China Design Now

Today, I was reading the Portland Art Museum Magazine with my art therapy client. October 10th through January the exhibit, "China Design Now," will be the featured exhibit at the Oregon Art Museum in Portland.

China Design Now explores the recent explosion of critically compelling design and architecture projects created in China, contextualizing the impact of rapid economic development on these projects in the country’s major cities. This immersive, multi-sensory exhibition captures a dynamic phase in China, as it opens up to global influences and responds to the hopes and dreams of its new urban middle class.

Representing three swiftly expanding cities — Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen — the exhibition features the work of Chinese and international designers focused on architecture, fashion and graphic design, film, photography, product and furniture design, youth culture, and digital media. Visitors journey south to north along China’s east coast, exploring graphic design and visual culture in China’s manufacturing capital, Shenzhen, fashion and lifestyle in Shanghai, and architecture in Beijing, home of the 2008 Olympic stadium.

Sounds like an exhibit not to miss!

Gauguin in Portland, Oregon

Gauguin is one of my favorite artists and interestingly ambitious before he so famously found his way to the south pacific and his most iconic works. In 1884 he was busy trying to ingratiate himself amongst the impressionists, then the most vanguard artists at the time. In 1883 Gauguin had decided to become a professional painter, before that having been a stockbroker with a real talent for art. You can see how Gauguin makes even a winter scene look exotic.


Gauguin's Vue d’un jardin, Rouen (1884)

Longtime Portland arts patron Melvin Mark has given the Portland Art Museum Gauguin's Vue d’un jardin, Rouen (Garden View, Rouen) in memory of his recently departed wife, Mary.