Tuesday, October 27, 2009

October 30 SoMe and Halloween

Today marks the last day of a program exploring social media - SoMe - tools in connecting artists, organizations and patron/collector/audience. There are events at 4 and 7, check the website and SoMe feeds for info! thenewcommunicators.com



"Whimsically disturbing", you cannot beat that as Halloween inspiration. It's a description of performances by the Degenerate Art Ensemble, mixing purpose made 21st century music with butoh, the challenging-enigmatic modern dance form from Japan. Tonight and tomorrow, the Degenerate Art Ensemble performs at the Moore in Seattle. Sonic Tales, the latest collaboration between Haruko Nishimura and Joshua Kohl plus their art army, culminates with a Halloween party after the Saturday performance for an extra $20. Performance by the Degenerate Art Ensemble www.degenerateartensemble.com At the Moore Theater 1932 2nd Ave. Friday and Saturday October 30, 31. 8PM $22

October 29 Contemporary Architecture in China and Painting on Vinyl

Yung Ho Chang is a world architect, spanning a practice in Beijing and role as head of the architectural design department at MIT. He was the designer of the China Design Now installation at the Victoria and Albert Museum (Ziba was the designer for Portland). That China is undergoing an unprecedented building boom is no secret. That has created an opportunity for Chinese architects. Chinese in large cities are experiencing firsthand first rate architecture by international firms, the process of experience that informs aesthetics. Over time it will be interesting to see new aesthetic streams emerging China and diffusing into the rest of the world. Chang's designs relate strongly to the Mies, Kahn and Cloepfil branches of contemporary architecture while incorporating current green and sustainable vectors. Chang speaks at the Portland Art Museum auditorium www.pam.org 1219 SW Park 7PM-midnight $5 members



Vinyl Killers is a project to reuse vinyl music discs as visual art canvas. Founded in the Everett Station Lofts in 2003, it returns with a vengeance to Goodfoot tonight. Goodfoot has a ton of wallspace, especially in relation to small affordable works - it can be visually overwhelming. Luckily the opening is from 5PM to 2AM, though art judgement through beer goggles can be suspect. The works will be online for sale at the Goodfoot website after November 1. At Goodfoot 2845 SE Stark 5PM-2AM Free

October 28 OfficePDX PopUp on China

OfficePDX is now virtual, but from time to time does events in real space. An example is tonight. OfficePDX presents a panel: Greg Stobbs, Nike Retail Director; Doug Cooke, Tinder Design Research Co-Founder and Greg Mitchell, LRS Architects Project Manager; each speaking on their experiences working in China. OfficePDX events have been consistently compelling and draw a great design audience. At Froelick Gallery www.froelickgallery.com 714 NW Davis 7PM-9 Free

Thursday, October 22, 2009

October 24 What is a Publication Studio?

Books. In the words of Cradle to Cradle author William McDonough: "Design something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, accrues solar energy as fuel, makes complex sugars and food, creates microclimates, changes colors with the seasons and self-replicates. Well, why don't we knock that down and [print on it]" We turn that most elegant of design objects, a tree, to a book. In fact, we print large numbers, ship them around the world using a ton of energy, then discard most.

Our print economy is wasteful and inelegant. Carbon negative.

The Kindle offers a newly evolving possibility when we live in cloud libraries. Until then, print on request is an alternative: print only what you need. It is like a bakery, starting early, then selling out all those fresh items. Repeat.

That is a publication studio.

Creative writer, editor, publisher, organizer Matthew Stadler and Tin House writer, designer Patricia No have created an itinerant book printing project, operating from 6AM to noon in the Ace Hotel Cleaners.

There, purchase a few titles exclusively sourced and printed daily, including Lawrence Rinder's cynical novel of NY's art world, resembling too many real world, potentially ultralitigious, figures to see publishing inc.'s light of day.

The low tech content machine, printer and binder is used to print a fresh day's worth of books, or bring your own file and leave with a book!

The Publication Studio solicited Portland creators to bring content and 25 made 19 books which are being shared at the Amsterdam Biennale.

Saturday, 11AM, Patricia and many of the artist-writers in the Publication Studio at the Ace will Skype in to Stadler in Amsterdam for a cross pond joint presentation of the books.

