June 30 No Deep Empty Words

The St Johns NoFest instantiates for a fifth year with a dozen venues and a hundred performers. Experimental music of all types. All free. www.nofest.net 11AM Saturday - 2AM Sunday Free



Hip hop dance is a dynamic and continually evolving culture. Much stronger event community in larger cities, including Seattle, than there is in Portland. To rectify, Huy Pham has started a monthly series, Deep. This is the fourth. Deep 4.0. It's a 2on2 all styles battle. Crowd judged. Live producers will tag with the DJ's to produce the music the competitors will respond to, with no information in advance on the beats. It's all ages, and parents are challenged to throw down against one another. Musics by Tribe, RCM, Rip City Kingz, New Lineage (Donna Motion, PopnTod + special guest), Ben Vo (solo) and Unseen. Crews include Gerl Snubb & Thizz, Kestra & Bradley Gooding, Yen Boogie & Boogaloo Z, Initial Steps, Victor & Boss, Nicole & Russel, Vast Impulse, Quantumstep, Tigerclaw & Mr Munoz, ATL & Aleckgator, Back 2 Basix, Dre & Logic, First Class, Mini-Monsters Young Hot & B.rad, V & Lawrence from Tribe, Rhythm Bandits, Worn Soles, Mercedes & Her Girl, Alfred & J-Rod, Gaby & Elya, TJ Cruz & Bridgette Corbin, Stumptown Stompers, Mantis & Icon, Wicked FX, Big Snubb & Snubb Deuce, Jay Z & Kanye, Le Femme Fatale, Team Imbalanced, Jung & Alvin, JB & Ryan, Moon Patrol, Big Bro & Lil Sis. All ages, adult beverages available for adults. At The Slate, 2001 NW 19th #104 6PM-10 $10



John Cage. Seminal musician and conceptual performer. He also had a huge partnership with Merce Cunningham, revolutionizing modern dance similarly. Tonight is a special 12 hour performance of an archival recording of Empty Words created first in 1974 by Cage. Bard College is doing a macrobiotic dinner Cage designed for the performance which will be broadcast live, worldwide. Additional music by Josh Quillen "scored for amplified plant materials, water, conch shells, and burning pine cones".

Empty Words by John Cage johncage.org/empty_words.html At http://comm.free103point9.org:8000/wgxc.mp3.m3u 7PM Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4) to 8AM Sunday (3 hours ahead of Portland) Free

June 29 Placebo

Placebo. It's the interaction between our mind and our immune system. That immune system is built on our genome, but its beauty is that it learns from experience. My allopathic doctor believes much of the heavy lifting in modern medicine's treatment regimes is done by the placebo effect.

Likewise our visual aesthetic of what is good is determined by a mix of neurochemical response built on our genome, the interplay of novelty and familiarity, and the entire corpus of our visual experience.

So placebo is a rich metaphor for response to art and not a slight. Artists combine, by design or subconscious genius, visual and conceptual ideas that activate their own, and viewers, placebo effect. That's the idea of Maggie Casey's show Placebo. Casey was one of the organizers of the Little Field and Appendix spaces in garages off Alberta. She is now at RISD working on her MFA.

Recommended. At the 12128 Labrador Project http://www.12128boatspace.com/ It's moored by Fred's Marina 12900 NW Marina Way, Portland. Map More detailed directions, don't get lost, on the website. 7PM-10 Free

June 28 Last Thursday in Algeria

MSHR plays at Appendix tonight sometime after 9. We covered it in a previous post. It's worth it. Neomystical like Yacht, but more raw sonicly. At Appendix Project Space www.appendixspace.com On the alley between 26th and 27th, South of Alberta. Map 7-10ish Free



Optic Nerve Arts was an early pioneer Alberta business inking skin artfully. Their artists' artworks have outlasted Alberta art. Now they have moved down the street. Welcome to the Edge is their annual show of works on the wall by tattoo artists. At Optic Nerve Arts www.opticnervearts.com 1223 NE Alberta



