Thursday, November 19, 2009

November 22 Stock

Stock is a homemade dinner of local ingredients enabling small scale grants to artists. The results are immediate, one month, the diners select an artist, the next month they see the results. It's a project of artists who have been part of the social practice art program at PSU. This month's candidate artist projects are from Rachel Peddersen & Mia Nolting, Hannah Jickling and Lori Gilbert, Jolyn Fry, Nicole Lavelle, Public Social University, Michael Reinsch, Lisa Schonberg and Shawn Creeden, Sea Change Gallery, Shelby Davis and Crystal Schenk, Working Theatre Collective and Pete Yahnke. It's at PNCA 6PM-8 $10 but it is at capacity. Regrets only to portlandstock at gmail dot com.

November 21 Ethan Rose, BBoy-BGirl Battle, Monster Trucks, Scratch

Sound artist and sound designer Ethan Rose is equally at home making installations that stand on their own visually. He has a new one based on glass harmonicas as the sound making element in collaboration with Portland glass artist Andy Paiko. The installation is up at the PNCA Museum of Contemporary Crafts now. Today, Rose, Piako and the curator discuss the work. At the Museum of Contemporary Craft 724 NW Davis 1PM-2 Free



Pay your Dues 3 is a 2x2 battle with a top prize of $300 cash money. Wheels of steel, DJ Wicked, judges Tip Toe - 96' SUB-C/ Portland Street Rockers, Thomas Oragami - Soul Felons and King Reds - Soul Felons. At the Montavilla Community Center, 8219 NE Glisan. 5:30PM - 10:30, $7


West Coast Turnaround is an installation in a small room of elements suggesting a long haul tractor trailer, at full scale, by artists in residence Shelby Davis and Crystal Schenk. Their artist statement has all kinds of Freudian associations from which you may draw your own. It opens at Milepost5 www.milepostfive.com 900 NE 81st (go by MAX) 6PM-9 Free


Gallery Homeland is throwing a bakesale for your edification, Scratch, homemade yummy items. There will be small edibles, jar goods, whole pies and cakes, perfect for Thanksgiving, or spot eating. Quantities are strictly limited, early arrival recommended. At the Cleaners at the Ace Hotel, corner SW 10th and Stark, 11AM-2PM

November 20-22 Indigenous NY Butoh Festival Performances

The New York Butoh Festival is part of an international celebration of the 50th year of butoh, a modern dance form that originated in the Tokyo avant-garde of the time. The festival has hosted Japanese and other international performers. This weekend, they present New York butoh performers Erin Ellen Kelly, Stephanie Lanckton, Bill Mullen, Irem Calikusu, Denisa Musilova, Morgan von Pecelli, Megan Nicely, Steven Carlino ,Tanya Calamoneri and Ximena Garnica. All the details may be found at the NY Butoh Festival website. At CAVE www.caveartspace.org in Brooklyn. Various times. $15

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

November 19 Ignite China Spark About

Ignite is sort of an entertaining Toastmasters for the web set. It happens irregularly including tonight. www.igniteportland.com At the Bagdad Theater General admission doors 6:30PM, Program 7. Free



China is big. They need big buildings in new places and Portland architects sometimes design them. Find out how that goes tonight. The Designs on Portland series presents Rick Potestio, Jeff Lamb, Gary Reddick and Bob Packard speaking on their experiences designing for Chinese clients. At DWR Portland Studio 1200 NW Everett. Doors 6:00PM, program 6:30 Free



Meanwhile Art Spark focuses tonight on performance booking with the Portland-based Western Arts Alliance which operates over the West Coast and inland. Art Spark These events are great for creative, free ranging conversation and are free! www.portlandartspark.com at Holocene 5PM-9 Free



Heidi McBride is a new model art dealer and consultant. Her specialty is helping collectors explore their interests in a different atmosphere than a gallery. Tonight she expand that program, opening "about space" a 24x7 window gallery in the South Waterfront neighborhood. Artist Fae Young-Scherling’s shows an installation, BLUEPRINTS, ANCHORS, AMBITIONS. It's at 3660 SW River Parkway, at the corner of SW Gaines in the Atwater Place building. Reception 5:30PM-7 Free

