Not all art must be serious fun, it can be fun fun too. That is the case for the artist-designed mini golf links at Holocene. The twelve all star teams creating holes this year are: Jack Bouba & Stacey Mairs; Jesse Pardun, Carl Jansen & Nate Lee; Drew Marshall & Heather Campbell; Scott Mazariegos & John Larsen; John Bacone; Jason Kentta & David Bertman; Tom O'Toole & Ada Mayer; FLAVOURspot; SCRAP Creative Re-Use; Together Gallery featuring Timothy Karpinski, Seth Neefus, & David Wien; Pony Club Gallery and The Pancake Clubhouse Historic Township and Activity Destination for the Living Arts (welcomes you!).
This is always a fun and lively event. You get to vote for the best design team which will receive a hard earned prize of $1000 for their madness. It's at Holocene www.holocene.org 6PM-close $8
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
February 22 Sun King vs Wolves and Urchins!
The Art Gym is a gym at a college repurposed to gallery. It can be a little hard to find - check the university map. This month two shows share the space. Hayley Barker, Wendy Given and Anne Mathern present Wolves and Urchins, inspired by the duality of our attractions to and fears of wild nature. Bruce Conkle and Marne Lucas perfect a theme they have been developing - Warlord Sun King. Sampling nature with an ironic Northwest eye, they make wry comment on our relationship with the wilds. At the Marylhurst Art Gym, in the admin building "A" South end, upper floor. Opening 3PM-5 Free.
February 21 Art at Milepost 5
Milepost 5 continues its visual program with several group shows. Each show gets a floor and the mix of artist curators provides aesthetic variety. Live music. All at Milepost 5 900 E 81st. 7PM-9. Free
February 20 Art & Performance
At Reed College, artist Liza Ryan speaks on her installation now showing in the gallery. Talk 6:30PM Eliot Hall 314 Free
Those who have seen Portland's Water in the Desert performance festivals, such as the ambitious and spectacular Midsummer Night's Dream at Peninsula Park last summer, know the pleasure of a beautiful performance involving dozens. The festival is free. Tonight is a benefit in support of this summer's festival. Performers include Kyai Guntur Sari, Gamelan; Maureen Freehill “momo”, butoh; Adam Hurst, Cello; Miriam Burke, Javanese Dance; Kyogen Theatre by PSU's theater lab; Mizu Desierto Butoh Theatre, the core of the summer festival and Soriah with Ashkelon Sain, Tuvan Throat-singing. There is a dance party after until late. At Someday Lounge 125 NW 5th. Performances commence 8:30PM. Benefit tickets $15-30
Those who have seen Portland's Water in the Desert performance festivals, such as the ambitious and spectacular Midsummer Night's Dream at Peninsula Park last summer, know the pleasure of a beautiful performance involving dozens. The festival is free. Tonight is a benefit in support of this summer's festival. Performers include Kyai Guntur Sari, Gamelan; Maureen Freehill “momo”, butoh; Adam Hurst, Cello; Miriam Burke, Javanese Dance; Kyogen Theatre by PSU's theater lab; Mizu Desierto Butoh Theatre, the core of the summer festival and Soriah with Ashkelon Sain, Tuvan Throat-singing. There is a dance party after until late. At Someday Lounge 125 NW 5th. Performances commence 8:30PM. Benefit tickets $15-30
February 19-21 Undine
Faith Helma, one half of Hand2Mouth's dynamic duo, presents her one person show Undine. Inspired by the intense lives of self destructive rock stars, Helma tells a modern fairy tale with the musical assistance of Peter Musselman, DJ Brokenwindow and John Berendzen. At Conduit, 918 SW Yamhill, 4th floor. Reservations mail (at) hand2mouththeatre.org or 503-235-5284 Thursday & Friday, 7:30PM; Saturday 7:30, 9:30. $10
February 19 Ignite 5
Ignite is a series of short talks that sells out its free tickets in 5 Twitteriffic minutes. The talks this month look good. At the Bagdad Theater General admission doors 6:30PM, Program 7. Free
Sunday, February 08, 2009
February 12 Innovation / Symbolism / Art Stuff
Office PDX is the lone outpost for modern design on Alberta. The psychological support provided by subcultural reassurance in an Oregon Country Fair vibe supports for some Maslow's heirarchy, as it should.
The Office partner duo has a different focus: mid 20th century design to now, which draws psychological sustenance from a Bauhaus philosophy that continually evolving aesthetics support the aspirational needs of all. It is the progressive pole of the brain chemical dynamic of novelty and familiarity.
Tonight Office presents Innovation in a Recession, by Skylab, Laika, Nike. Each has a different timescale: films many years, architecture a few fewer, shoes months.
At Office www.officepdx.com 2204 NE Alberta Street 6PM RSVP required - shop@officepx.com Free
Meanwhile at the Art Institute, University of New Mexico professor of design Maggie Macnab speaks on symbolism in design in support of her new book Decoding Design: Understanding and Using Symbols in Visual Communication. It is a purpose focused view of visual semiotics, something we do without being conscious of it but as a designer is useful to know. At the Art Institute of Portland www.artinstitutes.edu/portland 1122 NW Davis 7PM rsvp required to Allena Baker at abbaker (at) aii.edu Free
M K Guth is a Portland OG craft artist who transitioned to art with schooling in NYC. A forte is video art; work at the Portland Art Museum in installation has shown also at the Whitney Biennial. Guth speaks on some other projects at the museum. At the Portland Art Museum www.pam.org. 6PM Free or museum admission
The Office partner duo has a different focus: mid 20th century design to now, which draws psychological sustenance from a Bauhaus philosophy that continually evolving aesthetics support the aspirational needs of all. It is the progressive pole of the brain chemical dynamic of novelty and familiarity.
Tonight Office presents Innovation in a Recession, by Skylab, Laika, Nike. Each has a different timescale: films many years, architecture a few fewer, shoes months.
At Office www.officepdx.com 2204 NE Alberta Street 6PM RSVP required - shop@officepx.com Free
Meanwhile at the Art Institute, University of New Mexico professor of design Maggie Macnab speaks on symbolism in design in support of her new book Decoding Design: Understanding and Using Symbols in Visual Communication. It is a purpose focused view of visual semiotics, something we do without being conscious of it but as a designer is useful to know. At the Art Institute of Portland www.artinstitutes.edu/portland 1122 NW Davis 7PM rsvp required to Allena Baker at abbaker (at) aii.edu Free
M K Guth is a Portland OG craft artist who transitioned to art with schooling in NYC. A forte is video art; work at the Portland Art Museum in installation has shown also at the Whitney Biennial. Guth speaks on some other projects at the museum. At the Portland Art Museum www.pam.org. 6PM Free or museum admission
February 12-16 Minibikes!
This is a closely curated blog. One vector are cultural explorations beyond sustainable visual art. Those experiences keep creatives fresh. An example are the confabs of the Zoobomber/ messenger/ bike fun-loving community. Mini Bike Winter is that. Brave can find pointers at zoobomb.net/minibikewinter Superbrave can enter the chariot jousts.
