"Laying Down in the Portland Art Museum with Pipilotti Rist" by Lindsay Costello

Early this year, Spanish marine research organization Condrik Tenerife shared what may be the first recorded footage of a black seadevil anglerfish in daylight, near the ocean’s surface. The toothy species, famous for its bioluminescent lure, typically spends its entire life navigating darkness thousands of feet below sea level—which lent this particular anglerfish’s ascent a sort of heartwrenching magic, despite the fact that she likely made the trip due to stress or illness. “It’s so beautiful,” a comic’s depiction of a similar deep sea fish mused, gazing toward the sunset. “I might never have known.”

While 4th Floor to Mildness predates the little anglerfish’s journey, Swiss experimental artist Pipilotti Rist’s installation similarly contemplates the emotional terrain of a skyward gaze from underwater. On view at the Portland Art Museum’s Crumpacker Center for New Art through the end of January, this installation of 4th Floor—curated by the museum’s senior curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Sara Krajewski—is also its West Coast premiere. The work was originally created in 2016 for the fourth floor of New York’s New Museum of Contemporary Art, hence the name.

Buffered in thick floor-to-ceiling curtains, the darkened installation requires that visitors remove their shoes. 4th Floor offers an unusual opportunity to get horizontal in the gallery—beds punctuate the space like floating rafts or driftwood. Constructed in muted earth tones by Portland Garment Factory, I noticed the firmness and thick, resilient quality of the pillows and mattresses. My senses felt heightened in the dark.

Read full article at portlandmercury.com.