Death is not funny. But there is a good argument we should lighten up on our relationship with it. Maybe artist Jim Riswold, mad ad man, who beat death by cancer, has some ideas about that. Pretty smart copywriter Riswold presents his new show, Philosophy is Not Funny, inspired by noted philosophers Hegel, Kant, Spinoza, Foucault and others. At W+K www.wk.com 224 NW 13th Map 5PM-9 Free
Contact. It's a heavy meme. One of the heaviest. In the top 5, with birth, love, mating and death. Take a look at a talk on the search for contact. So with that meme, curator Chloé Womack has crafted a show. Artists Chase Biado, Jamie Edwards, Daniel J Glendening, Joshua Lee Vineyard, the Xhurch Collective and the Portland Alien Museum explore of the idea of a relationship with other life forms, real, fictional, in our minds. The announcement of the show is a beautiful thing. In the Littman Gallery at Portland State University Smith Center, 1825 SW Broadway Room 250. early 5PM-8 Free
Sometimes we forget, in the ADD fog of the mediasphere, our our native landscape, and our native people, both here before. Especially true with the ubiquity of access to wild landscape surrounding us daily. James Lavadour lives it as a native man who makes abstract landscape paintings. His studio is on the res. Long championed by PDX Contemporary Gallery, he has a show there opening tonight. At PDX Contemporary Art www.pdxcontemporaryart.com 925 NW Flanders Map early close 8PM Free
What is it about eleven? In our range of experience we have had 9/11. Madrid 3/11. Japan has 3/11. The Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami shook the culture and government to the core. There will be an exclusion zone for years. Artists Soichiro Fukuda and Dai Ishizaka have photos of it. The gallery also has Terra D'Agua by illustrators Marcelo Macedo, Monstrinho and Michael Cursed. At Hellion Gallery www.helliongallery.com 19 NW 5th Suite 208. Through the lobby of the arched brick entry, up the stairs and to the back. Very upper floor Japan-style.
Map 6PM-10ish Free
The Portland 2012 Biennial, curated by Prudence Roberts, continues its sequential openings across multiple venues tonight. Ben Buswell and Akihiko Miyoshi are at PDX Across the Hall, 929 NW Flanders. Early close 8PM Free
Compound has Aaron Nagel, Dan Gluibizzi, David Bray, Berto Legendary, JesseHectic, Adam Garcia, Ripper1331, Alister Lee, others, in a show, Dangerous Curves, themed on the pin up aesthetic. At Compound Gallery www.compoundgallery.com 107 NW 5th 6PM-10 Free
Stumptown has Bradley Streeper. Haven't seen the show, but it wins the copywriting award for the month: "Bradley Streeper combines paintings and sculptures to reflect on a culture increasingly dictated by shallow advertising, flashy surfaces, and anxiety-inducing white noise. With surroundings often distorting our definition of value, Streeper points to man’s conflict with the natural world and literally carves out extraneous information from his pieces in an attempt to bring some order to this modern chaos". At Stumptown www.stumptowncoffee.com 128 SW 3rd 5PM-9 Free
Chambers has installation artist Allen Maertz. Maertz makes 2d and dioramas which would fit well with natural history or science museums. At Chambers Gallery www.chambersgallery.com 916 NW Flanders Early close 8:30PM Free
Jessica Bronk is a Portland painter and maker of schematic impressionist landscapes. She has some at the Powell's Books third floor gallery. 1005 W Burnside Store hours. Free
Valentines is transitioning to Modou as curator. Tonight though there is Yep, photos by Norm Sajovie. Best to curator booker Jen on her new project! 7PM-late Free
The Everett Station lofts are recommended as always, all of your choice, of course! At the Everett Lofts 625 NW Everett. Bounded by NW Everett, Broadway, Flanders and 6th Map
Want the heaviest of heavies instead of art? You can see the documentary War Don Don as part of the Cascade African Film Festival free tonight. War Don Don translates in Krio to the War is Over. Sierra Leone had a civil war from the 90's to 2001. It's in the top 3 unspeakable atrocities of the 20th century. Not necessarily in numbers, but certainly in transgression on society and civilization. After it, the UN and the international court at Le Hague stepped in to process the period. This film traces the trial of rebel leader Issa Sesay. Prosecutor David Crane remarks on the war as “a tale of horror beyond the gothic into the realm of Dante’s Inferno… these dogs of war, these hounds of hell released.” That's a mild indictment in my opinion. The defense portrays Sesay as himself caught in the maelstrom. Frankly I don't know if I can watch this on the big screen knowing the period. But I would recommend it. Part of the Cascade Festival of African Film www.africanfilmfestival.org At PCC Cascade Moriarty Arts and Humanities Building, Room 104. 7:30PM Free