February 10 Noh Cave Art
Paintings on the wall of a cave in Lascaux, France are one of the earliest records of art making in the service of society - 16,000 years old. Made in the Würm Ice Age, they recorded knowledge of hunting, critical for survival. This predates the hypothesized breakdown of the bicameral mind, leading to rapid modern development, about the time of the Greek civilization. Professor emeritus George Johanson taught at PNCA (the Museum Art School) from 1955 to 1980. He recently visited the caves and speaks of his experience. At PNCA www.pnca.edu 13th and NW Johnson 6:30PM Free
Noh is an ancient minimal theater of Japan. Tonight Shizuka Mikata performs Noh in its sublime authenticity. Accompanied by actor Michiharu Wakebayashi, flute player Manabu Takeichi, Kotsuzumi drummer Ichiro Kichisaka and Otsuzumi drummer Masaru Kawamura, Mikata performs and speaks of his art. "Shizuka Mikata was born in Kyoto in 1966 as the eldest son of Noh performer Ken Mikata. He made his first appearance on the professional stage at the early age of 5, followed by his first leading role at 12. Mikata went on to apprentice with legendary Noh master and Japanese living national treasure Kurouemon Katayama." So this is the real deal.
Noh is very, very, very slow and formal, so be prepared. Just YouTube Noh. Maybe we can learn to slow down sometimes to the Japanese vibe. Wabi sabi is a great frame in these times too.
Sponsored by the Japan Foundation. At the Performing Arts Center Winningstad Theatre. www.pcpa.com 1111 SW Broadway x Main downtown, 7PM sharp. Free
Noh is an ancient minimal theater of Japan. Tonight Shizuka Mikata performs Noh in its sublime authenticity. Accompanied by actor Michiharu Wakebayashi, flute player Manabu Takeichi, Kotsuzumi drummer Ichiro Kichisaka and Otsuzumi drummer Masaru Kawamura, Mikata performs and speaks of his art. "Shizuka Mikata was born in Kyoto in 1966 as the eldest son of Noh performer Ken Mikata. He made his first appearance on the professional stage at the early age of 5, followed by his first leading role at 12. Mikata went on to apprentice with legendary Noh master and Japanese living national treasure Kurouemon Katayama." So this is the real deal.
Noh is very, very, very slow and formal, so be prepared. Just YouTube Noh. Maybe we can learn to slow down sometimes to the Japanese vibe. Wabi sabi is a great frame in these times too.
Sponsored by the Japan Foundation. At the Performing Arts Center Winningstad Theatre. www.pcpa.com 1111 SW Broadway x Main downtown, 7PM sharp. Free
Saturday, February 07, 2009
February 9 Talks
Rick Lowe is an activist artist architect planner. His inspirational projects show social practice work spans each. Most importantly, it is the kind of good news so sadly lacking. At the urging of neighborhood kids who knew the community's real needs, Lowe redirected his studio art practice in an entirely new direction. Lowe organized a group of artists to buy a few contiguous blocks of row houses scheduled to be leveled in a very depressed community. The artists transformed the houses into a creative utopia of homes, galleries, child care spaces, spots for visiting artist residencies, a school and homes for people who needed them. Lowe's work predates and presages many ideas of Richard Florida as well as some early ideas of Mark Lakeman's City Repair project which urged more flexible live, work, shop opportunities in a few block radius. The idea that creative designers can contribute business and economic insights was also adopted in the early millennium by management guru Tom Peters, while many of Lowe's principles support the New Urbanism credo which began to establish currency in the 1980's. To an extent, Portland developers incorporate the art community into identity and branding in some development. Pioneered by developers with personal interests in art such as Jim Winkler and Al Solheim, it was made into a repeatable process by the branding element of Ziba Design. It was an part of the Queen Street West developments in Toronto as well. Local developers Randy Rappaport, Brad Malsin and the developer of the Ford building have curated creative businesses into their developments. Yet a truly revolutionary project that respects our established planning principles, revolutionizes a community in need and takes advantage of the very large dedicated cash flows in PDC's 30% setaside for affordable housing eludes Portland. Perhaps Lowe's talk can be the beginning of that inspiration. He speaks as part of the Portland Spaces magazine Bright Lights lecture series at Jimmy Mak's (jazz bar by night), 221 NW 10th Ave. Doors 5:30PM talk 6 Free
The PSU Monday Night Lecture Series presents Julie Alt. Alt spans creation, curation and editing and is a cofounder of the art collective Group Material. Combining these roles is commonplace today, yet is still criticized in some quarters, unnecessarily in my view. Hear Alt's version. Talk in Shattuck Hall, Room 212, 1914 SW Park Avenue, at the corner of SW Broadway and Hall on the PSU campus. 7:30PM Free
The PSU Monday Night Lecture Series presents Julie Alt. Alt spans creation, curation and editing and is a cofounder of the art collective Group Material. Combining these roles is commonplace today, yet is still criticized in some quarters, unnecessarily in my view. Hear Alt's version. Talk in Shattuck Hall, Room 212, 1914 SW Park Avenue, at the corner of SW Broadway and Hall on the PSU campus. 7:30PM Free
February 7 Breaking it Down Capitalizing on Disaster Handcrafted In C
Watch Me Break It Down is a show of four video pieces by artist filmmaker Julie Perini. Perini has been working in social practice and some films document that. Others are idea driven meditations. There is even lighter pop culture sampling work. See it all along with musical accompaniment by the Blue Cranes at PSU's MK Gallery. Upstairs at 2000 SW 5th. 6PM-8 Free
Disaster Capitalism is a show about capitalizing on unanticipated disasters in art making. It happens. Materials have their limits and artists are driven to experiment with the new. That is the perfect recipe for disaster. The trick is to transform the disaster. Artists Gordon Barnes and Mandee Schroer present their disaster-driven collaboration which will likely be lovely. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org 2505 SE 11th x Division 6PM-9 Free
The Fine Grind Art Cafe opens Handcrafted, work by Portland artists Lesley Reppeteaux, Blaine Fontana, Tim Karpinski, Byron Schroeder, Jason Brown, Chris Habberman, Jessie Reno, Chris Wellock, Tom Keating, Ryan Bubnis, Christofer Ross, Mike Fields and J. Shea. At 2035 SE 39th 6PM-10 Free
In C may have been the first minimalist composition. Built upon 20th century composition and some branches of musique concrète, it also leaves to the musicians many choices in its playing and can be played by a variable number of musicians as in this performance by 124 musicians. Composer Terry Riley has gone on to a deep study of Indian classical music and occasionally performs in Portland. Dress in white, bring a sitting implement and refreshments. At the Lightbar. 7:30ish
Portland's Japanese Garden is widely considered the most authentic public garden outside Japan. Carved from forest in the mid 1960's, for the first 30 years it has had a series of gardeners from Japan, each placing their imprint, building and rebuilding. For the last about 10 years, the garden curator has been an international scale Portland designer born in Japan. It is possible for a small fee which pays for itself with only a few visits to be a member of the garden. Today the members gather to hear the new garden curator Sadafumi Uchiyama share his thoughts on the garden. Uchiyami learned Japanese landscape design from his grandfather, father and uncles, achieving certification in Japan at age 21, the youngest in his region. Studying Western design at University of Illinois, he now consults on design projects worldwide. At the Portland Japanese Garden www.japanesegarden.com 1PM
If you are in San Francisco tonight is the Chinese New Year Parade. There is also the seriously puzzling fun of the Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt!
