PICA's End Things vis art programming gets a little head start this Saturday with Claudia Meza's Water at the U of O's White Box gallery.

With its collection of interactive tape players Water looks like Cageian interactive installation art that can't miss with figity lo-fi lovin vistors.

According to the PR: "Water is a collection of hanging Califone cassette players that facilitate the exploration of the resonant and sculptural qualities of sounds and their sources. Meza focused her recordings on things that amplify water—ferries, rivers, oceans, waterfalls, water taps, water bowls—isolating their tones and textures on looping tapes. The installation is an instrument without instruction, by which the audience performs their own experience by pressing Play, Rewind, Fast Forward, and Stop. In this way, each cassette deck acts like an auditory "Berlin key" that holds the user responsible for opening and again locking the door before the key may be retrieved. Alongside this sonic space, Meza presents video excerpts from Mourning Youth, an in-progress "wordless opera" on the elasticity of self and time, which she is developing with collaborator Chris Hackett."

Opening Reception: September 1st 6-9PM
Water: September 1 - 22 | Tues through Sat 11AM - 6PM
White Box at the University of Oregon in Portland
21 NW 1st Avenue

Finally, a long awaited solo show by a promising young artist to kick off the second half of the season. False Front presents Flanks and Slopes by Zachary Davis.

Davis has been a stand out in several group shows but it is time to see how sustained his practice can be? His solo show last year took place in Philadelphia but received critical praise.

Here is some of the PR: "Form is a voracious concept, beginning somewhere in the front of my brain, where teams of cells replace flat swaths of stimulus from the back of the eye with semantic notions like edge, texture, and depth. In schematic, these transmuting units are funnelshaped, and zooming out, the shape remains a funnel, with sensory overload crashing against the wide end and a thin stream of physical actions on the other.

Along with other perceived objects, this funnel-form guides my actions on a field of possibility with its own contours. If the shape of tomorrow's weather forecast has enough reality to guide my actions (rainfall by time by latitude by longitude), or the upward trajectory of food prices (by time by latitude by longitude), then the correlation of many such forms (food price by rainfall by time by latitude by longitude) is similarly real. Pull in enough metrics, and we find ourselves on a landscape of goals and dangers, shrouded in fog...."


FalseFront | 4518 NE 32ND Avenue
August 31 - September 23, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday, August 31 (7 - 10PM)
Viewing Hours: Saturdays and Sundays (12 - 3PM)

Installation view of Ellsworth Kelly/Prints at the Portland Art Museum (all photos Jeff Jahn)

Ellsworth Kelly is the world's greatest living abstract painter and the extensive show of his prints on view right now at the Portland Art Museum details just why. Part of the exhibition's greatness is the way it exudes the generous charm of the sublime, not unlike a sunset on the beach or a baby's smile. It's hard to believe that simple line and color can be so powerful, but it is and bears up well under close scrutiny where slight variations in form or color can matter so much. The exhibition itself is a slightly different version of LACMA's critically received show and everyone should take this viewing opportunity, which presents so much depth and breadth from a single artist. It is a perfect summer show. Kelly is perhaps single-handedly responsible for showing how formal work need not follow Clement Greenberg's edicts of material as form. The lesson that it isn't the material but the message... in this case, one of gracious reception and reciprocity, which made Kelly the lynchpin of Dave Hickey's 2001 art world shattering Beau Monde exhibition at Site Santa Fe... the exhibition that made beauty worthy as a subject again. His prints carry that spirit in a way that is perhaps even more approachable than the paintings and sculpture and we thought the occasion of his exhibition, culled from Jordan Schnitzer's vast collection was a great excuse to talk to Portland's very own master printer Mark Mahaffey and his wife Rae about what it was like to work with the man.

Jeff Jahn: So Mark, you started at Tyler Graphics and then went to Gemini GEL where you worked on Ellsworth Kelley's prints?