The artists and books are: Jessica Jackson Hutchins and Thomas Fisher, Convivium; Arnold Kemp, Surface Space Prosthetic; M Blash, no. 1; Israel Lund, Some, But Not All, of my Clothes; Sarah Meadows, 47 Oceans; Shawn Records, Owner of This World; Sarah Gottesdeiner, Yoko & Moon; Philip Iosca, Blush; Chris Johanson and Johanna Jackson, (untitled); Vanessa Renwick, Optical Soundtrack; Aaron Flint Jamison, (untitled); Alex Felton, Touched by an Email; Dana Dart-McLean and Ashby Collinson, Catalogue of Variable Essence; Curtis Knapp, Grayscale; Justin Gorman and Sean Joseph Patrick Carney, Bodies; Amber Case, Cyborg Anthropology; Gary Wiseman and Meredith Andrews, I Love Urban Outfitters and Urban Outfitters Loves Me; and Kristan Kennedy, S.W.P.C.Y. and Marc Moscato, The Dill Pickle Club.

They will also have available the Etherpad collaborative writing environment to author live a document to be printed and bound then, there, now by the Publication Studio.

It all happens at the Publication Studio www.publicationstudio.biz, in the Cleaners at the Ace Hotel, corner SW 10th and Stark, 11AM Free

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

October 21 Magnificent Obsessions

Magnificent Obsessions is a 2005 film tracing the work of architect Frank Lloyd Wright in Japan. First traveling to Japan in 1905, Wright resided in Tokyo between 1915 and 1922, having an influence on Japanese architects, noted in the film. Wright was also a very active art dealer in ukiyo-e prints. He introduced them to America and often sold to his architectural clients. Wright's most known work was magnificent Imperial Hotel, near the Imperial Palace, not only beautiful, but incorporating innovative structural design which allowed it to survive a magnitude 8.3 earthquake undamaged. Ultimately the building was demolished in 1968 to build a bigger hotel on the site; the facade may be found today in Meiji Mura, a building collection in Nagoya. It's at the AIA Center for Architecture 403 NW 11th. Doors 5:30PM, film 6 Free

Sunday, October 18, 2009

October 18 Soup+Artists

Time for the excellent monthly meetup of artists seeking project funding, people who can pay $10 for a home cooked dinner, food and thought. It's based on a program started in Chicago, by InCUBATE and a project of Portland social practice artists Katy Asher, Ariana Jacob and Amber Bell. Tonight the eaters will select one of six proposals and last month's funded artists will report on their project. The number of eaters has grown rapidly, so it is suggested you RSVP at portlandstock at gmail dot com and arrive early if you would like to eat though of course, you are welcome to contribute $10 and vote for a proposal without eating. STOCK at Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org 2505 SE 11th x Division 6PM-8 $10

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

October 16 Moses v Jacobs

Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs represent competing visions of the American city. Robert Moses was a master freeway planner epitomizing the automobile world of tomorrow. Jacobs was champion of the new urbanism, street scapes where people walked and communed with each other and pedestrian-scaled small business. Little Portland rejected Moses' vision, handed down on consultant tablets in 1943 and embraced a Jacobs plan in 1972. The rest is history, with Portland mandated mixed use development, activating streets and community.

New York is different, with dense community neighborhood. Moses planned modern New York, in particular enabling vast suburbs to the East and West. He also controlled public housing and recreation, which could have turned out much differently.

This evening Carl Abbott from PSU and Anthony Flint, author of Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City, provide their interpretation of the clash of these titans in the context of Portland as it it today and where they see it going. The inimitable Randy Gragg moderates this instance of the Bright Light series sponsored by the City Club of Portland and the Portland Spaces Magazine.

At Powell's Books, 10th and W Burnside 7PM Free

October 14 Gaudi on Film

While architecture struggled with the neoclassical to modernist transition, a few architects laid down very personal styles: Gaudi and Hundertwasser. Tonight if you cannot go to Barcelona, you can see a documentary on Gaudi's work by Hiroshi Teshigahara. It's at the AIA Center for Architecture 403 NW 11th. Doors 5:30PM, film 6 Free

October 13 The Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalyitcal Society

Coney Island is a fantasy, make believe in all senses, sight, sound, smell, taste and the visceral sense of motion. Umberto Eco in his Travels in Hyperreality, Faith in Fakes, notes America's fascination with fabrication and synthetic environments from Coney Island to Disneyland, and all that lies between.

This is the work of Zoe Beloff, artist, in her project, Dreamland: The Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society and Its Circle, 1926-1972. Dreamland is a collection of documents, drawings, photographs and films, artifacts representing the Society.

