“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and an ardent desire for the truth.— Plutarch (often misquoted as William Butler Yeats.)
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Finally, finally I made it to the Portland Art Museum, recently reopened after extensive architectural additions. I had heard nothing but positive reports about the ways two existing buildings are now connected by a glass pavilion. Can confirm that the design and execution, carried by a millions-of-dollars fund raising campaign, really work. Nothing glossy or ostentatious about them, overall functional and, from some perspectives, beautiful. A detailed account of the project can be found in my Oregon ArtsWatch colleague Brian Libby’s interview of the architects here.
I had not come for the novelty, though. Nor the David Hockney: Works from the Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation. exhibition – I was never a fan. Or the Rick Bartow exhibition – with few exceptions, not my cup of tea. (Probably heresy to admit that in this town.)
My visit led me to the basement, or what is officially called the lower level of the North Wing. I wanted to explore the HeART of Portland Visual Art Exhibition, featuring over 100 works of students in our public schools, from Kindergarten to 12th grade, and a collaborative art project, Windows of Our Future, inspired by the Museum’s new Rothko Pavilion and the Hockney exhibition. I had read about the Museum’s vision to strengthen its youth and community outreach, investing in more education, and making space for programs in the revamped buildings. What a terrific development, particularly in economically distressed times where art education is one of the first things to be on the chopping block.
For the 2026 youth exhibition, every visual arts teacher in town was invited to pick one student’s work from their respective classes. In addition, some 2500 kids worked on the Windows of Our Future project, covering a glass wall of the remodeled Lana and Chris Finley Learning Studio.
Art ranged from works on paper – drawings, painting, prints, photography – to fabric art, collages, mobiles and sculptural exploration.
Must have been a bear to hang – and was beautifully done so! Hats off to whoever had to tackle works by an age range of 5 to 16 or so years, differing degrees of talent, – some impressive, others compensated by remarkable enthusiasm, and subject matters ranging all over the map.
Each piece was offered with information, provided either by the teacher or the student themselves. Very helpful for those of us no longer adjacent to art education, with kids long gone. I found the thought processes of the students almost as fascinating as the levels of sophistication exhibited in some of the works themselves.
One can debate whether this is a representative sample – after all the professional art teachers selected likely the best of the year’s output – but does that really matter? What convinced here was the freshness, the passion that kids put into their work, the insights into curricula that introduce many different forms of art and artists as a starting point for the students to find their own voice.
What impressed were multiple references, by teachers and students alike, to the importance of process, of exploration rather than insistence on perfect outcomes. Some of the works carried a sense of wonder, sometimes about the world, sometimes about the artist’s own capacity to pull something off to their liking.
I felt wonder, that’s for sure, being in the presence of so much imagination, creativity and conceptual ideas. In short: in the presence of art, embraced by a generation of young people ready to launch their talents into the world.
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I had some time left and skimmed through the current photography exhibition, Together, a theme focussed on communal actions and relations. As per usual, the selections from the archives, including recent acquisitions, were soundly and predictably curated. Once, just once, I would like to be surprised, though, by what is included, or who is left out up there. (Speaking of surprise (and I digress): the 2026 Artists’ Biennial: The Price of the Ticket at Oregon Contemporary holds some serious eye openers. Ox is only open on the weekends, but I highly recommend planning a visit.)
Simone Leigh Sentinel IV (Gold) (2021)
Walking back to the entry level, I passed through Here we Are, smartly chosen works of contemporary art from the museum’s collection. It was poignant to read curator Sara Krajewski’s helpful outlines of thematic subjects of these accomplished adult artists, some of them quite famous. Many themes completely echoed what I had seen an hour earlier in the students’ works: “sense of self and identity“, “relationships to place,” “the human connection and the creative process.” Confirmation that some foundational and universal issues forever work their way into art, regardless the age (or stage) of the artist.
Carrie Mae Weems Painting the Town #1 (2021)
William Kentridge Dancing Couple (2003)
Then again, everything here was quite big in contrast to the students’ ability to pull some punches with small-sized formats.
Elias Sime Tightrope: Eyes and Ears of the Bat (1) (2020) Reclaimed electrical wires on wood.
