Jersey Devil, Red Cross House, Islamorado, Florida
OCAC & PNCA present the first lecture for their joint MFA in Applied Craft & Design program. Steve Badanes is a founding member of Jersey Devil, a design/build practice specializing in innovative and energy-efficient structures. Badanes, known for the both the practice and the teaching of design/build, is currently a professor at the University of Washington.
Design lecture • 6:30-7:30pm • September 2 Bison Building • 421 NE 10th
Of all of Portland's many longstanding art world figures, none commands the
respect of younger generations more than Mel Katz. He's an impressive sculptor
who hasn't grown so comfortable with his reputation that he's become stagnant.
Though I've watched him for a mere decade, Katz appears to be the opposite
he seems to get more curious and take more risks as the years go by.
What's more, no other local artist deserves a serious retrospective than Mel
Katz (though one wonders what institution could do it justice?).
Mary Randlett, Mel Katz, (Summer, 1972)
Katz was also a driving institutional force for the PCVA and PSU's art program
and during the 70's was somewhat single-handedly responsible for Portland not being
isolated from the art world and contributing to the careers of major artists. In fact, the Portland Center for the Visual Arts
was ahead of the time doing shows with Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, Carl Andre,
Robert Irwin, Chris Burden and Donald
Judd etc. He's the dean of artist driven initiative and intervention in
Portland and he has more in common with the constant waves of new artists than
CS Price... (more)
Here's PORT's short list of TBA:09 picks. We're primarily a visual arts (not performing arts) publication, so consider this a by-no-means-complete list of visual arts highlights.
•Psychedelic Soul, a collaboration between Kristan Kennedy and Cooley Gallery curator Stephanie Snyder. In conjunction with Reed's upcoming exhibition, The Language of the Nude, PICA and the Cooley have organized "two unique projects that fold past and present into a vivid dream of the future." The project features a video installation by Antoine Catala and a live performance by Brody Condon, both of which relate to other pieces the artists have in the festival. Event times & details on the TBA schedule.
•National Park, an installation at THE WORKS by Fawn Krieger. "During her residency at PICA, Krieger will construct a stage set as national park. The structure takes its cues from Lewis & Clark, museum dioramas, Superstudio, and the U.S.'s post-war middle-class tourism pastime, the roadtrip."
•Forever Now and Then Again, an installation at THE WORKS by Jesse Hayward. Inviting direct audience manipulation, Hayward "builds and paints objects in his studio that are then reimagined through a collaborative installation practice, articulating a space wherein boundaries are blurred. The sculptural commingles with the painterly, the coactive with the drawn..."
•We Are Legion, a web based installation at THE WORKS by Stephen Slappe. Mining audience & participants' photo albums for evidence of "contemporary cultural indoctrination," Slappe's web project "creates a never-ending army of costumed youth."
•The Oregon Painting Society will give one of their signature performances on Friday, September 11 at THE WORKS. In collaboration with Dragging an Ox Through Water, The Slaves, Woolly Mammoth Comes to Dinner, and Kent Richardson, OPS will use home-crafted objects and sounds to "take you deeper into the mystery."
•Movements, a sound sculpture/installation by Ethan Rose at THE WORKS. Featuring over 100 carefully timed and placed music boxes, Movement's "tinkering creates a sensation of a shifting texture, housed in a visually stimulating acoustic environment."
•Block Ice & Propane, a multimedia performance by cellist Erik Friedlander. Based on recollections of childhood family car vacations, the piece evokes truck stops, long, lonely highways, and stark panoramas. The highly intimate work is accompanied by projection of photographs taken by his father, famed photographer Lee Friedlander.
The final installment in NAAU's Couture series opens this weekend. Rose McCormick's Grande Ronde is an "art environment." She writes: "The achievement of this work is in it's conception, the finished show a fossil of the experience of discovery. It may be that viewing it is not enough, it may be that you have to have made it as well. But what it strives to do is offer the blueprint for you to create your own experience." The opening reception features lemon bars and lavender iced tea.
Opening reception • 12-3pm • August 30 New American Art Union • 922 SE Ankeny • 503.231.8294
The Betty
Bowen Award selection committee has selected 5 finalists this year, who will now compete for the prize. The 2
Oregonians are Jovencio
de la Paz and Josh
Faught. The three others are Jenny Heishman, Sean Johnson, and Matthew Offenbacher.