In 1909, Sigmund Freud made his only trip to the United States and visited Coney Island. Inspired by Freud and Jung, Beloff notes the Society was formed by one Albert Grass. Working class New Yorkers, over a period of years, recorded and reenacted their dreams, filming them, in an effort to psychoanalyze the American experience. Note another Albert Grass was also a pioneer in electroencephalography at Harvard beginning in the '30's.

Beloff presents the lost films this evening, in person. Films include:
Coney Island by Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle [1917, 16mm, b&w, silent, 25 min.]
The Midget Crane by Albert Grass [1926, 16mm, b&w, silent, 2 min.]
The Praying Mantis by Charmion de Forde [1931,16mm, b&w, sound, 6 min.]
The Bear Dream by Arthur Rosenzweig [1937, 16mm, b&w, silent, 4 min.]
Chasing Louis Schnekowitz by Molly Lippman [1945, 8mm, b&w, silent, 4 min.]
The Lion Dream by Teddy Weisengrund [1947, 16mm, b&w, silent, 3 min.]
The Lonely Chicken Dream by Beverly d’Angelo [1954, 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.]
The Abandoned Ark by Stella Weiss [1958, 16mm, color/ b&w, silent, 4 min.]
My Dream of Dental Irritation by Bobby Beaujolais [1964, 8mm, color, sound, 5 min.]
The Bobsled: A Recurring Dream by Eddie Kammerer [1972, 16mm, color/b&w, sound, 2 min.]

Beloff, Whitney Biennial artist, produces poetic and enigmatic work, similar to Josiah McElheny in calling to question authorship and history in his installation of artifacts from lost Roman glass blowers. While McElheny is cool, Beloff taps history, nostalgia and surrealism.

If you miss the films, Beloff has a book of documentation for the project, with a DVD. Sweet dreams!

Presented by the Cinema Project, with the artist in attendance, www.cinemaproject.org. At the Cinema Project space 11 NW 13th Ave, top floor. Elevator access is provided, please come to the door to request. Leave some extra time to find the space. 7:30PM $6 (cash/check)

Sunday, October 11, 2009

October 12 Mel Ziegler Monday Night

The Portland State Art Department Monday Night Lecture Series is in swing. Tonight it's Mel Ziegler, an interesting public art maker. This series has been consistently captivating, and you can't beat the price! Talk in Shattuck Hall, Room 212 or the Annex out front, 1914 SW Park Avenue, at the corner of SW Broadway and Hall on the PSU campus. 7:30PM Free

Saturday, October 10, 2009

October 10 The World and China

The Mercy Corps Action Center in their new offices is open today to you. Mercy Corps does human-centered self help projects around the world and operates a local social entrepreneur network. The Action Center is based on the idea that world problems are solvable and that it is an individual burden on each of us that those problems have not yet been solved. The Center asks, What can I do, if I have one minute, if I have one hour, if I have one day, if I have one month, if I have one lifetime? Everyone has one minute, so let's get started, and you can do it in the Action Center. The center is filled with interactive videos, particularly three minute videos filmed in Mercy Corps field stations; and projects like the homes and classrooms Mercy Corps makes possible in countries worldwide. There is also a Google Earth-driven navigator to their projects. In the new Mercy Corps www.mercycorps.org office - the building next to Saturday Market at Ankeny and SW 1st. 10-5 Free


China. The diversity is incomprehensible. Zoom in to the youth and creative culture in cities like Shanghai and Beijing and you have some thing to dig in to. That is your opportunity tonight as John Jay, executive creative director of the ad agency Weiden+Kennedy shares his insights on China Youth Now. He has a keen professional and personal interest in China, he opened the W+K creative office in Shanghai. Jay speaks at the Portland Art Museum www.pam.org 1219 SW Park 7PM $12, $5 members.

Friday, October 09, 2009

October 9 Soft Floating Jelly Sound

Soft sculptor, jewelry maker, painter and puppet creator Anna Weber has made beautiful and strange costumes for sometime Portland musicians Hoolganship and Mirah. Tonight see her paintings and necklaces opening at NATIONALE nationaleportland.blogspot.com 2730 E Burnside



China Design Now opens to the public tomorrow at the Portland Art Museum. It was curated by Lauren Parker and Hongxing Zhang at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Portland has many creatives deeply immersed in the emerging Chinese youth culture including John Jay who has facilitated the Portland exhibition: the Jelly Generation and Floating World Comics who curated a show of underground comix from China including 54boy, Menz, Zao, Guo Qi, Leng Leng, Jiu Haoming, Er Dong, Ann and Wo Wo. Opens tonight in the Goldsmith Building 32 NW 5th