Delphine Bedient is a multi artist, 2d, sculpture, writing, photography and zineing. She had an opportunity to spend some time in Algeria. She reads about it from her new zine, Algeria: Notes on an Unfamiliar Place. At Reading Frenzy www.readingfrenzy.com 921 SW Oak 7PM Free

June 26 Olfactory Animalic

Julia Barbee is an artist and clothing designer. She operated under the name Frocky Jack Morgan with her deconstructed clothing. She makes perfumes too. Tonight she explains her theory of constructing scent formulations. You can smell the ingredients individually, and then in the blends, to form your own scent theories.

We each have a highly developed olfactory sense with receptors patterned by our genome. There is good evidence we are actually able to distinguish between mirror image molecules. And it is sometimes possible for us to sense a single molecule.

In addition to her perfume formulations, Barbee uses scent and sound as sculptural elements in her artwork. And she is one of Portland's most knowledgeable scent researchers.

"The majority of fragrances are formulated using plant-based or synthetic aromas. However, some perfume houses and manufacturers still use animal-derived notes. These animalic scents can feature ingredients like civet, obtained from the African civet cat; ambergris, a secretion from the sperm whale; and castoreum, a secretion from the Castor beaver. Feeling squeamish yet?

Animalic fragrances, which are often rather pricey because they are more difficult to resource, can range in smell from sweet and woody to furry and leathery to stanky or dirty. As unappealing as that all may sound, when used in small quantities, these types of scents can be described as providing depth, sensuality, and warmth to a scent.

If you're opposed to the use of animal byproducts for whatever reason(s), or the thought of them makes you nauseated, modern fragrances include nods to these sensual, exotic scents, without the real deal. For instance, in lieu of obtaining scent from the musk sacs of the Asian musk deer, synthetic musk, often known as white musk, is used. And while animalic scents are known for being excellent fixatives, or scent boosters, there are other natural ingredients, like resins and woody notes, available to provide a similar effect".

A presentation of the Curiosity Club, you can tune into the free live webcast off the Core77 site or visit the talk and demonstration in person at Hand Eye Supply www.handeyesupply.com/pages/curiosity-club 23 NW 4th 6PM Free

June 24 Summer Brunch

The Research Club presents its last Summer brunch as they jet set into their Portland Passport Project. Presenters are Abe from bePortland, Gus from The Davenport Project, Daniel on digital geography and Christina on Neurobics. Bring food. At the Idealist www.idealist.org 209 SW Oak #600 Noon-3

June 23 PNCA MFA Glass Half Full

PNCA has a mid-program readout of MFA visual studies participants: Christy Bailey, Terri Bradley, Erin Dengerink, Kiel Fletcher, Linden How, Timothy Janchar, John Knight, Matthew Leavitt, Daniel Long, Andrew Lorish, Cristin Norine, Justin Schwab, Edward Trover, Lindsay Williams and Takahiro Yamamoto. It's an opportunity to get acquainted with what is happening in the program. At Disjecta, in the shadow of Paul Bunyan www.disjecta.org 8371 N. Interstate Map 6PM-9 Free

June 22-23 Seattle to Portland

DAIPANbutoh presents two nights of premieres. Friday is Sheri Brown with Divided By Zero, Diana Garcia-Snyder with MA:13 and Danse Perdue with Mother of War Part 1: the Visitation". Saturday is Joan Laage's Chopin Dances, Helen Thorsen with Higher Ground and Mary Cutrera performing Can't Sleep Clowns Will Eat Me. All at Velocity Dance Center 1612 12th Ave, Seattle 8PM $20


Meanwhile in Portland, Hand2Mouth Theater has organized the Risk Reward Festival with performers from Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, BC and Los Angeles. By Hand2Mouth Theater www.hand2mouththeatre.org At Artists Repertory Theatre 1516 SW Alder 7:30PM $20

June 22 Magical Realism in Visionary Landscape

Magical realism in Northwest art is a thread from today going back in time. Another name is Northwest visionary art. Today it is MSHR and Bruce Conkle. Morris Graves. Of course, the first art here was magical realism in the form of Northwest petroglyphs.

