Portland Art Museum

This week is October’s Free First Thursday (10 a.m.–7 p.m.)! Drop in for special screenings presented in conjunction with “The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art.”

The free 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 exhibition.

2 p.m.
BEDEVIL (1993) is inspired by ghost stories director Tracey Moffat heard as a child from her extended Aboriginal and Irish Australian family. Moffatt constructs a trilogy in which characters are haunted by the past and bewitched by memories, with all three stories set in her highly stylized, hyper-real, and hyper-imaginary Australian landscape. BEDEVIL is the first feature film directed by an Australian Aboriginal woman.

5 p.m.
THE DROVER’S WIFE: THE LEGEND OF MOLLY JOHNSON (2021) is a searing revisionist Western that reimagines a classic piece of colonial literature. In 1893 on an isolated property, a heavily pregnant woman named Molly Johnson and her children struggle to survive the harsh Australian landscape; her husband is gone, droving sheep in the high country. Molly then finds herself confronted by a shackled Aboriginal fugitive named Yadaka. As an unlikely bond begins to form between them, secrets unravel about her true identity. Written by, directed by, and starring Leah Purcell (Goa-Gunggari-Wakka Wakka).

Learn more → https://bit.ly/4yrAg3O

To make his stencils, Watanabe Sadao used three-ply mulberry paper. Treated with persimmon tannin, it was then dried and cured, resulting in a water-resistant, highly durable paper. The same methods were used by his mentor Serizawa Keisuke, as well as generations of textile dyers employing the paste-resist stencil technique (katazome).

Watanabe’s stencils formed the basis of every design. Some are relatively simple, with just a few figures, while others are intricately detailed and complex. Occasionally the artist amended the stencil with a modified line or new shape. Plants and floral designs are often used to link the main elements of the design, giving them their signature, folk-like aesthetic.

📍 "Watanabe Sadao" is now on view in Gallery 108

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Watanabe Sadao (Japanese, 1913–1996), "The Angel Ascends from the Rising of the Sun," 1967. Color stencil print on momigami paper; katazome-hanga, 35 1/2 × 26 1/4 in. Gift of Anne H. H. and Kenneth B. Pyle, 2022.8.21; "Angel Ascends from the Rising of the Sun," 1967. Stencil; 35 5/8 × 26 1/2 in. Gift of Mr. Tatsuo Watanabe, 2024.35.9 © Watanabe Tatsuo

"I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions – tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on. And the fact that a lot of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures show that I communicate those basic human emotions...The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them." ―Mark Rothko, born in 1903

📍 Experience "The Art of Mark Rothko" in Gallery 404 through May 30

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Mark Rothko (American, born Russia, 1903–1970), "No. 5 (Untitled)," 1964. Oil on canvas; 90 × 69 in. Collection of Christopher Rothko, Artworks on canvas by Mark Rothko Copyright © 1998 by Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, L2024.6.2

"No. 16 (?) (Green, White, Yellow on Yellow) 1951," 1951. Oil on canvas; 67 5/8 × 44 5/8 in. Collection of Christopher Rothko, Artworks on canvas by Mark Rothko Copyright © 1998 by Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, L2024.6.1

We’re thrilled to announce the lineup for this year’s PLUS PLUS Festival of Tomorrow, returning for its third year November 19–22 to celebrate unbound artists who dissolve boundaries, defy easy categorization, and expand the notion of what’s possible in cinema and beyond.

PLUS PLUS features wildly imaginative programming for cultural snackers, including unbound cinema, comedy, performances, sound-driven and interactive storytelling, live animation, and other media arts, spread throughout two venues: PAM CUT’s Tomorrow Theater (3530 SE Division) and the Portland Art Museum’s Whitsell Auditorium (1219 SW Park).

Highlights include: the Portland premiere of LIGHTSCAPE by world-renowned multi-media artist Doug Aitken (Nov 22); a special live music/video game performance by Portland’s EMA (Nov 21); an evening of ‘90s “analogue ecstasy” hosted by music video legend and filmmaker Mark Pellington; a one-night-only evening of stand-up with Joel Kim Booster (Loot, Fire Island) (Nov 19); and an afternoon with MacArthur Fellows and multi-hyphenate storytellers Sterlin Harjo (Reservation Dogs, The Lowdown) and Reginald Dwayne Betts in a spirited discussion on the nature of “truthiness” (Nov 21).

