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Portland art blog + news + exhibition reviews + galleries + contemporary northwest art
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Saturday 08.31.13 Yoonhee Choi at Blackfish Most art today is very goal oriented... so much so that it discovers nothing so much as the outcome it proposed from the outset (which is usually a secret handshake for some subculture acceptance rather than a personal exploration). In short it "belongs" to a discreet discussion or group rather than extend its orbit and relevance. This is a narrowing of Art's capabilities, which is a parochialism and I find it too linear. It is just too predicated upon finding or attracting an defined audience or peer group (which has already been isolated by much more savvy marketers in the non art world). Whereas, the truly great stuff just sits outside the standard definitions and doesn't need to draw a crowd. It is neither trying to be professional, nor is it fitting in... it simply persists in its exceptionalism. Besides, the problem with goals is that they typically shut down the process right when it could become interesting and unanticipated. In short, to quote the late Robert Hughes art should be an avocation not a vocation.
Mooring (detail) In contrast to the parochials, Yoonhee Choi is an artist who is all about distilling the immediacy of the moment with a kind of designer's shorthand. It is stripped down with an elegant urgency and as such her work is a sensitive instrument of the present... (more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on August 31, 2013 at 11:03 | Comments (0) PermalinkMonday 08.26.13 Hsueh Wei at Linfield College  Hsueh Wei's Cupping #1 The Linfield Gallery presents Hseuh Wei from Taiwan August 26 - October 5. Wei's work explores visual culture from both Eastern and Western perspectives and driven by an innate sense of curiosity as expressed through photography. The PR promises, "The exhibition will host four series by Wei that explore Eastern and Western cultural paradigms. In the project 'Transparent or Not' and in the pieces 'Oceanic Advertisement' and 'Spirited Frame of Mind for Everyday Travel,' Wei uses visual culture as a tool to explore Eastern and Western cultural paradigms, and photography as a tool to understand representation, subjectivity, collective expression, individual choice and freedom within a global context." Opening & Artist Talk: September 4th (opening 6:00, talk 7:00 at Delkin Hall) James Miller Fine Arts Center, Linfield College Posted by Jeff Jahn on August 26, 2013 at 11:02 | Comments (0) PermalinkFriday 08.23.13 Venice Biennale 2013 Part III Summer is winding down and August is a good time to visit other parts of the globe and get a little perspective before what looks like a very busy Portland September. Here is Part III of Mack Mcfarland's photo tour of the 2013 Venice Biennale. You can find parts I and II here.
 
Representing Canada Shery Boyle's The Cave Painter features a mermaid in a grotto... which goes from slightly gothic almost cryptlike situation into a psychedelic Lascaux (all photos Mack Mcfarland) ... (more) Posted by Guest on August 23, 2013 at 18:44 | Comments (0) PermalinkFriday Links We will have more Venice coverage later for you Saturday (photo posts take a lot of work) with some epic reviews and interviews next week till then here are some links:
I've long felt that artists of all sorts need to pay more attention to neuroscience... here is a serious read on the nature of consciousness. What to do with DC's old library by Mies? Portland photographer Christopher Rauschenberg is caught up in the difficult task of sorting out his father's estate. Chris, man... don't let it get you down, it is just a distraction of course. To most people's eyes this seems like such a greedy, petty thing (a lot of family's go through this but few end up in the New York Times). Let's not dwell on the negative news... the new Captiva residencies the Rauschenberg Foundation have ushered in are exciting. Check out these larger scale architectural installations made of wood. Posted by Jeff Jahn on August 23, 2013 at 11:31 | Comments (0) PermalinkThursday 08.22.13 Openings & Events | August 22 - 25 
THE PROJECTS THE PROJECTS is a festival of experimental comics and narrative arts, happening at the IPRC and other locations from August 22-25 2013. There will be 4 days of workshops, exhibitions, panels, performances, projections and projects. HERE is the program. The festival is a free event seeking to leave behind the flat model of comics as commerce. Check it out ! THE PROJECTS | festival of experimental comics and narrative arts August 22 - 25, 2013  Cameron Soren & Melissa Sachs Cameron Soren & Melissa Sachs present Weepy Donuts, the result of their art "jam sessions". On a Wacom tablet, lying down in bed, high on Kratom (Southeast Asian plant, when consumed in tea, similar effect to morphine), they produce "paintings". The artists seek to "pick up the viewer" by escaping into a drug-induced pod and looking inward. Weepy Donuts, the Kratom Kids | Cameron Soren & Melissa Sachs Opening | August 23 | 8 - 11:30 PM Appendix Project Space | South alleyway off of NE Alberta St. between 26th and 27th Aves in Portland, OR. & there's an exciting talk on Sunday too ! Posted by Emily Cappa on August 22, 2013 at 9:31 | Comments (0) PermalinkTuesday 08.20.13 Hirst's Castle  Damien Hirst's Shark at the Met Hyperallergic has a nice bit on Damien Hirst's new studio and gallery called Science. To me the clinical white spaces are almost a caricature of Chelsea gallery spaces and that is what is interesting here (and I suspect that is part of Hirst's lasting importance... his shark is a brilliant caricature of the art presentation experience). Will this be a kind of punctuation point that marks the end of an aesthetic for presentation of art? Possibly... I do expect it will go on for many hundreds of years since so many new museums have been built in the same style. Still, I wonder what else could be on the horizon... earthen huts, goats grazing atop galleries, termite designed museums or that antidote to science... a wizard's tower? Maybe just a pile of money? I'm still a big fan (mostly the early stuff but the diamond skull too) but can Hirst pull a Judd? Posted by Jeff Jahn on August 20, 2013 at 11:39 | Comments (0) PermalinkMonday 08.19.13 Monday Links Brian Libby surveys an exciting new project, Union Way... whose design creates a handy new street between the Ace Hotel and Powells books.
