portland or us now: April 2006

Thursday April 6, 2006

6:00PM First Thursday Art Gallery Openings @ Downtown Portland

You have before you Portland's art opening night. A night where bankers' hours galleries, Tue-Friday, noon to 5, fling themselves open till 8, 9, 10, even 11. Whew! All free, sometimes with free drinks and snacks, though that's more often found to ply the preopenings' collectors.

Blue Sky shows "Waiting for the End of the World", images of underground survival shelters by Richard Ross. Atomic age backyard fallout shelters; Beijing's tunnels replete with barbershops, stores and shrines; the secretly constructed shelter at West Virginia's Greenbriar Hotel http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/sfeature/interview.html, designed to hold the entire US Congress, are documented. Also included are examples from Switzerland, where each family is required, by law, to maintain a survival shelter.

The somewhat surreal world depicted represents the power of fear. That time has been replaced by CNN's micro-now feed, yellow alerts and an endless war on terror - a Brave New World/1984 made real - overstimulating our flight or fight reflex, to exhaustion. How nostalgic today, seems the possibility of nuclear annihilation, by evil Soviet submarines off our fair coasts, always 15 minutes, the time of a kiss, away.

With Johannes Hepp, panoramic photographs, documenting the locations today, seemingly normal, of previous terrorist attacks. This material is too close to me. Sorry.

til 9:30PM www.blueskygallery.org 1231 NW Hoyt

Pulliam Deffenbaugh shows work by artists new to the gallery: Yoshihiro Kitai, Sian Oblak and Kathryn Van Dyke. Van Dyke updates the drip painting with a style at once cool, reserved but also deeply affecting. Sian Oblak's deconstructed imagery balances detailed rendering, irregular soft color shapes and white space. She samples specific classical paintings, but the resulting work is solidly her own. Yoshihiro Kitai's training in printmaking is applied to Japanese flavored minimal sort of landscapes. closes early first Thursday, about 8PM www.pulliamdeffenbaugh.com 929 NW Flanders

Rake Gallery presents a group video show "Out of Sync", in collaboration with the 4th Portland Documentary and Experimental Film Festival. Included are the works are Holly Andres, Ian Coronado, AGF.3 + SUE.C, Carl Diehl, Disjunct, The EarthwUrms, Ogo Eion, Jesse England, Alex Felton, Shawna Ferreira, Emily Franz, Colin Ives, Jo Jackson, Alex Mackenzie, Mack McFarland, Gabe Parque, Tom Sherman and Stephen Slappe.

Andres, 2006 PAM biennial artist, taps into her world of growing up a girl. Ferriera, recent PNCA grad, covers her personal territory, abstracted, very abstracted, and challenging. Jo Jackson, http://www.jackhanley.com/id203.htm, nee SF artist, transfers her sharp eye, now, to Portland.

And in the most brilliant Portland DIY coup to date, Rake is sending the work of five of its artists: Jeremy Tucker, Brian Mathes, Michael Wilson, Michaela Endo and Rachel Allen to China http://www.rakeart.org/gallery_chinaevent.php.

Rake Art Gallery until about 10 rakeart.org 325 NW 6th

Elizabeth Leach Gallery presents Fresh, work by Chandra Bocci http://www.chandrabocci.com (Portland Art Museum 2006 biennial selectee), Sean Healy http://www.elizabethleach.com/Artist-Detail.cfm?ArtistsID=37, Kristan Kennedy http://www.elizabethleach.com/Artist-Detail.cfm?ArtistsID=83 (PICA art program curator), Melody Owen http://www.thistlepress.net (current Alfred University MFA candidate), Daniel Sturgis, Amanda Wojick, http://www.elizabethleach.com/Artist-Detail.cfm?ArtistsID=139 U of O sculpture professor (2004,2006 Portland Art Museum biennial selectee ) and others.