Though I'm a little suspicious of regional art awards (usually driven by politics
instead of pure artistic strength) I think this list at least does a good job
of highlighting lesser known artists in the region instead of well known critical/institutional
favorites, which was something Bowen wanted. I predict... (more)
Calling video artists: Savannah, GA-based gallery aquaspace is seeking video submissions for a very loud silence, a series of short silent films. a very loud silence will be presented on October 2 as part of Le Flash, a one-night art event in Castleberry Hill, Atlanta, GA. Pieces can be digitized film, video, or animation, maximum TRT 5 minutes, and should reflect the concept of "investigating the scope of emptiness, nothingness, and the unspoken through manipulations of moving light." Deadline September 15. For more info and application details, contact avantika@drainmag.com.
The Appendix folks are also helping establish a similar new space down the street. The space will be featuring Daniel Wallace's newest project, the result of the artist in residence program at The Dude Ranch, which "considers our relationship to light, materiality, and the parameters of visual perception."
Opening reception • 6-10pm • August 27
New Alberta project space • North alley b/w 28th & 29th on NE Alberta
Chris Johanson and Jo Jackson mural in North Portland
Unfinished mural by Jo Jackson and Chris Johanson in North Portland
Maybe the new mural at Albina
Green at the corner of N Albina and Sumner has caught your eye already.
If it hasn't it should, it's a 14' x 53' work by Portland's
Chris Johanson and Jo Jackson. According to RACC:
"The mural relates to the building, its surrounding neighborhood and the
community in its theme of the contemporary natural environment. Chris and Jo
work with imageries that relate to nature and the city often in their work.
In this project they intend to combine a colorful abstract landscape including
both native and exotic species, coexisting together in nature. Using symbols
of ...(more)
MoCC's Craft Conversations series continues this week. Part of the ongoing Call + Response exhibition, these conversations give artists and art historians a chance to dialogue publicly about their craft. The second conversation features Matt Johnston, assistant professor, department of art, Lewis & Clark, and Karl Burkheimer, associate professor and head of wood department, OCAC.
An Expeditionary Journal at U of O's White Stag Block
Till now, episodic moments like the Glen
Adamson lecture and some of Matthew Stadler's events at the White Stag building have been
a bit of a very promising question mark regarding how the U of O will fit into Portland's
very active civic fabric.
That's where the show, "An Expeditionary Journal: Artifacts of an investigation
of new technology, undertaken in the open spirit of Enlightment experimentation,"
comes in. It doesn't require a formal gallery and instead is presented a bit
like the remains of a workshop in one of White Stag's common areas the Fab
Lab. The effect works surprisingly well, keeping this work grounded in experimentation
so its investigatory élan isn't traded for white box preciousness...(more)
Shusaku Arakawa, Untitled, from the portfolio No! Says the Signified, 1973
Word and Image/Word as Image opens this weekend at PAM. "Featuring works by artists from Albrecht Dürer to Ed Ruscha, this exhibition examines the relationship between word and image in prints over the course of more than 500 years, from the Renaissance to today."
Exhibition • August 22 - November 29, 2009 Portland Art Museum • 1219 SW Park • 503.226.2811
This Saturday in support of the Art
of Touring, Fontanelle gallery is presenting readings and performances from four
of the touring musicians and editors in the show/book: Sara Jaffe (Erase Errata), Rebecca Gates,
Tara Jane Oneil,
and Julianna Bright (The Golden Bears).
Readings and Performances • 6pm • August 22 Fontanelle • 205 SW Pine St, Portland OR 97204
The latest additions to the Portland Art Museum's contemporary collection are
two of Sanford
Biggers' "Cheshire" works; a video piece and a newly installed
wall/floor sculpture with a LED light show. Both purchases were made possible
through fund's provided by the Contemporary
Art Council. They will both be on display through August 30th as part of
Biggers'
show in the ongoing Miller-Meigs series.
The Cheshire sculpture acts both as as a sign and light show performance, with
its teeth approximating the Cheshire cat's winking but toothy smile. Like most
of Biggers' more recent work its tough to categorize because... (more)
Avalon Kalin presents The Idiosyncratic Element is the Precursor to Change at PSU's Autzen Gallery. "For over a year, Kalin has been working with local cafe proprietor Jonathan Legare as the artist-in-residence of his southeast cafe and community resource center, LEGARE'S. The title of Kalin's exhibition is an aphorism authored by Legare himself. Acting as an experimental documentary installation, Kalin's show uses Legare's life and times as a starting point, and engages Legare's particular interests." The show runs August 18-28, 2009.
Opening reception • 6pm • August 22 Autzen Gallery • 724 SW Harrison Street • Neuberger Hall, 2nd Floor, rm 205
Gallery Homeland was on OPB's
Morning edition at 6:50 Am today discussing their upcoming East/West
exchange exhibitions in Berlin and the importance of import/export for the
visual art scene (pssst update the GH website with an East/West page). Analysis: showing outside Portland, even
Berlin isn't a new thing for Portland artists... but an entire exhibition series
in Berlin is cool. Artists are always taken for granted in their home cities
and it is important to stir things up by showing outside of town... there really
isn't a "locals only" art scene anywhere anymore. Group shows like the East/West project are hardly ever definitive but they do open up new contacts and connections and that's the thing about Portland's new (but decade old) scene... we just aren't limited to the immediate environs anymore. We don't think or act in isolated ways... nice hustle Gallery Homeland.
