May 25-June 15 PNCA Thesis Show

The PNCA thesis show opens after Sunday's commencement, 6ish, for the PNCA community, and stays up until June 15. The show represents the admixture of individuals' new arts thinking, the vibes of some long term instructors, and the influence of Portland's art and cultural vorticies. In the Stephens Building NW 14th and Johnson and in the main building NW 13th and Johnson. Open daytime hours and until 9PM on first Thursday. Free

May 23-26 Westside Invite 8

One of Portland's bike subcultures are the messenger-racers. Their mad annual invite comprises races of all stripes, day and night. It starts Friday with the Black Star Alleycat at 4. Saturday Coffee 'Cat earlyish, then on to Alpenrose or to the NW Messenger Homebrew Symposium. Sunday there is a huge race. Monday is rest and play day at Alberta Park. For details check with your messenger friends or Zoobombers.

May 23 At Gerding Theater: More Sustainable than Thou?

As part of an endowed lecture series, PNCA presents Susan Szenasy, editor of the smart architecture magazine Metropolis on Portland's place among sustainable city efforts. How do we measure ourselves?

Panelists Susan Anderson, Director, Portland Office of Sustainable Development; Greg Baldwin, Partner at Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects; Mark Edlen, Managing Principal of Gerding Edlen; Randy Gragg, Editor of Portland Spaces; and Scott Lewis, Founder and Principal of Brightworks respond to Szenasy's queries.

At the Gerding Armory Theater, NW Davis and 11th (Check the new landscaping along Davis!) 10:30AM-noon Free

May 22 Finding Lost Films at Disjecta

Last I heard Disjecta has been keeping its powder dry at a warehouse-studio space in Kenton. That is where the light rail meets Paul Bunyan. However tonight in the face of a stalled Burnside bridgehead and a not so great sales environment for multimillion dollar warehouses, they are back for a night in their old spot by the Burnside Bridge.

All the way from Philadelphia, Scott Beibin brings his Lost Film Fest of culture jamming shorts. VJ's will join in the mix.

At the old Disjecta, under the Burnside Bridge. 8:30PM Free
8:30 PM Doors / 21+ / Free

May 21 Portland Planning

Portland City Planning is considered a model for the nation. Our demographics, economics and the tradition of neighborhood involvement work with that. Tonight, Design Within Reach presents a discussion with Arun Jain, Chief Urban Planner at the City. Key challenges are where to grow and how to keep the city a place people want to live and work. Jain came to Portland in that role in 2003 with Ivy planning degrees and ten years of teaching at Berkeley. That could provide a unique perspective of where Portland planning fits in the world and the theoretical underpinnings of planning. At DWR, corner NW Everett and 12th. 6PM-8. Free

May 19 Karen Yasinsky Speaks at PSU

Karen Yasinsky is known for stop action animation, 2d and 3d. Hey Bent and Laika, what do you think of that? Past work has been a meditation on our domestic situation or remakes of classic film as animation. PSU Hall St Cinema 510 SW Hall 7:30PM Free

May 16-24 Milepost 5 Muli Artist Show

Demonstrating that real estate development may be Portland's surest arts funding vehicle, Milepost 5 opens a show by artists Chuck Bloom, Jennifer Mercede, Ephemeral Temple Ltd, Richard Schemmerer, Anna Todaro, Damon Ayers, Ryan Burns, Dan Ness, John Brodie, Josh Arseneau, Jason Graham, Katie Simpson, Richard Cawley, Jeremy Tucker, Together Gallery, Roxanne Jackson, William Shouse, Chris Haberman, Nikki Kress, Gallery Homeland, Tim Karpinski, Seth Neefus, Mark Warren Jacques, Julia Gfroerer, Todji Kurtzman, Charlie Alan Kraft, Carl Annala, Sarah Cruse, Amy Jorgensen, SD Elliott, Paul Middendorf, Ry Basko, Hart Ryan Noecker, Jeff Richardson, Jen Weshsler and Jaclyn Campanaro.

Each artist pretty much gets their own room. The work is varied. Some have made installations, there are paintings and even films. The space is so large you essentially have a private viewing opportunity.

