Recommended as always the Everett Station Lofts, corner NW Everett and Broadway.
Portland photographer Sarah Meadows has several established bodies of work in her quiver of arrows and now a PNCA degree. One body comprises seemingly casual snapshots, off framed, but affecting. That can be seen on her photoblog. She has a show at PNCA made in collaboration with Miranda Lehman. Artist's work to watch. At PNCA www.pnca.edu corner NW 13th and Johnson 6PM-8
Local painter Jessica Bronk makes warm landscapes in ochre, burnt umbers and blue. For best viewing, her show at Vino Paridoso is best seen in the early light before 8:30PM. At Vino Paridiso, www.vinoparadiso.com 417 NW 10th
Ex Portlander Anna Fidler, now in LA, has curated a show, some of which captures her sense of bright color and refined detail. Entitled Free Love Gods, there are a few notable pieces to see. At Pulliam Deffenbaugh www.pulliamdeffenbaugh.com 929 NW Flanders Early close 8PM
Blue Sky has unintentionally political work spanning geographies, fear and hope.
Donald Weber photographed the decaying Ukraine, wounded by the world's worst nuclear power accident in 1986, Chernobyl. Radiation was spread by wind worldwide, including to Oregon. Helicopter pilots made hundreds of flights to drop material to entomb the doomed reactor knowing they were exposing themselves to fatal radiation doses. The disaster and the dissolution of the former Soviet Union spawned criminal oligarchs and that social chaos is the subject of Weber's photographs in Ukraine, one of the "freed" republics (and also the home of the awesome Orange Revolution).
Ugandan expat Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine photographed the unbelievable loads bikes in his home country carry. Portland bike culture is learning with pedicabs multiplying like rabbits and exceptional work by Portland's cargo bike movers, even meals and food delivered by bike.
At Blue Sky Gallery. www.blueskygallery.org 122 NW 8th
New York Underground is a window into the scene (which never stops) in NYC in the 1960's to the 1980's. If that interests you you can see it at Augen. www.augengallery.com 817 SW 2nd 8:30PM close
The times I've stopped I've liked City Hall exhibitions. It's a minor thing in the commissioner-mayor's city art offensive. It's especially good when you know the artists or consider them part of your art sphere. This month is photography.
Photographers David A. Barss, J Swofford, Rosanna Tam, Marne Lucas, Sadie Kenzier, Clara Seasholtz, Joshua Seaman, Christopher Rauschenberg, Alica J. Rose, Angela Cash, Thomas Le Ngo, Ann Ploeger, Brian Lee, Meredith DeLoca, Michele Motta, Alma Sanchez, Richard Schemmerer, Tom Patterson, Brienne Steckly, Thomas Lauderdal, Kali Coles, Brian Foulkes, Matt Flagg, Gigi Grinstad and Nate Padavick show.
Early. Portland City Hall 1221 SW 4th. 5PM-7
Muybridge. His multiimages of animals in motion are iconic. A curiosity. His life harks to the 19th century when photography was more an evolving science than an art, the West was wild and entrepreneurs like George Eastman and Leland Stanford made their mark. I will not reprise the biography here. His work may have been the first scientific photography, now an important tool from streak cameras and ultrafast photography to the images in cloud chambers. Muybridge's patron was Leland Stanford who made millions (billions today) building railroads, including illgotten gains by collecting higher fees from the federal government for track built on the flat he claimed mountains. His son died unexpectedly at an early age. As a result, Stanford endowed the university and its beautiful lands bearing his name.
Photography began its struggle to be recognized as art with Stieglitz. That debate persists with photography's omnipresence and social ubiquity, including on the web. Central to that question is the hand of the maker and limited supply. One problematic area are the unknown quantities of essentially offset prints Muybridge made of his tens of thousands of negatives in the day, come of which may have derived from bound editions of 1000 cut to pieces. Caveat emptor.
Nonetheless the show is interesting as a touchpoint for a curious person's life in a curious time, making groundbreaking work. Who are those artists here and now? At Charles Hartman Gallery www.hartmanfineart.com 134 NW 8th