Disaster Capitalism is a show about capitalizing on unanticipated disasters in art making. It happens. Materials have their limits and artists are driven to experiment with the new. That is the perfect recipe for disaster. The trick is to transform the disaster. Artists Gordon Barnes and Mandee Schroer present their disaster-driven collaboration which will likely be lovely. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org 2505 SE 11th x Division 6PM-9 Free
The Fine Grind Art Cafe opens Handcrafted, work by Portland artists Lesley Reppeteaux, Blaine Fontana, Tim Karpinski, Byron Schroeder, Jason Brown, Chris Habberman, Jessie Reno, Chris Wellock, Tom Keating, Ryan Bubnis, Christofer Ross, Mike Fields and J. Shea. At 2035 SE 39th 6PM-10 Free
In C may have been the first minimalist composition. Built upon 20th century composition and some branches of musique concrète, it also leaves to the musicians many choices in its playing and can be played by a variable number of musicians as in this performance by 124 musicians. Composer Terry Riley has gone on to a deep study of Indian classical music and occasionally performs in Portland. Dress in white, bring a sitting implement and refreshments. At the Lightbar. 7:30ish
Portland's Japanese Garden is widely considered the most authentic public garden outside Japan. Carved from forest in the mid 1960's, for the first 30 years it has had a series of gardeners from Japan, each placing their imprint, building and rebuilding. For the last about 10 years, the garden curator has been an international scale Portland designer born in Japan. It is possible for a small fee which pays for itself with only a few visits to be a member of the garden. Today the members gather to hear the new garden curator Sadafumi Uchiyama share his thoughts on the garden. Uchiyami learned Japanese landscape design from his grandfather, father and uncles, achieving certification in Japan at age 21, the youngest in his region. Studying Western design at University of Illinois, he now consults on design projects worldwide. At the Portland Japanese Garden www.japanesegarden.com 1PM
If you are in San Francisco tonight is the Chinese New Year Parade. There is also the seriously puzzling fun of the Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt!
Friday, February 06, 2009
February 6 Are you Bored?
What is your best entertainment value of free events? Start at Pancake Clubhouse, Good Gallery, Worksound, Nemo, then 811 E Burnside. Head up to Nationale, Destroystore and Life and Limb. Migrate over to Newspace Photo and take in Pushdot. Then over to Lightbar.
February 6-March 7 African Films
The Cascade Festival of African films is a wonderous thing. Spanning a variety of countries yearly, it is the only way to see some of the films. Best of all - free. Full datails at www.africanfilmfestival.org
Thursday, February 05, 2009
February 5 TED Talks Open
TED Talks are a guiltless pleasure. Fifty 18 minute talks comprise an invitation only conference over four days yearly; a companion international conference is held biennially, last in Arusha, Tanzania. The talks span loosely technology, entertainment and design. In practice, there is a world changing vibe, but the entertainment can be weak. The world changing aspect is real, owing the mix of world thought leaders and an entrepreneurial audience who network at the event.
Many of the talks are professionally archived at the website TED.com where you can watch them free. The conference has made explicitly concrete one of its missions by selecting a few individuals each year for the TED Prize. It comes with a substantial honorarium but also the opportunity to propose a dream world changing project to an audience which can make it happen. That includes you. The TED Foundation is providing an additional one million dollars for the projects this year. In past years' projects, one prizewinner proposed the Once Upon a School project, an open source contribution website to share personal stories of public school successes. Another project is focused on advanced science education in Africa. Other big projects have been taken up by Google.org.
In the spirit of expanding the network of involvement in realizing these dreams, the TED Prize talks will be webcast live this evening, free. Connect to http://www.ted.com/webcast/watch/event/tedprize no earlier than 30 minutes to 5PM PST
There is much more to be said of TED and our Portland conference of an evening inspired by it but not as weighty. In the meantime, tune to the TED archive, it is a great source of good news of which there is plenty about in the world, notwithstanding the short sighted focus of local to international news editors on the negative and sensational.
TED Prize webcast. www.ted.com Webcast at Link. 5PM Pacific Free
Many of the talks are professionally archived at the website TED.com where you can watch them free. The conference has made explicitly concrete one of its missions by selecting a few individuals each year for the TED Prize. It comes with a substantial honorarium but also the opportunity to propose a dream world changing project to an audience which can make it happen. That includes you. The TED Foundation is providing an additional one million dollars for the projects this year. In past years' projects, one prizewinner proposed the Once Upon a School project, an open source contribution website to share personal stories of public school successes. Another project is focused on advanced science education in Africa. Other big projects have been taken up by Google.org.
In the spirit of expanding the network of involvement in realizing these dreams, the TED Prize talks will be webcast live this evening, free. Connect to http://www.ted.com/webcast/watch/event/tedprize no earlier than 30 minutes to 5PM PST
There is much more to be said of TED and our Portland conference of an evening inspired by it but not as weighty. In the meantime, tune to the TED archive, it is a great source of good news of which there is plenty about in the world, notwithstanding the short sighted focus of local to international news editors on the negative and sensational.
TED Prize webcast. www.ted.com Webcast at Link. 5PM Pacific Free
February 5 Chicago Political Film History
Filmmaker and DIY force of culture Marc Moscato presents films spanning 1969 and 2008 in a program A Not Too Distant Past. At the Waypost www.thewaypost.com 3120 N Williams 8pm $5
February 5 Westside Art Openings
The Found phenomena goes beyond the magazine. Tonight artists APAK, Rikki Barney, Ashley Armbruster, Sean Christensen, Jon Clark, Dale Davis, Phillip Earles, Vincent Fritz, Sarah Gottesdiener, Maureen Gubia, Aidan Koch, Amy Kuttab, Matt Lingenfelter, Ben Lloyd, Drew Marshall, Leslie Miller, Kristen Mueller, Sarah Oleksyk, Chris Reed, Jesse Reklaw, Josh Simmons, Ilvs Strauss, Laura Wickham, Adam Zeek and Julian Chadwick share their collections of found photographs. At Floating World Comics www.floatingworldcomics.com 20 NW 5th
Artist and musician Sarah Gottesdiener is a creative polymath. She takes over Stumptown with paintings incorporating imagery of Yoko Ono, Proposition 8, the tarot, the moon, tigers and snakes! At Stumptown www.stumptowncoffee.com 128 SW 3rd
Pok Chi Lau has been documenting the impact on ordinary people of migration and change in China and beyond for 40 years. Included is the diaspora of which he himself is part. Also showing are quotidian photographs made by Byron Wolfe. He made one photograph a day for a year, maybe something like a highly composed visual Twitter. At Blue Sky Gallery www.blueskygallery.org 122 NW 8th
Primarily known for social practice art, Harrell Fletcher gets to practice it by curating a show. Songs from the Treetops artists including Carson Ellis, Chris Johanson/Jo Jackson, James Miles, Kenneth Mroczek, Eduardo Navarro, Santiago de Paoli, Wendy Red Star have produced work loosely themed on constructed landscape. At PDX Contemporary Gallery www.pdxcontemporaryart.com 925 NW Flanders
French artist Koralie presents HAÏKU. Her work crosses the street art and gallery world. One subject are infinitely detailed schematic Geisha's. This is a good complement to the French show at Compound next door. At Fifty 24 www.fifty24sf.com 23 NW 5th
La Jolie Poupee is a show by French illustrators Lostfish, Candybird, Ciou and Adolie Day. Very much in the Compound style, and interestingly several of the artists make children's books and clothing. At Compound Gallery www.compoundgallery.com 107 NW 5th
Big Beautiful Color is a show by Mark Warren Jacques at a relatively new energetic gallery, Fontanelle. In addition to paintings, Jacques has constructed a tepee you are invited to enter to experience his chosen soundtrack. At Fontanelle Gallery www.fontanellegallery.com 205 SW Pine
Augen has a group show themed Home at it's Davis location. Included are prints by well known artist Jennifer Bartlett who came into her career in the late 1960s and 1970's, Portlander Jim Riswold and others. Meanwhile at the 2nd Street the gallery is featuring under $500 works. www.augengallery.com 817 SW 2nd and 716 NW Davis
Moshi Moshi has something about Ninja Valentines in its small Burnside space. www.moshi-moshi.com 916 W Burnside
The Everett Lofts are recommended as your best interest value. Bounded by NW Broadway, Everett, 6th and Flanders.