Open May 16-24, 1-6pm
Reception: Friday, May 16, 7-11pm
Party: Saturday, May 17, 7-11pm with music by Boy Eats Drum Machine, Y La Bamba, Celilo, St. Frankie Lee.
Closing Party: Saturday, May 24, 7-11pm with music by Musee Mecanique, Per Se, Silverhawk, Invisible Rockets, St. Frankie Lee.
Beer for sale. All ages. Free

May 16 OCAC Thesis Show

Portland is an epicenter in the nexus between craft and contemporary art. The long operating Contemporary Crafts Museum is one reason. Oregon College of Arts and Craft is another. They have some serious foundation class instructors and an increasingly contemporary art oriented student base. Tonight you can see what they have been up to. Graduating students present their thesis work at Worksound Gallery 820 SE Alder. Opening 4PM-7 Regular hours Monday-Saturday noon-5. Free

May 16 Backroom Film Food

The Backroom Series of art talk over dinner is one of Portland's premier art networks. Stephanie Snyder Reed curator and more cohelms it with Mathew Stadler who is on a writing retreat in Mexico. Both are themselves network builders as well. So it is natural that the Back Room is collaborating with the Cinema Project this evening. Previous Backroom events have had a focus on tasty food harking to their Ripe family dinner roots. This one is BYO dinner, with an admission price to match the Cinema Project side of the evening, great value.

The Cinema project shows films (actual film films) In Between by
Stan Brakhage (!!), Visions of a City by Larry Jordan, The Man Who Invented Gold by Christopher Maclaine, The 40 and 1 Nights (or Jess' Didactic Nickelodeon) by Larry Jordan and Beat by Christopher Maclaine, Senseless by Ron Rice and Aleph by Wallace Berman. All the films have a relation to the current Reed show. Musical accompaniment by the Evolutionary Jass Band.

At Podkrepa Hall, 2116 N. Killingsworth. Doors 6:30PM, Films 7:30 $6

May 14,21,28,31 Tai Chi as Art at the South Waterfront

Portland artist Horatio Hung-Yan Law was born in Hong Kong and grew up in New York. Some of his work has included sculptures covered by innumerable grains of rice, jellybeans, lifesavers or m&m's. His art is idea filled, often dealing with the Chinese-American experience. As the West was developed with the first railroads, Chinese laborers were imported to do the work. Separated from their families, subject to harsh discrimination and worse, they transformed the West. What would have happened if they had arrived with families and had been fully accepted into American culture? Perhaps they would be a more significant part of Portland (as SF today and Vancouver). Perhaps today they would be filling our parks with tai chi play. As part of the South Waterfront artist in residence program, Law is offering free tai chi classes each Wednesday: May 14th, 10AM-noon; May 21st, 6PM-8; May 28th, 6PM-8. On April 31 he will stage a tai chi performance of 1000 individuals. Interestingly tai chi was developed for monks to defend themselves. It is the ultimate self defense, never attacking and using the attacker's force against them. It also works with the energy upon which Chinese physiology and acupuncture are based. How about a tai chi foreign policy? Something to think about.

To sign-up for the free classes, contact Horatio - horatiolaw@gmail.com. Big performance April 31, watch here for the time.

May 13 Pecha Cucha #3

Pecha Kucha is a smart show and tell of shorts. The first Portland instances of this international phenomena were held November 11, 2007 and February 11, 2008, and noted previously. Pecha Kucha's philosophy is that if you have something important to say, you can say it in under seven minutes with 20 images. To an extent, this philosophy parallels the slightly longer 20 minute TED talks. The earlier events were fascinating, and if one talk was boring, the person next to you was fascinating, probably from the architecture, design and culture thinker world.

Tonight's Portland Pecha-Kucha is at an itinerant space 34 NW 8th 7:20PM Free by donation

May 12 Architect Clopfil of Allied Works Speaks

Brad Clopfil, starting as a UO professor of architecture, has built elegant modern spaces, many commissions are arts museums or shelter creatives. I believe Allied works will stand the test of time, a cruel metric for architecture spanning decades, more even, of existence, and criticism. Works include the remodel of the Saucebox Bar, The interior of PDX Contemporary Art gallery, the W+K Building, The Maryhill Museum Overlook, The Seattle Art Museum, Museums in St Louis, Michigan, New York, a new Clyfford Still museum in Denver, two arts schools and a handful of private residences.