Bocci incorporates materials from our- my- your- waste stream into artworks. Owen, U of O grad, now at Alfred U, creates the sweetest minimalist work, such as her room filled with hummingbird feeders and her illuminated igloos. Wojeck samples materials such as those pick- a- color- paint chips into sculptures. The gallery also shows new work by Matt McCormick, Signs, in its streetside video window

See this show. Elizabeth Leach Gallery until 9PM www.elizabethleach.com 417 NW 9th

Is Kendra Binney the new Trish Grantham, with three shows in as many months, the hardest working artist in Portland? Binney shows sweet lowbrow-style portraits of wide eyed girls, in a double entendre, her subjects' eyes are set wide too. At Vino Paradiso until 11PM www.vinoparadiso.com 417 NW 10th

Augen Gallery presents samplings of lace by Todd Johnson http://www.augengallery.com/Artists/johnson.html . Johnson represents a flavor of intellectual sampling which ranges across the board of source material. This show covers lace stark white, against a black background. Augen Gallery until 8:30PM www.augengallery.com 817 SW 2nd

Allison Edge shows "you're the one for me", finely detailed drawings of kittens and boys http://www.motelgallery.com/gallery/april2006/main.html . Perhaps the common thread is that neither can be counted upon to always do the expected, but do it often enough to admit the possibility. Motel Gallery until 9:30PM www.motelgallery.com NW Couch between 5th and 6th across the street from Ground Control.

The Everett lofts bounded by Everett and Flanders, Broadway and 6th NW will no doubt have something to see. until about 10 Rumor has it that fire performers will be showing their art on the street.

Blackfish presents time variable sculptures incorporating industrial materials and vegetation by Stephan Soihl. Soihl speaks at the gallery April 29 at 2PM. Blackfish Gallery till 9PM www.blackfish.com 420 NW 9th Avenue

This is too beautiful not to just reprint: "When Hope Hitchcock was but a young lass she sat in a small cafe with her parents and pointed to a window in the old brick building across the street. "That's the apartment I'm going to live in someday," she said, waving her fork over eggs B arnaise. Eleven years later she moved to Portland and right into her dream. Now this third generation artist and calligrapher pays homage to the building with our April exhibit, L'Appartement.

Hitchcock recreates the bizarre intimacy of strangers' lives stacked together with intricate drawings and portraits of her neighbors. Calligraphy samplers, tiny hand made residents and embroidered paintings divulge the secrets of one lovingly haunted Portland apartment building." Work by Hope Hitchcock at Reading Frenzy until about 9PM www.readingfrenzy.com 921 SW Oak

Laika, the first dog in space, is the improbable name of the former Vinton Studios. Laika After Hours is a show of the personal work of the artists at the studio. Compound Gallery until 9:30PM

www.justbedesign.com 107 NW 5th Avenue

Chambers Gallery presents paintings on wood panels by tattoo artist Peter Archer. Chambers Gallery til 9 www.chambersgallery.org 207 SW Pine

Sean Croghan, Portland musician, the consummate insider, has lived his entire life in here. So he has had a lot of time to think about rain and depression. The result are outsider folk art style paintings of concepts for tattoos, uniquely Portland. Valentines til late 232 SW Ankeny

Portland Art Center presents 'Boredom: I learned it from watching you", a group show curated by Josh Arseneau and Gabriel Flores. I've no idea of the work, but the title is a close runner up to the description of the last show at Valentines by Zach Margolis. Portland Art Center til 10 portlandart.org 32 NW 5th

PNCA presents the NEXUS IV show, an open hanging of PNCA graduates. In the past they have had 60-80 artists - that's quite a slice of Portland's art world in one place. The show will be in the library gallery. Pacific Northwest College of Art til 9

www.pnca.edu 1241 NW Johnson

Friday April 7, 2006

6:00PM-9/10ish Art Openings @ Portland's East Side

Cecilia Cannon shows mosaics of broken glass. If you have ever been involved in a serious car accident, you know how the precise curvilinear contours of tempered glass can be, in a subinstant, transformed to a million jagged pebbles. I've had one under my skin for a time. Cannon collects glass of all types from the streets and creates standalone pieces, and also icons, incorporating her painted imagery. For icons she chooses saints of resonance as subjects. The ultra personal folk art of icons, now old enough for the materials' crackle and craze, cleaves to Cannon's broken glass surrounds and perspectivelessness outsider painting style. Perhaps we long for the icons' era of simplistic focus, perhaps today, it has been replaced by a focus on media icons.

