Cliff Notes
Each week, our regional Cliff Notes columnists Fox Whitney, Alitzah Oros, Melika Sebihi, and Kaya Noteboom pick the most exciting events and exhibitions on the West Coast.
Stephanie Gilbert and Pato Hebert: Tender
Cooley Gallery, Portland, OR / Ditch Projects, Springfield, OR
September 13 – December 8, 2024
October 19 – December 1, 2024
Back in September, I heard Stephanie Gilbert talk on the lawn outside of the Cooley Gallery on the Reed Campus. This was before seeing the Portland half of this “dyadic” exhibition that spans two cities in Oregon: Portland and Springfield. Gilbert talked about bodily and ecological vulnerability. It seemed a more honest and felt way to describe the condition of relationality. When I entered the gallery, I didn’t just see what she meant. I touched it.
Logs of varied size are positioned around the room. Copper wires run through them to trace the paths of insects. Visitors are supposed to rub their fingers along the blushing metal veins. This interaction, between copper and skin, translates somehow to a player piano at the back of the room, also coursing with copper wire. In a default state, the piano plays Chopin’s “Solace” on a loop. Electrical feedback disturbs the song. It stops for a time or it slows, then it picks back up again. I don’t understand how it all works, but I understand what Gilbert meant about the body being activated rather than represented.
The walls, which are covered in words lazer-cut from wood, activate the body strategically through semiotic representation. The language is sourced from a list of what Pato says instead of what he means—a cognitive effect of long COVID. Each word exists in a pair, one right and one wrong. The mistaken one is blazed through with burnt scarification. Personal embarrassment and frustration are palpable. These feelings quickly expand into a grief that could fill the room.
Reflection: How can I think with my body on a regular basis?
Disguise the Limit: John Yau’s Collaborations
Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, OR
October 17 – December 14, 2024
I’m familiar with John Yau as an art writer, but in Schneider Museum of Art’s collaborative exhibition, Disguise the Limit, I am introduced to John Yau the irreverent poet.
Yau’s words populate mixed-medium two-dimensional compositions by Chuck Webster, Archie Rand, Pat Steir, Tom Burkhardt, and many others. Though each artist has a distinct point of view, the words keep a sense of lyrical cohesion, breezily navigating the plurality of styles. Webster’s big gestural marks in bright watercolor give them a sense of playful urgency like a game of pictionary. Burkhardts’s signs in rich colored pencil glow dimly with tepid suburban hospitality. This exhibition, though operating on the limited plane of aesthetics, offers a sense of levity and spontaneity to co-creating across differences.
His recent collection of essays Please Wait by the Coat Room (2023) contends with the misreadings of biracial artists and the role of identity in art criticism. In the titular essay, Yau argues that critics can instantly fail to contextualize an artwork by refusing to read it autobiographically. With cheeky renditions of book covers and movie posters, these seem like hard nudges toward the autobiographical. So, I wonder what these cultural objects mean to Yau and his collaborators, what memories and associations they are drenched with. I wonder how these pieces, or my understanding of them, would sharpen if I knew.
Reflection: How can I engage in play as a generative practice?