Meanwhile over at Worksound is an instance of the PNCA graduates and instructors show that is going on all over town. Carl Diehl, Tracey Cockrell, Lennie Pitkin present sculptures, sound, video, photographs themed Memory / Frequency. At 9:30 is a live performance by Weird Fiction: Carl Diehl, Mack McFarland, jeff Richardson, Zack Benfinld and Vihn Manson. "They employ an array of obsolete video mixers, recursive digital devices, live percussion and assorted cine-molecular interventions, exploding and exploring vidsonic trajectories in real-time. A nebulous ensemble of artists and musicians." At Worksound 820 SE Alder

Thursday, October 08, 2009

October 8 Schlossberg on Interaction Design

Dr. Edwin Schlossberg has been designing interactions in museums and exhibits since 1977. He is responsible for one in the new Mercy Corps headquarters explaining their projects, where he speaks tonight. Experience design is an interest of mine from mobile devices to interactive architecture. This lies somewhere in between. Should be an interesting talk. RSVP to rsvp@portlandspaces.net with subject RSVP+for+Edwin+Schlossberg
+Interacts. In the new Mercy Corps office - the building next to Saturday Market at Ankeny and SW 1st. Doors 5:30PM, talk 6. Arrive early. Free

Thursday, October 01, 2009

October 2 Eastside Art Openings

The Eastside artspace defies singular description. It is geographically diverse too.

There is a giant show at Goodfoot, maybe even too large to absorb in one sitting, by 100 artists, which opened last week. It has a heavy dose of lowbrow, and well executed within that genre. The prices are affordable. Art has no intrinsic monetary value aside from that set by buyers. The value accrues by narrative and the personal brand of the artist; I would argue beauty is important, but not to everyone. This art is making its own market on a small scale, there are commercial galleries, for instance Roq la Rue in Seattle, who have been involved for many years and have benefited from the rise in prices by artists such as Mark Ryden. Goodfoot times its grand openings for the last Thursday of the month. At Goodfoot 2845 SE Stark



Fourteen30 is participating in the reprise of PNCA artists at 100. Nan Curtis, Portland artist provocateur and Nicolaii Dornstauder show work. Curtis taught at PNCA and was an instigator of the intermedia program which broke down the strict conservatory structure of painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography and graphic design. She activated the Feldman Gallery in the Johnson Street building and inspired artist friend MK Guth towards the path that has resulted in her Whitney biennial selection. Work worth thinking about. At Fourteen30 Gallery www.fourteen30.com 1430 SE 3rd



Arnold Pander is known as illustrator of graphic novels, aka comics, and son of Dutch painter Henk Pander. He also paints on velvet. It is more practical than it seems, black velvet in low light, is the perfect featureless and reflectionless surround for pigment. It provides, in effect, almost infinite contrast ratio. Arnold shows new velvet paintings, themed Gods and Mortals, at Aalto Lounge. 3356 SE Belmont



Homeland shows Josh Arseneau's Sword of Light, his interpretation of the anxiety of tragic world events. The art opening corresponds to the conference opening for WhereCampPDX. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org 2505 SE 11th x Division



Grande Ronde is a meditative installation and big diving board jump for artist Rose McCormick. It works, keep it up. At New American Art Union www.newamericanartunion.com 922 SE Ankeny



Off the Clock is a just that, collaboration between designer Andrea Paustenbaugh and photographer Nate Silverstein. Some of their creative product are books. An always interesting opening event. At Nemo Design www.studionemo.com 1875 SE Belmont



Nationalle presents Anna Weber: "paintings and drawings inspired by geometry, architecture, maps, textiles, sign painters, symmetry, balance, falling, and floating." This gallery shop has a good eye and a good vibe. Often live music too. Opening at NATIONALE nationaleportland.blogspot.com 2730 E Burnside 6PM-9



In the 811 Block

Grass Hut shows illustration style work, In the Mend by Mel Kadel and Lori D.. They work separately and in collaboration. Poignant, fun accessible.

Papergirl is a collaborative project with a social practice vibe. Referencing delivery of actual paper news(papers) as it once was done by bike! A variety of artist work is on display in Emily Katz and Heather Treadway's shop and studio in the back of 811. Later it will be distributed to friends and strangers by bike. At Second Nature.

REDUX shows sculpture, illustration and paintings by Haley Ann Robinson.

Some spots up Burnside toward 11th, on the same side of the street, also have art including Lille and Report.

811 East Burnside, North side of the street, on up to 11th.