Mark Mahaffey: Yeah in 1989 I was hired away from Tyler to work for Gemini GEL. His (Ellsworth) was actually the... (more)

detail of Gradual Instant

Catch Heather Watkins opening at Reed College today. Her Gradual Instant show is comprised of over one hundred works on paper, arranged on the wall in closely-aligned and overlapping groups. Like a blind man's elephant the work is abstract and fragmentary but hints at a holistic survey of the whole.

The exhibition also includes a suite of lithographs made in collaboration with Mahaffey Fine Art, with support from the Regional Arts & Culture Council.


Artist talk and Opening: August 29 | 4PM in the Studio Art Building, followed by reception
Gradual Instant: August 20 - September 15, 2012
Edith Feldenheimer Gallery, Studio Art Building at Reed College

Art Info's Adapt or Die article and the recent tax levy around Detroit do relate to MOCA's ongoing situation but it is also quite relevant to Portland's upcoming vote in November. Look, the reason that Portland is suddenly having a jobs surge is directly related to the decade and a half or so of cultural expansion lead by people who have chosen to rebrand Portland as a city of creative activity and action. These firms are following that workforce. Thus, this new surge requires the funding and civic investment for non-profit culture in Portland so the city can consolidate, reinvest and turn even greater profits.

It is equally true that Portland's funding needs to become more nimble at supporting independent curatorial activity and alt spaces (because THAT KIND OF NIMBLE/RADICAL ACTIVITY IS WHAT HAS CHANGED the city for the better into a creative's rebel base). Also, how do Mayoral hopefuls Jefferson Smith and Charlie Hales stand on this crucial topic of not only funding the arts but the crucial discussion of what kind of arts activity gets funded? Right now RACC is not really calibrated to the needs of the nimblest parts of the Portland arts community and I think a plan is required.

Ori Gersht gets a retrospective in Boston.

Nobody can accuse us of navel gazing. So, just before things really kickoff for the Fall in Portland art scene... the third time is the charm with the last of our Documenta 13 photoblog posts with photos by Portland's own Damien Gilley. You can find Part I and II here.



Fusun Onur's work comes with a handy name tag in case you were wondering who made this.





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Frank Lloyd Wright's David and Gladys Wright house is threatened

One of Frank Lloyd Wright's most unique designs (for his son David) is threatened in Phoenix Arizona. Sign this petition to save one of these Frank Lloyd Wright masterpieces from the wrecking ball.

Art Info has the story on the tragic (in many ways) modifications to one of Philip Johnson's most interesting designs the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library at NYU. Look there are better ways to save the integrity of this design.

The Chicago Architecture Club is looking for ways to save the excellent Bertrand Goldberg that Northwestern University wants to tear down.

All three of these structures are very important mid century structures that require much more respectful treatment.

Still from video documentation of Sean Carney's Abjackass

Almost as if to whet the city's palate in preparation for TBA, the White Box invites talented locals to fire away with pop-up-like shows/events each day this week. You might have already missed Lisa Radon today, but don't miss out on tomorrow's light workshop with Laura Hughes. Participants will be able to get their hands on some of the new phosphorescent materials she makes use of in her new work. With a depth of exploratory vision and a working knowledge of electronics, the clever Stephanie Simek presents a new sound experiment on Thursday. On Friday Wayne Bund performs as Feyonce, his queer appropriation of pop diva Beyonce. His character, the ephemera on view at Show and Tell, and his performance are intended to "challenge pop culture, radical feminism, and drag lineage"; it's a tough job, but someone has to do it. Then finally, on Saturday, catch some documentation of prior performances by the successfully abject Sean Joseph Patrick Carney and Michael Reinsch. Sean Carney will present video documentation of a 25-minute long performance that highlights the "links between the history of performance art and stunts by the members of Jackass." If you're faint at heart and looking to actually laugh while being challenged by popular culture, though, I would stick with the drag show.

Show and Tell
Featuring Lisa Radon, Laura Hughes, Wayne Bund, Stephanie Simek, Michael Reinsch and Sean Joseph Patrick Carney
August 21st - 25th | Performances 6-8 PM each night
White Box | 24 NW 1st Avenue


Katja Novitskova @ Appendix

With a remarkably up-to-date response to current events, Katja Novitskova is the newest addition to a brand new line of web releases from Appendix Project Space. Available to view online from tomorrow at noon through early September, Curiosity and Opportunity: Next Best Thing to Being There is a solo exhibition "in the form of a panoramic application. The resulting show features several existing objects and appropriated images that express the unity of art, technology and nature as form-finding processes based on curiosity and opportunity."

