Every two years, the Portland Museum of Art treats us to a snapshot of the Maine contemporary art scene in the form of the much-anticipated Biennial exhibition. This is one of those delightful years. The show opens to the public tomorrow and is sure to generate a lot of excitement.

Today I was one of the lucky few who had the chance to tour the exhibition during the press preview with Director Mark Bessire and curators Susan Danly and Sage Lewis. Here you can see some of the fine folks who work their magic at local media outlets, including the Portland Press Herald, the Lewiston Sun Journal, Portland Magazine, The Bollard and WCSH-6.

Susan called this show a "radical change" from past year's Biennials. Why? Because of the number of artists and works in the show. The 2009 exhibition includes 29 works by 17 artists. In contrast, the 2007 Biennial included 98 works by 61 artists.

Jurors for this year's show were Elizabeth Burke, an art consultant and former co-director of the Clementine Gallery in New York, Denise Markonish, curator at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and Dan Graham, a video, installation and performance artist who lives in New York.

Susan credited Dan Graham with steering the jurors to a number of excellent installation works. After the jurors selected the installations, they then looked for a number of smaller works that would relate to the installations. These works generally provide a new way of looking at landscapes, such as Mary Aro's Ashcan-style paintings of a Maine dump and Melissa A. Calderon's chromogenic prints of a gold-plated chicken traveling through an urban environment.

Here are just a few of the installations sure to wow museum visitors:

This is "Thumper," by Sam van Aken. The work is composed of 50 subwoofers and when turned on emits a loud thumping bass, reminiscent of the noise that comes from the cars of teenage boys. Sam won the Jurors' Prize at the 2007 Biennial.

This is just part of Sean Foley's installation "Menace." His work was featured in a recent show at Whitney Art Works, and he won a Jurors' Prize at the 2003 Biennial.

This massive installation, "Falsework" by Wade Kavanaugh, fills the entrance to the main gallery and forms a wall that guides visitors into the space before it spills out in undulating waves. You can see a satellite installation of this work in the window of the Port City Music Hall.

And here's the result of Ethan Hayes-Chute's construction project, which I blogged about a couple weeks ago. It's called "Hermitage" and reminds me of a shack my uncle built in the woods behind my grandfather's dairy farm when he was a teenager.

The really cool think about Ethan's piece is you can actually walk around inside it. As you explore, you'll find the belongings of an imaginary hermit, including his liquor cabinet. The work feels so real, down to the ashes on the stove and the pinecones on the roof. This realism extends to the nearby outhouse, where you'll want to be sure to check out what lies beneath the seat.

The Portland Museum of Art's 2009 Biennial opens April 8 and remains on view through June 7. Tickets cost $10 and admission is free on Friday nights.