New American Art Union Until about 10 www.newamericanartunion.com 922 SE Ankeny

Yoni Kifle shows Polaroid's. American icon Polaroid http://www.polaroid.com/, founded by 17 year old Harvard dropout Edwin Land, went bankrupt too soon to be purchased by foreign buyers. His chemistry-based instant photography has been replaced by electronic, messaging, mobile and instant instant instant imaging. Polaroid's seemingly old timey clunky mechanical shutters and peel apart pos/neg represent a kind of old school magic, particularly their 22x30 inch camera of ultrareal resolution.

Kifle produces portraits, manipulated and not, documenting his friends, the national tour of his friends' band, and the band's friends on the road. Kifle also shows passport style portraits at Reading Frenzy next month.

Yes 811 E Burnside

Denwave, bereft Rachel Allen, who reclaimed the Fix name, elsewhere covered (Rake-China), shows Dan Ness' worldwide tour of lost pet posters. Painter Ness is known locally for working from found photographs. Midmonth, Denwave's show will switch to Ness' around the world candy wrappers verses cigarette wrappers work. See this.

Denwave 811 E Burnside

LA-based Michelle Blade http://www.oragamibunny.com/ , presents Drift, Wander, Migrate, Motel-material paintings and illustrations on the aforementioned theme. Blade is inspired by myth and old wives tales=sometime-knowledge of Russian, Hungarian, Indian, Mexican and Native American folktales and aesthetics. Her show telegraphs Portland's wider art networks and should prod Portland artists to reach out, in turn, to other cities.

http://www.renownedgallery.com 811 E Burnside

Redux presents Jenna Dibble, Jason Radies, Theo Fanning and Gregory Hanson. (Completely outstanding at this gallery-store are soda can pop top key woven purses from Brazil..) This little (really little) store stands for furnishings and decorative items from recycled and found materials. Their art is the same. My aesthetic is more clean and minimalist, nonetheless, the art work here represents a good cross section of what psychological impact is possible with found object - mixed media artwork.

www.reduxpdx.com 811 E Burnside

Light Leak is a show by photographers who meet monthly to share work and provide feedback to one another. Did I mention that it's free? This show includes Bobby Abrahamson, Chris Bennett, Lyla Emery Reno, Faulkner Short, Gretchen Vaudt and Bryan Wolf. The second half of this group of twelve shows next month. New Space Photo til 10 www.newspacephoto.org 1632 SE 10th

The Woolley Gallery Wonder Ballroom branch shows paintings by Dan Ness, who is also opening at Denwave.

6-10PM www.wonderballroom.com 128 NE Russell

7:30PM Photographer Richard Ross Talk @ Blue Sky

Richard Ross, showing photographs "Waiting for the End of the World" at Blue Sky Gallery (see April 7) presents a slide lecture of his work at the gallery. Blue Sky Gallery www.blueskygallery.org 1231 NW Hoyt Free

7:30PM Arch Republican, Kevin Phillips, Speaks on Loosing Faith @ Powell's

Author Kevin Phillips at age 27 created a realignment of American electoral politics by managing Nixon's 1968 election with a new Southern Republican majority. Previously the South voted Democratic. Phillips went on to become a conservative commentator and the intellectual architect of conservatism. In his new book "American Theocracy"

