Artslandia at the Performance: Portland Playhouse Nov/Dec 2014 | Page 16

B A R RY
JOHNSON

FROM THE EDITOR-AT-LARGE

MANHATTAN IN THE CITY

PUTTING PORTLAND
ARTS ON THE MAP
ICONIC MID CENTURY

F

rom time to time, the adjective “world class”
is applied to one arts organization or another
in Portland. Usually, it’s aspirational.

A few years ago, the head of a prominent Oregon foundation said several arts groups had
suggested to him that they needed his foundation’s help to become world class. Just a few dollars more. Or just a new performing arts center
away. He was rightly skeptical. Though I think
he also thought the quest to become “world
class” might be important, they just weren’t
close enough that a $100,000 grant from him
was going to get them there.

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Although “world class” might be one of the last
ways I’d describe it, I suppose the Louvre would
qualify as world class. It contains a rare concentration of paintings that we consider important,
both in and of themselves and to the cultural
history of Europe and the world. People come
from all over the world to gawk at those paintings, and maybe transformational aesthetic experiences do occur, despite the crush? It didn’t
happen for me, but maybe it will for you. I was
still glad I went.
Of course, Paris has more to offer than just the
Louvre: The city itself is a sort of museum of
the cultural history of Europe, isn’t it? Let alone
all the other actual museums. And the city as
a whole had a greater call on my imagination
than the Louvre.

ARTSLANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE NOVEMBER | DECEMBER

Maybe I’m suggesting that the context of the
Louvre is just as important as the concentration
of famous paintings. This makes sense to me:
Given the choice between seeing famous paintings in Las Vegas or Dubai versus seeing them
in Paris, I’m going to choose Paris, all other
things being equal. The Mona Lisa makes sense
there in a way that it wouldn’t in Vegas. Seeing
a Velázquez in Madrid is always going to be
richer than seeing it in Tokyo, though we turn
that around when we talk about great Japanese
artists. (Of course, I’d love to see a Velázquez at
my local art museum, too, if anyone wants to
donate one.)

S

o maybe we’re talking more about world
class cities than world class arts organizations? I get into the same definition problem, I’m afraid, with cities as with arts groups.
What makes a world class city? My tentative
definition: a city that has enough self consciousness to respect its past, to encourage the best
part of its living present, and to hope that it’s
creating a better future.
Our ideas about how to pursue each of those
will be different, and they need to be discussed
to figure out what a proper public course should
be. For me really, the only world class cities are
democratic ones, in the broadest sense of the
term.