Friday, November 13, 2009

November 13 Nobel Dreams Nationale Meadows

False Front Studios near Alberta is one of a handful of neighborhood galleries that are contemporary. This month they have paintings that started as photocollage by Lynda Frese. Frese revisits the pantheon of Hindu gods upon the Gulf Coast as have visited fierce hurricanes, revenge for climate and environmental change. Frese's work may also be seen on book covers for the English translations of Nobel literature prize winner Herta Müller. At the False Front Studio www.falsefrontstudio.com 4518 NE 32nd


Sarah Meadows, who studied at PNCA, operates surely in the realms of fashion photography, landscape and creatively framed portraits. Tonight she uses light to selectively frame landscapes. Opening at NATIONALE nationaleportland.blogspot.com 2730 E Burnside 6PM-9

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

November 12 Design for Developing Countries

Mercy Corps is host to a design exhibition curated by Cooper Hewitt design museum: Design for the Other 90%. This show of appropriate technology has been exhibited at the Walker Art Center and the offices of the CDC, it's headed to the offices of National Geographic. You can stop by Mercy Corps new offices by Saturday Market to see it. Tonight they host Dr. Paul Polak speaking on his nonprofit of 28 years, International Development Enterprises. He is author to Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail, alternatives to traditional international aid programs. An important project they undertake is producing pumps to draw clean water for household use and agriculture in Africa and Asia. From water, they work to develop sustainable businesses that build communities. In the new Mercy Corps office - the building next to Saturday Market at Ankeny and SW 1st. 7:30PM Free

November 11 China in Art

Xu Bing is an established Chinese artist, resident in the US since 1990. He has specialized in works commenting on language, including work made up of otherwise authentic looking fabricated and meaningless characters. He has made brilliant works mixing Zen and 9/11, mixing breeding pigs with nonsense English and Chinese words, works with silkworms and calligraphy lessons in the West with Chinese character-like English. Chinese society is controlled in different ways than that of the US. Political criticism in particular is constrained in many ways, but the art world either is overlooked or considered too marginal to tightly control. Thus art has been a refuge for discussion of the evolution of Chinese society. Bing has spoken only once before in Portland under PICA auspices in 2001. A rare chance for a look into worlds of Chinese art. At the Portland Art Museum www.pam.org Fields Ballroom (1st floor Masonic Temple Building) 1219 SW Park 5:30PM $12, $5 members

Monday, November 09, 2009

November 9 Photographer-Filmmaker Laurel Nakadate Speaks

Laurel Nakadate, represents the Yale school of photography: strong portraits, enmeshing the personal and fictional, unsettling the viewer. It is art's response to our modern situation of panopticon voyeurism. Yale school photographers often create cinematic situations and Nakadate circled back on cinema, producing a film Stay The Same Never Change, with similar subject matter. In between photography and cinema, she has also produced videos, essentially performances with herself and sometimes strangers. A bold photographer to watch. Talk in the Shattuck Hall Annex out front, 1914 SW Park Avenue, at the corner of SW Broadway and Hall on the PSU campus. 7:30PM Free

Friday, November 06, 2009

November 7 Disjecta Art Center Auction and Binary Beatdown

Disjecta benefits artists and audience with a myriad of programs, including reviving the Oregon biennial curated show of artists. Tonight they have a party auction in which art, donated by artists, can be purchased by you, audience. They have assembled a great collection including David Anderson, Holly Andres, Mark Andres, Josh Arseanu, Meagan Atiyeh, May Juliette Barruel, Rick Bartow, Horia Bobia, Inge Bruggeman, Ryan Burghard, Heather Burkhalter, Ben Buswell, Lisa Conway, Shelby Davis, Matthew Denison, Geoff Dorn, Alec Egan, Karen Esler, Nigel Fenton, Eduardo Fernandez, Anna Fidler, Harrell Fletcher, Stephen Funk, Damien Gilley, Justin Gorman, Peter Gronquist, Sean Healy, Chris Johanson & Jo Jackson, Liz Knight, Christopher Knight, James Lavadour, Joe Macca, Weird Fiction, Jenene Nagy, Brad Nelson, Dan Ness, Paintallica, Miel-Margarita Paredes, Ryan Pierce, Ann Ploeger, Tom Prochaska, Mylan Rakish, Mike Rea, Ben Rosenberg, Crystal Schenk, Amanda Schroer, Nicole Eriko Smith, Josh Smith, David Stein, Morgan Walker, Heather Watkins, Darrell Williamson and Amanda Wojick. No doubt many are familiar names, in any event, seeing this cross section of current Portland is well worth the admission. DJ, good conversation and the auction will be MC'd by the inimitable Andrew Dickson, the new Mad Man (in a good way)! At Disjecta www.disjecta.org 8371 N. Interstate Doors 7PM, live auction 8, $20



