Wednesday, May 31, 2023

May 31 Silent Ether

Wes Mills brings Silent Twig and Megan Murphy brings Ether. Silent Twig is small watercolors on paper and two and a half dimensional pieces of wood with paintings on them. Ether are Murphy's well known panels with regular patterns of marks suggesting writing on glass substrates with wax softening the pattern.

At PDX Contemporary Art www.pdxcontemporaryart.com 1825 NW Vaughn Map 5PM-7 Free

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

April 22 - May 27 Uniform Conduct

A long time ago Andrea Zittel spoke in Portland about her work. Her themes have been DIY domestic existence including clothing.

She described living in a room for a month with no sense of time - clock, daylight, or external communications. She has built unit interiors to live in, their furnishings, and eatware. A big project was AZ West in Joshua Tree.

The funniest story was an account of her work in NYC as an art gallery assistant. It always has a visible-invisible dynamic in high end commercial galleries. Because she was poor, she sewed two little black dresses. After 2 years working there on the second last day of work, the gallery owner asked if she had worn that dress before.

Regen Projects https://www.regenprojects.com/exhibitions/andrea-zittel8 has gathered the second retrospective of the uniforms Zittel has sewn as her art of life. It is a fertile project. We see uniforms daily and some have worn them in their work life. We also have freeform uniforms, a set of conventions to compose in for work and play.

https://spruethmagers.com/exhibitions/andrea-zittel-a-z-uniform-series-1991-2002-munich/ (2003)

https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s1/andrea-zittel-in-consumption-segment/ (2001)

http://www.mit.edu/~allanmc/zittel1.pdf (2004)

https://wwd.com/feature/uniforms-are-essential-in-zittel-s-critical-space-545612-1988429/ (2006)

https://thegentlewoman.co.uk/library/andrea-zittel (2015)

https://www.vogue.com/article/andrea-zittel-a-to-z-personal-uniforms-third-decade (2023)

At Regen Projects 6750 Santa Monica Blvd, LA, CA Free

Saturday, May 27, 2023

May 27 Touch

Helens Costume opens Touch ‘em with Love by Shelley Turley.

At Helen's Costume https://www.costumeintl.com/ 7706 SE Yamhill Street Opening today. 2PM-5 Free

Friday, May 26, 2023

May 26 Bulbous

Benjamin Ewig opens When We Met, bulbous sculptures and paintings. At One Grand Gallery www.onegrandgallery.com 1000 E Burnside 6PM-10 Free

Sunday, May 21, 2023

May 21 Creative Growth North

North Pole Studios is in the family tree rooted in Project Grow. Project Grow, created my Natasha Wheat, is firmly centered in what I term "socially conscious social practice art."

Wheat found an existing program for intellectually disabled adults who were paid a penny a piece for the therapy of sorting clothes hangers. That's much too boring. She brought in artists to create a studio and gallery, Street Yoga, and created a CSA farm for the clients. The clients were participants in decision making along the ideas of RD Laing. Wheat went on to CCA and wrote about the history of psychiatric institutions.

Sadly an individual who had been involved in a scandal at the library moved over as the executive director of the parent nonprofit and crushed it. The struggling remnants were further mutulated by a Trump order that all such programs be redesigned to lead to paid permanent work. Freed of that, North Pole Studios has a participatory art program similar to the famous Creative Growth in Oakland.

They are active on Instagram and they are opening their studio today with RSVP by noon - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/spring-open-house-tickets-634922368897. At NW Marine Artworks 2526 NW 29th 11AM-4 Free


Making the Earth Cool is having a meetup for families today at Parallax. 10AM-noon Free

Saturday, May 20, 2023

May 20 Imprecise Skin

Todd Norsten opens An Imprecise Recollection of an Inaccurate Memory. At Adams and Ollman Gallery, the second of two members of the New Art Dealers Alliance www.newartdealers.org, www.adamsandollman.com 418 NW 8th 1PM-4 Free


Beckey Kaye has an artist talk followed by a music performance by Sara Heise. Kaye will be discussing her exhibition Second Skin, the current show of sculptures. Heise will be performing acoustic versions of songs by The Gits. At Souvenier Gallery https://souvenirartspdx.org/ 1233 NE Alberta 2PM Free