Artist and musician Sarah Gottesdiener is a creative polymath. She takes over Stumptown with paintings incorporating imagery of Yoko Ono, Proposition 8, the tarot, the moon, tigers and snakes! At Stumptown www.stumptowncoffee.com 128 SW 3rd
Pok Chi Lau has been documenting the impact on ordinary people of migration and change in China and beyond for 40 years. Included is the diaspora of which he himself is part. Also showing are quotidian photographs made by Byron Wolfe. He made one photograph a day for a year, maybe something like a highly composed visual Twitter. At Blue Sky Gallery www.blueskygallery.org 122 NW 8th
Primarily known for social practice art, Harrell Fletcher gets to practice it by curating a show. Songs from the Treetops artists including Carson Ellis, Chris Johanson/Jo Jackson, James Miles, Kenneth Mroczek, Eduardo Navarro, Santiago de Paoli, Wendy Red Star have produced work loosely themed on constructed landscape. At PDX Contemporary Gallery www.pdxcontemporaryart.com 925 NW Flanders
French artist Koralie presents HAÏKU. Her work crosses the street art and gallery world. One subject are infinitely detailed schematic Geisha's. This is a good complement to the French show at Compound next door. At Fifty 24 www.fifty24sf.com 23 NW 5th
La Jolie Poupee is a show by French illustrators Lostfish, Candybird, Ciou and Adolie Day. Very much in the Compound style, and interestingly several of the artists make children's books and clothing. At Compound Gallery www.compoundgallery.com 107 NW 5th
Big Beautiful Color is a show by Mark Warren Jacques at a relatively new energetic gallery, Fontanelle. In addition to paintings, Jacques has constructed a tepee you are invited to enter to experience his chosen soundtrack. At Fontanelle Gallery www.fontanellegallery.com 205 SW Pine
Augen has a group show themed Home at it's Davis location. Included are prints by well known artist Jennifer Bartlett who came into her career in the late 1960s and 1970's, Portlander Jim Riswold and others. Meanwhile at the 2nd Street the gallery is featuring under $500 works. www.augengallery.com 817 SW 2nd and 716 NW Davis
Moshi Moshi has something about Ninja Valentines in its small Burnside space. www.moshi-moshi.com 916 W Burnside
The Everett Lofts are recommended as your best interest value. Bounded by NW Broadway, Everett, 6th and Flanders.
Monday, February 02, 2009
February 3 How to Start a Clean Energy Business
Both our president and Thomas Friedman believe innovation in clean energy is our only path to our growth and prosperity. Despite a pullback in VC funded tech ventures, the money is still flowing into energy ventures. The federal government and states are directing expenditures now into promising projects. Exactly how would someone with a brilliant idea make it happen? Find that out tonight.
Panelists include Ravi Sinha of Choices Solar Corp, Sandra Walden of Commercial Solar Ventures and Ravi Naiknaware, cofounder and CTO of Azuray. Bring your ideas and questions, this is an interactive session.
Program by the TiE Oregon clean energy special interest group. Register at the website. At Perkins Cole Offices 1120 N.W. Couch Street, 10th floor. 6PM-10. Members $5/10, Students $10, else $15.
Panelists include Ravi Sinha of Choices Solar Corp, Sandra Walden of Commercial Solar Ventures and Ravi Naiknaware, cofounder and CTO of Azuray. Bring your ideas and questions, this is an interactive session.
Program by the TiE Oregon clean energy special interest group. Register at the website. At Perkins Cole Offices 1120 N.W. Couch Street, 10th floor. 6PM-10. Members $5/10, Students $10, else $15.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
January 27 Ethan Rose Musics at Oaks Park Skating Rink
Musician Ethan Rose creates soundscapes. A previous canvas was in a group setting with Adelade-Small Sails. Solo Rose is also known for the sounds of film work and sound installations in art context. Oaks Park is a hundred year old amusement park on the banks of the Willamette River. There is a beautiful old skating rink that has survived submersive floods. Rose has sampled the organ in the rink, processed it and tonight performs live and processed sounds of the space. Admission to the show includes skate rental, so you can listen and skate if you like. At Oaks Park Skate www.oakspark.com Doors 7PM, Show 8. Duration 90 minutes. $12
Friday, January 23, 2009
January 25 Cult of Arduino Strikes a Blow for Poetry in Spare Rooms
Arduino is an electronic device popular with artists and creative people. It is a small chip you can attach things to for the purpose of sensing the environment and taking action like lighting something or moving a motor. Progressive art schools like the Royal College of Art have incorporated them into the curriculum for some time.
Arduino is used by artists worldwide and it is also a favorite of interactive clothing designers.
The chip is programmed in a simple language by plugging it into a USB port on any computer. Greg Borenstein can give you a short introduction. Portland Dorkbot offers a workshop today for you to build a basic Arduino with a LED you can control. It is smaller but not as elegant as the lilypad.
In 4 hours and for $25 you will build your very own Arduino to take home that actually works! Bring a laptop and some other stuff covered in the announcement. All the details here. At PNCA 1PM-5 $25
The Spare Room is a long running poetry reading series in Portland. They are 100. Not years, but readings - I have no idea what 100 is in poetry years. Today in celebration, local poets read 100 poems by 100 poets from the past 100 Years. You can find all the particulars here. At Gallery Homeland 2505 SE 11th x Division 2PM-6ish Free
Arduino is used by artists worldwide and it is also a favorite of interactive clothing designers.
The chip is programmed in a simple language by plugging it into a USB port on any computer. Greg Borenstein can give you a short introduction. Portland Dorkbot offers a workshop today for you to build a basic Arduino with a LED you can control. It is smaller but not as elegant as the lilypad.
