Then-Portland Mayor Bud Clark shows off a 3,300-pound bronze "friendship bell" in 1990. The bell, a gift from Portland's sister city of Sapporo, Japan, now sits outside the Oregon Convention Center in Northeast Portland. (Tom Treick/Oregonian file photo)
Ramen lovers already know that Portland has a special connection to Japan. Outposts of Japanese noodle shops such as Kizuki Ramen & Izakaya, Marukin Ramen and Afuri have arrived in recent years.
But the connection encompasses more than the culinary arts. Outside the Oregon Convention Center, the Sapporo Bell was recently rededicated in honor of the 60th anniversary of the sister-city relationship between Portland and Sapporo, Japan. The minimalist Japanese department store Muji recently opened in downtown Portland and the boutique Japanese bookseller Kinokuniya will soon be opening a new location in the former Guild Theatre downtown.
Fascination runs both ways. Mr. Dude was created to market Portland to Japanese tourists. PDX Taproom began selling Oregon beers in Tokyo in 2016, building on a thirst for regional brands like Stumptown. The 1980s series "Oregon kara ai" charmed Japanese TV audiences with chainsaws and flannel as experienced by a Japanese boy living in Oregon.
Here are several examples of the Portland-Japan connection this summer.
Two hardcarved power boards recently on display at the Portland Japanese Garden reflect commonalities among indigenous people. Mamoru Kaizawa, an artist of the Ainu of Japan, carved the power board on the left; Greg A. Robinson, a Chinook artist, the one at right. (Jonathan Ley/Courtesy of Portland Japanese Garden)
On Aug. 17, two hand-carved wooden planks known as power boards will be installed alongside the Sapporo Bell. Ingrained with symbolism and dedicated to the spiritual and natural worlds, these thematically similar artworks were created by members of two far-flung cultures: the indigenous Ainu of Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island, and the tribes of the Lower Columbia River Basin.
Both peoples survived the decimations of their cultures, and both are reclaiming their traditional arts to embrace once-forbidden identities.
"They're looking at a void," said Laura Mueller, curator of art at the Portland Japanese Garden, which recently hosted a related exhibit, "Forest of Dreams: Ainu and Native American Woodcarving. "So not only are they trying to repackage it, but they're trying to find it, they're trying to discover what that tradition is because it's been lost. It's been gone. It's been eradicated, or suppressed at least."
A detail shot of the Chinook power board. (Jonathan Ley/Courtesy of Portland Japanese Garden)
The power boards were commissioned for “Forest of Dreams,” which was on display at an institution that itself was conceived during the aftermath of World War II as a way to heal the pain of internment and war. In addition to the boards, the exhibition showcased woodcarvings by contemporary artists working in both traditional methods and modern motifs.
Originally Ainu and Chinook pieces were to be displayed separately, but Mueller and her staff intermingled the works after realizing the artists had created art which communicated across the Pacific.
“It shows you these peoples who, on both sides, have this rich connection to the land and environment. It’s very spiritual. It’s that connection that they’re one with the environment,” Mueller said.
Portland artist Nathan McKee. (Courtesy of Nathan McKee)
“In both Portland and the Japanese culture as a whole, the appreciation for craftsmanship is really strong,” Mueller said.
That appreciation may help explain why Japanese clothing brand Global Work contacted local paper-cut artist Nathan McKee to create a four-design limited edition T-shirt line.
McKee is a Portland native who remembers meeting Japanese high school students studying English when he was a teenage skateboarder downtown. “We’d go to Pioneer Courthouse Square and hang out,” he said. “And all the Japanese kids would come and they had the coolest style that hadn’t made it to the States yet.”
Paper-cut art by Nathan McKee. (Courtesy of Nathan McKee)
After years in Chicago where brutal winters made him swear off stencils and spray paint and pick up paper-cut art, McKee returned to Portland in 2005. He’s since earned a reputation for his colorful sports scenes and portraits of athletes. The Portland Trail Blazers are a favorite subject.
"A lot of what I do isn’t digital – it is a hands-on craft,” McKee says. “And I think that, from what I gathered every time I go to Japan, they take that more to heart when you make stuff with your hands.”
