What’s Not to Love? Portraits and Reflections from the Schnitzer Collection

Jordan Schnitzer’s growing private art collection is up to 22,000 pieces, including works by artists such as Jeff Koons, Malia Jensen, Pablo Picasso, John Baldessari and Mel Bochner. Schnitzer has multiple university museums and traveling exhibitions, and his storage space in industrial Northwest Portland can hold public shows, the latest of
which focuses on portraiture.

According to one of the curators, Azure Attoe the show “aims to engage educators and students, offering diverse art to inspire learning.” Attoe says to keep an eye out for reflective surfaces, such as Koons’ Gazing Ball, a sculpture by Portland artist Jensen and the late Katherine Ace’s very traditional portrait. Also watch for Baldessari deconstructing the portrait and Bochner’s Self / Portrait, which is all words.

There are fun mini narratives. Robert Longo’s large-scale photos Men in the Cities, where men in suits pose as if they have just been shot (they had, with ping-pong balls), appear next to an LED piece by Julian Opie of people dancing. It’s not all 2-D work, for the show will also include lenticulars and videos.

Featured are two pieces by Amy Sherald, who is a portraitist of Michelle Obama. Sherald was in the news in July when she canceled the last leg of her Smithsonian touring exhibition because she feared her depiction of Lady Liberty as a Black trans woman was being censored by the National Portrait Gallery. One of her works in the Schnitzer show is her painting For Love, and for Country, based on the V-J Day photo of a sailor kissing a white-uniformed woman. “She’s not erasing the photo, she’s adding on,” says Attoe, “and I just thought there was something so fresh about that.” For a chance to see some cutting-edge artists in a unique Portland venue, this show is not to be missed.

jordanschnitzer.org/about