Portland, OR (16 March 2023) - Strange Weather: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation features 89 exceptional artworks spanning five decades, from 1977 to 2021, that have been drawn together for how they creatively call attention to the impact and history of forced migrations, industrialization, global capitalism, and trauma on humans and the contemporary landscape. This intergenerational exhibition brings some of the most influential contemporary artists together for the first time, resulting in a show that should not be missed!

The artists in the exhibition utilize a range of aesthetic strategies, including abstraction, portraiture, figurative painting, landscape, and installation, to explore the current atmospheric strangeness. Exhibition highlights include a large-scale painting by world renowned Kehinde Wiley that monumentalizes issues of identity and nature, a suite of three prints by Julie Mehretu that were created in 2005 in response to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a large-scale installation by Nicola López that show startlingly dystopian urban landscapes, and a photographic series by Wendy Red Star that link weather patterns to the consumption and commodification of Native American culture. Additional highlights include important paintings and prints by Terry Winters and a massive 40-foot sculpture by Leonardo Drew that uses abstraction to explore a visual erosion of time and the cyclical nature of life. Together, these and other works make the body and the land legible as paired sites of contestation, offering profound insights about the connections between aesthetics, history, and our tempestuous climate.

Strange Weather was originally curated by UC Santa Cruz Institute of the Arts and Sciences Director Dr. Rachel Nelson and Professor Jennifer González, History of Art and Visual Culture, UC Santa Cruz. “For Strange Weather, we selected artworks from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation with climate change weighing heavily on our minds,” Dr. Nelson explains. “While this is certainly not a didactic exhibition, living through wildfires and drought motivated us to explore the impressive collections of over 20,000 objects for the different aesthetic approaches artists use to illuminate the histories, experiences, and socio-political contexts that lead to this moment.”

Bellevue Arts Museum (BAM) is the second stop for this national touring exhibition. BAM Executive Director, E. Michael Whittington, said, “To have an exhibition of this scale with representation of many of our most noteworthy contemporary artists is a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition. I’m deeply appreciative of Jordan Schnitzer and his family foundation for making this collection available to the Bellevue Arts Museum and our community.”

This exhibition is one of over 160 that the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation (JSFF) has generously organized and made available to museums across the country as part of a substantial teaching collection that focuses on making art accessible to all. “I have often said, artists are chroniclers of our time,” says JSFF Director Jordan Schnitzer. “This exhibition by many of the most important artists of our time references that statement. The voice of art has the power to inspire us! While we are challenged by the themes in this exhibition, it is an exhibition of hope.”

Bellevue Arts Museum will also feature an accompanying capsule exhibition, Glenn Ligon: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation. This exhibition highlights Ligon’s career in print from 1993-2021 and features 18 artworks that engage the entangled histories of race, literature, and culture, with a broad range of references from slave narratives to children’s coloring books. Together, they poignantly articulate the role of language and popular culture in the structuring of the self—and society—in both the past and present.

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Strange Weather: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation
Glenn Ligon: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation
Bellevue Arts Museum
510 Bellevue Way NE
Bellevue, WA 98004
March 24, 2023 – August 20, 2023

Press Preview
Saturday, March 25, 2023
10:00 – 11:00am
Welcome from BAM Executive Director, E. Michael Whittington
Exhibition Spotlight and Tour with Collector, Jordan Schnitzer
Press Q&A
Coffee, refreshments, and a small gift card will be generously provided by Bellden Cafe.
Exhibition VIP Preview
Saturday, March 25, 2023
6:00 – 8:00pm
Featuring hors d’oeuvres, wine, and remarks from Collector, Jordan Schnitzer
Please RSVP for either event to michaeln@jordanschnitzer.org, 503.450.0735

Artists
Carlos Almaraz (Mexican American; 1941-1989)
Carlos Amorales (Mexican; b. 1970)
Leonardo Drew (American; b. 1961)
Joe Feddersen (Native American, Colville Confederated Tribes; b. 1953)
Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds (Native American, Cheyenne/Arapaho; b. 1954)
James Lavadour (Native American, Walla Walla; b. 1951)
Glenn Ligon (American; b. 1960)
Hung Liu (American, born China; 1948-2021)
Nicola López (American; b. 1975)
Julie Mehretu (American, born Ethiopia; b. 1970)
Wendy Red Star (Native American, Crow; b. 1981)
Alison Saar (American; b. 1956)
Lorna Simpson (American; b. 1960)
Kiki Smith (American; b. 1954)
Charles Wilbert White (American; 1918-1979)
Kehinde Wiley (American; b. 1977)
Terry Winters (American; b. 1949)

Exhibition Tour Schedule
April 14 – Aug 14, 2022 - Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery, UC Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz, CA
March 24 – Aug 20, 2023 - Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, WA
Oct 14 – April 9, 2024 - Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR

For additional information or to schedule an interview with a representative from the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, please contact Michael Nevius, Director of Marketing – Art & Civic, 503.450.0735, michaeln@jordanschnitzer.org.

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About the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation

The Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation’s mission is to share the extensive post-war and contemporary collections with qualified museums through exhibitions and loans to further the appreciation of and education associated with the major artists of the late 20th and 21st century.

Jordan D. Schnitzer grew up surrounded by art in his mother’s Portland, Oregon art gallery. What began as an interest in his formative years became a passion in 1988 when he began collecting post-war prints and multiples in earnest, amassing what would become the largest private collection of prints in the country. Attracted by the collaborative and egalitarian nature of printmaking, Jordan naturally developed a program to share the work from his personal and Family Foundation collections in 1997. What began as collegial partnerships with regional university museums has today expanded to an extensive exhibition program with over 160 exhibitions of art at over 120 museums across the country. With more than 20,000 pieces of art in all mediums, the collection now features major holdings of some of the most important Post-War and Contemporary Women, Black, Native American, Asian, and Latin artists. Since 1995, Jordan has worked with curators and institutions across the country to organize over seventy major traveling exhibitions highlighting BIPOC and women artists. The Foundation publishes scholarly brochures, exhibition catalogues, and catalogues raisonnés in conjunction with exhibitions drawn from the collections. The Foundation also funds museum outreach and programming – especially to lesser served communities – furthering the mission of letting artists speak to us, through their art, on important issues facing society.

Schnitzer is also president of Schnitzer Properties, a privately owned real estate investment company based in Portland. For more information about the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, please visit jordanschnitzer.org.

Media Contacts:

Michael Nevius | 503.450.0735 | michaeln@jordanschnitzer.org

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Press Release (PDF)