We live in era where the need for visual stimuli knows no end. The rapid growth of technology has yielded a society of gratification-driven consumers. The literacy rate in the US perpetually drops and the highest rated television show in America is CBS's "Survivor," verifying the increasing voyeuristic tendencies of popular culture. Our attention spans have gotten so short that television commercials have become fast-paced explosions of music and color.

Running at the Portland Art Museum from July 7 to September 17, the exhibition "Let's Entertain: Life's Guilty Pleasures" focuses on the psychological strategies and double-edged messages that permeate our hedonistic, multimedia world. The 80 artists featured in "Let's Entertain: Life's Guilty Pleasures" explore the techniques used in advertising, film, television, pop music, and entertainment and their relationship with contemporary art. The lines between our notions of "high" and "low" art have blurred, as well as the line between reality and entertainment. The exhibit examines how entertainment in the US--which infests everything in our culture from political campaigns to fashion to architecture--relates to art.

The exhibition consists of three galleries. The first gallery opens with a video of ex-Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten's 1980 appearance on American Bandstand with his band Public Image Limited. This shift from anarchy-for-social-change to a watered-down and pop-laden pre-recorded performance is a shift from a specific political ideology to a socially carefree and unconcerned attitude. Other popular icons, such as Andy Warhol's 15 Minutes and Andy Warhol's TV, are on display in the first gallery as well. Minnesota-born Duane Hanson offers his realistic sculpture Body Builder. Charles Ray's carousel-sculpture Revolution Counter-Revolution is designed so that its platform spins in one direction while the horses travel in the opposite direction, thus subverting this childhood symbol from one of dreaming into one of futility.

The exhibit's second gallery contains a plethora of alcoves for sound, Web site installations, and video. A small stage centers the room where entertainers may perform. The third gallery, the most melancholic of the three, consists of a strange chess set, a foosball table, a variety of video installations, and several short films. According to the exhibition's organizer, Walker Art Center curator Phillippe Vergne, each of the exhibits contributes to the sense of the "isolation of modern society and the human condition in which you feel totally alone in the world."

In our next installment, museumnetwork.com takes a closer look at the exhibits and the growing dilemma of art's place in a society that mainlines thoughtless entertainment.

By Tommy Wright

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