(teaser image)Apfelbaum (bg) All the Colors Under the Sun, Feher (fg)

Portland can be a difficult town for outsiders and this goes doubly true for traveling artists and curators who use their credentials like a calling card. Basically, Portlanders are very accepting but they don't accept received wisdom like other places do (it really does take 5+ years to build up your reputation here). Culturally this fact can make the city seem a tad like some lost island (full of dinosaurs or misfit toys, take your pick) but it also means it is a protective enclave for experimentation. That is what Lumber Room's mission has been... a kind of low pressure guesthouse for art and two recent shows by Tony Feher and Polly Apfelbaum allowed each to pursue their own brand of post-minimal/neo-formal exploration in separate shows. Both shows, by virtue of being "explorations" weren't their most memorable efforts but they were an unfolding of the creative process that would be put under a microscope more in New York or London. That is freedom... and important when developing new work. *Update, this tag team show is more successful than the individual solo exhibitions.


Dan Cameron

Which, is all to say that I'm curious what curator Dan Cameron will have to say at the opening of the new two person show opening Wednesday October 8th at Lumber Room? He's worked with both artists and Cameron himself has jumped around a great deal in various curatorial roles from New York to New Orleans and Southern California so it will be interesting to see what these three travelers discuss? Certainly there is a conversation between Feher and Apfelbaum's work centering around post-minimalism and neo-formalism, whether or not those terms apply personally to the artists.

Polly Apfelbaum Tony Feher | October 10 - November 22, 2014
Reception and Talk with artists and Dan Cameron: October 8 | 6-8PM
Lumber Room
419 NW 9th