Curiosity and Opportunity: Next Best Thing to Being There | Katja Novitskova.
Opening at 12 PM, August 22nd
Appendix (via the web) | http://appendixspace.com

What? Charles Saatchi can't give away his collection... seriously small minded on the part of British institutions but a clear indication that he is doing the right thing! The stuff from the 90's - to say 2004 is certifiably classic. True, Hirst is perhaps no longer what he once was (that was by design being a YBA) but I can't think of contemporary art today without him and Tracey Emin and the rest of the gang.

Interesting story of a young artist broken by being a Jeff Koons' assistant.

Learn about Portland's classic Rummer Homes.


Detail of Yayoi Kusama's window at Louis Vuitton at Pioneer Square Mall

And last but not least... perhaps it is just a Louis Vuitton window display to advertise her line of handbags etc. but it is still badass, like Yayoi Kusama tends to be. I don't hang out at the Pioneer Square Mall much but this alone makes it worth the trip.

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Seven Works by Gerhard Richter at PAM, Grau (Grey) on the left (All works on Loan from the Nicholas Berggruen Charitable Trust)

Currently on view at the Portland Art Museum are Seven Works by the German painter Gerhard Richter, on loan from the Nicholas Berggruen Charitable Trust. The works are often monochromes, the most spectacular of which is Grau (Gray).

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Unlike New York, LA or London, Portland's gallery season starts on January 1st and ends on December 31st... perhaps because our excellent summers attract people from elsewhere while keeping us here? Instead, we tend to flee Portland's arch-soggy December through February months.

The first half of Portland's 2012 visual art season was a doosy headlined with a Mark Rothko retrospective that transformed the way a many Portlanders view its local art museum + civic cultural history. Also, the news that our alternative scene was worthy of international attention, leaving more traditional galleries in the dust was a wake up call. Why the galleries don't at least attempt to harness some of that energy in their inevitable summer and winter group shows like they used to... I'll never understand? I guess they think selling the same art to the same collectors over and over again is a good idea? Especially when new players keep moving here and begin looking for the action they read about but cannot be found in the Pearl District. C'mon you know I'm right, Portland is going through massive changes... act accordingly, there is a new set of waves to catch.

So what is in store for the second half?



At MOCC Design with the Other 90%: CITIES (Photo: (c) Haas & Hahn for favelapainting.com)

On Friday the Museum of Contemporary Craft fully morphs into the design museum a city full of designers calls for with Design with the Other 90%: CITIES. The show was organized by Cooper Hewitt and the Smithsonian making its only West Coast stop in Portland at MOCC and Mercy Corps.



Kara Walker, (detail) Fall Frum Grace, Miss Pipi's Blue Tale (2011), Courtesy of the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

On September 4th the Cooley Gallery re-opens with Kara Walker's More and Less. Featuring prints from Jordan Schnitzer's print collection and her latest film "Fall Frum Grace, Miss Pipi's Blue Tale" (2011). Walker will come to Reed to speak on October 2nd... you might want to take that day off to get a good seat!


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It may seem like PORT gives the city's Regional Art and Culture Council a hard time (we just want them to become ever more relevant to a city that has undergone huge cultural shifts like genre bending artists, the rise of nationally noteworthy alternative spaces and independent curators), but it is also true that they have upped their game considerably over the years. Join them for their annual Summer Celebration on the North Park Blocks on what may be the hottest day of the year. There will be ice cream, music and food carts etc. It is good idea to know your local art grants funding organization.

RACC's Summer Celebration Open House
5-8 PM Thursday August 16th
411 NW Park Avenue, Suite 101

The Guardian published a fascinating look at several Edward Hopper locations as they are today.