Binary Beatdown is 2on2 b-boy, b-girl battle, with the winner taking $500. Originally limited to 32 crews, there may be twice that. Judges are Soucide -Defcon 5, Portland, Cha Cha -AOM/TheM team, Seattle and Daniel the Lion -Transitions crew, California with DJ Deff Ro. At 14523 SW Millikan Way, Beaverton, by the MAX. Doors 6PM $7

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

November 6 Eastside Art Openings

NAAU opens Oaks Park Pentimento by photographer Jim Lommisson, documenting beautiful paintings, hidden in plain sight, within the decaying amusement park's carousel. The paintings were done by two generations of artists, in 1912, and then painted over in 1944. Over the interviening years including floods, completely submerging the paintings, the old images emerged from behind the newer, making a beautiful accidental composite.

Lommison is an accomplished mid-career artist who has done outstanding idea-driven work, such as Exit Wounds, Iraq veteran portraits, stories and their own snapshots, his Katrina series, Heaven and Earth and Shadow Boxers, American Fight Clubs.

At New American Art Union www.newamericanartunion.com 922 SE Ankeny



Kunsthalle: Deutschland nach Portland is a show in Portland of artists in Berlin, and artists here who have worked there. Artists include Wolfgang Fütterer, Sanna-Lisa Gesang-Gottowt, Terrell James, Bo Joseph, Marte Kiessling, Sandra Preston, Per Schumann, Ole Ukena and Malte Zacharias. The show is a complemet to EAST/WEST Berlin:: RECONSTRUCTION, organized by Homeland to show Portland artists in Berlin. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org 2505 SE 11th x Division



Nemo is participating in the China-art-design theme now happening in Portland with Reflecting China, photographs by Shen Wei and Jane Tam, both based in the US. The show themes Chinese identity, in its scattered geography, amidst a rapidly changing world. At Nemo Design www.studionemo.com 1875 SE Belmont



Trish Grantham's illustration collage is instantly recognizable, she has collaborated with many Portland creative businesses to excellent effect. Her characters combine a sense of pathos with kawaii, the modern predicament. At Buy Olympia's Land Gallery www.landpdx.com 3925 N Mississippi 6PM-8



We live in an era of epic change, with a richly connected communication system to allow ut to be aware of it. 20yrs After Berlin Wall...Girls Doing Girl Thing! Artists Sanna-Lisa-Gesang-Gottowt, Alyssa Noches, Emily Lazar, Chloe Richard and Krystyn Strother show work. Tu Fawning performs at 9:30. At WorksoundPDX www.worksoundpdx.com 820 SE Alder 7-late



PNCA is programming the Lodge Gallery from time to time at the architecture firm. Tonight Cark Klimt and Daniel Glendening show Communication Breakdown. At the Lodge Gallery 1532 SW Morrison 6PM-8



Alex Steckly shows abstract paintings and sculpture. At Fourteen30 Gallery www.fourteen30.com 1430 SE 3rd



Local Goods is a new store focused on sustainable products. Tonight they open Polaroids by Amaren Colosi, collaging retro advertising photos and landscapes; and Sarah Cruse, illustration style paintings and prints. At Local Goods www.localgoodsllc.com 2136 E Burnside 5:30PM-8:30



Breeseblock Has Group Hug, Portland and San Francisco artists. At Breezeblock www.breezeblockgallery.com Gallery 1847 E. Burnside



