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Portland art blog + news + exhibition reviews + galleries + contemporary northwest art
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Friday 07.30.10 Tabor Robak's Quarterback at Appendix  Tabor Robak's Quarterback After navigating the intense Last Thursday Alberta Street crowds of revelers I was grateful to reach Appendix Project Space, which along with Littlfield has become the experimental installation/performance art hot spot in Portland (though there seem to be new spaces popping up in unexpected places all of the time)... (more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on July 30, 2010 at 23:14 | Comments (0) PermalinkVection essay unveiling  Canopy by Jeff Jahn (2010) There will a review of an interesting young artist later today but first just a little notice... I'll be unveiling the finished version of my essay "Vection" for the exhibition of the same name tomorrow at 3:30 at the NAAU gallery. The show has been incredibly well received (thanks Huffington Post, and other press etc.) and yes it's the last weekend. This version 2.0 is a significant rewrite from the other versions I've been work shopping during the run of the show. The essay itself isn't just about the Vection exhibition and explores a thread of work that has been very prominent in Portland over the past decade (always the curator critic). Lately, this thread has gelled into a definable combination of design (eco, livability, humanistic, architecture), nature and installation art. There will be a reading and for those hard core art geeks an opportunity to talk art more one on one about what is going on. Vection is open from 12-5 today, Saturday and Sunday is the last day New American Art Union (NAAU) 922 SE Ankeny Posted by Jeff Jahn on July 30, 2010 at 11:58 | Comments (0) PermalinkThursday 07.29.10 Behind the Shoji  K. Miller, bamboo scroll The Portland Japanese Garden presents Behind the Shoji, an annual exhibition of Asian-inspired art. Work will be on view by several new artists, and there will be new pieces by several returning artists. Garden exhibition • July 31 - September 6, 2010 Portland Japanese Garden • 611 SW Kingston Posted by Megan Driscoll on July 29, 2010 at 10:47 | Comments (0) PermalinkWednesday 07.28.10 international women artists' conference  PSU's Littman Gallery presents the 9th biannual International Women Artists' Exhibition and Conference. Organized locally by the Oregon Women's Caucus for Art (OWCA), the event features public artist talks, a seminar on "art made out of desperate need," and an exhibition at the Littman Gallery. The events start Monday, August 2, 2010, and the exhibition will run August 5-27, 2010. Check the Littman event calendar for more details on the opening remarks, artist talks, and seminar. Posted by Megan Driscoll on July 28, 2010 at 16:30 | Comments (0) PermalinkTuesday 07.27.10 Last Thursday Picks July 2010  Gary Wiseman, "Temporary Monument One (Couldn't Have Done It Without You)" Little Field presents Gary Wiseman's Temporary Monument Two: Project, Reflect, Perform (Imagining Transitions). The project is "the second in a series of monuments that acknowledge and honor the people who have collaborated with Wiseman through his social and Co-Relational art practice." Opening reception • 6pm • July 29 Little Field • North alleyway between NE 28th & 29th off Alberta (More: Appendix/Hay Batch, False Front, Alicia Blue Gallery, Stumptown Family Showcase.) Posted by Megan Driscoll on July 27, 2010 at 12:57 | Comments (0) PermalinkTuesday Links Check out architect Moshe
Safdie's Marina Bay Sands project on ArchDaily. Hello Coruscant!
Artnet looks back at the Tim Griffin years as editor at Art Forum. Posted by Jeff Jahn on July 27, 2010 at 9:41 | Comments (0) PermalinkMonday 07.26.10 Arty Cinema / Cinematic Art  Allison Halter, still from "Please Please Please" Grand Detour presents Allison Halter: Apparently I Am An Experimental Filmmaker Now, a selection of Halter's film and video work from 2002-present. "She will probably also riff around on various topics such as un-representable sadness, accumulation, and ecstasy." Film screening & chat • 8pm • July 27 Grand Detour • 215 SE Morrison Suite 2020  Jesse Malmed Grand Detour also presents Jesse Malmed's "This is What I Thought You Meant by Contemporary: American Folk Art (e) // V=I=D=E=O." This Portland-based artist and curator who programs Deep Leap Microcinema will present a program "combining video art, installation and participatory performance into a special blend of visionary, expanded cinema." Screening & presentation • 8pm • July 29 Grand Detour • 215 SE Morrison Suite 2020 Posted by Megan Driscoll on July 26, 2010 at 10:57 | Comments (2) PermalinkSaturday 07.24.10 Under the radar reviews Many art scenes shut down in the summer, Portland's doesn't. There are several
high profile shows like Ai
Weiwei and Sol
Lewitt that everyone should make a point of catching but part of the fun of
summer is just walking around so here are some very worthy lower profile shows
that deserve some attention.
