Arts & Media❯Museums

Tina Chang reads from her new poetry collection Lion at Portland Art Museum in the Native American Art gallery (Level 2, Room 215), paired with Sara Siestreem, fastened to the rock (blood, sweat, and tears).

In Lion, Tina Chang mines personal and collective memory to explore safety and danger, visibility and invisibility as an Asian American woman. Throughout the collection, Chang responds to multi-hyphenate women artists, including Haena Yoo, Hồng-An Trương, Astria Suparak, and a collective whose work paid tribute to the life of Christina Yuna Lee, a young woman who was killed during the height of anti-Asian hate crimes. Responding to art across various media—text, illustration, painting, video, and sculpture—Lion sparks cross-disciplinary dialogue on Asian American perspectives, surveillance, and the myth of the model minority.

As the aftermath of the pandemic is examined, so too are the structures of bias, racism, and violence that continue. The collection’s title explores the word’s cultural history, composite Chinese iconography, and lion-centered explorations of strength and mastery. Lion traverses the closeness and distance between the racialized self the world views and the perceived self who endures and survives.

“An urgent exploration of Asian American identity from a poet with a ‘fearless imagination.’”–Tracy K. Smith, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

This eye-opening exhibition introduces North American audiences to the diverse and distinct visual iconographies of Indigenous Australia, which is made up of more than 250 distinct Indigenous nations. Explore this rich and living history of creativity through over 200 works made by more than 130 artists. Drawn exclusively from the collection of Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria, The Stars We Do Not See offers a rare opportunity to experience some of the most significant examples of modern and contemporary Australian Indigenous art. Charting watershed moments in Indigenous art from the late 19th century to the present, this exhibition reveals a rich history of creativity that predates the arrival of the British.

Todd McGrain’s original bust of York, the enslaved man who was the only African American member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, was secretly installed on Mount Tabor Park in 2021. It was placed on the vacant pedestal where a statue of Oregonian editor Harvey Scott (1830-1910), a known racist, once stood. The surprising appearance of York, with no artist name attached to the work, is a local example of the protest art being created in the wake of political and social unrest. The unsanctioned installation of the original bust made a significant contribution to the spirited dialogues on American history, systemic inequality, and public monuments happening across the nation.

Made of mere plaster and paint, the original bust sustained damage from several acts of vandalism, inspiring McGrain to come forward and offer a bronze version of the bust to the city. This Spring, the Portland Art Museum debuted the bronze bust of York, temporarily, as a part of the 2026 Oregon Contemporary Artists’ Biennial: The Price of the Ticket. In collaboration with Oregon Contemporary and the City of Portland’s Office of Arts & Culture, Portland State University, a community survey was offered to give Portlanders the opportunity to share their thoughts on where the monument should be placed for the long term.

Join us for a thoughtful discussion around McGrain’s act of protest and York as a historical figure significant to the history of Portland and the wider nation. Led by biennial curator and historian TK Smith, the panelists will include: Todd McGrain, artist of the York portrait; Intisar Abioto, artist and curator who recently curated Black Artists of Oregon at the Portland Art Museum; Eric Fredericksen, the public art administrator of the City of Portland; and Zachary Stocks, historian and executive director of Oregon Black Pioneers.

TK Smith is an award-winning writer, curator, and cultural historian. He has over ten years of experience as an independent curator. Most recently, he served as Curator, Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora, Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. Previously, Smith served as Assistant Curator: Art of the African Diaspora at the Barnes Foundation. Smith’s writing has been published in exhibition catalogues, academic journals, and periodicals, including Art Papers where he is a contributing editor. He has been a visiting lecturer at numerous academic and cultural institutions, including Cornell University. Smith is a doctoral candidate in the History of American Civilization program at the University of Delaware, where he is completing his dissertation entitled, “Granite, Power, and Piss: The Transformation of a Confederate Symbol.”