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/books/review/19brink.html?ex=1144296000&en=dbfb3d495a33e30b&ei=5070

he presents a critique of the Republican Party as a "nightmarish vision of ideological extremism, catastrophic fiscal irresponsibility, rampant greed and dangerous shortsightedness". (NYT) Just what I've been saying! Regardless of your political views, Phillips talk should be interesting. Powell's Burnside www.powells.com 7:30 free

8:00PM BeNumbed Dance Performance @ IFCC

BeNumbed, a dance-performance art piece by Angelle Hebert and Phillip Kraft includes some well known Portland movers, music by Kraft and costumes by Elodie Massa. From the IFCC website: "Hebert and Kraft explore extreme states of sensory deprivation and saturation as both viewer and performer are subjected to a range of infiltrating sights, sounds, and smells. Afflictive imagery, inhuman costuming, and a raw soundscape of both live and recorded vocals create a world numbed by its own existence." reservations recommended 503-774-0997 ifcc-arts.org $10 working artists, $12 general 5340 North Interstate Avenue Repeats April 8, 9 at 8PM and April 9 2PM

Saturday April 8, 2006

9:00PM Tres Gone+Honey Owens @ Valentines

Tres Gone + Honey Owens perform improvisational music on guitar, stick and drums, with Owens making vocal sounds. Portland has lately developed a great ambient/ improv/ experimental/ electronica/ electroacoustic/ music community and this group exists in that world. Samples at www.tresgone.com Valentines 9PM 232 SW Ankeny

Sunday April 9, 2006

11:00 AM Crafty Wonderland @ The Doug Fir

How strange, at the book release party for "PDX Supercrafty" http://www.pdxsupercrafty.com/, hosted by the ultra cool Doug Fir Lounge, to see people knitting under kitschy thrift store lamps. They are back the second Sunday of each month. Crafters will have work for sale and a DIY zone is the place for you, supercrafter, to learn to make something new. Dawn patrol, catch some breakfast, then go to it 11AM-4PM. www.craftywonderland.com at the Doug Fir Lounge Free

Friday April 14, 2006

8:00 PM South Indian Dance @ Newmark Theater

Kalakendra presents a Bharatanatyam dance performance by the Shristi Company of India. There are a myriad of opportunities for dance study here in fair Portland, but in India, it is different. To study dance there involves immersing onself for months, if not years, into aruveda, yoga, philosophy and dance. It is all one. Bharatanatyam dance represents devotional dance and narrative, with the eye and hand movements retelling Hindu myth. http://www.kalakendra.org/flyer.html Tix are not inexpensive - $25 advance (ticketswest.com), $30 door and $15 Kalakendra.org members. PCPA Newmark Theater, 8PM

9:00PM Ingredients Music Video Competition @ Holocene

Ingredients 2006 is a challenge. Teams all have access to the same audio and video samples and 24 hours to make them into a 3-6 minute music video. The evening will be MC'd by Kelly and Jason of the Kelly and Jason show and by Koto y Soto

9PM Holocene www.holocene.org free

8:00PM Oslund+Company Modern Dance @ Imago Theater

Modern dance. Modern dance is one of those love it or hate it things. It's fuel, girls rebelling against ballet their parents chose for them. It's innovators, trying to express something in movement which cannot otherwise be communicated. You, the audience, just letting it wash over you, without trying to make a story. If you are a dancer, or have loved one, you understand. It is pure abstract emotion, emotional narrative. Choreographer Oslund presents "The Object of Unreal", "Crazy", "Awkward Duets" and "Further" by dancers Amber Baker, Rinda Chambers, Suniti Dernovsek, Margaretta Hanson, Faith Levine, Dana Loewen, Jim Mcginn, Keely Mcintyre, Eric Nordstrom and Joan Schott. Oslund, tapping modern dance's pioneers, such as Martha Graham (1894-1991) and Merce Cunningham (1922-) carries forth dances' abstract meditation on the body and movement. Costumes by Denwave/ Jackie O's Genevieve Dellinger. At Imago Theater, 17 SE 8th, across from KBOO and the Jupiter Hotel. Reservations, recommended, as the space is small, 503-221-5817 Repeats April 15, 8 and April 16, 7

