Sean Foley's "Menace" is a Frankenstein installation of two traditional paintings and two 3-D groupings of shapes, flung far apart across the architecture of the gallery, all tied together with a snappy wall painting of winding red ribbons. Foley has created a world of building blocks out of his own body of work, interchangeable and adaptable, so the disappointment here comes not from the individual elements, but their site-specific assembly. The wall painting fades prematurely and fails to support the two canvases, which are lost in the morass.
Sam van Aken's geodesic sound sculpture, 2007's "Thumper," seems to glow with an aura of knowing play. The only problem is, "Thumper" looks better in the catalog. The same goes for Andy Rosen's "Let's not and say we did," in which a pleasurably vile woodland scene sits awkwardly among its biennial cohorts. These pieces are far more gripping when photographed than when squeezed into the survey. The biggest crime in this regard is committed against the often-impeccable Dozier Bell, whose small works run deep and reward your attention, but the effect in this biennial context is much like trying to read a poem aloud to an audience watching an action movie.
This fault does not necessarily fall in the lap of the museum, which is playing the hand dealt to it by jurors. In fact, coming down on the biennial seems more a matter of chalking it up to growing pains than dishing out blame. The 2009 Portland Biennial is exciting and engaging and worth the time, if a bit in an awkward phase. If you're looking for exciting contemporary work, you'll get what you came for. If you're looking to stand by a show as an accurate sampling of what Maine artists have to offer, you better start looking elsewhere.
Ian Paige can be reached at ianpaige@gmail.com.
Related:
Summer people, Growing Maine art, Idealist views, More 
- Summer people
Ever wonder why there is so much professional-level art made and shown in Maine, a state with a total population less than that of many minor cities? One answer is that following the fame of people like Winslow Homer, creative types flocked to Maine, often to artists' colonies.
- Growing Maine art
Long ago an art critic of my acquaintance remarked that New York was a border town to Europe, and until fairly recently that was true. Artistic ideas would be born in Europe, often France, and migrate slowly across the Atlantic and take root.
- Idealist views
The path through my various responsibilities has led me to the Portland Museum several times in recent weeks, and along most of the floors. While passing through the Julia Margaret Cameron exhibit of photography I was struck by thoughts about templates created by dominant illusions, and how a consistent sense of an ideal world flowed through Cameron's work.
- Growth + maturity
The Phoenix 's first 10 years in Portland roughly bracket the period during which I stopped writing about art.
- Arc printing
For more than 50 years David Driskell, in his art and his distinguished academic career, has been a creative force in the intersection of modernist art and the African diaspora.
- Slideshow: Portland Museum of Art 2009 Biennial
For it’s 2009 Biennial, the Portland Museum of Art whittled down 970 applicants to just 17 Maine (or at least Maine-affiliated) artists.
- Art for art's sake
Apparently, I'm one of those artist-types. Except it's not called "artist" anymore. That term is too, well ... artsy-fartsy. It doesn't adequately convey my critical importance to society.
- Selective strife
Portland Museum of Art’s “In Our Time: The World as Seen By Magnum Photographers,” is quite literally a catalogue of the most virtuosic photojournalistic photographs in the last half-century.
- The thinking ass
Before his imagery got captured and turned into poster art backdrops for dorm-room bong-hits, Salvador Dalí imagined it in service of a revolution in consciousness. “Accommodations of Desire: Surrealist Works on Paper Collected by Julien Levy,” at the Portland Museum of Art through this spring, traces the stages and offshoots of this revolution along the axis established by one crucial figure in its history and its dissemination — collector and dealer Julien Levy.
- New discoveries
The show presents works by artists that influenced the Impressionists and artists who were, in turn, influenced by this most powerful of artistic movements.
- Movies are moving, hot dogs are hopping, Binga's is burning
Even as the temperatures drop and we head into hibernation mode for winter, Portland's drinking, dining, nightlife, and shopping scenes continue to evolve. Here's a round-up of comings and goings.
- Less
Topics:
Museum And Gallery
, Dan Graham, Jacob Galle, Sean Foley, More
, Dan Graham, Jacob Galle, Sean Foley, Sean Foley, Portland Museum of Art, Portland Museum of Art, Portland Museum of Art, Biennial, Elizabeth Burke, Less