In 4 hours and for $25 you will build your very own Arduino to take home that actually works! Bring a laptop and some other stuff covered in the announcement. All the details here. At PNCA 1PM-5 $25
The Spare Room is a long running poetry reading series in Portland. They are 100. Not years, but readings - I have no idea what 100 is in poetry years. Today in celebration, local poets read 100 poems by 100 poets from the past 100 Years. You can find all the particulars here. At Gallery Homeland 2505 SE 11th x Division 2PM-6ish Free
Thursday, January 22, 2009
January 24 Tribal Dance Collaborations Meet Indian Music Rollergirls from Tuva
Tracy Broyles, Meshi Chavez, Stephanie Lanckton are longtime dance collaborators now split between East and West Coasts. They have prepared a dance piece, Peregrinate, at a distance, to be presented both places. In each place, they started by walking simultaneously, gathering impressions and inspiration. The first instance of the resulting piece was performed at the Judson Church Movement Research Studio. Performance 7:30PM, DJ dance party after. At Performance Works Northwest 4625 SE 67th 7:30PM $15
Znama fusion bellydance dance company samples tango, flamenco, and cabaret. They perform tonight with live musicians Negara. At Marino's Cafe 4129 SE Division 8PM
The Rose City Rollers begin their new season with a rollicking evening of derby competition. What I like about roller derby is that it feels great to cheer. Details at rosecityrollers.com At the Portland Expo Center. Go by Train. Doors 5, rollers at 6PM $14/20 in advance $18/25 at the door
The diaspora of the Indian subcontinent runs forward and now increasingly in reverse. In either case, Portland has a strong and vibrant Indian community. One facet are performances of classical Indian music. Tonight sisters Smitha and Swetha Chakravarthy perform Carnatic vocal music, accompanied by Sailaja Dharmala on Violin and Ramamurthy Dharmal on Mridangam. There is something ethereal about the harmony of siblings and I'm sure this is no exception. The event is at the Intel Jones Farm Conference Center (JFCC) Auditorium, 2111 NE 25th Avenue, Hillsboro. If you are not familiar with the area, you might leave some extra time. 3PM Free
Znama fusion bellydance dance company samples tango, flamenco, and cabaret. They perform tonight with live musicians Negara. At Marino's Cafe 4129 SE Division 8PM
The Rose City Rollers begin their new season with a rollicking evening of derby competition. What I like about roller derby is that it feels great to cheer. Details at rosecityrollers.com At the Portland Expo Center. Go by Train. Doors 5, rollers at 6PM $14/20 in advance $18/25 at the door
The diaspora of the Indian subcontinent runs forward and now increasingly in reverse. In either case, Portland has a strong and vibrant Indian community. One facet are performances of classical Indian music. Tonight sisters Smitha and Swetha Chakravarthy perform Carnatic vocal music, accompanied by Sailaja Dharmala on Violin and Ramamurthy Dharmal on Mridangam. There is something ethereal about the harmony of siblings and I'm sure this is no exception. The event is at the Intel Jones Farm Conference Center (JFCC) Auditorium, 2111 NE 25th Avenue, Hillsboro. If you are not familiar with the area, you might leave some extra time. 3PM Free
Janurary 23 Opening at Fourteen30
Artist Jessie Durost shows Fabrications and John Sisley, Endgames at Gallery Fourteen30. www.fourteen30.com 1430 SE 3rd 6PM-9 Free
January 22 Tuva!
Tyva Kyzy, Daughters of Tuva, are an all girl Tuvan throat singing troupe from, well, Tuva. They promote throat singing among the women of Tuva. It is controversial for women to sing, so that puts them somewhere between riot grrrls and the Rock and the Roll Camp for Girls. Tuvan throat singing requres singing the fundamental [note] while symultaneously establishing an overtone resonance in the vocal cavity. Easier to say than do. Throat singing is often performed in the landscape as part of the traditional nature-based Tuvan spiritual tradition. Tuva is a region of the Russian federation between Mongolia and Siberia which entered Western consciousness in the form of a book Tuva or Bust, chronicling the attempt of brilliant physicist and Nobel winner Richard Feynman to visit Tuva.
Tyva Kyzy performs in the khoomei, sygyt, kargyraa, ezenggileer, chylandyk, borbangnadyr and damyrak borbangy styles.
At Lewis and Clark Chapel www.lclark.edu 7:30PM Free (they also perform in Eugene Saturday and down the West Coast and in Hawaii - check the website)
The same evening the gallery shows reGeneration:50 Photographers of Tomorrow curated by William A. Ewing, Nathalie Herschdorfer and Jean-Christophe Blaser of the Musée de L'Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland. At the Hoffman Gallery on campus. 5PM-7. Free
Tyva Kyzy performs in the khoomei, sygyt, kargyraa, ezenggileer, chylandyk, borbangnadyr and damyrak borbangy styles.
At Lewis and Clark Chapel www.lclark.edu 7:30PM Free (they also perform in Eugene Saturday and down the West Coast and in Hawaii - check the website)
The same evening the gallery shows reGeneration:50 Photographers of Tomorrow curated by William A. Ewing, Nathalie Herschdorfer and Jean-Christophe Blaser of the Musée de L'Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland. At the Hoffman Gallery on campus. 5PM-7. Free
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
January 14 Mass Sustainable Drinking and Drawing
The NW China Council China Business Network hosts a lunch with Bob Wise speaking on Sustainable Development Business Opportunities in China. Wise specializes in big picture consulting with governments on developing sustainability and green building programs. Past work includes developing programs for the City of Portland, Multnomah and Clackamas Counties, the State of Oregon, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Taiwan and Taipei. The lunch takes place at House of Louie Restaurant, 331 NW Davis in Chinatown. Reservations www.nwchina.org. Lunch and talk $20 members, $30 otherwise, talk $15 students. Noon-1:30
Drinking and Drawing is descriptively named; combining open source concepts, Henry Ford's mass production genius and fun! It's well known that animation is labor intensive. For drinking and drawing, preformed and ad hoc teams work sequentially and in parallel to produce a thousand frame animation in an evening. This is the second instance in Portland of this international phenomenon.
Teams of ten have 10 minutes to complete 8 frames each on index cards, 75 seconds per card. Frames are evolved by working on a light box, with the new frame overlaying the old. The work of subsequent teams are synced by starting on the light box with the last frame in the previous set. The first public D+D was at Portland's Platform Animation Festival seen in this video.
The resulting frames are seamed into a movie for a web treat.
The next D+D is sponsored by the Portland chapter of SIGGRAPH, geniuses at putting computers to work for beauty. Participate or watch at Someday Lounge www.somedaylounge.com 125 NW 5th 6PM $5, free for SIGGRAPH members
Drinking and Drawing is descriptively named; combining open source concepts, Henry Ford's mass production genius and fun! It's well known that animation is labor intensive. For drinking and drawing, preformed and ad hoc teams work sequentially and in parallel to produce a thousand frame animation in an evening. This is the second instance in Portland of this international phenomenon.
Teams of ten have 10 minutes to complete 8 frames each on index cards, 75 seconds per card. Frames are evolved by working on a light box, with the new frame overlaying the old. The work of subsequent teams are synced by starting on the light box with the last frame in the previous set. The first public D+D was at Portland's Platform Animation Festival seen in this video.
The resulting frames are seamed into a movie for a web treat.
