Patrick Rock is Portland's edgiest curator. The progress of art has always been about pushing beyond its edge, and the neurological interplay of receptors for familiarity and the receptors for the new. So Rock's seeking the new edge is a great bracer to Portland's grey familiarity-seeking in art. Openings are one of the premiere gatherings for thinking Portland artists, which is why we like them.
Two shows tonight at the ROCKSBOX: No Painting Left Behind by Keith Boadwee, Erin Allen and Isaac Gray and Götulist í björg kassi - Street Art at Rock's Box by Ásmundur Ásmundsson, Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, Helgi Þórsson. The Icelandic show wins the copywriting award for the month and is repeated in entiriy at the bottom of the post. At Rocksbox Fine Art www.rocksboxfineart.com 6540 N Interstate 8PM-11 Free
You can see all of China in three hours at Splendid China 锦绣中华民俗村, a miniature amusement park in Shenzhen. First opened 22 years ago, pre-Google maps, it's not read by Chinese as ironic, as would, say, the Enchanted Forest, or large-scale model train installations. But these physical simulations offer a social experience in their visit which is so far absent in game engine, OpenSim, or Second Life-like experiences. In person social experience includes rich nonverbal communication, which is the base of our culture today.
Artists Marisa Green, Jessie Bazata, Sean Garrison and Rory Phillips have enlisted artists through an open call to create 3d paper simulations of things that represent Portland to them. The resulting installation is Paper City. In some ways, paper is Portland's perfect medium. Our soulful forests are its feedstock, our long history of printmaking on paper its inspiration, our social practice processes its realization. And if you are an artist, an ink jet printer, some paints, paper, scissors and glue are accessible to a myriad of inspiration. At Disjecta www.disjecta.org 8371 N Interstate 6-10PM Free
Also at Disjecta, local movement artists are making place based work. Today is Tahni Holt, experimental sculptural movement artist, who enlists collaborators Richard Decker, Sally Garrido-Spencer, Noelle Stiles and Robert Tyree and musician Tom Thorson to make a performance. The project uses Karl Burkheimer's installation. 1PM-2
Multiartist Delphine Bedient works in social practice curation with Library, a collection of collections gathered by an open call to friends and friends of friends. In a way it's an experiment in the aesthetics of friending. Recommended. At Field Work Gallery 1101 SW Jefferson. Opens 5PM-9, Runs daily, noon-6 through March 7.
So you want to be an artist. Or you want to buy art direct from the artist for mutually beneficial reasons. Or you want to see a lot of art in situ. Always popular artist open studios are this weekend in SE Portland. This is the uncurated version. For details see snackword.netfirms.com/seportlandartwalk.com/default.htm. Given that serious curation where possible includes studio visits, you can be your own curator for a weekend. 10AM-5 Saturday and Sunday. Free
Shelf Life 2 is a big group show premised on the construction of a display shelf. Cody Hudson, Mike Perry, Ryan De La Hoz, Ryan Jacob Smith, Jolby, Brandon Chuesy, Do-it, Andrew Holder, Jesse Brown, Andy Mueller and Jesse LeDoux make stuff for the shelf. Then there is Joy of Refuge by Erik Railton. And music by Brooke Parrot. It's an Alberta activation at Together Gallery www.togethergallery.com 2916 NE Alberta, Ste A Map
6PM-11 Free
And as mentioned above our copywriting of the month award goes to ...Rocksbox! And not just because it's in Icelandic. More for the content. You have been warned.
""Götulist í björg kassi!
Ásmundur Ásmundsson, Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, Helgi Þórsson
Exhibition Statement
Painting is easy. A toddler can make a good painting if handed a few pleasant colors and the right “concept”. Same goes for the destitute people of the second and third world or the dimwitted animals of Africa. Even a monkey or a lion can make the canvas happy! A great artist always needs an interesting challenge to keep busy. In our post-modern era a painting can hardly be such a challenge. One could of course paint with naughty colors onto a funky canvas, and use unusual methods such as finger-painting. But either way, the toadying manners of the old masters seems intertwined with the canvas threads. The odoriferous stench of the oil can be heartwarming but where could that possibly lead us? Even painting on a radical piece of cardboard or plywood will only bring you shame. When the three of us were faced with some personal issues that could only be dealt with by means of art-making, oil on canvas was the last thing on our mind. And even if these were primal “emotions” of the gut that required a spilling, we thought a more cerebral process would be appropriate. It wasn’t until both cerebral hemispheres (actually the whole body!) protested that we admitted defeat and grabbed for the paint and started smearing it onto the canvas. Can the gist of Meconium be expressed with other means? I don’t think so. By mixing fresh out of the tube Meconium with Winsor & Newton oil colors we managed to find our own palette. With the niggardly spasms of the lethargic inner child and the funky rhythm of the primal beast-within, we found our place in the never-ending history of painterly brushstrokes. With a dash of funky black “streetart” ala Banksy and Basquiat we declare a tiny fraction of Portland Oregon, with help and permission from Patrick Rock of Rocksbox Fine Art who will hang up our tags among the bonsai trees in the back yard.
