The Biennial is Dead! Long Live The Biennial! Or…

When the Portland Art Museum eighty-sixed the Oregon Biennial in favor of the Contemporary Northwest Art Awards in 2007, many felt we’d lost a rare opportunity to take a broad read on the state of contemporary arts in the city and the state. The short-lived Portland Art Center was for a moment rumored to be in the game to pick up the Biennial baton, but its demise left the biennial nowhere.

Did I notice that the Oregon Cultural Trust awarded $5K to Disjecta to support:

…Portland 2010, the biennial multidisciplinary exhibition showcasing the best artistic talents of Oregon and beyond in the visual, performing and media arts?
Can’t say I did.

Leave it to Eva Lake to dig into it on her weekly radio show, Art Focus, on Tuesday morning at 11:30 on KBOO 90.7 and streamed online. She’ll talk with Cris Moss who will curate Portland 2010 (he’s curator and director of Linfield College Gallery) as well as Cynthia Kirk from OCT and Bryan Suereth of Disjecta.