, I think the record only bolsters Kennedy’s thought.
Can I Be Frank? by Morgan Bassichis at TBA
It was true, self deprecating, timely, brazen, smart and queer as fuck artistry in a way I’d not seen in a long time. Kristan Kennedy actually called me right after first seeing Bassichis’s show in New York, so I knew it would be good (Kennedy’s long history of out-of-the-park curatorial bangers is well documented and admired) but nothing could have prepared me. [The artist] Melanie Flood and I laughed and cried. No really. —Jeanine Jablonski, senior director at ILY2
Enjoy and Get It On curated by Christopher Baird at Hide and Seek Gallery
I grew up in Portland at a time when the Pearl was the seedy, industrial-zone underbelly that hosted the all-ages City Night Club, and when MLK was called Union Avenue. So there’s a soft spot in my heart for the raw, eclectic dash of the Portland counterculture. I felt the show [which collects a group of painters from Southeast Portland] captured the gritty, vibrant spirit of Southeast Portland through the eyes and throes of our beloved artists Morgan Ritter, Rainen Knecht, Lila Jarzombek, Agatha Jaquiss, Jeffrey Hale, Derek Franklin, Srijon Chowdhury, and Christopher Baird, who’ve been integral to the Portland art scene and embody the spirit of Southeast Portland’s rooted rebellious surroundings. —Midori Hirose, artist
Installation view of Full Body Parenthesis by Math Bass at the Lumber Room.
Full Body Parenthesis by Math Bass at the Lumber Room
I really appreciated the environment they created with the sculptures and how they commented on existence and figuration by excluding the body from the structures. Lumber Room always seems to create great experiences with their shows that you can really live in while visiting. —Jeremy Okai Davis, artist
Huntress by Olivia Harwood at One Grand Gallery
It’s so easy to get lost in the countless details in her pieces. I didn’t want to stop looking at them. Behind the seamless integration of painting and collaging lies a sense of empowerment and liberation. It’s also nocturnal and witchy. What’s not to love? —Yuyang Zhang, artist
Las Vegas Ikebana: Maren Hassinger and Senga Nengudi at Reed’s Cooley Gallery
What I liked best about this exhibition is the very thing that makes it difficult to write about. The documentation of the long collaboration between these two talented women provoked thought about the very nature of creating a life in art. Their working relationship has spanned decades and encouraged my own contemplation about the nature of support, balance, and trust between artists as well as between artists and their audience. It was refreshing to experience an exhibition that resisted simple thesis for something more complex: a committed and transformative inquiry. No writing about this exhibition should fail to mention the magical performance by Sidony O’Neal and keyon gaskin of Senga Nengudi’s choreography See-See Riders. It was intent made beautifully and physically present! —Lynne Woods Turner, artist
Self Reflection 2 by Kinke Kooi from The Male Part of the Flower at Adams and Ollman.
The Male Part of the Flower by Kinke Kooi at Adams and Ollman
Kooi’s show twirled and dipped and bobbed in such rhythmic patterns. Such graceful arcs. The work was totally lush and a dreamy exploration of the interconnectedness of all living things. I was drawn to the fantastical world where the boundaries between the physical and spiritual blurred. Kooi’s work was a feast for the senses with rich colors, shapes, tactile textures, and intricate patterns carrying a blend of seductive and nurturing transitions that create a euphoric experience. Her details were astounding and breathed a blend of grotesque and beautiful. I loved how she embraced the complexity and diversity of the human experience, especially challenging the traditional notions of gender and sexuality. —Midori Hirose, artist
Maybe Tomorrow by Sara Rahmanian at ILY2
Playful yet touching. I was in awe of Rahmanian’s holistic approach to painting fragmented and intersectional identities through colors, shadows, fragments, and site-specific installations. —Yuyang Zhang, artist
The Sewing Room by Carolyn Hazel Drake at Hide and Seek
I was instantly embraced by the warmth of her textiles, palette choices, and careful stitches. In the middle of the gallery, the precarity of a tower of pillows was balanced by the soft edges of its component parts. If they were to topple, they wouldn’t make a sound. They did however make for an impressive visual impact, alongside the sewn tapestries displayed on the walls around the space. Checkerboard patterns were interwoven with floral and domestic scenes to imbue the exhibition with a comforting aura. In a similar vein, with Hide and Seek Gallery, founder Ben Skiba has unabashedly torn down an intimidating barrier to art viewing. Visitors enter the gallery, effectively Skiba’s living room, as if visiting a dear friend. This intimacy made for a beautiful pairing with Drake’s solo exhibition. —Luiza Lukova, director at One Grand Gallery
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