Thanks to a multiyear grant from the 1803 Fund, the Portland Art Museum will open a new gallery late this year dedicated to Black art and experiences, the museum announced Thursday.

The gallery will make its debut along with the rest of the transformed museum, capping a multi-year, $100 million-plus expansion and remodel. The construction project will feature almost 100,000 square feet of new or remodeled exhibition and public space, in the process greatly improving access and gallery layout. The museum remains open in the meantime, but with limited galleries available to visit.

The new Black Art and Experiences Gallery will be on the first floor of the museum’s Jubitz Center for Modern and Contemporary Art in the Mark Building, and will be visible through large windows by people using the open public passageway in the new, glassed-in Mark Rothko Pavilion that will link the Mark Building to the north and the original Pietro Belluschi building to the south.

When the Black Art and Experiences Gallery opens later this year it will feature four exhibitions, the museum said: Tenderhead, a solo exhibition featuring new works and a site-specific installation by Portland artist Lisa Jarrett; an exhibition of prints by Black artists drawn from PAM’s collection;  Do I Look Like a Lady? (Comedians and Singers) (2016), a video installation by  Mickalene Thomas; and Conductions: Black Imaginings, a series of performances with artists Noah Beckham, Miles Greenberg, and Bridgette Hickey.

The new gallery represents a five-year partnership between the museum and The 1803 Fund, a Portland-based investment fund focused on the city’s North and Northeast neighborhoods and spreading out from there to support projects that promote Black life, culture, and awareness — as its website puts it, seeking “the kind of change that transforms a community from the root.”

“1803 Fund is excited to partner with the Portland Art Museum for Black Art and Experiences,” Rukaiyah Adams, Chief Executive Officer of the fund, said in the museum’s press statement. “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. We are excited to become strategic partners to PAM.”

The new gallery provides a permanent addition to the museum’s increased commitment to represent the lives, culture, and art of Black Americans, following 2023’s expansive special exhibition Black Artists of Oregon.

“Through this partnership,” museum Director Brian Ferriso said, “we want to continue to spotlight the ongoing growth and vitality of Portland’s Black artistic community, as well as nationally and internationally recognized Black artists, to create an inclusive and welcoming space that resonates with generations of visitors to come.”

While construction continues, the museum remains open and keeps several of its galleries active. Current exhibitions include Psychedelic Posters and Fashion of the 1960s, through June 15; Monet’s Floating World at Giverny: Portland’s Waterlilies Resurfaces, featuring the museum’s treasured and recently restored Monet painting, through Aug. 17; and Throughlines: Connections in the Collection, a show that ranges across the museum’s many collections, discovering connections between artworks in different areas, through May 4. Parts of the American art galleries also have been reinstalled and were reopened earlier this week.

PICA scores a $120,000 Warhol grant

PICA, the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, announced Friday that it has been awarded a $120,000 grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. “This generous grant supports organizations that champion experimental and risk-taking artistic practices—values that are at the core of PICA’s mission,” the art institute said in its announcement.

PICA’s grant was among 47 to arts organizations across the country plus two international groups, totaling $4.1 million. PICA’s $120,000 was the largest in this round of Warhol grants; others ranged between $32,000 and $100,000. The Warhol Foundation has also recently granted $1 million to aid artists and art workers affected by the Los Angeles wildfires.