May 20-21 Plant Rock Plane

Rare Plant Research is a rare plant nursery which sells rare plants on the Internet. They are open just one weekend year to the public for plant sales. They are open this weekend. It really is a special place. You can visit Rare Plant Research www.rareplantresearch.com

11900 S Criteser Rd, Oregon City. Do not park on Criteser road, parking in their field. 11PM-4 Free


It's also the Mt Hood Rock Club rock show. https://mthoodrockclub.com/annual-rock-show/


And another unusual event is a rare performance of 1000 Airplanes on the Roof by Philip Glass. The play is a deranged monolog perhaps sugesting alien abduction.

Third Angle did a lot of work to reconstruct the score which was in disarray. They are playing it under the Spruce Goose at the Evergreen Air Museum https://www.evergreenmuseum.org/. 1000 Airplanes on the Roof https://www.thirdangle.org/2223-season#airplanes 500 NE Captain Michael King Smith Way, McMinnville, OR 8PM $60/$25 students

Friday, May 19, 2023

May 19 Protection Adaptation Resistance+

The Center for Native Arts & Cultures opens a new traveling show Protection: Adaptation & Resistance all the way from Alaska.

It envelops three themes: Land and Culture Protectors, Activists for Justice and Sovereignty, and Resilient Futures. Those all sound great! It is documentation of native-created artwork and social practice art.

Show https://www.nativeartsandcultures.org/events/alaska-exhibit at the Center for Native Arts & Cultures https://www.nativeartsandcultures.org/ 800 SE 10th (old YU building with a waterfall in the basement) Curator & artist talk 6PM, reception 7-9 Free


Shawn Creedon, Sarah Baker, and Nora Colie bring playful climate discussion in Making Earth Cool. Tonight they guest Jenstar Hacker for a forest bath in the form of wild animal field sounds, Cochlea Cocoon, accompanying a guided meditation on the occasion on a new moon. At Parallax Art 516 NW 14th Doors 7:30PM event 8 Free

Friday, May 12, 2023

May 12 Harmonic Convergence

The curation of the Stumptown art fellowship and downtown show of it has transitioned from May Burrel to Wendy Swartz, long time Eastside Stumptown curator.

Portland-Corvalis artist Anna Fidler https://www.annafidler.com/ wins and shows tonight. This body of work goes back to earlier layerd paper cut imagery when I first found her work. She is doing geometric schematic work now, and a revival https://www.annafidler.com/current-work/figurative-energy-potraits.

The Stumptown fellowship is well respected and their openings are recommended. The shows are up for long enough you can stop in for coffeetime to see them.

At Stumptown www.stumptowncoffee.com 128 SW 3rd 5PM-7 Free

Thursday, May 11, 2023

May 11 Points Between

Not every exceptional show has openings and closings, our modus. But the Lobby At Ellen Browning has been doing excellent curation. They are a very chill space to stop by for a quiet viewing limited hours.

They have an opening tonight.

The new show is Between Two Points and includes Jenny Holzer, Mary Weatherford, and Daniel Buren.

This spot has museum level artists you can see for free.

The past show was The Earth Laughs, with David Hockney, Andy Worhol, Max Jansons, Karin Gulbran, Petra Cortright, the Campana Brothers and Margarite Humeau. MK Guth's 5,000 Pages on Love is in residence for you to inscribe. The big piece is Flower and People – A Whole Year per Hour from TeamLab. If you don't know TeamLab you should look them up, and seek them out if you travel internationally. We are fortunate to be able to experience it here.

The project is a notable admixture of real estate development and art. Another notible example was the Queens West gentrification in Toronto. It was a low rent neighborhood I walked and met with artist studios. The condo developers bought art from displaced artists. Then each new condo buyer had a choice to own from the collection on signing.

At the Lobby At Ellen Browning https://ellenbrowningbuilding.com/the-lobby/ 2871 SE Division Street. 6PM-8 Free

Saturday, May 06, 2023

May 7 Digital Talks

Technology intermixed with art is a vast topic of centuries. The pace is speeding and the topic is branching. The Art Museum decided to take a cut with a free lecture From Digital Colonialism to Artificial Stupidity: Reframing Technology for Human Recovery.