Saturday April 15, 2006

6:00PM Toy Art Show @ Missing Link

Missing Link presents a show of custom toys and art: "a Symphony of Prosthetic Possibilities" by artists from across the world including Honk, Jessie Hernandez, LIV3R, Phuek, Motorbot, Charlie Alan Kraft, Daniel Damocles Wall, Sonny Sajadi, Doktor A, NVC Crew and others. Missing Link 6-10 www.missinglinktoys.com 3314 SE Belmont

9:00PM Life Size Interactive Coloring Book Installation @ Backspace

Blender Coop presentsa publishing event for "So Much Love in One Can", a coloring for a cause book for kids, and a bombed black book for their adults. It's a benefit for Posez's Graffiti Classes and the B-Boy BBQ. Mensen, Zees, Eos Montana and Ozzi Biasi create a live coloring book. Other graf artists are included in an installation. Music by Spun Academy, Newspeak and Sick Mediks. Backspace 9PM-1AM 115 NW 5th

Sunday April 16, 2006

2:30PM Bunny on a Bike Ride @ Union Station

I am sick and tired of people who are trying to corrupt our traditional American values of paganism by trying to take the bunny out of Easter. Let's get back to the true spirit of this holiday - candy! Here is your chance to strike a blow for the values of our founding fathers that made America great, like that eye on the pyramid. The 3rd annual Bunny on a Bike ride, strictly requiring a costume, departs at 2:30PM from Union Station 800 NW 6th. For details see www.redbatpress.com all ages

Wednesday April 19, 2006

5:00PM Artist Fellowship Award: Bill Will @ Kaul Auditorium Reed College

Whoa, fifteen years. That's the span of the Bonnie Bronson fellowship, a Portland thing. This year it's awarded to Bill Will. He has pursued a path of installation and art political, from his pay the rent position at OCAC. With galleries eschewing installation art, he and some other artists created their own gallery, the Nine Gallery at Blue Sky. Tonight, Portland Art Museum 2006 Biennial selectee Will reprises his work in a talk. Reed College Kaul Auditorium www.reed.edu 6PM Free

Thursday April 20, 2006

7:00PM Artist-Architect Maya Lin Speaks @ the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle

Chinese American artist-architect Maya Lin speaks. Of her I've written previously: "In an open competition, Lin won the commission to design the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC at age 20. She has continued to design elegant minimalist memorials and sculptures with emotional taproots miles deep, complementing her sublime architectural work. Lin was the subject of the Academy Award winning documentary 'Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision'". She is showing work at the Henry and working on a series of outdoor works, "The Confluence Project" www.confluenceproject.org, which marks points of the Lewis and Clark expedition with references to the native peoples and landscapes. Sadly Lewis, Clark, the original landscapes and the native people are too few with us today.

Kane Hall, the University of Washington www.henryart.org

Gold tickets (seating in the first ten rows): $40 non-member / $30 member

General seating: $25 non-member / $20 member / $10 student (with ID at Henry - one ticket per student)

Ticket sales begin March 20

Online: www.brownpapertickets.com

By Phone: 1.800.838.3006 (Brown Paper Tickets) or 206.616.9894 (Henry Art Gallery)

Friday, April 21, 2006

7:30PM Opening Reception for Maya Lin's Systematic Landscapes @ the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle

See April 20 for information on Lin. Members preview 7:30-9PM, Opening reception 9-11PM.

Henry members, FREE. $8, $6 students and seniors.