Intisar Abioto, born in Memphis, TN, is an explorer-artist working in dance, writing, photography, and curation. In long-form projects encompassing the visual, folkloric, documentary, and performing arts, her works consider the breath/ breadth of people of African descent against the expanse of their storied, imaginative, and geographic landscapes. She has produced The People Could Fly Project and The Black Portlanders, among others. In 2017 she began original research on the history and presence of Black artists in Oregon which led to the curation of the 2023 Black Artists of Oregon exhibition at the Portland Art Museum. Black Artists of Oregon: Continuum, an accompanying exhibition catalogue is forthcoming in 2026.

Eric Fredericksen is the public art administrator of the City of Portland, where he oversees the management of the City’s 1,700-piece collection and guides the Percent for Art program. From 2017 to 2025 he led the public art program at the City of Vancouver, BC, with a focus on artist-led approaches to public art: extending open invitations for artists to propose ideas outside the limits of a predetermined site, theme, or medium. He also worked with public and private partners to dramatically increase the visibility and voice of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations on their unceded territories through art commissions in traditional and contemporary forms. He was previously the Waterfront Art Program Manager for the City of Seattle, where he commissioned significant public artworks by Ann Hamilton, Qwalsius – Shaun Peterson, Norie Sato, Buster Simpson, Oscar Tuazon, and Stephen Vitiello. As the founding director of Western Bridge, Seattle, he organized exhibitions and commissions from 2004 to 2012, and he began his career as a writer and editor at Architecture magazine and The Stranger. As an independent curator, he has curated exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Or Gallery, and Artspeak, all in Vancouver; the Noorderzon Festival, Groningen, the Netherlands; and Open Satellite, Bellevue, Washington.

Born in 1961, artist Todd McGrain’s early career as a sculptor involved apprenticing in bronze casting facilities, where he gained hands-on experience assisting prominent sculptors of the previous generation. In 1996, McGrain received a Guggenheim Fellowship, enabling him to study major art collections across the United States and Europe, with a focus on Italian Renaissance art. In 2000, his focus shifted to creating public memorials for bird species that have become extinct in the modern era, permanently installed at sites of historical significance to each species. This ongoing project has been widely exhibited at art centers, galleries, and public gardens, including the Smithsonian Institution, Cornell University, and Stanford University.

Zachary Stocks is a public historian, interpreter, and the Executive Director of Oregon Black Pioneers. Zachary previously served as Program Director of Historical Seaport and Visitor Services Manager of Northwest African American Museum. He is a former intern of Colonial Williamsburg and Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and a former seasonal Park Ranger at Lewis & Clark National Historical Park. He holds a BA in History from the College of William & Mary with a certificate in Public History from the National Institute for American History and Democracy, and an MA in Museology from the University of Washington. Zachary is a 2025 graduate of the prestigious History Leadership Institute, sponsored by the American Association of State and Local History. Zachary lives in Astoria.

• Exhibitions Todd McGrain: Debut of York General accessibility

  Mar 31, 2026 – Jan 31, 2027

  1219 SW Park Ave

Alicia Jo Rabins reads from her new memoir When We’re Born We Forget Everythingat Portland Art Museum in the Asian Art gallery (Level 1, Room 108), paired with Watanabe Sadao, Adam and Eve.

From the creator of the internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter project Girls in Trouble, a memoir following her journey from a secular Jewish childhood to becoming a modern queer woman owning ancient teachings and finding her own meanings in them, refracted through feminist interpretations of the lives of Biblical women.

As a self-described ‘90s suburban high school weirdo, Alicia Jo Rabins spent her time practicing violin and smoking cigarettes behind the mall while secretly dreaming of setting out on a spiritual quest no one around her seemed to understand. She often found herself drawn to the more ritualistic and rigorous Judaism that her parents had abandoned to assimilate and “become American.” In college, a chance meeting led her on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to study rabbinical texts (and play bluegrass fiddle on the street for cash). But that two years of immersing herself in traditional observance was only the start of a journey full of twists and turns.