The next D+D is sponsored by the Portland chapter of SIGGRAPH, geniuses at putting computers to work for beauty. Participate or watch at Someday Lounge www.somedaylounge.com 125 NW 5th 6PM $5, free for SIGGRAPH members
Saturday, January 03, 2009
January 8 Westside Art Openings
Stumptown Coffee presents Universal Blobhand anchored by the Lucky Dragons' Sumi Ink Club cooperative illustrations and including work by E*Rock and Josh Orion Kermiet. Recommended. At Stumptown Coffee www.stumptowncoffee.co 128 SW 3rd
Valentines opens a collaborative fiber art show and show of crush portraits early and later hosts a party for Universal Blobhand with DJ Hostile Tapeover. At Valentines myspace.com/valentineslifeblood 232 SW Ankeny Art 6PM, party 9:30 Free
Fontanelle Gallery continues the show by collaborators The Oregon Painting Society maybe Portland's royal art lodge. They also perform music at 8 on electroacoustic musical instruments of their own construction. At the Fontanelle Gallery www.fontanellegallery.com 205 SW Pine
PNCA shows paintings by Molly Dillworth. Dillworth was part of the Suddenly! show and has collaborated with MK Guth of the Red Shoe Delivery Service and Ties of Protection and Safekeeping. Also showing is longtime artist and professor Robert Hansen and BFA student Clare LaMont Industries' "Grand Opening Going Out of Business Sale - 99% Off!!!" At the Feldman+BFA Gallery at PNCA www.pnca.edu Corner NW 13th and Johnson
Quality Pictures presents another strategic show of Portlanders complementing their strategic international stable of photographers and painters. NWX4:New Northwest Photography comprises Liz Haley, Andrew O'Brien, Alexis Pike, and Mark Searcy. Haley's photography, video and performance has been mentioned here before. Chas Bowie, assistant director at QP also has some interesting photographs in his That's a Negative blog this month. Show at Quality Pictures Contemporary Art www.qpca.com 916 NW Hoyt
More photos make an interesting show at Reading Frenzy of found photographs from Japan. Basically like a Found Magazine instant relatives project. Assembled (found?) by Neojaponisme art director Ian Lynam, and poignant in light of Japan's aging (and shrinking) population. Neojaponisme is an evolution of the fascinating Neomarxisme. See at Reading Frenzy www.readingfrenzy.com 921 SW Oak
The Mark Woolley Gallery presents a sweet pairing Land, Air and Sea by Trish Grantham, Evan Harris and Amy Ruppel. Grantham creates enigmatic, almost narrative illustration/collage. Harris' finely detailed work is of similar feel. Ruppel often works of the bird theme and wax media with a smart stripe sample from Photoshop. At Mark Woolley Gallery www.markwoolley.com 817 SW 2nd
Roller Derby is too outstanding. That is what the Rose City Rose Buds think too. They are the mom's auxiliary, raising money to buy equipment for young roller kids and creating a Jr. Roller Derby League. The roller derby moms analog of soccer moms. Take that chearleaders! They are having an art show at Moshi-Moshi. Stop by. At Moshi-Moshi www.moshi-moshi.com 916 West Burnside
Beppu Wiarda shows Winter Light, a show of light boxes by artists Deanne Belinoff, Bill Dean, Jennifer Doheny, Eric Franklin, Ellen George and Jerry Mayer, Ron and Kathryn Glowen, Jessica Hirsch, Midori Hirose, LeAnne Hitchcock, Kate Kaznowska, Heidi Kirkpatrick, Dam Markson, Dave Meeker, Noah Nakell, Cynthia Nawalinski, Gillis Neuray, TJ Norris, Nick Raffel, Ken Shores, Stephan Soihl, Steve Tilden, Mark Teresa and Judy Vogland. The show was curated by collector Leo Michelson. Some of the artists speak January 17 at 11. At Beppu Wiarda Gallery www.beppugallery.com 319 NW 9th
Always recommended for your exploratory pleasure are the Everett Station Lofts, NW Broadway and Everett, though some are taking the month off, and the DeSoto building NW Park and Davis.
Valentines opens a collaborative fiber art show and show of crush portraits early and later hosts a party for Universal Blobhand with DJ Hostile Tapeover. At Valentines myspace.com/valentineslifeblood 232 SW Ankeny Art 6PM, party 9:30 Free
Fontanelle Gallery continues the show by collaborators The Oregon Painting Society maybe Portland's royal art lodge. They also perform music at 8 on electroacoustic musical instruments of their own construction. At the Fontanelle Gallery www.fontanellegallery.com 205 SW Pine
PNCA shows paintings by Molly Dillworth. Dillworth was part of the Suddenly! show and has collaborated with MK Guth of the Red Shoe Delivery Service and Ties of Protection and Safekeeping. Also showing is longtime artist and professor Robert Hansen and BFA student Clare LaMont Industries' "Grand Opening Going Out of Business Sale - 99% Off!!!" At the Feldman+BFA Gallery at PNCA www.pnca.edu Corner NW 13th and Johnson
Quality Pictures presents another strategic show of Portlanders complementing their strategic international stable of photographers and painters. NWX4:New Northwest Photography comprises Liz Haley, Andrew O'Brien, Alexis Pike, and Mark Searcy. Haley's photography, video and performance has been mentioned here before. Chas Bowie, assistant director at QP also has some interesting photographs in his That's a Negative blog this month. Show at Quality Pictures Contemporary Art www.qpca.com 916 NW Hoyt
More photos make an interesting show at Reading Frenzy of found photographs from Japan. Basically like a Found Magazine instant relatives project. Assembled (found?) by Neojaponisme art director Ian Lynam, and poignant in light of Japan's aging (and shrinking) population. Neojaponisme is an evolution of the fascinating Neomarxisme. See at Reading Frenzy www.readingfrenzy.com 921 SW Oak
The Mark Woolley Gallery presents a sweet pairing Land, Air and Sea by Trish Grantham, Evan Harris and Amy Ruppel. Grantham creates enigmatic, almost narrative illustration/collage. Harris' finely detailed work is of similar feel. Ruppel often works of the bird theme and wax media with a smart stripe sample from Photoshop. At Mark Woolley Gallery www.markwoolley.com 817 SW 2nd
Roller Derby is too outstanding. That is what the Rose City Rose Buds think too. They are the mom's auxiliary, raising money to buy equipment for young roller kids and creating a Jr. Roller Derby League. The roller derby moms analog of soccer moms. Take that chearleaders! They are having an art show at Moshi-Moshi. Stop by. At Moshi-Moshi www.moshi-moshi.com 916 West Burnside
Beppu Wiarda shows Winter Light, a show of light boxes by artists Deanne Belinoff, Bill Dean, Jennifer Doheny, Eric Franklin, Ellen George and Jerry Mayer, Ron and Kathryn Glowen, Jessica Hirsch, Midori Hirose, LeAnne Hitchcock, Kate Kaznowska, Heidi Kirkpatrick, Dam Markson, Dave Meeker, Noah Nakell, Cynthia Nawalinski, Gillis Neuray, TJ Norris, Nick Raffel, Ken Shores, Stephan Soihl, Steve Tilden, Mark Teresa and Judy Vogland. The show was curated by collector Leo Michelson. Some of the artists speak January 17 at 11. At Beppu Wiarda Gallery www.beppugallery.com 319 NW 9th
Always recommended for your exploratory pleasure are the Everett Station Lofts, NW Broadway and Everett, though some are taking the month off, and the DeSoto building NW Park and Davis.
January 7 Laura Fritz at The New American Art Union
Laura Fritz makes sculpture and installation with the feeling of an enigmatic science experiment. If you have worked in science, you know that is often how real experiments feel. While Susan Robb's take on science is playful, Fritz adds a layer of unease for the viewer, paralleling the sometimes profoundly disturbing directions research takes, but once something has been thought, it cannot be unthought. Taping societal unease with science has a long history - Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the conflicts among the scientists who developed the bomb, reprised in Dr. Atomic, the political entanglements of the Critical Art Ensemble; many more will follow as science unfolds worldwide. See Fritz' science experiments. At New American Art Union www.newamericanartunion.com 922 SE Ankeny 6PM-9
January 4-5 Lucky Dragons
Lucky Dragons are a beautifully named collaboration of art and music, named for a Japanese fishing vessel, Lucky Dragon No 5. Lucky Dragon No 5, Daigo Fukuryu Maru 第五福龍丸 was contaminated by radioactive fallout from the test of the first practical hydrogen bomb, Castle Bravo, on Bikini Atoll in 1954. The fishermen were in the official safe zone, but unexpected explosive power of Castle Bravo resulted in burns and radiation sickness for the crew and contamination of their fish. When Lucky Dragon No 5 returned to Japan, it ignited the Japanese anti-nuclear movement. The film Godzilla, in which a dinosaur contaminated by radiation takes revenge upon civilization was inspired by the incident. The fishing boat is preserved today in a museum in Dream Island Park, Tokyo.
