Biennials are a convenient vehicle to survey the state of art, not to frequent, nor infrequent, tuned to today's pace of art evolution. They are lensed through the eye of a particular curator in a time and place. Portland's was managed by the Art Museum, but that ended as the museum had the opportunity to refocus regionally, with a new curator, and select fewer artists, rather than more, in each iteration. They also provided a small prize, cash money.
The Biennial is back under wing of Disjecta, and distributed over many spaces to accommodate 20 artists selected by curator Chris Moss, longtime Portland artist, curator, professor and with an MFA from NYU. Moss was curator of a great series, the Donut Shop, in itinerant spaces.
Several of the new Biennial spaces have opened their artists: Melody Owen at Leach and Marylhurst; Ucci at Alpern. This Saturday and next are multi-artist openings.
Tonight Bruce Conkle & Marne Lucas, David Corbett, Sean Healy, Tahni Holt, Crystal Schenk and Shelby Davis open work in the main Disjecta Space. Meanwhile Ditch Projects, an abandoned factory collective, residency and gallery outside Eugene opens at RocksBox.
Disjecta has a great website with links to each artist for your preview pleasure.
2010 Portland Biennial at Disjecta www.disjecta.org 8371 N. Interstate 6PM-10 Free
And at Rocksbox Fine Art www.rocksboxfineart.com 6540 N Interstate Opening 6PM-10 Free