Sunday April 23, 2006

7:00PM Ira Glass @ First Congregational Church

Ira Glass, creator of radio's "This American Life" speaks. In our hyper competitive world of "reality" television, casting consultants, stylists, hair and makeup people lurk outside the camera range. It's only reality is its cheap production cost. In contrast, Glass represents the revenge of the losers. Whoever you are, Glass seems able to draw out a story, a story in which you are the hero. Glass speaks as part of the Wordstock program at 7PM at the First Congregational Church SW Park$20-25

Tuesday April 25, 2006

7:00PM Photographer Gregory Crewdson @ Reed College Vollum Lecture Hall

Gregory Crewdson, professor of photography at Yale will speak. Crewdson is known for his composed photographs, capturing a cinematic moment, with all the attendant emotional responses in the viewer, you, to what lead up to that moment, and what will follow. Crewdson may spend months constructing and lighting elaborate sets with a crew of production assistants on a sound stage, equally intensive in preparation are his outdoor shots, using the tools of the film industry such as crane shots. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/egg/210/crewdson/ Crewdson's high contrast lighting and control of color, particularly of skin tones, creates an image beyond hyperrealism http://www.sitesantafe.org/exhibitions/virtualgalleries/frcrwan/crewdsonqa.html, drawing the viewer in, irresistibly.

Crewdson has been very supportive of the careers of his students, rare in art's increasingly competitive world, and perhaps only matched by UCLA's Baldassari http://www.baldessari.org/. Crewdson is infamous for curating the show "Another Girl, Another Planet", in 1999 featuring his students. The show was roundly criticized as representing an unholy admixture of art, fashion and pornography by the New York arts establishment who dubbed it "panty photography" http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2479/is_4_27/ai_59877385 . It launched the careers of the six of his students, establishing a now well accepted vector in contemporary photography. An interesting question is whether the same work by male photographers would be accepted.

Locally, some of photographer Liz Haley's work explores similar psychological territory.

The Cooley Gallery, which opens part II of its Geffen Show April 11, includes seven examples of Crewdson's work. The gallery will be open from 5-7 before the lecture. Reed College, Vollum lecture hall. http://web.reed.edu/gallery/ 7PM Free

Wednesday April 26, 2006

7:30PM Documentary and Experimental Film Festival @ the Guild Theater, afterparty Holocene

The 4th Portland Documentary and Experimental Film Festival opens with Old Joy, a film about a camping trip, getting lost and the terrain of friendship. This story could only be set in Oregon and was filmed here with a small crew. The festival is the brainchild of filmmaker Matt McCormick, whose aesthetic informs the work selected. It could be dubbed shoegazer cinema, but it is much more, like the impact of a sneaker wave amid a seemingly calm sea. http://www.peripheralproduce.com/pdxff06_schedule.php 7:30 Guild Theater $7, $6 FilmCenter/Museum members $35 festival pass.

No festival would be complete without the afterparty. This one is an opportunity to talk with the filmmakers and fellow Portland artists and visitors. The event also features a performance- sound- video- installation by White Rainbow. Free with festival ticket otherwise $5 Holocene

The festival continues April 27,28,29 and 30, with a closing night party at Valentines and will be blogged at URHO

7:00PM Artist Driscoll Reid @ Office

Driscoll Reid shows paintings and drawings at this sweet store holding out a mid century modern aesthetic against Alberta's aesthetic sampling of the Oregon Country Fair. 07.00.pm - 09.00.pm www.officepdx.com 2204 NE Alberta St

7:30PM Author Peter Matthiessen @ Schnitzer Concert Hall

Peter Matthiessen, author and naturalist, speaks. Matthiessen founded the Paris Review in 1953 and has authored about 30 books, fiction and non-, spanning the world. He combines a Zen Buddhist sensibility with deep research to create exquisite literature. Portland Arts and Lectures $25 Schnitzer Concert Hall 7:30

Friday April 28, 2006

10:30AM Tokyo Design Revolution Conference @ PNCA

The second instantiation of the Tokyo Design Revolution in Portland happens at PNCA.Last year's lecture by John Jay and Teruo Kurosaki was electrifying. 10:30Am to 9PM http://www.pnca.edu/pdf/tokyoflow.pdf

