PORTLAND, OR.- The Portland Art Museum has announced a dynamic slate of exhibitions opening in 2024. From future-forward sneaker design to Impressionist masters and psychedelic posters, the exhibitions celebrate a wide range of artistic expression and offer visitors world-class experiences in the heart of downtown Portland.
Opening in March 2024, Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks is an exhibition that sneaker-loving citizens of Portland and visitors are sure to enjoy—offering not only physical objects but digital imaginings, design concepts, and futuristic visions. Summer at the Museum brings French Moderns: Monet to Matisse, a stunning exhibition from the Brooklyn Museum featuring nearly 60 works of art from several renowned artists, opening in June 2024. Pulling from the Museum’s deep collection of prints and drawings, Psychedelic Rock Posters and Fashion of the 1960s will present more than 150 rock posters representing the leading artists and designers of the genre alongside nearly 20 fashion items of the era.
The Museum’s PAM CUT // Center for an Untold Tomorrow’s newly opened Tomorrow Theater in Southeast Portland kicks off the new year with acclaimed costume designer Ruth E. Carter speaking in conjunction with the Museum’s Africa Fashion exhibition. Located at 3530 Division Street, the Tomorrow Theater is PAM CUT’s lively creative hub for cultural snackers. Home to a multi-media feast of creators and content pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, the Tomorrow is a space where local and global artists collaborate across disciplines and multi-interest audiences co-mingle to experience cinematic storytelling in all its forms. Events are offered Thursday through Sunday. Full schedule here.
The Portland Art Museum enters 2024 with a strong, critically acclaimed set of special exhibitions on view. The spectacular Africa Fashion (through February 18, 2024), from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and making its only West Coast stop at PAM, honors the irresistible creativity, ingenuity, and unstoppable global impact of contemporary African fashions. The exhibition offers a rewarding conversation with PAM’s expansive, powerful Black Artists of Oregon (through March 24, 2024), which celebrates the work of Black artists in our state over more than a century through an intergenerational tapestry of more than 200 artworks by 69 artists.
Throughlines: Connections in the Collection (through November 1, 2024) continues the collaborative conversation, presenting fresh perspectives on beloved favorites as well as new additions to the Museum’s collection while permanent collection galleries are closed for construction of the Museum’s Mark Rothko Pavilion.
Now underway, the construction of the new Pavilion is part of PAM’s transformative campus expansion and renovation project that will be completed in 2025. The campus transformation will connect the Museum’s two existing buildings, add new gallery and public space to the Museum, and create a more accessible experience for all visitors. Among the most significant capital projects in the city, this initiative is a key part of revitalizing Portland’s downtown core that has been slow to recover after the pandemic.
In 2024 the Museum is expanding community access with the return of Free First Thursdays thanks to support from the Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All Program. The Museum’s new hours starting with the new year will include extended hours until 8 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, and until 6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
On the global stage in 2024, the Portland Art Museum has the honor of co-presenting artist Jeffrey Gibson as the representative for the United States at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (the Venice Biennale). The U.S. Pavilion exhibition, Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me, is commissioned and co-curated by Kathleen Ash-Milby, PAM’s Curator of Native American Art. Gibson, a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, will be the first Indigenous artist to represent the U.S. in a solo exhibition in the 129-year history of the Biennale.