Tonight Clopfil is interviewed by Randy Gragg, noted local architecture and planning writer. Part of a series sponsored by the City Club of Portland and Portland Spaces Magazine. It's at Jimmy Mak's, 221 NW 10, 6PM Free

May 12 Edward Heap of Birds Speaks at PSU

Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds is a senior arts lecturer, artist and Native American. Multicultural art, 80's and 90's rage, and public art darling, operates within its own aesthetic(s). So just when you thought you had contemporary aesthetics figured, there are those worlds. Rarely do they overlap. In other words, neither would be considered aesthetically successful within the framework of the other. For a harsher view see Dave Hickey. Hachivi understands contemporary aesthetics, perhaps with this lecture he can explain the relationships to the multicultural aesthetic(s) world. He speaks at the PSU Monday lecture series. PSU Hall St Cinema, 510 SW Hall 7:30PM Free

May 10 TJ Norris at NAAU

TJ Norris opens his show INFINITUS - Tribryd Pt. III in the New American Art Union as part of the Couture'08 series. Norris is known for visual as well as sound work. He also wins the copywriting award of the month with this:
"'Infinitus' is a seamless, endless city….

Imagine the entire globe manifesting itself by its interconnected
man-made mini malls and the like. It is a viral sign, a shift towards
the abandonment of the fragility of nature altogether. A world minus
the underbelly of the faded industrial age. A city, in fact, that
could stand to exist without population per se. Skyscrapers reach
higher, taking the place of the more organic mountain peak or paper
mills. A cyclical break in urban origins, perhaps only in the hands of
a wizard with a master development plan. Combine this with the
synethasiea caused by the artifice of the inferred dance floor, the
glittering globe transcending from the ceiling, a blatant metaphor of
our fragmented planet. Something mono happens. It's that very moment
when space and time intersect, it can be nullifying, disorienting.
When akin to the power of the line, the basic shape of anything that
falls before air, frontal or shaped, becomes only the reality of the
flat surface.

The great French philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas navigated the
ontological world of the Other, a metaphysical discourse regarding
intersubjective relationships. This sense of primal association of
chance is something I see as shock, to the self - the spirit of both
body and mind. This relates back to the body in space. In my practice
there lies a fascination with that split second of awareness, the
SNAP! Only to a formal extent does it have anything to do with
traditional photography, but we've learned much from the lens. There's
so much we cast in memory, lines and silhouetted shapes, sometimes
blurred through the peripheral way we gaze and view the world. We
endow these glints with subliminal power. Everyday we experience the
pictorial, and keep it locked in our perceptual consciousness. We
create our own synaptic, conceptual images. It is in these very
moments that we experience a charge, or as I am exploring, a glitch."

At New American Art Union 922 SE Ankeny 6PM-10 Free

May 8 Social Performance and Collaboration

Gary Weisman is a Portland-based social performance artist. Cofounder of Kitchen Sink PDX, who have arranged beautiful collaborations in houses and office spaces, Weisman works nationally too. He speaks at PNCA (small) Room 201 NW Johnson and 13th. 12:30Pm-1:30 Free

May 7 Photographer Speaks at PNCA

Justine Kurland who we have written of before is speaking at PNCA. Student of Gregory Crewdson, she is part of a movement in photography coming out of Yale incorporating staged narratives, film still style. Kurland built upon that idea, moving from girls wandering, camping and discovering the world independently and happily - girl Tom Sawyer/ Huckleberry Finn's; to imagined utopian communities composed of women entirely; to real life communes existing today; and onto mothers and children in the wilds. What will be next in her exploration of our particular American relationship with the landscape? At PNCA NW Johnson and 13th. 12:30Pm-1:30 Free

May 5 Sculptor Speaks

PSU's art department has a regular Monday lecture series of artists, local, national, international, established and semi emerging. Tonight Rebecca Ripple, who is showing this month at Tilt speaks on her work. Yale schooled, she works in LA today - check Tilt (exhibitions) for details. PSU Hall St Cinema 510 SW Hall 7:30PM Free