Tonight you have the opportunity to go back in time on that thread to the mid 20th Century, in the work of the late Carl Hall. He came to Oregon at age 21, and one of his paintings was acquired by the Whitney at age 26. He taught for many years in Salem, passing in 1996.

It's an art history lesson. Opening at the Murdoch Collections murdochcollections.com 2219 NW Raleigh Map 5PM-8 Free



Gallery Homeland, which is now distributed across continents and countries, including the country of Texas, opens a show of exchange between Portland, Marfa and Houston, Southern/Pacific. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org in the Ford Building www.fordbuildingpdx.com 2505 SE 11th x Division. Enter through the cafe on the corner if the main doors on 11th are locked. 6PM-9 Free

June 21 Art Philosophy Talk

Metaphysics has been a tool for me. I've dug deep enough to bend it to my uses but no deeper. Others go deep, deep, deep into philosophy. One is Thomas Zummer, who has personally studied with Foucault, Derrida, Eco, Ricoeur and Searle. He is an artist, as well, with notable exhibitions internationally. You can see his bio here. He's able to apply those philosophical experiences to pop culture semiotics, for instance to monsters. It's quite amazing that PNCA is bringing him to speak and a small retrospective of his work, "works I should have done" to exhibit in the Feldman. At PNCA www.pnca.edu 1241 NW Johnson Map 6:30PM Free

June 20, 28 July 1 OcularYoniAuralLinga

The Oregon Painting Society is one of Portland's greatest art collectives. Many of their 2d, 3d and installation works include a sound track, some performed live. More of that is needed from all artists. Brenna Murphy and Birch Cooper from Oregon Painting Society have their own unit, MSHR. MHSR taps into neo-mysticism in performance installations, combining driftwood with lasers and touch sensitive sound synths.

We do not give the copywriting of the month award to art press releases that run to academic art speak. They are like descriptions of DJ's. But we like a muscular one which is actually descriptive. Though I'm not sure what a laser feedback corridor is.

"The duo harnesses elemental forces to nurture ecstatic cybernetic ecosystems. Their sculptural human-electronic interfaces offer visitors interactive ocular/aural experiences within an augmented reality of mirrored glowing sand glyphs, sonic ancestral rainforest codes and misty laser feedback corridors. In two presentations, MSHR will ritualistically engage a trans-dimensional organic synthesizer to unfold earthly doors to terrestrial transcendence."

MHSR's work is significant in the context of Quantenexperimente by Anton Zeilinger at Documenta.

MHSR has been at residence at Appendix with their Earthly Door project and they have three readouts. Wednesday is a performance at 9 to honor the solstice. They will be open Last Thursday, performance at 9. July 1st, they will have a screening of video art influences at 9. Highly recommended.

At Appendix Project Space www.appendixspace.com On the alley between 26th and 27th, South of Alberta. Map 7-10ish Free

June 16 Production Place

Wynde Dyer commences a new project, Production and Reproduction, tonight. Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, she will create a series of paintings. Next she will have the paintings reproduced by assistants. Finally, the paintings will be reexecuted in Dafen, China, a town dedicated to making art copies.

Let's Get Physical, A Kinesthetic Aesthetic is a show of photography curated by Mariana Tres. Included are Rachel Ellison, Chicago; David Horvitz, NY; Lilly McElroy, LA; Elaine Miller, Chicago; Heidi Schwegler, Portland; and Type A from NY.

The Black Gallery, a media space continues the Experimental Film Festival Portland show: Fissure Vents, curated by Grand Detour.