From the Yale Union gallery's Yutaka Matsuzawa exhibit. (Courtesy of Yale Union)
Part of Portland contemporary art gallery Yale Union’s mission “is to give more space and time to underrepresented artists,” says director of exhibitions Hope Svenson. “In North America, on the West Coast, (Yutaka) Matsuzawa is definitely underrepresented. As in, nobody’s heard of him.”
Yale Union is currently home to Matsuzawa’s first U.S. solo show, the first time any of the work of Japan’s “father of conceptual art” has been shown in the Pacific Northwest.
Yale Union’s expansiveness is particularly suited to ideas of space, incorporeal consciousness, and transcendent energy. The exhibition offers a free and unguided tour through Matsuzawa’s thoughts, which might exist more easily in books than on walls.
Partially in an attempt to make his work as accessible as possible to a broader audience, Yale Union has also released the second edition of the artist's book "Quantum Art Manifesto," printed in-house, and has programmed two events about Matsuzawa collaborators: a talk on avant-garde dancer Kazuko Tsujimura and a screening of work by experimental filmmaker Masanori Oe.
The Yutaka Matsuzawa exhibit runs through Aug. 18 at Yale Union, then moves to Los Angeles. (Courtesy of Yale Union)
Matsuzawa is now respected as a vanguard artist of Japan’s post-war generation. But for much of his career he rarely left his home in a small town hours from Tokyo, and for many years contemporary art circles paid little attention to what was happening outside Europe and the States. Matsuzawa achieved some international prominence in the 1970s and eventually had his work shown in group exhibitions in New York.
According to Svenson, some 150 people were on hand during the Matsuzawa opening at Yale Union, a big draw for the gallery. “(His) two daughters actually came here for the opening, and that was really special,” she said. “And one of their daughters, who lives in the U.S, and her daughter, who’s 5 years old, so we had three generations of Matsuzawas here for the opening. It was really special.”
The show continues to attract an audience, many drawn by the infinitely Instagrammable pink curtains breathing life into the gallery. After its Portland run, the exhibition will travel to Los Angeles.
Synchronicity and a strong art community foundation laid the groundwork to bring the Matsuzawa show to Portland. While a Yale Union board member who had chanced across some of the artist's work in New York pondered what he had seen, art historian and Matsuzawa scholar Reiko Tomii was appearing at an unrelated event at Yale Union. She went on to co-curate the exhibition.
Tomii's initial contact with Yale Union came through the artist residency program End of Summer, which is hosted by the gallery. Each August six artists of Japanese origin spend the month in Portland researching and exploring place-specific themes for future projects.
End of Summer was launched in 2016 by Matt Jay, who spent his adolescence in Japan while his father, John Jay, established Wieden + Kennedy’s Tokyo branch. Matt Jay has been trying to reconnect with Japan and its creative circles ever since.
Unlike a traditional, work-oriented residency, End of Summer is intentionally experiential. There are no requirements to produce art, although many of the artists do. At the end of the month the artists hold an open studio, but are free to present nothing or anything.
“It’s really more about research and community and interaction with people, connecting with the Portland art community itself,” said Jay.
Residents cultivate friendships as they visit artist studios, cultural institutions, museums and galleries.
One condition Jay imposes is that End of Summer benefits the local community, too. “It is important that the program contributes something to Portland’s art community and to the creative life here,” he said.
He hopes that End of Summer will serve as a gateway for Portlanders to explore a connection to Japan for themselves.
Several End of Summer alumni have returned on their own to continue work on Portland-based projects started during their residencies. Jay believes that Portland’s laidback lifestyle appeals to many Japanese.
“The main thing is this desire to access a way of life, a way of living that is balanced and creative and less hurried and, in many ways, more in touch with the natural world, or at least having access to it,” said Jay. “An alternative way of living that is a large draw whether they be artists or not.”
Ainu and Native American Power Board Rededication
When: 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 17.
Where: Oregon Convention Center, 777 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Admission: Free.
Yale Union
“Yutaka Matsuzawa”
When: Noon-6 p.m. Thursday-Sunday, through Aug. 18.
Where: Yale Union, 800 S.E. 10th Ave.
Also:
- "Kazuko Tsujimura and the Dance without Body": 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 4.
- The films of Masanori Oe: 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 17.
- End of Summer: A lecture by Haeyun Park: 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 10
- End of Summer open studios: Sunday, Aug. 25.
Admission: Free.
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