ART
▼
Queering the Biennial
It’s the same old same old
at Portland A rt Museum’s
Oregon showcase—save for two
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w w w .c a m p t r c .o r g
by
G ary M o rris
ortland Art Museum isn’t necessarily
known as a haven o f radical art.
Respectability is the byword here, with
emphasis on dusty textlxx>k classics or art
that was new decades ago.
Occasionally, though, PAM ’s curators throw
a hone to the arguably avant-garde. Such is the
case with the museum s Oregon Biennial. This
every-other-year event showcases recent art by
Oregonians, which is supposed to at least flirt
with the cutting edge.
Unfortunately, there’s very little flirting and
not much edge in this year’s show. As several
observers have noted, a more accurate title
would he the Portland Biennial, given that the
vast majority o f artists are from this area. T he
Predictable Portland Biennial T hat Includes
Paintings and Photography and a Couple of
Assemblages But No Sculpture or Video would
he an even better name. Expect the expected
this go-round.
Fortunately, though, two artists— one a
straight photographer creating tantalizing large-
format images of male nudes, the other a queer
painter memorializing a love affair between two
male Chihuahuas— bring some much-needed
power and whimsy to this otherwise tired affair.
Erik Palmer’s two large photographs on can
vas are part of his series called Bang Comics!
His previous work documenting Oregon Ballet
Theatre must have prepared him for this more
mature, wonderfully evocative project.
Palmer’s subjects are abstracted, sardonic
“superheroes.” T h e two examples in the show
are titled “Superman Number O ne Hundred
and T hree” and “T h e Power of W arlock.”
P
“Nearly all o f the
images in the series are
made using a camera that
sits at a fixed location and
fires at a specific inter
val. . .or using a wireless
remote control,” explains
Palmer. “So the intention-
ality o f the photography is
really involved in arrang
ing a hit of choreography
or performance in front o f
the camera rather than
pointing the camera and
making a decision.”
These “choreo
graphed” subjects are two
friends of the photograph
er, shot in the wixxls sans
capes and masks hut re
endowed with a different
kind of power as they are
caught, frozen, in balletic-
heroic poses.
The Portlander’s work has been compared to
award-winning New York photographer Richard
Avedon’s, but there’s an obvious, dramatic differ
ence: His subjects are not celebrities; they’re ordi
nary people made at once larger than life and vul
nerable. They exist as both physical and abstract
creations— strikingly athletic figures shot against a
wcxxlland backdrop that dissolves into splendid,
transporting patterns of light and shadow.
Palmer credits Avedon and Hungarian-born
fashion photographer Martin Munkacsi, along
with painters Egon Schiele and Amedeo
Modigliani— no
surprise given the
painterly quality of
these images.
oving from
the sublime
to the funky
fringe, Cynthia
Star is represented
by three paintings
from a series of
seven called Boys
W ill Be Boys. Star’s
“boys” are two
Chihuahuas of the
artist’s acquain
tance, Pee Wee
and Tyco.
T h e images are
at once kitschy,
whimsical and
vaguely unset
tling— reminis
cent o f outsider
art in their por
trayal o f tiny, ner
vous dogs with big hard-ons giddily humping
each other.
In one painting, a stimulated Pee Wee looks
grim as Tyco attempts to have his way with him;
in another, both pxxx:hes appear in the apex of
ecstasy as passion overtakes them. Another
shows a third, female dog (a Maltese named
Gabby) who, standing alone with string on her
head, appears cxitside the antics of Pee Wee and
Tyco in every sense— perhaps a lonesome fag
hag to her homy canine queens. (Star more or
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Cynthia Star:
kitschy, whimsical,
vaguely unsettling
Erik Palmer’s images
call to the homo
erectus in us all
less verifies thus in her artist’s statement, calling
poor Gabby “the wallflower at their party.”)
Maybe these images can reignite the debate
about animal analogues for human homosexu
ality. After all, if Pee Wee and Tyco are doing
it, it must he natural. O r maybe they’re just
wacky tableaux.
Star says she originally had no intention of
painting these particular subjects. “I went into
the studio with the intent to paint riot cops,”
after a bad experience with three at a President
Bush protest. Instead, she painted Gabby, then
the other two. “T h e dogs took my mind com
pletely off the riot cops.”
R eaction to these literal homdogs has been
varied, according to the artist, from embarrass
ment to “whispered compliments” to prudish
discomfort.
But are the dogs really gay? “W ell, Tyco has
always reminded me o f Truman Capote,” muses
Star. “These dogs are very queer. They live
with a girl Chihuahua and don’t include her in
their games. Pee W ee and Tyco’s displays of
affection are about getting attention from the
humans. T heir approach to attention-getting is
very free and self-satisfying, whereas Gabby’s
solo approach seems to make her worried and
confused. If I were to translate this to the
human world, embracing one’s queemess and
being tm a to oneself creates a charismatic con
fidence, overcoming prejudice by having an
irresistibly good tim e!”
T h a t’s what we thought. JT1
Portland Art Museum’s OREGON BIENNIAL exhibit
runs through Sept. 7 at 1219 S.W . Park A ve.
G ary M orris is a Portland free-lan ce writer.