I'm remarkably recovered from last night's incredible event toasting Portland artists (what great vibes and turnout, thank you!), here is some stuff to catch up on:

Reed has announced the 2007 Bonnie Bronson Fellowship winner: Laura Ross Paul, congratulations! The award's ceremony is April 25 at Reed College.

Edward Winkleman has a post on the "Painting Deathwatch." Hilarious... personally, I like how Tal R. once described painting as a "zombie medium" that keeps marching on... of course it's dead. You can't kill it because it is already dead and the discussion is moot because the zombies are coming to get you! Oh you can try to fight them but that puts you into a B grade horror movie with a bunch of brain eating zombies. PORT will have an interview with one of the very best painters (a master zombie maker?) alive today, stay tuned.

Richard Polsky has a nice bit on the art market's evolution and the changing nature of dealer/client relationships.

Jerry Saltz is leaving The Village Voice, after two nominations for the Pulitzer with no bouquet of flowers... was he being taken for granted in the newsprint world? His new gig is at New York Magazine. Jerry is the most relevant art critic on the planet because he takes risks, is willing to get it wrong in order to get it right and he's relentless. Sure, he's said nice things about me but I suspect he was trying to get a lot of Portlanders goats as well...he was trying to out do Hickey and Schjeldhal and it's a mark of distinction that he really gets into the mechanics of the cities outside of New York when he visits them. His lecture in January 2004 for PICA (Stuart Horodner's last bit of programming) was the single best lecture weve had in the 8 years I've lived here. It emphasized one thing, to be a good critic you have to be decisive and driven in addition to being a comparative aesthetics ninja. Hats off Jerry, there are two types of critics, good ones that constantly engage/challenge the process and burnouts who use a lot of crutches.


Sol LeWitt Eight Squares c. 1980. Sol LeWitt, Eight Squares, c. 1980, Color screenprint, trial proof 8/10. Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer. © 2007 Sol LeWitt/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

On Friday the O had a lot of coverage on Jordan Schnitzer's minimalist and postminimalist print show at the Portland Art Museum (Of course minimalism is a misnomer and fosters a lot of lazy rhetoric but eh it serves a starting point for discussing; hedonism, Epicurean ideals, material, systemic production and rules before the home computer became a reality, context and asceticism). The cover article on the show was fine, it's unrealistic to expect the O to be the New York Times and it is an OK primer for newbies. PORT readers might be bored with it though (treating minimalism is if isnt the omnipresent source of a lot of yuppie aesthetic porn [come on, you know which design mags] and treats it like some sort of underdog still proving itself). It's true a book and tour would have been nice, but it is not like that couldn't still happen (the timeline for a book by the opening would have been too tight though... also I wonder why no mention of the 6 page color publication???).

The better bit is DK Row's interview with Jordan Schnitzer, his blog version of the story has expanded content. Maybe some of my grousing might have had an effect??? though one article doesn't reverse a trend that has most of the Portland art world writing off our largest daily newspaper's coverage. At least it's a good step.

Straight to the point. Here's the punchline. The interweb is only good for porn!

lovin' it