Málverk er auðvelt. A smábarn getur gert góða mynd ef hönd að nokkur skemmtilega liti og hægri "hugtak". Sama gildir um destitute fólk annars og þriðja heimsins eða dimwitted dýr í Afríku. Jafnvel api eða ljón getur gert striga hamingjusamur! Mikill listamaður þarf alltaf áhugaverð áskorun að halda upptekinn. Í kjölfar nútímanum okkar málverk getur varla verið svona áskorun. Mátti mála auðvitað með óþekkur litum inn á angurvær striga og nota óvenjulegar aðferðir eins og fingur-mála. En annar hvor vegur, virðist toadying hegðun af gömlu herrum samtvinnuð með striga þræði. The ilmandi fnykur af olíu má hjartanlegur en þar gæti það hugsanlega leitt okkur? Jafnvel að mála á róttækar stykki af pappa eða krossviður mun bara koma þér skömm. Þegar þrír af okkur voru frammi fyrir einhverjum persónulegum málefnum gæti aðeins er hægt að meðhöndla með list-gerð, olía á striga var síðast hlutur í huga okkar. Og jafnvel þótt þær voru Primal "tilfinningar" í Gut sem þarf að hella, hélt við fleiri heila ferlið væri rétt. Það var ekki fyrr en bæði heilahvela (í raun allan líkamann!) Mótmælti því að við inngöngu ósigur og grípa til mála og byrjaði smearing það á strigann. Getur gist barnabiks í legvatni gefa upp með öðrum aðferðum? Ég held ekki. Með því að blanda fersk úr slöngunni barnabiks í legvatni hjá Winsor & Newton olíu liti náðum við að finna eigin litatöflu okkar. Með niggardly krampi af daufur innra barn og angurvær hrynjandi Primal skepna-innan, við fundum stað okkar í aldrei-endir sögu malerískar brushstrokes. Með þjóta af Funky svarta "streetart" ALA Banksy og Basquiat við lýsa örlítið brot af Portland Oregon, með hjálp og leyfi frá Patrick Rock Rocksbox Fine Art sem vilja hengja upp merkingar okkar meðal Bonsai tré í bakgarð.
Biography
Ásmundur Ásmundsson - Ásmundur Ásmundsson was born in Iceland. Graduated from the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts, Fine Art School in Akureyri, and the School of Visual Arts (MFA), New York. As an artist he analyzes contemporary art, seeks for its positive as well as negative aspects. He puts a shield against pompous meanings to lead us to think about the life as it is now and here. Asmundur breaks the connections with materialism and takes inspirations from the mass consumers' requests. His works include painting, body painting, installations, concrete objects, performance, drawings and photography. Asmundur has been rewarded many prizes for his achievements. Among many others he received a Culture Prize DV in 2009 for his exhibition "Concrete" (Hlemmur Gallery, Reykyavik, Iceland), and Special Award from Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts. Not without a reason he is considered an artist who shows up his weak and strong sides as a human. His must recent book, Dear Friends, A Collection of Speeches 2000-2010, has just been published on utudur press. This will be his second exhibition at ROCKSBOXFINEART.
Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson - Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson was born in Akureyri, Iceland in 1977. He studied sound art at the Fachochschule in Hannover, Germany from 1998 to 2003 and has been a long-time member of the band Stilluppsteypa. His work on CD has been variously described as collage, quiet drone manipulations, and calm and minimal, which offer a range of still, contemplative moments, contrasted with more discordant (though not necessarily noisy) ones. He has studied at The Royal Conservatory, Den Haag, The Netherlands, with an emphasis in Sonology/Electronic Music, and at Fachochschule Hannover, as a student of Professor Ulrich Eller, studying Meisterschüler.
Helgi Þórsson - Helgi Þórsson was born in 1975 in Reykjavik Iceland. His is both a visual artist and a sound artist. In addition to holding over 7 solo art exhibitions, he is member and co-founder of the experimental music group Stilluppsteypa, member of the Icelandic electronic super group Evil Madness, and half of duo Alien UFO with Runar Magnusson. Helgi attended the Royal Conservatory, Sonology Dept., The Hague, Rietveld Academy, in Amsterdam, and received his Masters in Fine Arts from the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. He has been the recipient of multiple awards and scholarships including Scholarship Fund of the Berlage, Gerrit Rietveld Prize Winner 2002, the 2002 AIAS Competition Winner in Seoul, South Korea, a Nomination KunstRAI Prize in 2003, and the 2008 Children's Choice Award. Helgi has performed in Iceland, Poland, Sweden, Holland, Germany, Spain, Belgium and the United States.""
