The Portland Grid Project has been documenting Portland neighborhoods in the medium shot for 12 years. "In October of 1995, local photographer Christopher Rauschenberg took a pair of scissors to a standard AAA map of Portland and cut that map into 98 pieces. A group of 12 of the city’s best photographers all photographed one randomly picked square each month, using a variety of films and formats. It took nine years for this group (which included 15 photographers by the end) to finish taking pictures in all 98 Grid Sections of the city, by which time they had shown each other over 20,000 images, taken in every part of Portland."
Here is a chance to see some of the result. 7 august curators: Kate Mellor & Charlie Meecham (founders of the offshoot Bradford Grid Project in Yorkshire, England), Clint Willour (Galveston Art Center Director), and Stephanie Snyder (Curator and Director of Reed College’s Cooley Gallery), Jennifer Gately (Northwest Art Curator of the Portland Art Museum), Alison Nordström (Curator of Photography at the George Eastman House), and Ethan Seltzer (Director of the School of Urban Studies and Planning at PSU) have selected over 3000 images from the Grid's 20,000 plus images.
Included are the work of photographers Blake Andrews, Mark Barnes, Tom Champion, Dawn-Starr Crowther, Deborah Dombrowski, Lisa Gidley, Barbara Gilson, Bruce Hall, Ann Hughes, Tom Kearcher, Ann Kendellen, David Potter, Doug Prior, Christopher Rauschenberg, Shawn Records, Rich Rollins, Faulkner Short, Patrick Stearns, Paul Sutinen, Bill Washburn and Bryan Wolf.
This show is best seen in sessions. Each photographer has lensed highly individualistic samples of reality. Some of the grid spots are in the industrial fringes or in rural transitional areas which we don't contemplate or visit much. It is an inspiration to look anew at our own back yard.
More information on the project may be found at http://www.portlandgridproject.com/ Show at the Portland Art Center 32 NW 5th
The Office as Kitchen Sink at 520 NW Davis Itinerant Space
21 artist workteams have created installations, some participatory, in a vacant office space. Cubicle heaven or hell. This is the second Kitchen Sink, the first was held at a house in St Johns. Much more info at the project website. Artists include usual and unusual suspects: Your Fan For A Day. - The M.O.S.T.; ID Corp. - Gordon Barnes, Posie Currin, Shelby Davis, Amber Moss-Jensen, Mandee Schroer, Amy Steel; CUBE-ALICIOUS - Sarah Farahat, Al Larsen, Katrina Boemig, Bonnie Paisley; Free Association - JustDave, Lisa Maurine, Sarah Fask, and others; Circuit City - Emile Ward, Hope McManus, Philip Cheaney; A Cubicle Expressed - Renato Pereira-Castillo, Amy White, Archie Washington; Sex, Lies and Office Supplies - Hannah Fischer, Jason Giglio, Ryan Swanson; E.A.N. (Exterior Area Network) - John Larsen, Walter Lee, Scott Mazariegos, Vicki Lynn Wilson; Office Oasis -Todd Wilson; Kendall Holladay, Soft Rock Dee-Jay - Ted Theiman; Transfer - Heather Mackenzie, Elodie Goupil; Primordialoffice60000bcad - John Wagner, Heather Campbell, Drew Marshall; This Network Allows Us To Function Efficiently - Stephanie LeBlanc, Mia Nolting, Carl Alviani; POST-IMATION - Carlos Gonzalez; There Is No "I" In Team - Jess Hirsch, Sarah Goodchild Robb; What Work - May Juliette Barruel, Jennifer Dawson, Janel Golden, Sean Regan; Audible Apparitions - Jeremy Tucker, Matt Conner; Somnambulistic Activators - Petr Sorfa, Bruce Orr, Noah Mickens, Patricia Hall; Untitled - John S. Vitale; Red Collar, Inc. - Alicia Eggert, Maggie Casey, Andy Furgeson, Peter Valois, Anna Weber, Eliza Fernand; MARLCON- Leslie McCollom and Mariah Maines; Corporate Panhandlers - Philip Cheaney, Will Moore.
Especially notable installations include MARLCON, the clothing customization project, Circuit City, the gingerbread candy office and an office filled with ivy and a waterfall. The installations are interactive, bring a crowd of playful art friends.
520 NW Davis upstairs. There is an admission charge of $2-5 for Half and Half refreshments Until 11PM, Afterparty below at Someday.