Saturday April 29, 2006

6:00PM PNCA Fundraising Party @ PNCA

PNCA throws a fancy fundraising party. You would think that with the school's tuition, they would be swimming in cash, but this is far from the case. Look for this school to launch an MFA program within the next 2 years and possibly move to a larger brand new building in the future. Proceeds from this event support the school's scholarship programs and the creation of a new Global Studios program. The party features a guaranteed ultra-tasty sit down dinner by the Art of Catering. music by the Portland Taiko and dancing later with W+KTokyo LAB breakbeat DJ's KEIZOmachine! and Juicy http://www.wktokyolab.com/hifana/. Dinner 6PM at Ecotrust $250, Party 8:30 on $20 students, $40 general, $100 patron at PNCA.

11:00AM Henry Art Gallery Free Day @ Henry Art Gallery, Seattle

Seattle's, Henry Art, on the campus of the University of Washington campus is free to all. Have a great time exploring art at the Henry, from the colorful prints of Roy Lichtenstein to the monumental sculptures of Maya Lin. Children of all ages are invited to look at art, take family-friendly tours, make art, listen to live music in the Sculpture Court, and enjoy special treats. 11 AM - 3 PM FREE

Sunday April 30, 2006

9:00PM Church of Psychedelia @ Holocene

This monthly, with its namesake ambient music is free

Welcome readers. Long ago, 1919, amid the ashes of World War I, in Germany, a little school was created called the Bauhaus. Beautiful art, design and new architecture would be created for all the people. It would be affordable and inspiring. It would create a new optimism. It was not however consistent with the atmosphere of fear and chauvinistic heroicism to which the arts were bent by Adolf Hitler. The school was closed in 1933. Many of the Bauhaus teachers fled the country

Renegade academics in the US established the experimental Black Mountain College in a small town in North Carolina. Bauhaus teachers, Josef and Anni Albers joined the school. The college closed in 1956, but the ferment of collaboration of the school continues to echo through the world's art and culture.

Who was there? Robert Rauschenberg, artist who brought visual sampling into modern art. John Cage, who brought random processes into making music. Harvard dropout Buckminster Fuller who created the first geodesic dome at the school, later inventor and futurist who argued that all the material needs of the world's people could be easily met by a fair distribution of resources and sustainable development. Merce Cunningham, dancer and choreographer who decoupled the musical accompaniment from movement in modern dance. Max Dehn, mathematician and pioneer of group theory, and an influence on Fuller. Architect Walter Gropius, from the Bauhaus, who designed the first suburban ranch house, perversely fulfilling the Bauhaus credo; Gropius also taught at Harvard and designed New York's Pan Am building with Portland architect Pietro Belluschi. Composer Lou Harrison, Portland born, who pioneered using the Indonesian gamelan and other traditional Asian instruments in contemporary music. Charles Olson, the creator of postmodern literature and poetry and huge influence on the Beats. Sculptor-engineer Kenneth Snelson, inventor of tensegrity, structures created by the dynamic between rigid elements and elements in tension. Film director Arthur Penn. The school was home to or hosted lectures by many who later became key figures in the creation of abstract expressionist painting and other modern art styles. These include Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Franz Klein, Jacob Lawrence, Ben Shahn, Jack Tworkov, Clemmet Greenburg, MOMA's Bernard Rudofsky, John Chamberlain, Cy Twombly and Ray Johnson. Albert Einstein lectured there as well.

Black Mountain College. A time-place where creative people met, collaborated, exchanged ideas, had fun. They did not know that they would later be the leaders of new creative movements in all fields.

Black Mountain College, then, is Portland, now. From Portland's creative ferment, the great leaders of tomorrow will emerge, people who will change the course of history.

This blog is a selective list of art and cultural events in and about Portland. They represent my view of good work, they represent a place to meet other creative people and engage in conversation. Often they are both. Or sometimes they are just plain unusual events which may spark a new creative vector.

portland or us now

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

More April Art

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Some Events April 6-30

Portland Now

About Me

Links

Blog Archive