 Laura Hughes' Passed Presence at the Portland Building Laura Hughes (a recent PNCA grad) has the potential to be one of the most exciting new artists on the Portland scene. Consisting of faux shadows in Michael Graves infamous Portland Building, Passed Presence is Hughes first project after graduation and the work is considerably sparer and more subtle to what I saw from her prior thesis work. It also somewhat rehabilitates the not entirely effective postmodern design with a somewhat modernist ... (more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on July 24, 2010 at 11:38 | Comments (0) PermalinkThursday 07.22.10 Brain Party!  William Rihel and Sanna-Lisa Gesang-Gottowt are hosting a Brain Party benefit for the Right Brain Initiative at their studios/house, affär. This all-ages party features live music, art installations, games, a silent art auction, brain massage, and performances by John Mery, Weird Fiction, DJ Tiger stripes, Cathy Cleaver, Portland Taiko, Greg Unwin, Rad Wave USA, Oregon Painting Society, Tim DuRoche and more. Bring cash for games and donations - the Right Brain Initiative supports K-12 arts education in the Portland area. Benefit party • 5pm • July 24 Right Brain @ affär • 3001 NE Ainsworth Posted by Megan Driscoll on July 22, 2010 at 11:35 | Comments (0) PermalinkTuesday 07.20.10 Artists Wanted: Betty Bowen Award The Seattle Art Museum is seeking submissions for its prestigious annual Betty Bowen award. This year's committee members are Isaac Layman and Cris Bruch, both former award winners. Visual artists working in any medium in Washington, Oregon or Idaho may apply before August 1. Visit SAM's website for more details.
Posted by Megan Driscoll on July 20, 2010 at 11:19 | Comments (0) PermalinkMonday 07.19.10 Microcinema: Tyler Wallace  Tyler Wallace Portland-based multidisciplinary artist Tyler Wallace will present her films at Grand Detour as part of their Summer Screening Series. "Wallace will present and discuss selections from her body of work, which focuses on the themes of idiosyncratic family dynamics, personal history, and identity construction. Through the use of parody and humor, Wallace delves into a personal narrative based around being raised in the South by two ex-Mormon parents and a homosexual father." Film screening • 8pm • July 20 Grand Detour • 215 SE Morrison Suite 2020 Posted by Megan Driscoll on July 19, 2010 at 10:53 | Comments (0) PermalinkFriday 07.16.10 artists wanted Worksound is seeking submissions for a wearable art show in August, 2010. Contact mojomodou@gmail.com for more details.
(More, and with lots of short deadlines: Cravedog's new gallery, August Stock, and bSIDE6.) Posted by Megan Driscoll on July 16, 2010 at 12:48 | Comments (0) PermalinkThursday 07.15.10 Cut & Run  Frederic Cousseau Grand Detour presents the touring Cut and Run Festival. Their current program, Evolution and Life of the Mind, Body, and Medium, "focuses on cycles of minds, bodies, and filmstrips, with each work representing a perspective of itself as one, in contrast to the others." The program includes filmmakers from Spain, Cyprus, France, Germany, and the USA, with animated photo-negatives, appropriated 16mm trailers, film/digital hybrids, and genre-bending experimental works of "cinematic evolution." Film festival • 8pm • July 17 Grand Detour • 215 SE Morrison • info@grand-detour.org Posted by Megan Driscoll on July 15, 2010 at 12:16 | Comments (0) PermalinkWednesday 07.14.10 Ai Weiwei: Dropping the Urn  Ai Weiwei, "Dropping the Urn," 1995, image 2 out of a triptych of photographs MoCC presents Ai Weiwei Dropping the Urn: "This exhibition of internationally acclaimed artist Ai Weiwei features his iconoclastic use of Neolithic vessels, blue-and-white Qing and Yuan dynasty replicas, and a work that consists of one ton of 'sunflower seeds' crafted from porcelain." This Ai Weiwei's first solo museum exhibition on the West Coast, and it's not to be missed. Keep an eye on PORT for a short review and a longer interview in the coming weeks. Exhibition • July 15 - October 30, 2010 Museum of Contemporary Craft • 724 NW Davis • 503.223.2654 Posted by Megan Driscoll on July 14, 2010 at 12:34 | Comments (0) PermalinkTuesday 07.13.10 Art Spark: PDX Bridge Fest  PDX Bridge Fest Join Art Spark this week for the pre-pre-party for the upcoming PDX Bridge Fest (July 23 - August 8, 2010). Portland's "newest cultural arts festival... is dedicated to raising awareness and fostering appreciation of the Willamette River Bridges through educational, historical, cultural & artistic programming." Learn more about Bridge Fest here. Art discussion • 5-7pm • July 15 Art Spark @ Rose Festival Headquarters • 1020 SW Naito Parkway • On waterfront @ SW Salmon & SW Naito Parkway Posted by Megan Driscoll on July 