Lucky Dragons performances are interactive, that means you. They have developed a participatory musical instrument make a baby. Their Sumi Ink Club is a cooperative drawing project which spans independent instantiations such by a group of third graders, to instances sold in galleries, shown in museums or free for download, all of identical work, simultaneously. The Lucky Dragons Sumi Ink Club project shows at Stumptown beginning Thursday.
The Sumi Ink Club open drawing session is Sunday 2PM-5 at the Perfect Fit. They perform later Sunday at Hush with White Rainbow, Rob Walmart, & Dash. 14 NW 3rd upstairs. 8PM $5-10 They talk Monday in PSU's Shattuck Hall, Room 212, 1914 SW Park Avenue, at the corner of SW Broadway and Hall on the PSU campus. 7:30PM Free
Lucky Dragons performances are interactive, that means you. They have developed a participatory musical instrument make a baby. Their Sumi Ink Club is a cooperative drawing project which spans independent instantiations such by a group of third graders, to instances sold in galleries, shown in museums or free for download, all of identical work, simultaneously. The Lucky Dragons Sumi Ink Club project shows at Stumptown beginning Thursday.
The Sumi Ink Club open drawing session is Sunday 2PM-5 at the Perfect Fit. They perform later Sunday at Hush with White Rainbow, Rob Walmart, & Dash. 14 NW 3rd upstairs. 8PM $5-10 They talk Monday in PSU's Shattuck Hall, Room 212, 1914 SW Park Avenue, at the corner of SW Broadway and Hall on the PSU campus. 7:30PM Free
Friday, January 02, 2009
January 2 One Eastside Art Opening
Many Eastside art spaces are taking a new year's rest this evening with last month's shows up through Saturday January 4th.
Grass Hut invites you to make art with us. They are supplying paper and pens, so come sit on the floor or anywhere and make whatever and hang it on the wall! At 811 E Burnside 5PM-9 Free
Grass Hut invites you to make art with us. They are supplying paper and pens, so come sit on the floor or anywhere and make whatever and hang it on the wall! At 811 E Burnside 5PM-9 Free
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
December 31 Movement for Peace
Tahni Holt makes idea driven performance in the realm of modern dance. Her performances have themed landmines, the simultaneity of time, safety & material, office work, a theater within theater, repetitive movement & narrative and open source movement.
New York dancer and choreographer Miguel Gutierrez has created a work, Freedom of Information, to be danced by dancers across the US. Each performs a personal continuous improvisation blindfolded for 24 hours with ears plugged.
It is Gutierrez' meditation on war and refugees, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each dancer moves from 12:01AM to 11:59PM Wednesday December 31. It is each mover's meditation too. Maybe something for us each to give some thought to.
I had an opportunity to visit a UN friend in Afghanistan and toured the landmine museum. It was a surreal experience as our guide recited an explanation, memorized in perfect English. The mines, missiles and bombs in the museum are found daily throughout the country with sad result. One of our Afghan hosts had lost a few fingers as a child to a Soviet cluster bomblet, disguised as a toy.
Holt takes up this open source social practice project at Performance Works Northwest. Audience may stop by to see or connect to Holt's webstream.
At Performance Works Northwest 4625 SE 67th 12:01AM-11:59PM Free
New York dancer and choreographer Miguel Gutierrez has created a work, Freedom of Information, to be danced by dancers across the US. Each performs a personal continuous improvisation blindfolded for 24 hours with ears plugged.
It is Gutierrez' meditation on war and refugees, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each dancer moves from 12:01AM to 11:59PM Wednesday December 31. It is each mover's meditation too. Maybe something for us each to give some thought to.
I had an opportunity to visit a UN friend in Afghanistan and toured the landmine museum. It was a surreal experience as our guide recited an explanation, memorized in perfect English. The mines, missiles and bombs in the museum are found daily throughout the country with sad result. One of our Afghan hosts had lost a few fingers as a child to a Soviet cluster bomblet, disguised as a toy.
Holt takes up this open source social practice project at Performance Works Northwest. Audience may stop by to see or connect to Holt's webstream.
At Performance Works Northwest 4625 SE 67th 12:01AM-11:59PM Free
Friday, December 12, 2008
November 12 SciFi Inspired Art and PNCA Homeland Films
Impossible Instruments / Future Flags is a show curated by artist Nathaniel T. Price. Science fiction has only a loose connection with either. It is more a prediction of a future. Science enters only as a signifier of the monotonic unfolding without end of technology.
Perhaps art is the same, continually expanding the edge, while occasionally resampling the ghosts of art past which isn't done so much in technology. It's not as if steampunk is real for instance, or that mysticism surrounding the mythical undiscovered discoveries of Tesla is anything but misplaced.
Artists Alex Felton, Kristan Kennedy, Corey Lunn, Chris Johanson, M Blash, Dana Dart McLean, Rob Halverson, Steven Wirth, Jo Jackson, Nathaniel T. Price, Arnold J. Kemp and Bobo provide art inspired by our strange future.
All this at Fourteen30 Contemporary www.fourteen30.com 1430 SE 3rd opening 6PM-9
Also this evening are new Portland films sponsored by PNCA. Movies are by Adrienne Huckabone, Brennan Broome, Bryan Colombo, Chris Bodven, Israel Lund, Jacob Winfield, Jim Hill, Joey Lusterman, Julia Perry, Kevin Tinnell, Morgan Ritter, Sarah Burke and Tesar Freeman. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org 2505 SE 11th 7PM
Perhaps art is the same, continually expanding the edge, while occasionally resampling the ghosts of art past which isn't done so much in technology. It's not as if steampunk is real for instance, or that mysticism surrounding the mythical undiscovered discoveries of Tesla is anything but misplaced.
Artists Alex Felton, Kristan Kennedy, Corey Lunn, Chris Johanson, M Blash, Dana Dart McLean, Rob Halverson, Steven Wirth, Jo Jackson, Nathaniel T. Price, Arnold J. Kemp and Bobo provide art inspired by our strange future.
All this at Fourteen30 Contemporary www.fourteen30.com 1430 SE 3rd opening 6PM-9
Also this evening are new Portland films sponsored by PNCA. Movies are by Adrienne Huckabone, Brennan Broome, Bryan Colombo, Chris Bodven, Israel Lund, Jacob Winfield, Jim Hill, Joey Lusterman, Julia Perry, Kevin Tinnell, Morgan Ritter, Sarah Burke and Tesar Freeman. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org 2505 SE 11th 7PM
Friday, December 05, 2008
December 5 Eastside Openings
The Eastside is huge now. Here are some suggestions.
There is a show by 100 artists, each making 10 things each in 10 days for $30 each. Each piece is unlabeled, except on the back, so go for love and beauty. That is at the Olympic Mills Building 107 SE Washington.
EBu: the 811 Building, 811 E Burnside; NAAU 922 SE Ankeny; Destroy Store and Life & Limb, 1712 E Burnside; artist books at 23 Sandy 623 NE 23rd Sandy
SE: Newspace Photo, 1632 SE 10th; Pushdot 1021 SE Caruthers; Gallery Homeland, corner SE Division and 11th
There is a show by 100 artists, each making 10 things each in 10 days for $30 each. Each piece is unlabeled, except on the back, so go for love and beauty. That is at the Olympic Mills Building 107 SE Washington.
