Today's object from outside the Portland Art Museum is Piedra Negra by Manuel Neri. Neri also created Ventana al Pacifico at the Gus Solomon Courthouse, to which Piedra Negra bears a certain resemblance. A passage from Neri's Wikipedia bio seems applicable here:
He is noted for his life-size sculptures, which though clearly figurative in nature, are abstracted figures rather than realist representations. His sculptures primarily focus on the gesture, and the surfaces of his sculptures are often, sanded, chipped, or painted to emphasize textures.
Piedra Negra previously exhibited in The Essential Gesture a 1994 show at the Newport Harbor Art Museum in Newport Beach, CA. The show was curated by Bruce Guenther, who in 2000 went on to become Chief Curator at the Portland Art Museum. Piedra Negra followed him in 2002 when it was donated for the museum's 110th birthday. Because arranging that sort of thing is what curators do.
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