Slate has noticed how Portland's economy has picked up lately, mostly due to creatives laying the workforce groundwork and the fact that firms tend to follow the talent. This is just another reason we need to rethink how we support the arts on a civic level... i.e. making a point of celebrating and supporting "talent" and excellence for its own sake, instead of waiting for other cities to be better "first big step" advocates for our stand out residents (this means awards and media coverage, perhaps something the mayor's office could do to highlight talent?). Also, Portland is an incubator that attracts the rest of the world, therefore we need to start making innovation more important in our funding decisions. This means less focus on standard genre definitions and long teaching careers for grants/awards and more focus on experimentation including alternative spaces and independent curation.

Timberline Lodge is still looking good and the Oregonian did a piece with nice archive photos in preparation for its 75th anniversary next month. The structure is a WPA era crafts masterpiece and one of my favorite places on earth.

For five years, 50 shows and an obscene # of artists Worksound has been one of the pillars of Portland's arts community, providing a platform for artists from Portland and abroad that the commercial galleries and traditional non profits simply aren't adventurous enough to exhibit. This will be their last show in their current location. (BTW I am going to mention that spaces like this and Half/Dozen fall between the cracks of RACC's funding structures/strictures and as a city if we want to support/encourage their return in new even improved locations we should fix the issue). I'll have a little photoblog below of exhibitions I remember fondly in this original space. No altspace in Portland can boast the effect Worksound has had in bringing the world to Portland.

That aside, let's celebrate tonight with 3 shows: Empty Landscape by Cris Moss, Mermaid Blues by Hanna Piper Burns and WORKS by Carl Diehl. In addition Tim Sullivan and Chris Corrente will be broadcasting their What is Art? LIVE! show from Worksound tonight at 8:00. What is Art? LIVE? Is a Bay Area Art-themed TV show, performance piece, and video magazine that can be seen on SF Public Access(BAVC), You can stream it here.

WORKSOUND 820 SE ALDER. August 10th - August 30th. Opening: Friday August 10th 7PM


Here is a sample of what they have done over the past 5 years, let's continue this kind of experimental and challenging tradition:


Nathaniel Thayer Moss from May 2012's Perceptual Control show



Chinese artist Doris Wong (photo Jeff Jahn)

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The end-game picture at MOCA is becoming clearer and man is it a tough one. Bloomberg reports that Eli Broad has been purposefully missing payments to MOCA because the museum has 2.1 million dollars in unspent exhibition grant funds. Also, pledges from other funders are being witheld as well because Broad is perceived as too influential. It also indicates that MOCA will be announcing 2 major new board members. This is all very interesting because it shows how Deitch is in a major catch 22.

Analysis: Many assume that Broad is simply pulling all the stings but it is much more complicated than that, Broad is a former accountant and has strict guidelines. Unlike many I don't believe Broad is the real problem, Deitch is. Broad stepped in because nobody else would, but Deitch is trying to remake a museum without any finesse... Museum directors are all about smoothing things out. Instead, Deitch as a director has been brash yet dead in the water until he can activate the board and grow MOCA beyond Broad's life support. Attendance (which was at an all time high last year) is only part of a 3 legged solution and without the other 2 legs of board involvement and respect a museum cannot stand. It must annoy Broad to no end that the conversation always comes around to him and unless Deitch's major announcement of 2 board members changes that dynamic he is on borrowed time. Deitch has got 2 strikes already, the forced resignation of Paul Schimmel burnt the good faith with serious art patrons (the announcement of an eventual replacement for Chief Curator can't undo this breach of trust and seems diversionary) and the exit of Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari, Catherine Opie and Barbara Kruger struck at the founding principles of MOCA as an adventurous laboratory for artists. This founding principle has been what Deitch has been dismantling and the second it became obvious to everyone it was a big problem (Schimmel was the Deitch firewall).