When We’re Born We Forget Everything follows Alicia’s relentless, often embarrassing, sometimes enlightening search for the sacred in everyday life as she tours America playing with a klezmer-punk band, falls in and out of love, scrapes through the initiations of motherhood, and witnesses the beauty—and danger—of mysticism. Rabins braids this personal narrative with the hidden stories of biblical women, uncovering a path of queer identity, feminist awakening, and spiritual self-invention. This lyrical, searching memoir is a meditation on longing, lineage, and what it takes to find meaning in a fractured world.

“Alicia Jo Rabins writes as if she’s in conversation with the divine itself. . . .This isn’t merely a book to be read—it’s a scripture for the searching heart, a reminder that the border between the human and the holy is, and always has been, porous.”
—Reza Aslan, author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

Join Portland Japanese Garden and experience the awe-inspiring artistry of NUNO, the iconic Japanese textile design studio. Featuring vibrant and compelling fabrics produced across eight specific regions of Japan, NUNO’s championing of small-community makers illuminates the breadth and depth of contemporary Japanese textile design. This unforgettable exhibition includes site-specific installations and a hands-on touch wall that will make you rethink your relationship to cloth.

Portland Art Museum invites the community to join a Free First Thursday event featuring free museum admission for all. This unique day includes a chance to explore the special exhibitions and PAM’s transformed campus and reinstalled permanent collection galleries.

October’s Free First Thursday features a special free film program presented in conjunction with The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art. The screenings celebrate film and video work by and about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people, offering another way to explore the stories, histories, and perspectives at the heart of The Stars We Do Not See.

See full details at tomorrowtheater.org.

OJMCHE’s book club meets every other month midday at the museum. The book selection for November 2026 is The Mathematician’s Shiva by Stuart Rojstaczer.

Stuart Rojstaczer’s The Mathematician’s Shiva is a humorous, bittersweet debut novel about family that brilliantly captures humanity’s drive to not only survive, but to solve the impossible.

Alexander “Sasha” Karnokovitch and his family would like to mourn the passing of his mother, Rachela, with modesty and dignity. But Rachela, a famous Polish émigré mathematician and professor at the University of Wisconsin, is rumored to have solved the million-dollar Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize problem. Rumor also has it that she took the solution to her grave out of spite. To Sasha’s chagrin, a ragtag group of socially challenged mathematicians arrives in Madison and crashes the shiva, vowing to do whatever it takes to find the solution — even if it means prying up the floorboards for Rachela’s notes.

For fans of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and Everything Is Illuminated.

What can South Korea teach us about tradition and life in a global society?

Join us for a 12-day faculty-led program in Seoul, South Korea, exploring how cultural traditions, rapid modernization, and global influence shape everyday life. Discover how South Korea’s transformation from postwar recovery to a cultural and economic powerhouse reflects connections among collective identity, innovation, and global competitiveness.

Through museum visits, cultural experiences, and explorations of Seoul’s urban landscape, you’ll examine the intersection of history, technology, media, and society. Experiences include visiting Gyeongbokgung Palace in traditional Hanbok, the Samsung Innovation Museum, K-Pop media sites, and a professional KBO baseball game, alongside visits to traditional markets and the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

Open to students from all majors, this program is especially suited for students interested in global studies, business, media, sociology, anthropology, international relations, and the arts.

Program Dates: June 22–July 3, 2027
Course: KOR 330 U-Section
Prerequisite: None
Program Leader: Young-Ju Han, Korean Language Program

Information Session: November 9 at 11 a.m. — KMC 580
Education Abroad Fair: November 18, 11 a.m.–2 p.m. — SMSU 296/298. Explore the Fair
Prerequisite: CH 426

View Program Details

The Portland Art Museum is pleased to present the recently acquired two-channel video installation, Do I Look Like a Lady? (Comedians and Singers), by internationally renowned artist Mickalene Thomas. Thomas’s work addresses themes of beauty and identity expressed through the myriad subjectivities of African-American women. Her multidisciplinary practice reconsiders Black womanhood and desire through a queer lens.