13, 2010 at 9:22 | Comments (0) PermalinkMonday 07.12.10 Weegee Net Works  Weegee the Famous (Arthur Fellig), "Movie Ecstasy - The Kiss," 1943 Ongoing at UO's White Box: The More Things Change... Relocating Weegee Photographs. "The photographs by 'Weegee the Famous' depict the gritty reality of New York street life of the '30s and '40s. His shocking and beautiful black-and-white images show crime scenes, urban life, street kids, and emerging counterculture..." Ellen and Alan Newberg, from whose collection the show is drawn, will give a talk about their family relationship with Fellig and his career. Exhibition • July 1-30, 2010 Collector talk • 5:30-6:30pm • July 29 White Box • 24 NW 1st  RECESS, the newish space in the Artistery, presents Social Net Works, featuring "works pertaining to ways humans interact socially in the light of technological influences, and how these interactions might be shifting and developing in today's cultural climate." Opening reception • 6:30pm • July 14 RECESS • 4135 Division • recesspdx@gmail.com Posted by Megan Driscoll on July 12, 2010 at 14:46 | Comments (0) PermalinkFriday 07.09.10 Staying cool with Sol LeWitt at PAM 
A little bird with the voice of a grizzly bear (aka Chief Curator Bruce Guenther) has let PORT's readers know about a cool Sol LeWitt wall drawing in process using a massive scaffold (starting today): "As part of the Summer of Drawing the Modern and Contemporary Art Department is going to complicate everyone's life with a 6-day live-action drawing event in the Schnitzer Sculpture Court from July 9 to 14. An artist-trained technician from the Sol LeWitt Foundation, Nobuto Suga will be on site drawing every day from 10 to 5. A small group of LeWitt works will round out the experience after the scaffolding comes out of the court July 16th. The drawing will be on view through September 19." I'll also remind everyone that as a climate controlled environment the museum is air conditioned and open late tonight. I hope they document the process as it's just as fascinating as the end product. Posted by Jeff Jahn on July 09, 2010 at 15:59 | Comments (0) PermalinkPlanning the Rose Quarter  This month's installment in the "Bright Lights: Discussions About the City" series features a chat with Mayor Sam Adams and J. Isaac, the Trailblazers' senior VP of business affairs, on the future of development in the Rose Quarter: "For the past two years, the City of Portland has been looking at options for the future of Memorial Coliseum. After entertaining proposals for everything from replacing the building with a minor-league baseball stadium to converting it into a $140 million recreation facility, Mayor Sam Adams is now looking to the wider Rose Quarter to inform the city's next steps." Community conversation • 6:30pm • July 12 Bright Lights @ the Gerding Theater @ the Armory • 128 NW 11th Posted by Megan Driscoll on July 09, 2010 at 10:16 | Comments (0) PermalinkThursday 07.08.10 Nagy does urethane in Cali 
We are proud of former PORTstar Jenene Nagy, who was our business manager from 2007-mid 2008 who will be taking part in a show called The Rise of Rad at the Torrence Art Museum. A show about "The Influence of the Urethane Revolution." It is curated by PORT pal Max Presneill. Show includes some heavy hitters like Olafur Eliasson, Katharina Grosse and Albert Oehlen. Torrance Art Museum July 24 – September 4, 2010 Opening Reception: Saturday, July 24, 6-10pm Posted by Jeff Jahn on July 08, 2010 at 15:00 | Comments (0) PermalinkLonely Place (Second Weekend Picks July 2010)  Worksound Worksound presents Ask the Lonely, "an exploration of love and power" featuring Troy Briggs, Casey Lee Brown, Rachel Mulder, Brittany Taylor, Tony Hix, Courtney Gates, and Tim Janchar. Opening reception • 7-11pm • July 9 Worksound • 820 SE Alder • mojomodou@gmail.com  Place Place's second opening is happening this Saturday, featuring special guests Avantika Bawa, Harrison Higgs, Nova Moisa, Palma Corral, Rhoda London, and Theodore Holt. "Transitional spaces allow us to imagine and think of what might come next even if we've been there before. Like a city these spaces of flux constantly offer something familiar and new. Likewise, the works in Place showcase a series of highly engaging performances and installations that transform and address the transitory nature of the space and place." Opening reception • 2-7pm • July 10 Place • In the former Pottery Barn in Pioneer Place Mall Posted by Megan Driscoll on July 08, 2010 at 9:40 | Comments (0) PermalinkWednesday 07.07.10 Cris Bruch at Elizabeth Leach Gallery 