New this year! PAM CUT introduces PLUS PLUS Bizarre Bazaar, a curated group of artists, publishers, exhibitors, community organizations, indie distributors, and creative collectives to help bring the market to life. Visitors will be able to browse and buy artist editions, books, comics, zines, physical media, prints, apparel, games, and more while meeting artists, filmmakers, publishers, and organizations from across the independent creative community. It will take place at the Portland Art Museum’s Mark Building (1119 SW Park) on Nov 21, and is free to attend.

Tickets now available at → tomorrowtheater.org/plus-plus

This week PAM CUT @ The Whitsell presents:

Sat, Sep 26, 2 p.m.
NOWHERE (1997) is presented with Director Fits as part of a series on Fashion and Film. This art-pop odyssey by director Gregg Araki, as part of his Teen Apocalypse Trilogy, oozes with sexuality, style, and subversion.

Sun, Sep 27, 2 p.m.
MARY OLIVER: SAVED BY THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD (2026) – If poetry had a pop icon, Mary Oliver would be it. The best-selling poet and Pulitzer Prize-winner was America’s unlikely, contemporary mystic.

📍 Screenings take place at the Portland Art Museum’s Whitsell Auditorium

Get tickets → https://bit.ly/4wy1MeJ

🍂 Leaves are falling, magic is calling.

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Tanaka Ryōhei (Japanese, 1933–2019), “Ginnan jūtan (Gingko Carpet),” 2002. Color aquatint and etching on paper. The Carol and Seymour Haber Collection, 2008.106.31

Percy Manser (American, born England, 1886-1973), “Fall Trees Near Water (Sauvie Island),” 1928. Oil on canvas. Gift of Michael Parsons, 2011.166

Gustave Courbet (French, 1819-1877), “L'Automne (Autumn),” 1866. Oil on canvas. Gift of Mrs. Frederic B. Pratt in memory of C.E. Ladd, 25.2

💥 A massive explosion of color to energize your week!

Happy birthday to Dale Chihuly, who celebrated 85 years yesterday.


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Dale Chihuly Studio (American, born 1941), "L'arbre rouge," 2001. Glass; 105 × 74 in. diam. Gift of Shirley Papé, 2009.67.1.1-259 © Dale Chihuly. Photo: Single File Studio

“Essential. Staggering. Massive.” –Visitor

See for yourself! Experience "The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art" from Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria. Now on view through January 3.

Start here to plan your visit → https://bit.ly/3Ydup26

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📷 Single File Studio

Congratulations to Marie Watt on making TIME's – influential people shaping the future of art!

“Collaboration is key to Watt…’There is this conversation that happens when many hands come together to create a greater expression that couldn't have otherwise been realized.’ “

Read more → https://time.com/collection/time100-art/2026/marie-watt/

It is with mixed emotions that we announce that Jeannie Kenmotsu, Ph.D., The Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Asian Art, will be leaving the Portland Art Museum. She will join the Harvard Art Museums as the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Curator of Asian Art in December. Her last day at PAM will be October 2.

Since joining the Museum in 2017, Jeannie secured important grants that supported exhibitions and art conservation. Under her tenure, the Asian art department added nearly 1,000 works of art to the permanent collection. A specialist in Japanese prints, paintings, and illustrated books, she curated exhibitions for all of PAM’s Asian art collection areas, including: “Joryū Hanga Kyōkai, 1956-1965: Japan’s Women Printmakers” (2020–21); “Objects of Contact: Encounters between Japan and the West” (2020–21); “Heaven and Earth: Chinese Art from the Collections” (2025–); and “Word in Flower: Arts of Buddhism” (2025–), among others. Last year she opened the critically important “Yoshida Chizuko” (2025–26), the first major museum retrospective to focus on the 20th-century Japanese painter and printmaker. The accompanying publication will be published in early 2027.

We are grateful to Jeannie for her transformative contributions to the Museum and wish her well at Harvard Art Museums!