All at Place, placepdx.tumblr.com a gallery on the 3rd floor of the Pioneer Place Mall along with the People's art of Portland and the Woolley Gallery. If the mall appears closed, enter the film theater building adjacent, travel through the tunnel to the Place mall, and take the elevator to the 3rd floor, sometimes the bridge on the 3rd floor is open too. 700 SW Fifth. 6PM-9 Free

In the same place, Mark Woolley Gallery has wall releafs in slate, metal and hydrocal by David Reager and Broken/Reassembled by Jill Torberson, sculptures, collage and mixed media boxes. At Mark Woolley Gallery www.markwoolley.com.

The Peoples Art of Portland has a landscape group show and illustrations by DKNG Studio - Dan Kuhlken and Nathan Goldman. At the People's Art of Portland www.peoplesartofportland.com

June 15-16 Let's Get Quiet

Quiet Music. In it's repertoire Portland has it. And the label Hush has been a proponent. The Quiet Music Festival continues that vibe. It's a two day affair curated by artist Chris Johanson. Musicians from Portland, Brooklyn and the Bay Area include Grouper, Sonny Smith, Sam Coomes, Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs, Dan Sasaki, Lichens, Vetiver, Scout Niblett, Ural Thomas, Kevin Thomson and Strawberry Smog. At Disjecta, in the shadow of Paul Bunyan www.disjecta.org 8371 N. Interstate Map 8PM $8 one day, $15 both - advance or $10/18 door

June 14 Video Immigration

How to Immigrate to the United States of America is a video work by Paul Clay. Clay uses live footage and game engines to make his work. At RECESS recessart.com at Oregon Brassworks Building, 1127 SE 10th Map 7PM-10

June 13 Appendix Online

Appendix is normally in a garage with itinerant shows. Some of their organizers went East making a right coast gallery. Now Appendix launches an geographically independent online show. Div/Contour, by Joe Hamilton. It starts noon today. View at www.appendixspace.com through June.

June 12 Paint It

Your bike. Ben Falcon talks tonight about how to paint a steel, titanium, aluminum or carbon fiber bike frame. Bike finishes are beautiful, but require many steps, each dependent on the one before being done with care. That's why the finish will last the life of the bike! Ben paints the Cielo line by Chris King. A presentation of the Curiosity Club, you can tune into the free live webcast off the Core77 site or visit the talk and demonstration in person at Hand Eye Supply www.handeyesupply.com/pages/curiosity-club 23 NW 4th 6PM Free

June 10 The Song of Sol Lewitt

Songs On Conceptual Art is a social practice project by Crystal Baxley and Stefan Ransom. Sol Lewitt knocked around the NY art world in his 20's, including doing graphic design for work. That allowed him in his early '30's to lay down many of the early roads in minimalism and conceptual art. One of his strategies was to create algorithmic instructions for wall drawings to be executed by others. The exhibitor or collector would have the right to execute the piece, a revolutionary abstraction of art, making and ownership. It's also a forerunner to social practice tactics.

Inspired by Baldessari Sings LeWitt, Baxley and Ransom selected musicians to create compositions on the 35 units of Lewitt's koan-like manifesto Sentences on Conceptual Art.

The result, a collection, Songs on Conceptual Art, drops tonight. The musicians contributing are Lucky Dragons, Brendan Fowler, Dragging an Ox Through Water, White Rainbow, Jib Kidder, Crazy Band, Bobby Birdman, Karl Blau, Dunes, SAFE, Jackie O Motherfucker, Jordan Dysktra, ARP, Deer or the Doe, Caspar Sonnet, Secret Circuit, White Fang, Larry Yes, Spencer Moody, Sun Foot, Crystal, Stefan, The Polyps, Rob Walmart, DAVIS HOOKER, Wanda and Wonder, Jake Ransom, Megazord, John Rau, Art Husband, Giggles, Boron, 90 Billion Raindrops, LA Ladies Choir, Deep Fried Boogie Band, and Cross Country Club.