In 1999 Portland artist Ty Ennis learned he had grown up adjacent to
Spokane's notorious serial killer Robert
Lee Yates Jr. In response, Ennis'
latest show, "You'll Love It Here," presents a lurid double poisoned
well of memory. The show ends this weekend but for Ennis and the other people
Yates touched, this proximity to human darkness will never fully come to term.
If your life has ever been touched by a murderer I suspect you'll find this show
powerfully hollow and unresolved in that terribly familiar way I wont be able
to properly convey unless you've experienced it... (more)
Last night the Manor
of Art and The
Grid shows at Milepost 5 both seemed to achieve the desired effect of attendance
reminiscent of shows like The Modern Zoo in 2003 and the Charm Bracelet's
meeting people in 2002 or the perpetual stew at the Everett Station Lofts. Each exhibition had more than just a few things worth seeing but
granted these are essentially group shows that focused more on group than the
show. This is not necessarily a bad thing as art thrives on proximity and social
interaction. The resulting good energy in an odd smelling building in need of renovation is the sort of thing that opens up new possibilities to artists from time to time.
For me Cris Moss' video installation in Room 306 was the highlight of the evening.
Though definitely good intentioned but somewhat oddly located on 82nd Milepost
5 is an non profit effort to establish an artist community in a city where
artists tend to cluster, divining the next hot neighborhood on their own (in
the past 2 decades it has been the Alphabet District, the Pearl District, North
Mississippi, North Williams an now near N. Interstate). In fact, other projects like
the Falcon Arts Community on N Albina or the Everett Station Lofts seem to be doing well because they are
close in. Whereas Milepost 5 has always seemed like a well intentioned herding
activity on the outskirts rather than actually tracking the where artists would
naturally colonize. That said, if the economy turns around MP5 could be successful... (more)
Katy Asher, Amber Bell and Ariana Jacob are seeking proposals for their August STOCK dinner grant. The concept: Each month, STOCK invites people from the community to an inexpensive dinner at the gallery. The proceeds from the dinner all go directly into the STOCK artist grant, and the attendees decide who will receive that month's grant. Artists may only submit one proposal per month. Deadline: August 23.Submission guidelines and further info are here.
MP5's ambitious group exhibition, performance, and music series Manor of Art opens this weekend. Following in the tradition of Portland group experiences like the Modern Zoo, Manor of Art presents over 100 artists transforming the yet-to-be-renovated rooms of MP5's Studios building. The event lasts for 10 days, and also includes a series of music shows and experimental theater performances. More information and the full schedule is here.
Opening event • 6-9pm • August 14 Milepost 5 • 900 NE 81st Ave • 503.998.4878
Ryan Sarah Murphy
Also launching this weekend at MP5: TJ Norris' The Grid will open in the MP53 exhibition space. The Grid features 27 international artists using small-scale works to explore the concept of the grid, "seen as a way to organize, divide and separate... both ideas and formalities." The show runs August 14 - October 17, 2009, and will have its opening reception next weekend.
Opening reception • 7-9pm • August 22 Milepost 5 • 900 NE 81st Ave • 503.998.4878
"Anti-sociologist" Patrick Rock is spending 6 days living in a bunker under Ditch Projects, using the time to "obsessively and painstakingly construct a physical manifesto of Oregonian identity designed to turn the viewer into salt at a single glance." The experiment will culminate in a "neo-pagan anti-potluck" this weekend, followed by a performance by PISS at 10.
Disjecta presents the kick-off show of Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat's Time Machine tour. Using reading, slide projection, digital video, records, and real-time rendered audiovisual performance, they'll "set the dials and push the levers while guiding you through the fourth dimension!" Matt McCormick will open for Time Machine with his musical project "Very Stereo." $5.
Time performance • 8pm • August 15 Disjecta • 8371 N Interstate • 503.286.9449
Nationale presents Edward Jeffrey Kriksciun's Brickthrough, a showcase of recent cut-outs that examine negatives & positives. Kriksciun "explores how this relates to our surrounding environment and affects our internal selves: what do we see/ what do we get out of it/ how can we make things better/ do we cut away the negative/ and if we do, are we left with just with the positive."
PAM's monthly artist talk series will be led this week by Jeffry Mitchell. He'll lecture about a work from the collection that "delights, puzzles, or inspires him." Meet in the Hoffman lobby before the talk; join him and others in the lobby for happy hour after.