In recent years, Thomas has turned to video production as a way to expand her critical investigation into how mass media and entertainment distill the experiences of African-American women into a handful of archetypes. Do I Look Like a Lady? (Comedians and Singers) presents a dynamic checkerboard of moving image footage featuring African-American actors and singers from across the 20th century: from Jackie “Moms” Mabley to Eartha Kitt, Whoopi Goldberg, Whitney Houston, and several others. The video focuses on their individual voices as they express heartbreaking roles, pointed lyrics, sharp jokes, and strong statements of resistance to the dominant culture. The work is a powerful, and often riotous, reflection on the roles of Black women in the United States.

In Tenderhead, Lisa Jarrett weaves together her interest in migration and tracing lost familial histories to Beauty Supply stores and salons—critical intersections of Black life. The artist’s first solo museum exhibition in Oregon features new works and site-responsive installations that activate the abundant patterns, colors, images and textures found at the Beauty Supply. She says, “The Beauty Supply is my art supply store.” It is a site where she accesses physical materials as well as the less tangible memories activated by these materials, so important to her work.

Jarrett suggests that the Beauty Supply, salon, and kitchen sink are places undeniably linked to migration and diaspora as surrogate homelands. The geographic locations, aesthetics, layout, products, customers, and economies of the Beauty Supply locate it firmly in this “in-between” place, setting it apart as a complicated site of joy, nostalgia, desire, and unmet need. Jarrett investigates how these relatively mundane places and objects function as dynamic living archives in Black communities and families that accompany us from generation to generation. Places like the Beauty Supply (as well as the people, objects, ideas, and experiences contained therein) are the foundation of the work in this exhibition. Tenderhead refers to a question that she (and many others) vividly remember being asked while getting their hair done as children: “Are you tenderheaded?” Jarrett says, “It’s a loaded question,” and this exhibition offers windows into her reply.

Public Tour of How We Show Up November 5, 2026 Admission: Free, RSVP encouraged Location: Menashe Gallery Share × " class="share-btn"> Share on Facebook &text=Public Tour of How We Show Up" class="share-btn"> Share on Twitter Email Thursday, November 5 | 1pm In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, How We Show Up: Oregon Jews in Civil Society reflects on the ongoing work of democracy and the roles Jewish Oregonians have played in shaping our state. Join for a free guided tour and leave inspired to show up in your community. This program is presented as part of How We Show Up: Oregon Jews in Civil Society, An America 250 Exhibition . Public Tour of How We Show Up | Thursday, November 5 | 1pm 0 Going 15 remaining, 4 days left to RSVP RSVP Here Going back

Portland Art Museum celebrates the Deaf Community with Art in ASL on the 3rd Sunday of every month. Deaf Community members and their companions enjoy complimentary admission all day and are invited to participate in guided Look with Me sessions in the galleries between 12-3pm. Visitors of all ages are welcome.

Some Look with Me sessions will be led in ASL and some will be led in English. All sessions will have interpretation. Look for signs in the galleries to find locations of each session.

Join us for slow looking sessions from 12-3 pm then come to the Finley Studio for artmaking and social time from 3-5 pm.

Look With Me does not require special tickets. Museum tickets can be purchased online or at the box office.

Accessibility:
The museum galleries are wheelchair, mobility device, and stroller accessible. Complimentary stools, folding chairs, manual wheelchairs, and assistive technology are available upon request. All museum accessibility info is available here. Please contact us with any additional access needs at [email protected] or leave a videophone message at 503-420-3169.

Art in ASL is presented in partnership with the Deaf Look Club, a program of Bridge City Montessori.

What does civic participation look like? How do communities shape the places where they live? How We Show Up explores the many ways Jews in Oregon have participated in public life—from building towns and holding office in the nineteenth century to advocating for civil rights, immigrant communities, and social justice in the decades that followed. Drawing from the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education’s collections, the exhibition traces a long tradition of civic engagement shaped by leadership, service, and advocacy.

