Construction is well underway at the museum, and things are noisy and chaotic. Every day hundreds of contractors stream in and out, hauling in pipes and barrels and heavy machinery, and dragging out countless bins of rubble. Our two buildings, each nearly a hundred years old, are to be connected by a shiny glass corridor called the Rothko Pavilion. The addition is so named because the family of the late Mark Rothko -who grew up in Portland- is helping fund it, and the understanding is that they will occasionally loan us a painting or two. I look forward to seeing the disappointment on the faces of our guests when they realize the building is not actually filled with his work.
In the meantime, drilling and jackhammering reverberate through the increasingly empty galleries. All the art is being removed room by room and spirited away to our warehouse. While they refuse to close completely, ultimately there will be only two galleries open to the public. I want to document the process of shutting down, but it's too depressing and, frankly, too dull. I’m not sure what to say about it other than flat statements such as "Yesterday they closed the Japanese galleries. Today they closed the European galleries. Tomorrow they close the Native American galleries." It doesn't make for compelling reading, merely an index of loss.
I considered making a list of my favorite pieces as they vanish, and drawing them, but the idea of doing so just makes me tired. I can't even watch as it happens, can't bring myself to say goodbye to these pieces I've spent so much time with over the years. Much of the collection will reappear eventually -the project is slated to be completed in 2025, though this seems laughably implausible- but who knows where I'll be by then. I thought about telling some museum anecdotes, but every time I try to think of one, my mind goes blank. Apparently not much interesting has happened here in the past nineteen years. How do you talk about times that are so uneventful, that lack the usual rhythms of narrative?
Of course the whole thing hits especially hard because I see the same thing happening to my life. I feel my world getting smaller -friends and family members die, or become diminished, businesses close. Buildings get torn down and are replaced with much uglier ones. This shrinking is common as we get older -and was accelerated by the pandemic- but I wonder if, in my case, it's a reaction to what is happening with the museum. Do I associate so closely with this cursed place that I am shutting down vicariously, like a twin, or a lover? If so, does that mean I am also about to undergo a major renovation, one that will connect my two disparate halves and make me whole?
Our sole exhibition this summer will be a show of props and sets from the stop-motion film Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. I recently watched the movie and didn't care for it. It doesn't help that the old Disney version is one of my favorite cartoons, a nearly perfect film that is equal parts magical and horrifying. But perhaps a dark fable about a carved wooden boy wanting desperately to become flesh and blood is perfect for our institution, especially when it doubles as a cautionary tale about the perils of dishonesty.
Some years ago, we had another show of stop-motion art, based on the work of local studio Laika. Laika is basically a pet project for the son of Nike CEO Phil Knight. They make beautiful films with terrible storylines and ironically two-dimensional characters. It was an impressive exhibit and people loved it, even if it failed in its goal to divert some of those Nike profits to the museum. The centerpieces were a gigantic red skeleton and a garden of ominous, glowing plants, surrounded by sets and figurines from all of their films. With Pinocchio, the museum hopes to replicate the success of that earlier show, but this seems unlikely, especially since the entire rest of the museum will be closed. And despite the huge amounts of empty gallery space, there are no plans to drop the price. People will be asked to shell out twenty-five dollars to walk through a handful of rooms.
While, as I said, I didn't care for the film, I do think the story of Pinocchio was an interesting choice to make into a stop-motion film. It's a story about an inanimate object coming to life, and the entire process of stop-motion animation involves making stationary objects appear to move; extremely meta. It's all an illusion, of course; the figures never really come to life, it only looks like they do. It seems somewhat perverse to have a show that reduces the living beings seen in the film back to their inanimate origins. It's a bit like eating a bunch of raw ingredients instead of the finished meal.
There is something fitting about a museum show that explores the idea of a sculpture brought to life. I'm always fascinated by this theme. Pinocchio is carved by Gepetto to be his son, to ease his loneliness. Similarly, Pygmalion sculpts Galatea out of marble, then falls in love with his creation, and his desire brings her to life.
The Velveteen Rabbit is another plaything that yearns to be real, like the flesh and blood bunnies he sees hopping around outside the playroom. He is told that only being loved can make this happen. As with Pinocchio, a kind fairy eventually helps this come to pass. It’s pathetic but I relate to all these stories because I, too, feel like I am not fully human and long to be brought to life by someone else’s love. Where is my Blue Fairy, dammit?
Of course, most stories about bringing figures to life are cautionary tales. From the Golem to Frankenstein's monster to the dolls and puppets from 80s horror films, bringing a still life to actual life is usually seen to have a bloody outcome. Every artist wants to be a god, of course, to create living beings, consequences be damned. But we have to settle for pummeling lumps of clay and squishing paint across sheets of cloth, hoping that through some act of magic these dumb things we make will somehow come to life.
The same is true for our battered, rapidly-emptying institution. I want us to be more than a discarded toy, a heap of half-baked, cobbled-together ideas about what a museum can be. I think of the Velveteen Rabbit, and the words of his friend the Skin Horse: “When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become real." Unless we can find leadership that loves this place, I mean really fucking loves it, no amount of renovation will hide the fact that we remain a cheap imitation, a clumsy forgery. A block of wood that dreams of being real.