It is part of the program for the exhibition Hito Steyerl: This is the Future. Speakers are Morehshin Allahyari NYC digital artist and speaker with many videos you can find, professor Kris Cohen from Reed, and the museum's Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Sara Krajewski.

Talk https://portlandartmuseum.org/event/from-digital-colonialism-to-artificial-stupidity/?instance_id=32089 at the Portland Art Museum 1219 SW Park in the Grand Ballroom in the Mark Building 2PM Free

May 6 Move See Burn Forgetting Debris Omens

Sator conyinues their show with movement by Roland Dahwen, Sam Hamilton, Jess Perlitz & Takahiro Yamamoto.

At Sator Prokects https://www.satorprojects.com/ 1709 SE 3rd. 2PM Free


Fata Morgana by Adrián S. Bará. opens.

At at SE Cooper Contemprary https://www.secoopercontemporary.com/ 6901 SE 110th 1PM-4 Free


Out of the Ashes by kozyndan of Japan/LA themed on rabbits open. They are food fired.

At Nucleus Portland http://www.nucleusportland.com 2916 NE Alberta 4PM-6 Free


Debris Potpourri by Jeremy and Jessie Le Grand is themed on their home occupied by a baby. At Well Well Projects www.wellwellprojects.com in the Disjecta building 8371 N. Interstate Map  5PM-8 Free


The History of Forgetting by Epiphany Couch is at Carnation Contemporary www.carnationcontemporary.com in the Disjecta building 8371 N Interstate. 5PM-8


Oregon Contemporary continure Omens of Capacity, has a talk at 2024 Biennial curators Jackie Im and Anuradha Vikram and a show by a Friends of Noise band. At Oregon Contemporary nee Disjecta, in the shadow of Paul Bunyan www.oregoncontemporary.org 8371 N. Interstate Map 5PM-8 Free

Friday, May 05, 2023

May 5-7 Coda

Coda is a musical term for the a motif marking the end of a movement or piece. It is an appropriate name for a documentary on the late musician Ryuichi Sakamoto who had connections to Portland Art presenters and culturalists.

"Within the first few minutes of Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda, Sakamoto plays a decayed piano drowned by the 3.11 tsunami; wide helicopter takes show burgeoning activist movements demanding the denuclearization of Japan and the world; and a live rendition of Sakamoto’s Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence is shown – his solemn, frenetic plea for the end of war and violence. Coda delivers a quiet biography of Sakamoto’s eclectic career, interwoven with footage of the birth of his 2017 record async, and serves as an elegiac meditation on the asynchronicity of modern society with nature, the sublimity of sound, and Sakamoto’s own mortality after being diagnosed with cancer."

www.5thavenuecinema.org 510 SW Hall Friday & Saturday 6PM & 8:30, Sunday 3. Free PSU community, everybody else $7

Thursday, May 04, 2023

May 4 Westside Art Openings

Justine Kurland is photographer noted for a visually simple interpretation of feminism. Recommended. Her reception was Tuesday. At Elizabeth Leach Gallery www.elizabethleach.com 417 NW 9th Map 6PM-8 Early Close Free


Robin Friend has Bastard Countryside and Mishka Henner & Vaseem Bhatti have Energy Goast. At the Nine Gallery inside Blue Sky Ellen George has Indelible Trace. Recommended.

At Blue Sky Gallery www.blueskygallery.org Map 122 NW 8th 6PM-8 Early Close Free


PNCA is back. Unfortunaley security informs no public events until the Fall. The library is closed to the public. At PNCA www.pnca.edu 511 NW Broadway Map 5PM-8 Free


Brenda Mallory is a sculptor known for flat. She is accompanied by vintage sculptor James Lee Hansen. At Laura Russo Lee Gallery www.russoleegallery.com 805 NW 21st 5:30PM-7 Early Close Free


Blackfish has a show of many of their artists. At Blackfish Gallery https://www.blackfish.com/ 938 NW Everett Map 6PM-9 Free


Becoming Herself, Becoming a River are paintings by Lisa Onstad. At Waterstone Gallery www.waterstonegallery.com 124 NW 9th Free


The saddest thing with Dan dead is that the ad agency takes Thursday art night for private parties. They used to support arts and artists. Let's hope they don't kill Caldera next.