The infamous "Tansa Contract" has been making its way through Portland. Upon signature, Tansa acquires not an artist's work but its authorship. After purchasing authorship, Tansa can say an artwork was "made by Tansa." 

In "How Many Friends Can You Call a Friend?" we do not know what Tansa painted and what he purchased. It is all the same to him. Nonetheless, the four paintings in the show are a brief tour de force. In the unsettling narrative they insinuate, a man's friends from childhood have abandoned him, as have the ideals of peace and love that drove his generation of hippies. The final abstract painting in the sequence very much resembles a Val Kessler (and likely was a Kessler). Thus we arrive at abstraction as we would any other destination. Idiotic and touching at the same time. That's the Tansa way.