May 2 Eastside Art Openings East:Meets:West

Destroy Store shows more work by prolific Portland painter Jessie Reno. www.destroystore.com 1712 E Burnside

Grass Hut has started a low key residency program. I would say couch surfing-style, which is definitely cool fun, but the Grass Hut residency is notched higher, with the artist J. Otto Seibold Ace Hotel housed. (Mega props, Ace, for arts branding with real dollars!!) Check Seibold's colorful work on the Grass Hut website www.grasshutcorp.com 811 E Burnside

Pushdot has photos by Newspace principal Chris Bennett who is also showing in the Antiquarian Resurrection shows at Chambers and 23 Sandy respectively. Pushdot is the digital print go to expert in scanning and ink jet printing. So presumably this work is distinctly non-old school chem printed. My guess is that this work is monochrome, but Pushdot has the skills for end-to-end color management. www.pushdotstudio.com In the house at 1021 SE Caruthers

In a nice complement to the New Antiquarians Chambers show, 23 Sandy hosts a national touring show, Resurrection, of photographers using early photographic chemistry: tintypes, daguerreotypes, gum bichromates, metal prints, cyanotypes, collodian prints and toned silver prints. Check the Resurrection web site.
www.23sandy.com 623 NE 23 x Sandy



Portland has many art, bike, music subcommunities. It is the same for belly dancing. East:Meets:West is an annual show focused on dark bellydancing where the West's Gothic sensibilities meet the East's belly dancing mysticism. The organizers and stars are Serpentine, three belly dancers with a theatrical vibe incorporating movement inspired by our snake friends. Definitely meow!

Performers include Gemini Project(OR), Znama(OR), Jane Archer(OR), Vorona(NY), Pony(OH), BellaNoir(OR), Gypsy Caravan(OR), Twilight, Maqsuum(WA), Deb(Raven) formally of Ultra Gypsy(CA), Carmella(OR) and, of course Serpentine. Those belly dancers are always on the hunt for costumes, so there will be select vendors of such there as well as the sublime raw chocolate concoctions of Lulu. After the performance is a dance party with DJ's! If you are a belly dancer yourself, the event links have details on Saturday workshops.

At the Mt. Tabor Legacy, 4811 SE Hawthorne $15 8PM-2AM

May Day Westside Art Openings

For my writing efficiency and your viewing stop by the multigallery DeSoto Building NW Broadway and Davis and the Everett lofts NW Broadway and Everett. 'Nuff said.

Chemistry-based photography is strong still in Portland. Newspace Photo is one resource if you need a darkroom. The New Antiquarians is a show by Chris Bennett, Rachel Heath, Leanne Hitchcock, Christine Laputa and Sika Stanton, some of whom are closely connected to Newspace. Each photographer's work has a look harking to classic photography. Bennett's landscapes recall the post-Civil War Western photographers like O'Sullivan and Jackson. They hauled up to 24 inch glass plates, coated them in a tent darkroom, exposed them, them hauled them back East by donkey. Heath photographs unclothed women. While painting nudes was acceptable earlier, in photography is suffered taboo for years. Heath's approach is more akin to the current work of Leonard Nemoy with a Bellocq aesthetic. Hitchcock works in gridded landscape multiples, producing a meditative whole from the cognitive dissonance of her windowed visual field, aka sampling. Laputa is known for fiercely detailed black and white landscapes. The overwhelming visual detail is an aesthetic dear to me. Stanton is bold in her portrait making. Sometimes working in archaic processes, she experiments with identity, and its ambiguity. See it for yourself at Chambers Gallery www.chambersgallery.org 207 SW Pine

Cynthia Mosser shows Cool Perennials, psychedelic abstractions at Augen. www.augengallery.com 817 S.W. 2nd

Amanda Wojick wowed Portland as a museum biennial selectee with her sculptures made of thousands of paint chips. Her new show, sight line, is a collection of sculptures one related to another. At Elizabeth Leach www.elizabethleach.com 417 NW 9th