ArtFCity had a great roundup of the Day For Detroit posts last week (I was taking an internet break). Overall, it a deplorable situation where the public could be swindled of their cultural patrimony. Everyone is watching this. RACC is assessing and restoring 3 iconic public sculptures, including Portlandia. Posted by Jeff Jahn on August 19, 2013 at 12:15 | Comments (0) PermalinkThursday 08.15.13 Openings & Events | August 16 -18  Quality is Contagious: John Economaki and Bridge City Tool Works Drawing on his background in industrial design and knowledge of construction needs, Jon Economaki established Bridge City Tool Works in 1983. Using digital technology and his knowledge of industrial design he created tools to be passed down from generation to generation. The company's process and finished products from the past thirty years will be on view for the first time. Quality is Contagious : John Economaki and Bridge City Tool Works August 16 2013 - January 18, 2014 Museum of Contemporary Craft | 724 NW Davis St Portland, OR, 97209  GLEAN GLEAN seeks to get people to think about their consumption habits and consider the waste we generate. Each year, five artists are chosen and given a stipend of $2000 and six months time to glean materials from the dump and create ten pieces of art. This exhibition is the result of the process. & then in the Vestibule ... A new installation by Courtney Kemp . Through her work, Kemp seeks to familiarize her viewer with interior domestic spaces. Seeking to form and conjure up memories, each piece was created by following a fictional narrative. GLEAN | Crackedpots, Recology, and Metro AT THE ENDING, ON ALL CORNERS | Courtney Kemp Opening | August 16 | 6-9 PM August 16 - September 8th, 2013 Disjecta & The Vestibule | 8371 N Interstate Avenue Portland, OR 97217 & then there's more on Saturday ... Posted by Emily Cappa on August 15, 2013 at 20:13 | Comments (0) PermalinkTuesday 08.13.13 Venice Biennale 2013 Part II Without further adieu here is part II of Mack McFarland's pictures from the Venice Biennale (part I can be found here):
 The Indonesian Pavillion, Albert Yonathan Setawan's Cosmic Labyrinth: A Silent Pathway (FG), Entang Wiharso (BG), all photos Mack McFarland ...(more) Posted by Guest on August 13, 2013 at 13:13 | Comments (0) PermalinkMonday 08.12.13 Chris Johanson Book Signing 
Tomorrow night everybody's favorite lil art bookstore Monograph will host a party and book signing for Chris Johanson's new tome published by Phaidon. Unless you live under a rock you know Johanson's work from his early days in the Mission School/Beautiful Losers of San Francisco and numerous international biennials as well as being locally active. The work channels hippie ideals and 21st Century conscience that always makes me think of an updated William Blake for our times. Johanson's Apex show at the Portland Art Museum was perhaps the highpoint of that program, which has struggled to find an identity that is relevant both regional/international since. Chris Johanson Book Release Party & Signing | Free with a little music by Chris Monograph Bookwerks | Tuesday, August 13 from 6-9pm 5005 NE 27th Avenue at Alberta Posted by Jeff Jahn on August 12, 2013 at 11:19 | Comments (0) PermalinkThursday 08.08.13 Out of Town Openings | July 10th Get out of town on Saturday ... Lots of great things happening just outside Portland !
