LIMELIGHT

 

Guest curated by Jeff Jahn

Salvatore Reda

Philippe Blanc

Marne Lucas

 

Limelight, curated by PORT’s own Jeff Jahn Alexander Gallery at Clackamas Community College. The show explores the tricks and techniques that artists use to catch the eye – and, more importantly, how an artist goes about holding the viewer’s attention.

 

Statement:

A contemporary artist has to understand what attracts or requires attention of the culture around them, but that isn’t enough… the artist’s work must somehow hold that attention beyond the first glance. Though they differ widely, the artists of Limelight; Philippe Blanc, Salvatore Reda and Marne Lucas specialists in the art of fascination.

 

 

Background:

Since the canonization of Duchamp, the acceptance of Warhol, Basquiat etc. this phenomenon of distinguishing one’s work has been derigueur in exhibitions, though infrequently explored as the subject of an exhibition. One such show was the prescient Let’s Entertain (featuring Murakami, Hirst, Prince etc.), which was on display at the Portland art Museum in 2000. Yet, art strategies have shifted some. Limelight will differ considerably as each of the artists is less interested in entertaining an audience. Instead, one senses some intense nostalgia or at least a connection to history in Limelight. Still Limelight isn’t wistful nostalgia, it’s more like a show that tries to reverse engineer the star power in French poststructuralist thought, the fetish of artist as subject and the Rat Pack in the service of our present needs.

 

 

The Artists:

Philippe Blanc, a French national, is the most prominent of his countrymen in the Portland art scene. Starting with this completely obvious and potentially xenophobic/Francophile inducing fact he’s decided to oh so frenchly exploit his marginal Auslander status thoroughly through referential art strategies employed frequently in contemporary French art. Drawing upon basic and somewhat obscure aspects of French philosophy, geography cuisine and rustic latrine architecture he will create a large scale installation based on the offhand remark by Patrick Rock (another Portland artist). It will both satirize and celebrate what makes French culture so obviously French.

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Salvatore Reda’s Video, “Dino” nostalgically isolates and distills a bit of why Dean Martin was such an incredibly fascinating performer and utterly unlike today’s stars. The video is driven by Martin’s palpable star power, but Reda’s editing and treatment gives it a presentness.

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Marne Lucas has used self-portraiture as a visual way to document her life for many years. The images in ‘Limelight’ are recent events which are aesthetically linked in palette, composition and mood, making the artist’s life central to the work. For example, ‘MLSP with Henk Pander’ invites the viewer into the several week sittings in which Lucas posed for Portland-based, Dutch artist Henk Pander, in the spring/summer of 2007. Lucas states, “The painting Pander made is a time capsule in itself, and I found it to be a very rewarding experience to return the favor of posing for him, as he posed for my Portland Artist Portrait series the year before. Having known him and his family for twenty years, it was a moving experience to spend quiet hours together musing on art and life.”