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Black artists, along with their works and perspectives, will soon have permanent space at the Portland Art Museum.
Ahead of Black History Month, PAM announced the creation of its Black Art and Experiences Gallery, a 100,000-square-foot exhibition hall slated to open in late 2025 with the rest of the remodeled museum. BAEG will open on the first floor of the Mark Building’s Jubitz Center for Modern and Contemporary Art—named for the same Jubitz family that counts in its ranks Frederick Jubitz, whom President Trump named to the Kennedy Center’s advisory committee in 2017, and his step-nephew, former Portland City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez. The Jubitz Center first opened 20 years ago in 2005.
BAEG is the result of a five-year grant from 1803 Fund, the Portland-based multimillion-dollar investment fund dedicated to strengthening Black life in Portland through cultural projects.
“This partnership is a meaningful evolution—moving from Black artists and audiences petitioning for admission into hushed, venerated spaces, and moving toward working in collaboration on dynamic places that uplift our collective creativity and highest aspirations,” Rukaiyah Adams, 1803 Fund’s chief executive officer, said in a statement. “We are excited to become strategic partners to PAM.”
BAEG’s announcement follows the conclusion of the ambitious group show Black Artists of Oregon, a survey of a century-plus of pieces by Black artists connected to Oregon. Intisar Abioto curated the show, which ran from September 2023 to March 2024. As with 1803 Fund, Black Artists of Oregon can trace its origins to 2020’s historic civil unrest following the death of George Floyd.
“We are deeply grateful to 1803 Fund for the support and recognition of PAM as a beacon for all of Portland’s diverse audiences and are thrilled for the opportunity to provide a platform for voices that have often been marginalized in the broader art world,” PAM director Brian Ferriso said in a statement.
Four exhibitions will christen BAEG’s opening. Portland State University instructor Lisa Jarrett will show new works and a site-specific installation with Tenderhead. A to-be-titled show will pull prints by Black artists from across PAM’s archive, as well as newly acquired prints by such artists as Robert Pruitt, Alison Saar, Gary Simmons and Derrick Adams, the last of whose art is shorthand for taste on TV shows like Insecure and Empire. Mickalene Thomas, a onetime Portlander who painted former first lady Michelle Obama’s portrait in 2008 ahead of her husband’s inauguration, will show her 2016 video installation Do I Look Like a Lady? (Comedians and Singers) (2016). Finally, performance artists Noah Beckham, Miles Greenberg and Bridgette Hickey cap things off with the performance series Conductions: Black Imaginings.