Artist talk • 6-8pm • August 13 Portland Art Museum • 1219 SW Park • 503.226.2811
Generally, I avoid Portland's annual Street
of Dreams extravaganza as a decidedly middlebrow McMansion gawkfest (I'm
for taste vs size). But this year it's in the Pearl District, making it an urban
density showcase in Portland's chief arts district. In fact, it's this massive
influx of bare walls that most Portland art
dealers have found terribly interesting. Typically, real-estate and the
art markets are intimately related and the bad condo market is hurting galleries
and artists.
Now critically speaking, none of the art at Street of Dreams is edgy (much of it is tripe) but it is interesting to see some of the good work away of the more antiseptic gallery and museum walls in a home environment. Sadly, most never see collectors homes and these tours are designer choices so they don't have the same idiosyncratic variety of a real collection. Still it is interesting... (more)
Sure, some of the work leans heavily on that old "failure fetish" crutch that's so so art school but Gallery Homeland's "Incompletely" opening last night was worthwhile... not some utter failure.
There are seven different artist opportunities under "Read more," including the Plastic Quilt Project, a call for PSU art alumni, the Oregon Media Arts Fellowship, a public art opportunity via the Oregon Percent for Art program, a Launch Pad group show, a print show at Bamboo Grove Salon, and FoundPortland.
Jordan Tull's Reflexion marks another exciting introduction at Tractor
Gallery, which has lately become the place in Portland for new installation
artists to make a serious debut (pointed out by PORT
and menton in the New York Times before other local sources). What's more the level of ambition
in the aluminum fabrication here puts most other Portland art spaces to shame (this isn't an indie aesthetic at all).
Thus, Tull's effort really stands out, even in comparison to other Tractor shows.
For example, instead of simply having the work fabricated for him Tull did
the work himself collaborating with a CAD design programmer to achieve today's
ridiculous (but industrially typical)levels of precision... (more)
Gallery Homeland presents Incompletely, a group exhibition curated by Calvin Ross Carl. Calvin Ross Carl, Derek Franklin, Ashley Sloan, Josh Smith, Bailey Winters and Gary Wiseman "explore themes of incompleteness and insufficiency through formal, conceptual and emotional means."
Michele Russo, "Untitled (blue and gray abstract)," 2002
The final installment in the NW Film Center's summer artist spotlight series is tomorrow. Three short films exploring local artists will be shown: Jon Stewart's A Painter's Vision: Michele Russo, Wendy Wells Jackson's Louis Bunce, Portland Painter, and Sarah Swanberg's Jack McLarty: Painting is My Language.
Film(s) screening • 7pm • August 6 NW Film Center • 1219 SW Park • Whitsell Auditorium
Garry Winogrand, "Centennial Ball, Metropolitan Museum of New York, 1969" c.1975
Charles Hartman presents Faces: Vintage and Contemporary Photographic Portraits. Combining 19th and 20th century photographic masterworks and contemporary images, the exhibition explores "the fundamental tension in photography between point of view and composition." Artists include Ansel Adams, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Harry Callahan, Danny Lyon, Sally Mann, Arnold Newman, Frederick Sommer, and Garry Winogrand, with Corey Arnold, Daido Moriyama, Mark Steinmetz and Issei Suda, and more.
While you're down at Tractor, check out the Everett Station Lofts' annual summer Rooftop Exhibit chaos-a-thon: "Once a year the hub of Portland's young, hip, gritty art scene merges with its seasoned career artist neighbors to throw a colossal celebration of visual art, music, performance art, gourmet food with a contemporary flair, and cash bar." There is also a Scion funded event with DJ's etc at Igloo so "The Lofts" will definitely be the scene on Thursday.
Roberta Smith's review
of Ron Arad's retrospective explores the exhibition's conceits. Sure there
are ideas but are there enough to support such a sustained look? Is Arad suddenly
looking more dated?
Bethany Hays presents I Am a Containerful of Memories at PSU's Autzen Gallery: "These domestic landscapes present a record of human activity and speak to the importance of everyday routine... The viewer is asked to consider the fictional nature of memory, which like the bronzing of baby shoes, distorts experience in an attempt to preserve it." Exhibition runs August 3 - 14, 2009.
Opening reception • 6-9pm • August 8 Autzen Gallery • 724 SW Harrison Street • Neuberger Hall, 2nd Floor, rm 205
Vanessa Calvert
Vanessa Calvert presents A Space of Flows at PSU's MK Gallery. Calvert "explores the construct of cyberspace by creating an interactive lounge where space disconnects from place and begins to operate outside linear progressions." Exhibition runs August 3 - 14, 2009.