Predictions: If Deitch survives by virtue of these two new board members (only through pumping in cash, i.e. millions in a long term gift) it will change MOCA into something different than it once was and it will be a desperate move (when isn't it with MOCA, Deitch's real job is to keep MOCA from being desperate like this). Yet if I were placing a bet the odds are 10 to 1 against Deitch because these board members will be seen as destroying MOCA instead of saving it by propping up Deitch with $$$. Let's see how this plays out... but I sense Deitch has seen this and has been building an exit strategy. When Deitch announces new board members... it either doesn't bring in enough cash or backfires as being seen as money vs. the founding artist's original intent. Either way Deitch ends up leaving because it is the only way to appease the now galvanized culture aficionados that Deitch has purposefully alienated (an exit strategy by blaming intellectual elites, how American!). Deitch's original plan as director could have worked but losing Schimmel made that impossible because he came to personally embody that contract between artists and the institution. Right now Deitch isn't being allowed to be Jeffrey Deitch in this situation and I see him as trying to save himself with both hands tied behind his back. He's never been an escape artist and the best thing for MOCA would be to bring in 2 new board members who are active and then leave. Those two board members could spearhead a new director search that is not driven by Broad (whom I actually think wants to not be responsible for such things, his appointment of Deitch was an overcorrection).

Two Portland grad students step right into the MOCA mess...

Does it bode well for Portland's CAN initiative up for a vote in November that suburban voters in Detroit have chosen to support a museum with a tax? If Detroit can do something surely Portland can?

For you quantum mechanics nuts out there, spooky action has been caught on camera for the first time.

Remote Events and Vanished Objects (Installation View)

This year, the Portland art scene's summer season is populated with many surprisingly tepid group shows yet somehow, Kyle Thompson and Caitlin Ducey's Remote Events and Vanished Objects at PSU harnesses the Northern Hemisphere's sunny season and bonheur de vivre with panache. The fact that everything on display seems emotionally distant and or actually directing our attention towards a place unknown and far away only re-emphasizes its sense that the gallery goer should be planning what to do when they get back outside into the sun and it is this existential negation of the gallery's built environment that makes this show stand out.

Sparse and visually rewarding, the installation at Portland State University's Littman Gallery judiciously allows each artist to provide only two pieces, then symmetrically pairs... (more)

Still from The Right Way (1982-3)

YU presents Fischli and Weiss' epic The Right Way on Thursday August 9th. Not certain why it is only going on for just one night but I've always loved this piece where Rat and Bear cavort in the Swiss Alps having a series of ambiguous yet morality tinged adventures. It is a bit like a Medieval passion play or Chaucer's The Canterbury tales as written by the very perplexing Purple Panda from Mr. Rodger's Neighborhood. Seriously, this is such a good piece it becomes a missed opportunity that it it is only on view for one night. I think Rat and Bear would feel the same way somehow... it is after all, The Right Way. Definitely go see this, too bad you cant see it multiple times at the same venue since it is the sort of thing that deepens with repeated viewings?


Screening: August 9th | 8:00 PM
YU Contemporary
800 SE 10th Avenue

There will be a review for you soon.

Till then, contemplate this "World Class" bit of Deitch damage control?

Bertrand Goldberg was a very interesting mid-century architect and his Prentice Women's Hospital in peril. It's the sort of building that could simply serve another purpose... I don't see why it is even being considered for demolition.

*Update: Robert Hughes has died at age 74... Often an excellent art writer, I preferred the first edition of his best book, "The Shock of the New," because the original ending was perhaps the best diagnosis of the art ecosystem's nagging issues since it first reached a critical mass of popularity in the early 80's. Here it is,

"The signs of that constriction are everywhere today - in the small ambitions of art, in its lack of any effort towards spirituality, in its sense of career rather than vocation,in its frequently bland occupation with semantics at the expense of the deeper passions of the creative self. Perhaps the great energies of modernism are still latent in our culture, like Ulysses' bow in the house of Penelope; but nobody seems able to string and draw it. Yet the Work still speaks to us, in all of its voices, and will continue to do so. Art discovers its true social use, not on the ideological plane, but by opening the passage from feeling to meaning - not for everyone, since that would be impossible, but for those who want to try. This impulse seems to be immortal. Certainly it has existed from the origins off human society, and despite the appalling commercialization of the art world, its flight into corporate ethics and strategies, and its gradual evacuation of the spirit, it exists today."