Visitors will encounter stories of early Jewish mayors who helped establish towns across Oregon, women who organized networks of social welfare and immigrant support, and lawyers, activists, and community leaders who worked to expand civil rights and democratic participation. The exhibition also examines moments of tension and contradiction, exploring the limits of acceptance and the complexities of minority politics.

Presented as part of the national America 250 commemoration, How We Show Up reflects on the ongoing work of democracy. Through photographs, documents, and personal stories, the exhibition invites visitors to consider how communities participate in civic life—and how each generation chooses to show up.

Funding has been generously provided by the Judy Margles Education and Culture Fund, Craig E. Wollner Exhibition Fund, and Zera Foundation.

This installation celebrates prints by Black artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including many recent acquisitions shown for the first time at the Portland Art Museum. The work offers stories of the Black experience in the United States, allowing visitors to trace serious issues as brutal labor practices, as in Kara Walker’s Cotton, and lynching, in Hale Woodruff’s harrowing By Parties Unknown, as well as leisure and joy, evident in the bathers of Emma Amos and Derrick Adams.

Artistic production is another throughline. Viewers can trace the broad influence of Robert Blackburn, the founder of the influential Blackburn Print Workshop, who taught Romare Bearden, among others. Ron Adams honors Blackburn with a portrait. Although working across various printmaking media, including etching, lithography, and screen printing, the artists share a commitment to graphic expression and bearing witness to the breadth of Black representation in America.

The inaugural exhibition in the heart of the Rothko Pavilion speaks to the strong sense of place experienced through one's connection to the natural environment. Drawn from the Asian, Native American, Northwest, and Modern and Contemporary Art collections, Forming Nature, Nature Formed features artworks in glass, clay, metal, neon, and wood that speak to the ways artists from many cultural backgrounds interpret encounters with the natural world in sculptural form. Some works reflect close observation and representation of leaves, insects, hives, and other surrounding elements. Others become abstract expressions of energy inspired by the dynamic forces around and within us. A poetic neon text by Marie Watt serves to ground us in contemplation of the kinship with the environment of the Pacific Northwest and the creatures who inhabit this space alongside them.

One Nation brings together contemporary artists who explore the ideals and contradictions embedded in the American promise. Drawing on the national motto E Pluribus Unum — “Out of Many, One” — the exhibition reflects on how a diverse society strives toward unity while confronting social, political, and cultural divisions.

Across painting, photography, sculpture, textile, and mixed media, the artists consider themes central to American civic life: immigration and belonging, protest and dissent, labor and economic justice, religious freedom, racial inequality, and the enduring power of democratic ideals.

Personal histories and collective memory intersect throughout the exhibition. Portraits of leaders and everyday citizens appear alongside symbolic images of journeys, borders, and shared responsibility. Together, these works ask viewers to consider not only what unites Americans, but also what challenges the nation’s commitment to liberty and justice, and invites reflection on the role individuals and communities play in shaping the country’s future.

Join for a free guided tour on August 16. RSVP here.

Shifting the Narrative: 21st Century Acquisitions highlights Native American art gifts and purchases since the year 2000 at the Portland Art Museum. This broad selection showcases the diversity of the collection including historical works that represent traditional practices, as well as media such as painting, sculpture, printmaking and more. Taking cues from the work itself, the exhibition is organized by theme and media, including sections highlighting basketry, fashion, and photography. Although the collection has long been recognized for its historical works from the Northwest Coast, Plains, and Western Oregon, this exhibition shifts the narrative to a wider array of Native expression, with an emphasis on the present.

The exhibition also includes a section that traces the history of the collection from the first acquisitions of Native American art in 1918 to the present. The breadth of the program and its relationship to communities of artists, visitors, students and Native people will also be explored. As we begin to imagine the future permanent collections galleries, Shifting the Narrative honors our past and welcomes a future where tradition, innovation, and community are celebrated.

