a peek at the new Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery

Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery has released this nifty architect's rendering of their new space set to open in September. It's a busy renovation time and no less than five galleries are moving into better gallery spaces in Portland during the next year (some as property owners). Three of them, including P-D, will be doing so in mere months. Portland is upgrading en masse.

Elizabeth Leach started the trend last year. Of note, the P-D space will not be carpeted as their current space is. I confess complete snobbery when it comes to gallery floors and there is no greater faux pax than carpet. I had a dream once where MoMA was covered in thick shag… even the outdoor sculpture court. I think it's part of the reason I dislike Matthew Barney, he is a carpet monger! It was the first thing I noticed at his Walker installation last May. Still, I liked Nan Curtis' shag carpet wear pattern piece at the Northwest Biennial in the Tacoma Art Museum last year.


Also, I just got back from the Vintage Vandals & Zach Kircher show at Savage Art Resources. Both were good shows worth the trip, it was a packed house too. In fact, it was a great Portland moment with a combination of West Hill's super-patrons with the Weiden & Kennedy hipster crowd. I love it. The Vintage Vandals show was comprised of sometimes extremely entertaining additions to pre-existing kitsch paintings from Goodwill. Distinguished mostly through visual puns the group reminded me of college poetry slams where the winning poets would always be the funniest.


Driscoll Reid's Untitled

There is talent here but the two best were Drsicoll Reid's Untitled and Evan Harris' Song of Sirens. Charming and foreboding this is good cheap art for hipsters who like to entertain visually but the better work was Kircher's in the other gallery.

Somewhere between Norbert Bisky and Neo Rauch with a Roy Lichtenstein sense of humor Kircher has been at this style longer than those two living art stars have been stars and deserves a closer look. He would fit in well at Bellwether in Chelsea.

Which reminds me, the excellent Portland artist Paul Green is in a group show "Idols of Perversity" at Bellwether through August 6th.