Cris Bruch's Rejoinder (2010) Cris Bruch’s exhibition, Gather and Wait at Elizabeth Leach Gallery, seduces with meticulous craft and sensuous forms that are nevertheless familiar. For anyone with a modicum of exposure to modern art, many of his sculpture call up the name of another artist, Martin Puryear, whose work has made this style of abstraction iconic. Associations can be made with Richard Rezac’s work as well; yet similarities can always be found between artists working with a particular material, and no single artist holds a monopoly on subject matter or form. It is what each artist does with the material and ideas that is ultimately judged. In 2007, a twenty-year survey of Bruch’s work, How Did I Get Here?, at Lawrimore Project in Seattle, solidified his position as a major artistic voice in the Northwest. Initially known for his more performance-based sculptural work, early on he was seen as more of a talented curiosity with a decidedly political narrative than the commissioned abstract artist that he has become today. Yet, even... (more) Posted by Patrick Collier on July 07, 2010 at 8:32 | Comments (5) PermalinkTuesday 07.06.10 Over it.  PSU's Littman Gallery united top-notch designers from W+K and several smaller firms for OVER IT featuring 18 Portland artists, writers, designers, art directors, fashion designers, and illustrators: Chris Hutchinson, Damion Triplett, David Neevel, Jelly Helm studio, Jennie Hayes, Jimm Lasser, Julia Blackburn, Julia Oh, Kate Bingaman-Burt, Marco Kaye, Mike Giepert, Official MFG CO, Portland Foreign Legion, Scrappers, and Taylor Twist. OVER IT is "an experiment in creating as a group, letting go, disagreement, misunderstanding, backpedaling and trust." Opening reception • 5-7pm • July 8 Littman Gallery • 1825 SW Broadway • PSU Smith Center 2nd Floor Room 250 Posted by Megan Driscoll on July 06, 2010 at 11:53 | Comments (0) PermalinkWheeling and Diehl-ing  Sundown (Landscape Anarchitecture Series) Ok, you've recovered from the 4th of July weekend, now it's time to freak out to a lil overview of Carl Diehl's video works at Grand Detour. The press release "alleges" that Diehl's work is compelled by the perpetual fissures of language, the emergent spaces between fact and fiction, and the potential of using audio-visual 'word-play' to generate novel associations and reveal previously imperceptible forms of meaning, Diehl is particularly fixated on the glitches and aberrations that sometimes disrupt the intended output of an audio-visual device. He will be screening a survey of works, including Time Out, Break of Dawn, Rock Robot:It's Edutainment and Along with Hooverball, as well as his Metaphortean Compositions. The evening with conclude with Blobsquatch: In The Expanded Field, a paranormal polemic on the perceived obsolescence of blurry sasquatches, and Patrolling the Ether, a diaristic reflection on the end of analog television. Grand Detour itself is a newish microcinema and experimental media center committed to supporting, enhancing, and connecting the community of new media artists in Portland and beyond. Currently hosting weekly screenings and curating video work across the city, (and promisingly) "planting the seeds towards the larger goal of becoming Portland's hub for innovative video and media-related artworks." Carl Diehl: Curious Gestures of Malfunction Grand Detour 215 SE Morrison St, Suite 2020 Tuesday, July 6, 2010 Posted by Jeff Jahn on July 06, 2010 at 9:34 | Comments (0) PermalinkMonday 07.05.10 Big Question Marks The Guardian asks if the Tate
Modern can afford BP's sponsorship?
Randy Kennedy at the NYT's writes a gushing piece on Deitch as a museum director. The real question is if Deitch can finally motivate LA to support something other than Hollywood? Posted by Jeff Jahn on July 05, 2010 at 13:19 | Comments (0) PermalinkThursday 07.01.10 First Friday Picks July 2010 
Jeff Jahn VM (Nouvel), 2009 NAAU presents Vection, installations, photography and essay by PORTstar publisher and co-founder Jeff Jahn: "Im interested in civilization/wilderness and its interactive by-products (like culture, housing, design and landfills). Since 2006 my work has increasingly made use of recycled materials and design motifs as a digestion of the present challenges at the intersection of man and nature or where concept meets its execution. According to Jahn the recycled materials invite, 'a discussion around opportunity costs surrounding the definition and use of the built environment and its integration (successful or not) into the larger ecosystem.' The new works for Vection further this inquiry and the accompanying essay of the same name is intended to contextualize an important thread of work that has been being produced in Portland and beyond as well." Opening reception • 6-9pm • July 2 New American Art Union • 922 SE Ankeny • 503.231.8294 (More.) Posted by Megan Driscoll on July 01, 2010 at 10:04 | Comments (3) Permalink |
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