In the 811 E Burnside Block

Grass Hut shows Its Out There - In Here, geometric abstractions by Mark Warren Jacques. At Grass Hut www.grasshutcorp.com

Redux has Muertos, Day of the Dead-inspired art. At Redux www.reduxpdx.com

November 5 Westside Art Openings

Dianne Kornberg is a photographer with whom I've had the privilege of studying. She is a master printmaker in silver and digital-based media. She has taken an Arbus-like gaze, cool, but enigmatic, at biological specimens, bugs, birds, bones, butterflies and seaweeds, isolated from their natural environment. Continuing the theme, India Tigers, are butterflies, loosely wrapped in paper folds, like diamonds, as they have traveled by air post. As children, we delighted in magical flying beasts, they seem now fewer; how is it we must import them from far India? At Elizabeth Leach www.elizabethleach.com 417 NW 9th



Scott Peterman, known for his portraits of ice fishing houses, is back with a collection of urban and natural landscapes. Not as odd as Misrach's, they are straightforward in the mode of 19th century explorer photographers, unlikely from the Yale school of his MFA. At Charles Hartman Gallery www.hartmanfineart.com 134 NW 8th



Jim Riswold was an ad man. Turning hitting communication style to art, he produces wry comment on culture as art, though not quite as cynical as Adbusters. At Augen www.augengallery.com 817 SW 2nd 8:30PM close



PNCA has a large array of galleries supporting its expanding program. In the 13th and Johnson building there should be interesting work in the MFA gallery - the old media gallery off the North end of the artium - a light art installation, media rarely seen in Portland, by Laura Hughes. Meanwhile the Feldman Gallery + Project Space has Depravities of War, large woodcut prints by Sandow Birk breaking down the process of our current warmaking. In the Room 214 gallery, Amanda Langston, Alfredo Lettenmaier, Yiu-Hong Leung, Jane Schiffauer and Allison Woodin show work inspired by their China residency as part of PNCA's Global Studios: China program. Meanwhile Little Gods involves animation by Chris Bodven, Katie Harral, Liz Harris, Chad Hinman, Shelley Jordon, Tabitha Knight, Alison Loader, Joey Lusterman, Akira Nakamura, Jeff Richardson, Jessie Weitzel and Cecilia Westerberg in the new office building twelve|west's Hybrid Gallery, 430 SW 13th



Kendra Larson shows mystical landscapes at Valentines myspace.com/valentineslifeblood 232 SW Ankeny Art 6PM, party 9:30


Blue Sky Gallery has "animal focused street photography" by Giacomo Brunelli made with his father's 1960's era 35mm SLR and developed in a low tech apartment darkroom. Joni Sternbach shows portraits of surfers made on finely detailed tintypes, a positive process using dangerous chemicals and developed on the exposure site. In the Nine Gallery, Jerry Mayer and Ellen George have collaborated on Scape. It will be interesting to see if they reconfigure it throughout the month. At Blue Sky Gallery. www.blueskygallery.org 122 NW 8th



The Everett Station Galleries are recommended as always for your viewing pleasure.

Monday, November 02, 2009

November 2 (+3) Film, Asethetics, Protest

Tonight, the PSU Monday night lecture series presents members of the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest collective. The journal, now in issue 6, presents a wide range of writing on political protest, social practice projects and extending artist engagement in culture. As related by the speaker, they take an anarchist approach to protest globalization as artists, wraping it in a blanket Situationist theory and ultra academic language. Not effective enough for me. They are also publishers of related works such as "An Atlas of Radical Cartography", a comic "Fashion 2012", "Public Phenomena by Temporary Services", and "Call to Farms!" Talk in the Shattuck Hall Annex out front, 1914 SW Park Avenue, at the corner of SW Broadway and Hall on the PSU campus. 7:30PM Free


Meanwhile tonight and tomorrow the Cinema Project presents films by Stephen Connolly, British filmmaker. Connolly makes impressionistic films which incorporate documentary footage. You can see the work for yourself. Presented by the Cinema Project, with the artist in attendance. At the Cinema Project www.cinemaproject.org space 11 NW 13th Ave, top floor. Elevator access is provided, please come to the door to request. Leave some extra time to find it. 7:30PM $6 (cash/check)