Worksound opens a show of NY artists Erica Allen, Devon Dikeou, Noah Kalina, Jason Polan, Micheal Shelton, Breanne Trammell, Stephen Watt, curated by Melanie Flood. Flood operated an independent gallery-salon out of her Brooklyn apartment; she has relocated here, where we hope the idea catches on. At Worksound www.worksoundpdx.com 820 SE Alder Map 6PM-10
The World is Not Ending, Your World is Ending: that's a show at Gallery Homeland opening tonight. Quite a few ecologists and environmental theorists have stated the same. It's well within our capability to eliminate ourselves as a species. The earth, the hydro cycle, the carbon cycle, and "more primitive" lifeforms would do just fine, even thrive. Artists Damien Gilley, Daniel J. Glendening, Justin Gorman, Laura Hughes, Israel Lund, Joseph McVetty, Michael Reinsch, Stephen Slappe, Rebecca Steele, Craig Wheat, Michael Welsh provide their perspectives on the end of days, something that is woven into many mythic systems. So it's woven into our psychic DNA, providing a myriad of touchpoints for making and viewing art. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org 2505 SE 11th x Division
Mercury 7 and the New 9 is a show of prints themed on NASA's first manned spaceflights, in the Mercury spacecraft. The United States and the Soviet Union quickly divided German rocket scientists after WWII, putting them to work to gain offensive military advantage. With a successful drive to more launch power, the Soviet Union stunned the world by launching the first satellite, prosteishy sputnik in 1957, and the first person to orbit the earth, with Yuri Gagarin, in 1961. The Soviet projects preceded the American Explorer satellite, and the Mercury spacecraft, by 4 months, and 3 weeks, respectively. The first Mercury did not orbit the earth, but followed a parabolic arc. It was John Glenn who first achieved orbit, a year after Gagarin. Seven astronauts were trained for the Mercury program, the "Mercury 7". Six flew.
This is an artistic revisitation of a period of almost 50 years ago, a heady time of American economic growth, suburbs, automobiles, the cold war and fallout shelters occasioned by missiles and fear.
Artists Dave Carnie, Ashley Anson, Russ Pope, Salvador Perdomo, Kim Hamblin, and Todd Bratrud and an additional group The New Nine: Roger Seliner, Chris Johanson, David Petersen, Andy Jenkins, Jason Adams, Chris Corales, Johanna Jackson, Chris Pastras and Sam Coomes have made artwork inspired by the Mercury zeitgeist.
It's iconic material, but outside the event horizon of the artists themselves, born afterwards. It comes as America questions its commitment to space. The shuttles have landed. Space projects are enmeshed in a fierce climate battle. Most believe it will be robots that explore space. Missions to the space station are launched by a Russian space center leased from Kazakhstan, as are many communication satellites.
So this show is the beginning of an era ending, tracing an arc of inspiration, and wounding loss of soaring shuttles in 1986 and 2003, within the artists' event horizon.
An excellent show for the Artery, which specializes in editioned prints by a recent generation of artists comfortable in multiple urban creative pursuits, including skating and music. For instance, they showed Beautiful Losers, the art show accompaning the documentary film. In their new location. www.arteryportland.com 2219 NW Raleigh 7PM-9ish Free