In the eleven-year period between 1995 and 2006 , the Pacific Northwest metropolis Portland, Oregon experienced a Renaissance . This period has been referred to as "Portland's cultural renaissance" or "millennial art rennaisance".
During the Dot-com boom of the mid to late 1990s, Portland saw an influx of young, creative people drawn by the promise of a city with abundant nature, Urban Growth Boundaries , and opportunities to work in the Graphic Design and Internet industries, as well as for companies like Doc Martens , Nike , Adidas , and Weiden + Kennedy. When this Economic Bubble burst, the city was left with a large creative population. Also, when the bubble burst in Seattle and San Francisco , even more artists streamed into Portland. In 2000 the U.S. Census indicated there were over 10,000 artists in Portland. Since then, artists have continued to migrate into this somewhat European style city.
While Visual Arts had always been important in the Pacific Northwest, this time period saw a dramatic rise in the number of artists, independent Galleries , site-specific shows and public discourse about the Arts . Several arts Publications were born and the city started to take art much more seriously. It was clearly during this decade that Portland went through a fundamental transformation into a city with a rich arts Culture that translates internationally.
The Portland millenial art renaissance has been described, written about and commented on in publications such as ARTnews , Artpapers , Art In America , Modern Painters and Art Forum and discussed on CNN . Former Whitney Museum curator Lawrence Rinder was a notable champion of Portland's transformation. Senior art critic for the Village Voice , Jerry Saltz described the activity of the Portland art scene (during a lecture at PNCA in January 2004) as, "intimidating."
Jeff Jahn 's updated reporting of this movement, entitled "A completely biased history of the Portland art scene", is available here .
Some key figures and institutions in this movement include:
(Please contribute to this list and to the articles describing the historical importance of these institutions and people)