Black Arts PDX is a display of ephemera and an extended documentary trailer that foregrounds the history of the Black visual arts community in Northeast Portland. Curated by Dr. Kiara Hill, this rotating installation sheds light on the practices of key figures who were instrumental in shaping the perception of Black arts and culture in Portland. Whether utilitarian or decorative, these materials highlight ways Black artists sought to beautify the city and utilize their technical skills to address the needs of Black people. Black Arts PDX stems from a collaboration between Dr. Hill and Cultural Bearers Archive, Inc., on an archival project dedicated to preserving the unique lived experiences of Black artists and cultural workers in Portland.

CREATE SPACE is an interactive environment within the Black Art & Experiences (BAE) galleries that invites visitors to slow down, reflect, and respond. Designed as a rest area, reading room, art studio, and community gathering space, it supports connection, creativity, and dialogue. Through artist-led programs, hands-on activities, and quiet areas for reading or reflection, visitors can engage with the Black Art and Experiences gallery in a personal, generative way. This first year, CREATE SPACE is activated alongside Conductions: Black Imaginings II, which centers Black performance art and its archives. Both spaces emphasize process — research, writing, improvisation, and experimentation — as essential to the creative journey.

Todd McGrain’s original bust of York, the enslaved man who was the only African American member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, was secretly installed on Mount Tabor Park in 2021. It was placed on the vacant pedestal where a statue of Oregonian editor Harvey Scott (1830-1910), a known racist, once stood. The surprising appearance of York, with no artist name attached to the work, is a local example of the protest art being created in the wake of political and social unrest. The unsanctioned installation of the original bust made a significant contribution to the spirited dialogues on American history, systemic inequality, and public monuments happening across the nation.

Made of mere plaster and paint, the original bust sustained damage from several acts of vandalism, prompting McGrain to come forward and offer the city a bronze version of the bust. This Spring, the Portland Art Museum debuted the bronze bust of York, temporarily, as a part of the 2026 Oregon Contemporary Artists’ Biennial: The Price of the Ticket. In collaboration with Oregon Contemporary and the City of Portland’s Office of Arts and Culture, Portland State University conducted a community survey to give Portlanders the opportunity to share their thoughts on where the monument should be placed for the long term.

Join a thoughtful discussion about McGrain’s act of protest and York as a historical figure significant to Portland's history and the wider nation. Led by biennial curator and historian TK Smith, the panelists will include: Todd McGrain, artist of the York portrait; Intisar Abioto, artist and curator who recently curated Black Artists of Oregon at the Portland Art Museum; Eric Fredericksen, the public art administrator of the City of Portland; and Zachary Stocks, historian and executive director of Oregon Black Pioneers.

The ancient Greeks loved wall murals and small portable paintings, but most of these have been lost over time. Instead, their art is best known from objects such as ceramic pots and vessels, excavated from rubbish heaps and graves. These ordinary household wares were produced in vast quantity, and some were even decorated by artists of extraordinary talent. Those that survive, often reconstructed from shards, continue to inspire artists and all of us with the stories and culture of ancient Greece and Rome. The stories range from the labors of Herakles to the poet Orpheus, and range in time from Greek antiquity to the age of Pablo Picasso. Here, we can see how later artists have interpreted those eternally relevant stories and themes for their own generations.

Rick Bartow (1946–2016) was an artist of deep complexity, and his work reflects a complicated, passionate person who still found space for lightness and humor. Bartow’s gift as a visual storyteller takes the viewer on a narrative journey: his self-portraits tell stories of pain, memory, and self-discovery; others reflect on his Wiyot identity, Native history and culture; and his portrayals of beings who walk on four legs, swim, or fly deftly capture their essence.

This exhibition provides a glimpse into Rick Bartow’s extensive body of work, including paintings, works on paper, mixed-media sculpture, and his less well-known work as a musician. Short films produced by the Bartow Trusts are included to demonstrate his continuing legacy and influence within his home community.

The Museum’s collection of work by Bartow only scratches the surface of an artist recognized as an iconic Native American, Oregon, and Northwest artist. PAM is grateful for generous loans from local collectors, planned gifts, and the Bartow Trusts.