 Sandy Roumagoux Sandy Roumagoux's "paintings are her interpretation of the ever relevant paradoxes of faith, war, and nature". Her work explores "divine absurdities" and the duality of existence. Roumagoux has been Mayor of Newport since last November. Her work is politically charged because she cannot separate politics from art. Attempting to "challenge us to a responsiblity", she focuses on our cultures' "abuse of the environment, our love affair with greed, our throw away consumerism and our sanitizing of violence". As a successful artist she understands how much art positively influences a place and builds community. She compares being an artist to being a thrifty small business, and believes that artists have a lot to teach. An artist/mayor ! Roumagoux is the coolest mayor ! Roumagoux is the coolest artist ! Sandy Roumagoux exhibits New Paintings at KALA. Opening | August 10 | 5-8 PM | Astoria 2nd Saturday Art Walk August 10 - September 3 1017 Marine Drive in Astoria | Sats/Suns 12-4 PM  Nika Kaiser "In Nika Kaiser's video work, notions of a non-physical body are constant; human-like figures appear and transform cyclically, personifying the ghostly and the magical." Her exhibit Subtle Body is an exploration of all parts of a being, including those which exist before life and after death. The installation's use of projection allows for a sense of loss, fragmentation and repetition, as a human presence is created. Subtle Body : video installations | Nika Kaiser Opening | August 10 | 6-9 PM Ditch Projects | 303 S. 5th Avenue #165, Springfield, Oregon 97477 Posted by Emily Cappa on August 08, 2013 at 22:32 | Comments (0) PermalinkOpenings & Events | August 8th & 10th  Katie Yancey Katie Yancey's River is a Moving Body is an exploration of disconnect. Yancey works in video, photography, sound, and performance. Utilizing both digital processes and sculptural elements, she seeks to extend the dimensionality of digital information into the physical. Unnamed flowers call that of this morning's yellow McIntyre Parker (born 1984, California) lives in San Francisco & that's all I got :/ RIVER IS A MOVING BODY | Katie Yancey Unnamed flowers call that of this morning's yellow | McIntyre Parker Opening Reception | August 8 | 5-8 PM August 8 - 28, 2013 White Gallery: PSU Smith Hall, Second Floor | 1825 SW Broadway Portland, OR 97217 Littman Gallery: PSU Smith Hall, Room 250 | 1825 SW Broadway Portland, OR 97217  Mami Takahashi Maybe is a multi artist exhibit attempting to capture the magic of indecision and uncertainty. Maybe is existing in the unknown for as long as possible. "Maybe the exhibition is the result of an exploration? Maybe this exhibition is leading an inquiry? Maybe the viewer will decide? Maybe: an overabundance of (im)possibility." The artists are Mami Takahashi, Chloe Womack, Chris Freeman, Stacey Villalobos, Will Elder, Ebin Lee, (Maria) Petra Fortes-Shramm, Jakob Vala, and Katie Yancey interim series presents Maybe | curated by Mark Martinez Opening | August 8 | 6-9 PM Panel Discussion | August 10 | 4 PM Place | 3rd floor of Pioneer Place mall & Then on Saturday ! Posted by Emily Cappa on August 08, 2013 at 1:05 | Comments (0) PermalinkTuesday 08.06.13 Linkage Graffiti artists are incensed that their work was taken down to make room for gentrification graffiti for last year's Olympics in London.
A High School in Sandy is being recognized nationally for excellent design. I'm impressed... I gotta see this. Art Critical discusses Orly Genger's art intervention in a Manhattan park. The Brooklyn Rail discusses early Richard Serra and his connection to Bruce Nauman. Bloomberg weighs in on the unethical idea of pillaging Detroit's art treasures (held in public trust) to make token/insignificant dents in the city's debts. A James Turrell comic. It is an slightly older interview but Dan Cameron discusses the Pacific Rim biennial and proffers the idea that unless such a show is international it shouldn't be considered a bienniale. I see the argument for that as shows that don't cross borders (or cover a huge # of cities)tend to reinforce those borders and often fall into a role of using the art to ingratiate the institution upon the art art scene... rather than fostering a broader intellectual sense of investigation or being a prompt for curiosity. Basically, if it is too small... say 1-3 major cities it just becomes a small town affair mired in local tropes and politics (Portland 2012 Biennial, 2011 CNAA's). It stops being about the art and it is important to juggle and question the modalities rather than simply present accepted wisdom. Biennials typically fail when they become a predictable cavalcade of the already over familiar. Posted by Jeff Jahn on August 06, 2013 at 13:16 | Comments (0) PermalinkMonday 08.05.13 Kota Ezawa talk  As a component of PNCA's Boundary Crossings program exploring contemporary animation Kota Ezawa will be speaking at the Lumber Room tonight at 6:30PM (free). Noted for his wry South Park like animations derived from major contemporary news events, Ezawa explores the way all such events are abstracted depictions... revealing more about the ways these events are portrayed than the details behind them. Thus, he is a kind of animation formalist. Posted by Jeff Jahn on August 05, 2013 at 0:54 | Comments (0) PermalinkFriday 08.02.13 Precipice Fund open for applications 
Earlier this year PORT broke the story of PICA's Precipice Fund, which is specifically designed to fund more difficult to define, often alternative space projects that do not have a non profit organization supporting them. PICA is now taking applications for the first round of this project. You have until October 18th 2013 to get in on this round, good luck. Posted by Jeff Jahn on August 02, 2013 at 13:20 | Comments (0) Permalink |
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