See it with less crowd:
APR 6: Space open to public viewing, 6:00-9:00pm
APR 7: Space open to public viewing, 12:00-6:00pm
APR 8: Artist talk and critical discussion at gallery space, 12:00pm
Natural World Specimen Photographs at Pushdot
Post Renaissance Europe spawned a leisure class. Many occasioned to travel, later day Marco Polo's, collecting and documenting the strange nature, flora and fauna, of the world. Amateur scientists, for the love of it. In the mode of their specimen drawings presaging photography, "Life, Forms" documents precious nature, in intimate close up. Photographs by Kirby Jones Pushdotstudio.com 830 NW 14th
Aerial Photography at PDX
Terry Toedtemeier is a sage landscape photographer in the Ansel Adams-fine print world. He is an amateur geologist too. Hawaii to the Owyhee: A Bird's Eye View, his new works are aerial photographs, once exotic, but now in Google world, an increasing part of our visual lexicon. See Toedtemeier's birds' eye view of Oregon and Hawaii in this show. http://www.pdxgallery.com/ 925 NW Flanders closes at 8:30PM
Still Life Group Show at Pulliam Deffenbaugh
Still life's stillness advantages painting and photography's long exposure drying times. No models to pay either. It is the crucible of learning for many an artist. This still life group show in multiple media combines locals with big names: Uta Barth, Thomas K. Conway, Morris Graves, Richard Hoyen, Isaac Layman, Laura Letinsky, McDermott & McGough, James Martin, Jeffry Mitchell, Vik Muniz, Raymond Pettibon, David Rosenak, Jay Steensma, Wolfgang Tillmans, Andy Warhol. It's an opportunity to see a lot of work in one spot, informing your own still life aesthetics. http://www.pulliamdeffenbaugh.com/ 929 NW Flanders closes at 8:30
Digmeout Strikes Again at Just Be Toys/Compound Gallery
Girls from Strange Forest are illustrations by Osaka-Kyoto artists Siori Kawamoto and Cho-Chan, part of the awesome digmeout.com project. www.compoundgallery.com
107 NW 5th
Mear One Painting at Upper Playground
Mear One shows "Manifest Energy and Radiate" surreal crossed visionary graf outsider style paintings. It might be a good idea for this show to be a hallucinogen free zone. Mear One paints live too 7-8 at the opening. Fifty 24PDX at Upperplayground.com 23 NW 5th
Keys Open Doors at Ogle
"Keys Open Doors" is a collaborative effort between Caleb Freese and Justin Gorman. They are urban landscapes with silk screened layers over them. Recommended at Ogle 310 NW Broadway
Heavy Indian art at Quintana
Quntana Galleries amps it up with "Expananded Perception", Indian art in mixed media. The strongest contemporary work in the show are portraits of Apaches with handguns on skatedecks by Douglas Miles entitled the "Peacemaker Series". http://www2.blogger.com/Quntana%20Galleries%20amps%20it%20up%20with 120 NW 9th
Abstracts in Natural Materials at Augen
Augen shows abstract paintings by Ian Boyden themed "Shorelines". The artist uses old school methods to make his own pigments from natural materials such as cinnabar, carbon and cuttlefish ink. Sublime refined abstraction. http://www.augengallery.com/ 817 NW 2nd
The Everett Station Lofts - recommended exploration without expectation.
Surreality and Gypsies at Blue Sky Gallery; Nine Wired
Nine is the conceptual gallery space within Blue Sky. Tonight it is filled with small wire sculptures, some kinetic, by Christine Clark. The work is a fine example of simple materials used to the ultimate advantage. It's playful and serious at the same time.
Wolfgang Zerborn shows surreal photographs of our urban reality. Doubly ironic in light of current events and pop culture, themselves surreal. The photographer notes: "Normally, we would hardly take notice of many of these objects, which appear insignificant and banal to us. Torn away from their purely functional context, in fragmented form, visually compact, they take on such a highly sensual aura, that they develop deep associations for the observer. We don’t look at things. Things look at us." So maybe the same could be said of our realitysphere. Andrew Miksys, from Lithuania, shows portraits of Gypsy's, capitalized. This show, titled "Baxt", is the Gypsy word for luck, fate, destiny, karma. The history of photography in the Soviet Union, now former, is essentially the history of photography in Lithuania. Blue Sky has maintained an historic relationship with Lithuanian photographers, giving us an eye into another world. 1231 NW Hoyt