Tonight in celebration many perform, including Dragging an Ox Through Water, White Rainbow, Sun Foot, Spencer Moody, Rob Walmart, Caspar Sonnet, John Rau, Jordan Dysktra and Jake Ransom.

The musics will be released in edition of 350, a double 12 inch, for $35. Also released as a download free.

Songs on Conceptual Art www.songsonconceptualart.com at Holocene www.holocene.org 1001 SE Morrison 8PM $5

June 9 Seeds Activate!

One of Portland's large artist studio complexes, the Seed Building, opens for visitors once a year, this evening. There are over 40 studios in three buildings connected by a warren of stairways and corridors. At the North Coast Seed Studios www.pdxseedstudios.com 2127 N Albina 4PM-10 Free

June 8 Hairlines

We are social visual creatures. Hair is a strong factor in appearance. That is why butoh dancers shave it off, to focus attention on the movement of the body, rather than social styling. Kansas artist Molly Murphy, like Portland artist Ashley Sloan, has selected hair as a topic of illustration. She is visiting artist at Albina Press, opening tonight. It is a good subject for drawing too, it's inherently all line! Albina Press openings are always fun and chill. The space was originally an art gallery, and quite excellent, before it was a coffee shop. It has had consistently great curators since. At Albina Press, 4637 N. Albina Ave x Blandena Map 6PM-8 Free

June 8-9 Thirteen Summers of Improvisation

I think Thirteen Summers will be a beautiful project. It's paradoxical because the powerful narrative stands just outside the door of an experimental installation and live musical performance with no words. It is there but it is not there.

Timothy Treadwell spent 13 Summers living in the Alaska wilderness and filmed it. He was passionate about the largest of his co-inhabitants which are hunted for sport, ursus arctos horribilis, the grizzly bear. He believed they should be protected and respected as are whales, dolphins and elephants. He pushed his edge in interacting with the animals as an equal. In the end it didn't work out. But in a way it did. His footage was made into a movie by the noted director, Werner Herzog. That film is Grizzly Man.

Grizzly People maintain Treadwell's archive of video and stills. They have provided Portland's Cinema Project material for multiple screens to accompany an original soundtrack performed live. Thirteen Summers is the result.

A presentation by the Cinema Project and the Creative Music Guild. Thirteen Summers is the opening at 7PM Friday of a night of improvised music and accompaniments that continues with a different program Saturday evening - the Portland Improvisation Summit. Both evenings involve movement improvisation too. At Bamboo Grove Studio 134 SE Taylor (enter on 2nd on the loading dock) Film opens a performance Friday that goes late. See the Improvisation Summit website for full details. 7PM $15 (both nights $20)

June 7 Westside Art Openings

Elizabeth Leach has a show of prints by Elsworth Kelly, a pioneer in minimalism beginning in his late 20's, in the 1940's. These are more obviously more recent, but worth a look. The Museum will also be putting on a major show beginning this month. At Elizabeth Leach Gallery www.elizabethleach.com 417 NW 9th Map 6PM-9 Free



Jenene Nagy has new 2d work at PDX. Measure is geometric charcoals. At PDX Contemporary Art www.pdxcontemporaryart.com 925 NW Flanders Map early close 8PM Free



A group show at Butters includes sculptors Vanessa Calvert and Brenda Mallory. Calvert combines upholstery forms and materials in a lush non-functional strategy. Mallory is known for sculptures made of arrays of similar organic units. At Butters Gallery www.buttersgallery.com 520 NW Davis, 2nd Floor Free



Stumptown has a group show by Project Grow artists QT Buggs, David Crittendon, Forrest Hellum-Willits, David Lechner, Olga Shchepina, Alvina Ternes, Dillon Vacheresse and Jamond Williams. The artists participate in Project Grow, a creative studio and community supported agriculture farm in NE Portland. The project was conceived by social practice artists and many continue to participate themselves. At Stumptown www.stumptowncoffee.com 128 SW 3rd. Early close 7PM Free