And not a full critter in sight (unless I missed it) – in contrast to the fascination expressed in the younger students’ offerings. So many animals, so many versions. I wonder if something gets lost on the way by growing up, and a preoccupation with fauna labels you in some ways. Come to think of it, equine depictions wended their way through art history, from the paintings of aristocrats’ steeds to the horses of August Macke. Not all had to be “Monarch of the Glen”-type roaring stags, or the sweet avians of the Dutch Golden Age. Rousseau’s jungle creatures, or Picasso’s bulls anchor us in the recent past. So maybe I am just picking up a coincidental lack of representations, in no way typical for adult artists?
Paul Klee, move over…..
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A photograph by Wolfgang Tillmans dominated a wall. His abstract work is done without a camera – he uses chemical solutions on different papers and exposes them to light waves, sometimes manipulating the canvas in the process. During a retrospective of his work at MoMa 4 years ago, he was compared to a genius by Peter Schjeldahl in the New Yorker, and every other critic, trying to find superlatives from brilliant to extraordinarily gifted, joined the chorus. I happen to agree, the man is a phenomenon with the camera. In fact, a postcard of one of his photographs has been hanging forever on that sacred space reserved for portraits of grandchildren, a.k.a. our fridge. A constant reminder of what to aspire to, in front of my eyes on a daily basis.
Wolfgang Tillmans Greifbar 50 (2017)
Yet I also concur with critics’ cautiously uttered sentiments, that his abstract work is less impressive than his representative photographs, although I would not go as far as to say they belong into the lobby of boutique hotels, as more belligerent voices suggested.
I think one of the problems about the abstract works is the fact that important pointers contained in the titles get lost in translation. Look, for example, at the signage for the PAM acquisition of Greifbar 50 (2017).
It talks about free style swimming, and a gay bar in Berlin by the name of Greifbar, a pun on fondling opportunities at a bar. (The bar at Prenzlauer Berg happens to have closed its doors permanently after the Covid pandemic, one of the last joints that offered pornographic films in the front room and a dark room in the back notorious for wild nights, open sex and a leather scene.)
Greifbar, however, also means “within reach,” a desired goal or object about to be on hand.
The term ultimately only makes sense in the context of the name of the series of abstracts Tillmans has been exploring. The series is called FREISCHWIMMER, which has nothing to do with free style swimming. Instead, it refers to one of the most coveted items of a German childhood, a badge received after passing a municipal swim test. Success required 15 minutes in the water with breast stroke and back stroke, diving for an object at 2 meter depth, jumping into the water from a certain height and answering some water safety questions. Once you had that piece of fabric in your hand (often in the form of a little seahorse to be sewn onto your bathing suit,) you were allowed to enter public pools on your own and swim there without adult supervision. Freedom beckoned!
We would spend endless summer days with friends at the pool, prepubescent or just entering puberty. During the 60s and 70s, long before the internet and TV offered plenty of nudity, it was a place to see people in various stages of undress, to touch each other surreptitiously in the crowded water. We would lie on closely spaced towels in the meadows around the pool, apply coconut oil to each other’s skins, and watch people disappearing behind the public rest- or changing rooms, for what we could only wildly guess at at the time, where “kissing” was the height of illicit behavior (I earned my Freischwimmer badge at the age of 10.) We would feel our bodies cooled by the wind when biking back home late afternoons all those years, damp swimsuit under cotton dresses. It was utterly physical, it was fluid in terms of developing an understanding of our own sexuality, straight or gay, it was a taste of independence, a new stage of life, freer, more agentic, adulthood with its assumed perks seemingly within reach.
I can see how Tillmans, a master of representative depiction, yearns to find new independence in an abstract medium. I can see the seduction of exploring new ways of expression that might potentially recreate the sense of discovery of who we are and what we can pull off, reliving younger ages when the world was still seemingly open. I can also speculate about the acknowledgement provided by hindsight, that much of what developed in us was caused by elements of chance, now reproduced with the processes he uses to generate these enormous abstracts. So many possible interpretations, but free style swimming not among them.
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Serendipity ruled when I left the museum, ready for one last shot capturing Ugo Rondinone’s sculpture at the 10th Ave exit. The Sun encircled a school bus, a golden halo surrounding a stand-in for education. More power to PAM, fostering new generations, instructing them in the making or experiencing of art, kindling independent thinking and creativity. I very much hope that stamina and/or funds are sufficient to succeed with their goals. It would be to the benefit of all of us.
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Artist for the title image:
