|
|
|||
|
Portland art blog + news + exhibition reviews + galleries + contemporary northwest art
|
||||
|
Friday 09.28.07 Last chance reviews Mcfarland and Cowie  Part of Mcfarland's Preparations @ PAC September was blessed with a glut of interesting shows that didn't get proper reviews because the requisite TBA and the Affair at the Jupiter Hotel overview pieces took up most of the column inches allotted in the Oregonian, Mercury and WWeek. Sure they each had reviews but their obligatory information articles sort of ate into the critical space. To counter that effect here are two quick reviews of shows worth your attention this coming weekend: Posted by Jeff Jahn on September 28, 2007 at 14:29 | Comments (6) PermalinkConstruct/Re-Construct  Construct/Re-Construct This weekend, the group exhibition Construct/Re-Construct will be opening at the Cathedral Park Building in St. Johns. The show de-constructs (if you will) the physicality of the creative building process, and explores the dialog between an artist and his or her materials. The list of participating artists promises a complex and interesting series of installations: Josh Arseneau, Francesca Berrini, John Brodie, Tiffany Lee Brown, Clare Carpenter, Cathy Cleaver, Nancy Cushwa, Kristina DiTullo, Tore Djupedal, David Hacker, Helen Heibert, Harrison Higgs, Scott Wayne Indiana, James Jack, Horatio Law, Todd Leninger, Seth Nehil, Liz Obert, Kelly Rauer, Anya Shapiro, Benjamin Stagl, Andy Stout, Robert Wilhelm, Karen Willey, and Linda Wysong. It will run through October 27. Opening Reception: Cathedral Park Building | Saturday, September 29, 5-8pm | 6635 N. Baltimore AVE Posted by Megan Driscoll on September 28, 2007 at 9:11 | Comments (1) PermalinkThursday 09.27.07 Walking the Path: Richard Serra Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art  Richard Serra Sequence (Detail), 2006 Weatherproof steel Overall: 12'9" x 40' 8 3/8" x 65' 2 3/16" (3.9 x 12.4 x 19.9 m) Collection the artist (c) 2007 Richard Serra / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Photo: Lorenz Kienzle In Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Serra's work provides a guide to the way that materials can be used to transform or define space. No sculptor has put more thought into the problems and pleasures of navigating and defining space. I was surprised to see how rigorous his approach to the experience of space has been over the last forty years even though his own language and budgets have grown considerably during that time. One thing that became immediately clear is that, Serra has thought harder about space than any artist, ever. More... Posted by Arcy Douglass on September 27, 2007 at 9:45 | Comments (1) PermalinkStumptown Comics Fest 2007  The fourth annual Stumptown Comics Fest is happening this weekend. The festival, which has moved to the Llyod Center Doubletree, features a wide range of celebrated comics artists, including Mike & Laurel Allred, Peter Bagge, Carol Lay, Shaenon Garrity, Sarah Oleksyk, Ted Rall, and Matt Wagner. Many small press publishers will be represented, including local legends Dark Horse Comics, as well as a variety of comics-friendly organizations. The weekend full of panels, workshops, and exciting artist tables is officially kicked off with the Stumptown Pre-party Friday night at Guapo at 8pm. And don't miss the Sunday workshops exploring digital creation techniques, distribution, and interactive work, put on by PNCA instructor Neal Skorpen. Learn more at the official Stumptown Comics website. Posted by Megan Driscoll on September 27, 2007 at 9:29 | Comments (0) PermalinkWednesday 09.26.07 Live Events  Plazm #29 It's happening tonight: Plazm is having a release party for Issue #29. The theme is collective memory, and it features the art of Sue Coe, Yoko Ono, Art Chantry, Storm Tharp, and Todd Haynes, conversations with JD Samson, Yoko Ono, and Jessica Jackson Hutchins, new writings from Robert Mackey and Domenick Ammirati, a Pdx musical memory map, taxonomy of meth labs, the End of War, explosions, and, of course, much, much more. The party will include performances by Evolutionary Jass Band, Hooliganship, and Glass Candy, as well as the screening of a film by Vanessa Renwick. Ace Hotel | Wednesday, September 26, doors at 8pm (music at 9pm), $3 | 1022 SW Stark | 503.228.2277  Live performance art at the Archer Gallery This weekend, the Archer Gallery at Clark College is hosting a night of live multi-media performance featuring Steve Gibson, Dene Grigar, Justin Love, and Jeannette Altman. An Evening of Digital Music, Interactive Dance & Electronic Literature in Live Performance will begin with Gibson's Virtual DJ, which combines motion-activated electronic music, dance, virtual reality & robotics, followed by the premier of Grigar and Altman's The Rhapsody Room, a piece that utilizes movement, language and live digital poetry. The night will wrap up with a live DJ/VJ set by Love and Gibson, so come with your dancing shoes on. Archer Gallery | Friday, September 28, 1pm & 7pm | Penguin Union Building, Clark College, 1933 Fort Vancouver Way, Vancouver, WA | 360.992.2246 Posted by Megan Driscoll on September 26, 2007 at 14:30 | Comments (0) PermalinkWhat Portland Needs to do to become a world-class arts city? The Portland Tribune did a "Re Thinking Portland" special section
yesterday on "What
do we need to become a world-class arts city?" Much of it smart and
features a fun and sometimes telling series
of napkin sketches of what Portland needs to achieve that world-class arts city
status. Though I dislike the term world-class.
Also, it isn't news that right now we are institutionally underdeveloped while having a massive influx of serious talent that has continued unabated for at least 10 years. The deluge has even increased and others have noticed. I like it that the author Joseph Gallivan compared Portland to Leipzig. One thing I've noticed is that people now seem to know the money to do serious things exists here but hasn't been fully marshaled yet. I also like how the artists take the burden of educating collectors and donors on as well. A city built by artists (some world-class) rather than a few patrons simply importing culture is a very special thing...(more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on September 26, 2007 at 9:10 | Comments (10) PermalinkTuesday 09.25.07 Jeffry Mitchell at Pulliam Deffenbaugh  Elephant Lantern 2007 Jeffry Mitchell 2007 Upon entering the the Pulliam Deffenbaugh gallery this month, artist Jeffry Mitchell's work greets you with a giant "Hello!" followed by exclamation points. The first, most impulsive response hearkens to childhood, and the mind answers with an enthused "Hellooooo!" in return. Perhaps it is the handstands of the ceramic elephants on Mitchell's shelves, or the curve of the greetings that adorn the big elephant lantern and drawings, but an intonation resonates from the letters. . . .(more) Posted by Amy Bernstein on September 25, 2007 at 9:34 | Comments (2) PermalinkObject Place  Kim Manchester, from "Object Place" Seen previously in the Knitting Olympics and at Reed College Arts Week, Portland craft artist Kim Manchester will be featured this autumn at PCC's North View Gallery. Manchester's exhibition, Object Place, pairs photography with swatches of decorative wallpaper to explore the traces of self left behind in empty domestic space. Opening reception & artist talk: PCC North View Gallery | Thursday, September 27, 3pm | Sylavania Campus, 12000 Southwest 49th AVE, CT Building Room 212 | 503.977.4264 Posted by Megan Driscoll on September 25, 2007 at 8:46 | Comments (0) PermalinkMonday 09.24.07 Brophy Studio Fire  Slope Sadly last weekend the studio of noted Portland painter Michael Brophy burned. Katu news has the story and blog sans artifice has more details and pictures. Michael is too nice a guy to have such terrible luck and another artist Michael Wilson was also affected by this terrible fire. Brophy was to have had 2 consecutive solo shows in December and January at Laura Russo Gallery and according to Vanessa Renwick at least some of the paintings survived. The new works were often radically different than his previous work and were some of the strongest he done to date. If any are destroyed (which seems likely) it will be a terrible loss. We hope everyone's health and work were spared. Michael and Holly are said to be ok but shaken and staying with relatives. Brophy's studio itself was probably spared the flames but the real question is water damage as the space above was innundated first (oil paintings can survive deluge but there's all the falling debris). One cat survived and two others are presumed dead. Long time friend Paul Green described the scene as "horrible." I'll post more details as they develop, including where people can send their support and well wishes. Our thoughts are with everyone during this difficult time. *Updates: I took at look at the site yesterday and the damage is pretty extensive and certaily a lot of ireplacable things have been lost. It is eerie how it looks like one of Mike's paintings, which have all been transferred elsewhere to assess their condition and for safer storage. Another cat has turned up so only 1 remains missing and Holly's computer, according to Randy Gragg is, "being dried out professionally." If it is just water damage a lot of the hard drive's contents should be recoverable (let's hope). A tax deductable fund through RACC has been set up to defray some of the rebuiding costs as insurance probably won't completely cover the costs. Checks should be made payable to: Regional Arts & Culture Council Memo: for Michael Brophy studio rebuilding fund 108 NW 9th Avenue, Suite 300 Portland, OR 97209-3318 Also, more than one artist's studio was effected by this fire and the WWeek did a piece on Michael Wilson here. Posted by Jeff Jahn on September 24, 2007 at 10:56 | Comments (2) PermalinkModelling Behavior 
DC Comics Artist Matt Clark, from "Superman Batman" This Wednesday, Organism is having a special screening of Hank Willis Thomas & Kambui Olujimi's The Making of Winter in America. Winter in America is one of the seminal works in Organism's Model Behavior exhibition, which will be closing in just one week. Curator (and PORT co-founder) Jeff Jahn cites the very powerful film as "one of the 10 best video art pieces done in the past 10 years." After the screening of The Making of Winter in America, join Jeff and DC Comics artist Matt Clark for a discussion on Model Behavior. Organism | Wednesday, September 26, 6:30pm | 1231 NW Hoyt #101 Posted by Megan Driscoll on September 24, 2007 at 9:36 | Comments (0) PermalinkFriday 09.21.07 Darren Waterston and Tyrus Miller :The Flowering (The Fourfold Sense) at Lewis and Clark  Darren Waterston, Leper's Conversion, Pigment print with letterpress and coloring 2007 Each of us knows what our bodies look like. There are different proportions but more or less it's several limbs, a layer of skin covering a skeleton of bones with various internal organs. That is our body, but is it what we are? Perhaps more than any other, Saint Francis found the divine through the body. He did not find it by looking at the ideal beauty of the ancient Greeks but in the wounds of the lepers and the homeless that surrounded his home in Assisi. He embraced things that we would normally turn away from like the bleeding sores of those who are sick. He resisted the temptation to run away, transcended his natural feelings of self preservation, and cultivated compassion to discover the divine through the path of caring for those around us. More... Posted by Arcy Douglass on September 21, 2007 at 0:00 | Comments (0) PermalinkThursday 09.20.07 OCAC Centennial  OCAC founder Julia Hoffman teaches class in her home 2007 marks the centennial anniversary of the Oregon College of Arts & Crafts, one of the premier art schools in the Northwest. They've been celebrating all year with a wide variety of exhibitions and events, and this weekend they're holding a free event to invite the community to join them in their celebration. Festivities include face painting, hands-on arts and crafts, an alumni art sale, lively entertainment, and food, beverages, and OCAC memorabilia. Read about the remaining centennial events under the cut. For more information on the OCAC centennial celebrations, visit their events page. OCAC | 8245 SW Barnes Rd. | 503.297.5544 Posted by Megan Driscoll on September 20, 2007 at 14:36 | Comments (0) PermalinkThe Guggernaught, GLARE and Barney vs. Hirst  GLARE, a new international cultural publication out of Portland Now that we have recovered from the orgy of art activity in Portland last weekend we can look elsewhere again: For example, Jonathan Jones takes a gander at Matthew Barney and decides he is no Damien Hirst in The Guardian. I agree with that. Barney's objects are definitely props and don't hold up as well as the films.... and the films themselves are a bit like Salvador Dali's late work...(more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on September 20, 2007 at 13:23 | Comments (9) PermalinkTuesday 09.18.07 Jupiter Affair '07 - serene and surreal, to 80s music The Jupiter Affair 2007 comes through for the fourth year-- possibly more serene and surreal, as opening night goers meander through a maze of fresh art, to tunes from the 80s in the background. An opening eve, more conducive to art collecting and buying than last year's Friday bash, which featured local sounds of Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks. An air of excitement and nervousness as we hang on to the last days of summer. There is something about photographing art and people at this eve affair, as they move in and out of hotel rooms, that puts you in a bit of a Hitchcock-ian meets Body Heat mode of taking photos. The photos are not so much about documenting as they are about catching a feeling or a special kind of light from the eve. A gesture of a hand... a leaning up against a door. A Japanese monk sculpture smiles at you at James Harris. At a next turn, a performance artist in camo is breathing at you through the glass at 65 Grand... I liked not knowing what to expect at this Affair opening. 
Photography by Sarah Henderson - www.sirenapictures.com 
White Columns, from New York 
Under the rain tent... 
James Harris Gallery, from Seattle, features monk sculptures by Akio Takamori. ...(more) Posted by Sarah Henderson on September 18, 2007 at 21:13 | Comments (2) PermalinkTalking It Up The season is in full swing here in Portland, and everybody's abuzz about art. Here's your chance to hear what the artists have to say for themselves.
(more) Posted by Megan Driscoll on September 18, 2007 at 9:02 | Comments (0) PermalinkMonday 09.17.07 Art hullabaloo weekend thoughts & pics  White Columns @ Affair at the Jupiter Hotel 2007, Photo by Sarah Henderson Well the big Portland vis art weekend has come and gone. Though it needed a name (Critical Mass, Too Much Art etc.) the scene was combination of The Affair at the Jupiter Art Fair, last weekend of Rembrandt at PAM, Ursula von Rydingsvard at PAM, last weekend of PICA's TBA visual arts, a bunch of openings, last weekend of Hap Tivey and a confluence of lot of other shows that are up all month. I've already reported on the Affair some here. It was a better fair for art this year and instead... (more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on September 17, 2007 at 11:26 | Comments (3) PermalinkA Call for the "Crypto-Zoetropical" Rhythm from Wreckage is seeking video submissions for The Crypto-Zoetropical Pursuit. This collection takes the concept of crypto-zoology (the study of hypothesized creatures) to explore "collisions of technological and zoological unknowns". RFW wants your strange, your surreal, for screenings on October 19th & 20th in honor of the anniversary of the infamous 1967 Bigfoot film. Screenings will take place at Rererato in Portland, and LumpWest in Eugene.
Submissions must be sent by October 10. For more information, visit the RFW website. Posted by Megan Driscoll on September 17, 2007 at 10:39 | Comments (0) PermalinkSaturday 09.15.07 Jupiter Hotel Art Fair Opening Gala 2007 It was a nice opening, that was more sedate than last year but with more serious collectors...(more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on September 15, 2007 at 0:16 | Comments (4) PermalinkFriday 09.14.07 Ursula von Rydingsvard lectures at PAM  Ursula von Rydingsvard, "Pod Pachą" In conjunction with her exhibition, Ursula von Rydingsvard will be lecturing this Sunday at PAM on her last decade of sculpting. Born in 1942 into a German refugee camp, von Rydingsvard emigrated to the U.S. with her family in 1950, and later studied art at Columbia. Her often monumental sculptures, characterized by wooden, organic forms, have since elevated her to a major force in the art world. She received the 2007 Rome Prize, and her exhibition at PAM includes a series of drawings she completed during her residency in Italy. von Rydingsvard will lecture at 2pm on Sunday, September 16, in the Whitsell Auditiorium. Tickets are $10 for non-members, and can be purchased online or at the museum box office. Posted by Megan Driscoll on September 14, 2007 at 9:38 | Comments (2) PermalinkWednesday 09.12.07 Performance, Painting, Poignancy Not making it to the Jupiter this weekend? Check out these openings.
(more) Posted by Megan Driscoll on September 12, 2007 at 18:14 | Comments (0) PermalinkSuggestions for art visitors to Portland this weekend  Obligatory photo of Portland Building Yes, there are lots of out of towners in Portland's galleries this this week and there will probably be many more by Friday. We even have Jetblue service so why not visit on a whim? In keeping with that theme some have asked for a Portland art guide so here it is: I humbly suggest using PORT's artist's guide to Portland as a way to find food, bars, coffee etc. The main art bars on the eastside will be The Doug Fir, Plan B, Rontoms and the Rocket due to their location. On the westside (by most of the galleries) Le Happy is where the in the know go but there is also the Lowbrow Lounge, Bluehour, 23 Hoyt, Portland City Grill and the Brazen Bean etc. Friday: The Affair @ the Jupiter Hotel Art Fair. Friday's opening festivities should be THE thing on your list. Saturday: If you missed the opening for the art fair do that, there is lecture at 2:00 too. What's more there are also a ton of good gallery shows open in the Pearl District and on the eastside. Those are links are pretty good guides. I think Motel's show and Mack Mcfarland's video room at PAC are also well done in Chinatown (PAC needs to execute a show as well as Mcfarland has every month) Small A will have an opening on Saturday night as well, of course there are lots of other more private parties too. For TBA's installation art shows I'd recommend, Sincerely John Head, Melia Donovan and The Lulic/Kreider show at Reed... some of the other stuff seems underdeveloped this year. The performance stuff is kinda out of PORT's focus but check it out if performance is your thing. If you want to do a winetour on Saturday hit Jenene Nagy's show in McMinneville and be sure to hit Panther Creek, probably the best winery north of Napa (burgers at Calamity Jane's is an experience you may need a doctor's note for). Sunday: I'd hit the Portland Art Museum (with Rembrandt in its last week, von Rydingsvard [who is lecturing Sunday too], Camouflage and Rock/Paper/Scissors it's an entitre afternoon you can't possibly regret and still like art. Other great Sunday options are Lewis and Clark College's really great Darren Waterston Show (a stunning campus on Palatine Hill if you want to see how grand/natural Portland can be), The Model Behavior show I curated for Organism and Reed's Lulic/Kreider show. Also, the Chinese garden is open for free this day too, that means a huge crowd though. Posted by Jeff Jahn on September 12, 2007 at 16:36 | Comments (1) PermalinkTuesday 09.11.07 Rock/Paper/Scissors at the Portland Art Museum 
Wolfgang Laib's Reishaus, 1989 (MillerMeigs Collection) Like the opportunistic Camouflage, the Portland Art Museum has yet another new contemporary group show called Rock/Paper/Scissors that went up this past weekend in the Suwyn gallery. It is a small scale exploration of post WWII European art and is especially nice because it is culled mostly from the museum's collection. More scholarly than bombastic and appropriately sober considering Europe's need for extensive Marshall Plan reconstruction after the war...(more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on September 11, 2007 at 13:29 | Comments (0) PermalinkMonday 09.10.07 2007 Affair at the Jupiter Hotel  The annual Affair at the Jupiter Hotel is happening this weekend. In the four years since it began, Portland's own Art Fair has become an essential venue for the cross-pollination of local artists, dealers, galleries, and curators, and one of the major forces encouraging the development of a Portland art market, or "art ecology." "Read more" for details. Posted by Megan Driscoll on September 10, 2007 at 14:43 | Comments (0) PermalinkRadial imagery in Art Ok, I have a lot of theories about this trend/trope. There is a sense of inward and outward motion in this type of radial imagery. It might signify a way to both leave the world and or to project an outward sense of change? It is both explosive and inward reflective. Either way it is everywhere in art right now and there are plenty of historical precedents. I'll let the images speak for themselves:
 Tomma Abts, Teete, 2003, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. © Jon Pratty / 24 Hour Museum  Mark Grotjahn Untitled (Green Butterfly Red Mark Grotjahn 04) 2004 ...(more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on September 10, 2007 at 0:30 | Comments (7) PermalinkSunday 09.09.07 Craft in America  Curator Namita Gupta Wiggers is speaking this Tuesday on Craft in America, the current exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Craft. Tuesday, September 11, noon | 724 NW Davis St | 503.223.2624 Posted by Megan Driscoll on September 09, 2007 at 10:02 | Comments (0) PermalinkFriday 09.07.07 The Wisdom of Light: The Hiroshi Sugimoto Retrospective at the De Young Museum  Hiroshi Sugimoto, Boden Sea, Uttwil 1993 Photography is by definition about the interaction between time and light. In Hiroshi Sugimoto's photographs we are able to engage in a conversation with light. In a very real way, he opens the light to us. He lets the light speak to us in a way that would be impossible in any other medium. Sometimes the light is fast like in the Seascapes and the dioramas where the exposure time is some small fraction of a second. In other work the light is slow, so slow that one photograph is exposed for the length of an entire movie. In most of his photographs the light is reflected, so that the light seems to be emanated from the subject that he is photographing. More... Posted by Arcy Douglass on September 07, 2007 at 12:15 | Comments (0) PermalinkWeekend Activities 
Bruce Davidson, "Hero" This Saturday, photographer Bruce Davidson is lecturing at PAM. This highly influential artist received the first ever NEA grant for photography, and has been a member of Magnum Photos since 1958. Davidson will be lecturing at 6pm on September 8, in the Whitsell auditorium. Tickets are $25 for non-members. Click here for more information. Also happening this weekend: San Francisco-based artist Lucas Murgida will be performing at Rocks Box Fine Art. The Good runs from 6-11pm on Saturday, September 8, at 6540 N. Interstate AVE. Posted by Megan Driscoll on September 07, 2007 at 11:26 | Comments (0) PermalinkThursday 09.06.07 First Friday Picks September 2007 
Jason Kelly, "Untitled" For the month of September, the Newspace Center for Photography presents a joint show featuring Jake Shivery's Contact Portraits and Jason Kelly's Mylarsian Dreams. Shivery's work, named for the technique of contact printing directly from 8x10 negatives, is a collection of meditative, highly process-oriented photography. Kelly's Mylarsian Dreams breaks away from the notion of "reality-based" photography. He coated his studio in mylar, creating bending and reflecting patterns of light that become like ghostly entities in the photographs, bearing little resemblance to what is visible to the naked eye. Opening Reception • 7-10pm • September 7 Newspace Center for Photography • 1632 SE 10th Ave. • 503.963.1935 (more) Posted by Megan Driscoll on September 06, 2007 at 16:07 | Comments (0) PermalinkJenene Nagy's False Flat at Linfield Gallery  False Flat (detail) Taking over the entire Linfield gallery Jenene Nagy's False Flat is one of the more ambitious solo shows in recent Portland history, with the added promise of a creating a lot more headroom for work her to expand. Until recently I had questioned whether Nagy (PORT's business manager) was going in a fruitful direction but after the controversial The Hook Up group show it was apparent she had made a major breakthrough by simplifying and... (more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on September 06, 2007 at 12:25 | Comments (0) PermalinkDirector's chair We have been expecting Tyler
Green's interview with PAM's new director Brian Ferriso for a week now and it
doesn't disappoint. Nice to see press from outside of Portland give their
take on a guy we like very much and I think some of the candor Brian reveals
is a just a part of the very open, accessible civic/ethical dialog in the Rose
City. PAM's new drector has got a lot of work to do but he's making great headway. (disclosure I am VP of PAM's Contemporary Art Council)
There have been a ton of Ferriso interviews here in the last 8 months and PORT will probably do a formal sit-down with him and maybe some senior staff in the future but we really want things to be settled in more before we ask those nitty gritty and probably unique to Portland questions. I can say I know literally hundreds of people who have worked with him in Milwaukee and Portland and it is almost unanimously enthusiastic about his thoughtful dedication to the important role of museums. In short Portland has almost Roman civics and Ferriso seems to fit right in here. Museums should lead and challenge not pander to some statistical lowest common denominator audience. That strategy ultimately cheats everyone, while looking great on paper. Posted by Jeff Jahn on September 06, 2007 at 9:55 | Comments (0) PermalinkWednesday 09.05.07 TBA 2007 visual arts picks 
Melia Donovan, from "The Clandestine Periphery" It's time for PICA's annual Time Based Art Festival. In its fifth year, TBA is a 10 day festival (September 6 - 16) that uses visual art, sound, theater, installation, lectures, and everything else under the sun to explore themes in contemporary art. "Read more" for our visual arts picks, and a volunteering opportunity that will earn you a free pass. Posted by Megan Driscoll on September 05, 2007 at 14:31 | Comments (1) PermalinkDarren Waterston: Reception & Talk at Lewis and Clark College, September 6th  Darren Waterston from The Flowering (The Fourfold Sense) 2007 Pigment print with letterpress and hand-coloring 18 x 13 inches For those of you who have been hungering for a museum-level show of paintings... a painter's painter so to speak, well look no farther than the sensuous and haunting work of Darren Waterston at Lewis and Clark's Hoffman Gallery. Sure, the lecture and reception conflict with First Thursday but it's impossible to see the art properly through those crowds anyways. If you are all about painting this is your ticket and an opportunity to rub elbows with this very adept painter. Details on this two part exhibition...(more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on September 05, 2007 at 11:14 | Comments (0) PermalinkTuesday 09.04.07 First Thursday Picks September 2007 
Claire Cowie, "Homunculus (hyena)" For the month of September, the Elizabeth Leach Gallery presents Homunculi, the painting and sculpture of Claire Cowie. Homunculi explores the life that can be imbued into the creations - or creatures - of the artist, and toys with the threat that these beings may turn on their creator. The often mythological results are simultaneously dark and playful, and very visually lush. Opening reception • 6-9pm • September 6 Elizabeth Leach Gallery • 417 NW 9th Ave. • 503.224.0521 (more) Posted by Megan Driscoll on September 04, 2007 at 20:08 | Comments (1) PermalinkWe left our museum director in San Francisco It looks like San
Francisco is questioning John Buchanan in the same way we Portlander's were
for years before
he left. The problem is that museum directors shouldn't be preempting their
curators, they are two very different jobs and from our experience in Portland
most would say that John was very hand's on. To quote the late Gordon Gilkey
a curator who predated but passed away before Buchanan's term finished at PAM,
"he's a damn micromanager." I like the idea of Gordon having the last
word.
Tyler Green has been all over this and I remember our first phone conversation about John distinctly... let's just say everything I mentioned about JB's style has come to pass. It is no secret that the serious contemporary art community in Portland really had a bone to pick with him. Still to John's credit he did create the current Rembrandt show (which isn't fluff at all), the transformative Greenberg Collection aquisition, and allowed the Miller-Meigs series of contemporaty shows at PAM to happen. Maybe John can turn it around? Still, it is a fact... by the time he had left for San Francisco Portland had outgrown him. Posted by Jeff Jahn on September 04, 2007 at 9:52 | Comments (1) PermalinkMonday 09.03.07 Book some studio time 
It is time to sell your soul to Rock-n-Roll... Sincerely, John Head are up to their genre crossing installation performances, confounding the borders between fan & Foghat in ways that amuse the hell out of me. As a recording engineer and and art curator they kinda hit all my secret interests... except um Foghat, what next Badfinger? They are looking for cover musicians (though they need not be practicing muscians), here is their call: BOX SET: Studio Sessions Studio Sessions is a sound studio open, by appointment, to anyone. Microphones, an electric guitar and bass, and a drum set will be provided. Within a recording-studio setting, participants can cover a song of their choice from Foghat LIVE in any style they choose, from heavy metal to hip-hop to doo-wop. Each song will be considered for a future pressing of the Sincerely John Head Foghat LIVE cover album. Call now for an appointment (888) 774-7456 and leave a message with your contact info. Studio time begins September 6 and ends September 16. Studio Sessions takes place as part of PICA's Time-Based Art Festival. Studio Sessions is ALL AGES & FREE to the public Posted by Jeff Jahn on September 03, 2007 at 10:22 | Comments (0) PermalinkSaturday 09.01.07 Angela West: A Survey at Quality Pictures  "Sweet Sixteen #1" 2001 Angela West image courtesy Quality Pictures The attempt to photograph life in the south is not a new idea. Life for southerners and the characters the place makes them creates jerky flavored targets and meals for literature, film, and the saltiest of still images. It is a swarming breeding ground for nostalgia and ghost stories, as a balmy, pink, and protracted humanity thickens the waterlogged atmosphere there. . .(more) Posted by Amy Bernstein on September 01, 2007 at 11:51 | Comments (0) Permalink |
| s p o n s o r s |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
Site Design: Jennifer Armbrust | • | Site Development: Philippe Blanc & Katherine Bovee | |