Caldera Arts is a long running inspiration for the power of arts and the outdoors. This summer camp gives kids who would otherwise not have a chance to focus on their arts a space to work in the company of professional artists. Tonight they show their work. At W+K www.wk.com 224 NW 13th Map 5PM-8 Free



The constellation of the evening is the PNCA thesis show occupying the atrium and some of the upstairs spaces in the main building. There is work in the Stevens Building up Johnson too. It will take some time to see it all, don't discount returning for a more leisurely viewing school hours. In an odd scheduling decision, the show will be taken down beginning Friday night. At PNCA www.pnca.edu 1241 NW Johnson Map Free



Another show with certain gems is the PSU BFA thesis show. It is distributed across 4 spaces. The Art Building Lobby Gallery has Chase Biado. The MK Gallery upstairs in the Art Building has Ross Farrier and Andre Fortes. In Neuberger, the Autzen Gallery has J.P. Huckins, Nicole McCormick, Rhiannon Rasmussen-Silverstein, Krystal South and Chloe Womack. In Smith Union, the Littman Gallery has Claire Hickox, Vanessa Robertson-Rojas, William Wheeler, Shannon Wolf and Andrew Yepello. At Portland State University check the map at www.pdx.edu. Early show 5PM-8 Free



Chickfactor is a music fanzine and website operating from 1992 to now. In its early days, Gail O'Hara, the project's creative mastermind, hosted musicians and artists from the Olympia independent music explosion couch surfing her NY apartment in the years around 2000. She made a candid record of Northwest festivals and of her friends visiting the city, as the community found itself and made history. This is a show of some of those photographs of musicians like Lois Maffeo, Nikki McClure, Sarah Dougher, Corin Tucker, Rebecca Gates, Scott Plouf, Calvin Johnson, Carrie Brownstein, Janet Weiss, Stella Marrs, Tae Won Yu and many others. O'Hara went on to a noted career in music photography and now makes Portland home. At Reading Frenzy www.readingfrenzy.com 921 SW Oak Free



PICA will be open in the evening. Alex Felton shows a mix of previous work alongside that of local collaborators in his PICA residency. The large video installation on the second floor by Glen Fogel may be operating. At PICA 415 SW 10th 3rd Floor 7PM-10 Free



Christine Clark is a Portland sculptor and member of the Nine Gallery, a long running space for installations. She has made sculptures of wire, hay, concrete, wool and steel. In form, it runs to abstract organic shapes in neutral colors. Excellent work. She opens Herded at the Nine Gallery inside Blue Sky tonight.

Also Dorothee Deiss has As If Nothing Happened, photographs made along the route of the former Berlin Wall, now a bike path. Gay Block has About Love, portraits spanning almost 40 years. At Blue Sky Gallery www.blueskygallery.org map 122 NW 8th 6PM-9 Free



Hellion has Michinori Maru and Sayuka Bloodstone. 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 Free



Compound has Taking My Life Back by Drew Tyndell, Derek Bruno and Benjamin. It's geometric work selected by their new curator Molly Georgetta. At Compound Gallery www.compoundgallery.com 107 NW 5th Free



The Everett Lofts are recommended as always. It's easier for you to see them all than for me to write suggestions. Some close as early as 9PM. At the Everett Lofts 625 NW Everett. Bounded by NW Everett, Broadway, Flanders and 6th Map Free

June 6 little things

Cay Horiuchi is a recent graduate of the PNCA MFA program. Sometimes artists enter a post-MFA funk, but Cay is doing the opposite, with a post-MFA new body of work, little things. She is known for an exploration of dream machines at PNCA, Static, we noted here. Her new work is at the Lodge Gallery in Allied Works 1532 SW Morrison. Open weekdays 9AM-5PM until July 1. Opening reception tonight 6PM