In many ways Hughes was wrong (probably why he revised that paragraph into a long and less pointed screed on art schools) but Modernism wasn't the answer, any more than Postmodernism was. In the 90's and Aughts Art has found a new (still somewhat shallow) fascination with the spiritual impulse... but his railing against the smaller aims of the art world compared to Art itself still has a lot of traction today. Think of the Deitch at MOCA dilemma or the moving of the Barnes Collection?

Timeshare at the Everett Station Lofts.

Last night I noticed that the Everett Station Lofts (which houses 13+ gallery spaces and has made significant contributions to the Portland art scene) might be taking an upswing with Timeshare Gallery after a few years of disappointing efforts. Sure, Half/Dozen leaving was a blow to the lofts but those spaces traditionally go through high and low tides and 2 years is a long time for any gallery at the ESL to stay open. Historically, Timeshare's unit, #114 has spawned some of Portland's all time best alt-spaces like Nil, Tractor and Field. Breezeblock and now Timeshare give me hope. A few other galleries on NW 6th seemed promising too... look sharp, we are watching.

The Portland Japanese Garden receives its largest gift ever putting it 1/3rd of the way to its 3 million dollar expansion goal, endowing a curator (programming is key). The expansion will be designed by one of the planet's very best architects, Kengo Kuma. It will be his first US project.

AFC reports that the Utah Art Center is facing eviction/censorship... I went to grad school in Utah (my god mother lives in Park City too) and yeah things like this happen all of the time in that state. Give the UAC a break... the world is starting to pay attention, perhaps that is the problem?

It has been a somewhat quiet week on the MOCA front with a few former board members speaking out on Facebook but MOCA Mobilization reached 1500 signatures on its petition for restocking the curatorial program, which was gutted at the end of June.

Tyler Green has been following the situation at the Corcoran, with the latest development being the DC DA looking at some of the legal ramifications of trying to move from the nation's capital to the suburbs.

At PORT, we try to keep Portland from navel-gazing... so here is some European style international navel-gazing from Documenta 13. In case you missed it part I is here. All photos by Damien Gilley



Sanja Ivekovic's The Disobedients (The Revolutionaries)... it is a series of stuffed animal donkeys with name tags of visionaries



Pierre Huyghe provides the requisite bee references...

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Ducey & Thompson @ the Littman Gallery

Caitlin Ducey is one of the curators of 12128 whose personal work lies somewhere in the sculpture and installation ballpark. In her collaboration with 12128 co-founder Kyle Thompson, the new exhibition at the Littman Gallery purportedly marks a shift in her use of material and process, though the direction of that shift remains a mystery. "Thompson and Ducey present pairings of works that stem from individual understandings of water as discrete material and as a massive entity. Their work is a response to the emotional reactions that are evoked by moving water, creating a wave-like space in which visceral impressions and quantitative analyses are equated with one another."

Remote Events and Vanished Objects | Caitlin Ducey and Kyle Thompson
August 2-29
Opening Reception | August 2nd | 5-8 PM
Littman Gallery | 2nd Floor of the Smith Hall @ PSU | 1825 SW Broadway


Evan La Londe @ The White Gallery @ PSU

A hop, skip, and a jump away at the White gallery, take a look at a new series of paintings by the talented recent PSU MFA grad, Evan La Londe. Evan's work (and the way its presented) tends to look like forensic scientists studying some trippy trompe-l'œils for clues to the unknown. "These images are full of ghosts, things I cannot name. Shadows reach back to the objects that threw them, but also to something else. The thing is, these shadows didn’t come from light; they’re painted, so they aren’t illuminations in the usual sense. Maybe they’re more like reflections, like moonlight. I discover them as I stumble through the dark." Let me know about the particularly mind-bending discoveries you find.

Them Brainwash Days, Those Heartache Nights | Evan La Londe August 2-29
Opening Reception | August 2nd | 5-8 PM
White Gallery | PSU Smith Hall, Second Floor | 1825 SW Broadway (More... Gabriel Liston @ Froelick and Jenny Ordell @ Breeze Block)