EBu: the 811 Building, 811 E Burnside; NAAU 922 SE Ankeny; Destroy Store and Life & Limb, 1712 E Burnside; artist books at 23 Sandy 623 NE 23rd Sandy
SE: Newspace Photo, 1632 SE 10th; Pushdot 1021 SE Caruthers; Gallery Homeland, corner SE Division and 11th
Monday, December 01, 2008
December 4 Westside Art Openings
Portland painter Adam Sorensen makes fantastical landscape paintings filled with schematic surreal elements. It's a welcome variation on the Northwest fascination with landscape. This show, False Fjords, will brighten the cloudiest of days. What's more, Sorensen's statement wins the copywriting award of the month: "The Narrative of the Romantics had long been to capture and present the awe and strength of natural vistas. Landscape, which was often found on the fringes of human exploration, was imbued with mystery and danger, and was therefore stirring to the viewer. It seems as if humanity has conquered the once harrowing wild, and in turn made it strange. This is where my work sits, attached a century later to the romantic narrative. The abstract, the awkward, and the absurd have much more of a presence in contemporary life, and cannot be ignored when painting the landscape. Emphasizing the strangeness of modern nature, and embellishing it with contemporary aesthetic ideas, is in a way, a type of contemporary romanticism." At PDX Contemporary Art www.pdxcontemporaryart.com 925 NW Flanders until 8
Rain. Puddle Town is an art show themed on rain. Artists Robert Pellicer, Scott Rohlfs, Angel Davis, Sam Tudyk, Dane Svenningsen, Max Kaufman, Timothy Karpinski, Keenan Havens, Jessica Rosario, Eliott Wall, Geneva Smith, Rudy Fig, Eli Effenberger, Miette, Sophie Franz, Tatiana Krasovski, Jason Graham, Eatcho, Josh Heilaman, Lily Pham, Andy Gouveian, Ricardo Rodriguez, Alex Willan, Nati, Jun Seo Hahm and Clone provide their response to rain's inspiration. At Compound www.compoundgallery.com 107 NW 5th
The Everett Station Lofts are always recommended. They change hands aperodically, each occupant has been curated and the ground floor spaces commit to open their living rooms an evening a month to you. Bounded by NW Broadway, Everett and 6th.
The Desoto building bounded by NW Broadway, Davis and Park includes several established galleries, the Museum of Contemporary Craft and Blue Sky, with its Nines Gallery. All are often worth a stop. This month in that building the Charles Hartman gallery has Fish-Work. Corey Arnold makes documentary photographs of the life on fishing boats in the North seas. At one time fishing was local. Today ever larger boats travel further to the last fisheries yet to be endangered. Meanwhile fish farming is not only causing pollution by concentrating fish waste beyond local carrying capacity, fish farming consumes about 1/3 of wild fish caught in the form of fish meal. At Charles Hartman Fine Art www.hartmanfineart.net 134 NW 8th
G Lewis Clevenger makes abstract paintings of rectangular pattern. He is loosening up his patterns while maintaining a strong sense of beauty. His pallette and the textures are worth studying. At Pulliam Deffenbaugh www.pulliamdeffenbaugh.com until 8
Stumptown downtown has a holiday themed show. Gretchen Vaudt is a multiartist and curator for a time at Albina Press. Her work spans photography, ceramics and design. This evening Going Home is a group of individual small works, each as different as a snowflake reprising winter holiday sense memories of her Midwest childhood. Another Midwesterner, Norm Sajovie, shows Polaroids Holiday Drifter of a Christmas wandering Portland's mainly empty streets for inspiration. At Stumptown www.stumptown.com 128 SW 3rd
Skate decks as a canvas are pretty archival. Ditto snowboards. Someday they'll show up on some museum walls. Monsieur T is an artistic streetwear concern, based in Portland. Monsieur T has invited many artist friends to make designs on decks or create skate themed art and this is the result. Jeremyville, Andrew Pommier,Bwana Spoons, Lance Mountain, Martin Ontiveros, APAK, Adam Haynes, Le Merde, Jon Humphries, Ruben Sanchez, Fred Mortagne, Huskmitnavn, Andrew Groves, I Love Dust, Arbito, Shawn Wolfe, Ryan Berkley, Scrappers Betsy Walton, Jay Howell, Klutch, Mark Warren Jacques, Lee Zeman, Jeff Proctor, Tom Webb, Brett Superstar and Steve Matthews have made work. For the opening of the show, which will also be online artwise throughout the month, Kez spins. At Hecklewood www.hecklewood.com 114 NW 3rd
Portlander's are all weather skaters everywhere. There is another skate deck art show tonight, benefiting Complete Skate, a youth tutoring and skating project in schools. Many Portland artists have made decks which are being auctioned online, ending 8PM tonight. You can see the decks in person at the auction closing party at DWR. Details at www.completeskate.org/ondeck/ DWR Portland Studio 1200 NW Everett until 8
PNCA photograd Chloé Richard ’06 shows candid portraits of friends from LA and Berlin. The work has a French New Wave feel, very light and real. The show's title makes the reference too. And, well, she's French. At Valentines 232 SW Ankeny
Rain. Puddle Town is an art show themed on rain. Artists Robert Pellicer, Scott Rohlfs, Angel Davis, Sam Tudyk, Dane Svenningsen, Max Kaufman, Timothy Karpinski, Keenan Havens, Jessica Rosario, Eliott Wall, Geneva Smith, Rudy Fig, Eli Effenberger, Miette, Sophie Franz, Tatiana Krasovski, Jason Graham, Eatcho, Josh Heilaman, Lily Pham, Andy Gouveian, Ricardo Rodriguez, Alex Willan, Nati, Jun Seo Hahm and Clone provide their response to rain's inspiration. At Compound www.compoundgallery.com 107 NW 5th
The Everett Station Lofts are always recommended. They change hands aperodically, each occupant has been curated and the ground floor spaces commit to open their living rooms an evening a month to you. Bounded by NW Broadway, Everett and 6th.
The Desoto building bounded by NW Broadway, Davis and Park includes several established galleries, the Museum of Contemporary Craft and Blue Sky, with its Nines Gallery. All are often worth a stop. This month in that building the Charles Hartman gallery has Fish-Work. Corey Arnold makes documentary photographs of the life on fishing boats in the North seas. At one time fishing was local. Today ever larger boats travel further to the last fisheries yet to be endangered. Meanwhile fish farming is not only causing pollution by concentrating fish waste beyond local carrying capacity, fish farming consumes about 1/3 of wild fish caught in the form of fish meal. At Charles Hartman Fine Art www.hartmanfineart.net 134 NW 8th
G Lewis Clevenger makes abstract paintings of rectangular pattern. He is loosening up his patterns while maintaining a strong sense of beauty. His pallette and the textures are worth studying. At Pulliam Deffenbaugh www.pulliamdeffenbaugh.com until 8
Stumptown downtown has a holiday themed show. Gretchen Vaudt is a multiartist and curator for a time at Albina Press. Her work spans photography, ceramics and design. This evening Going Home is a group of individual small works, each as different as a snowflake reprising winter holiday sense memories of her Midwest childhood. Another Midwesterner, Norm Sajovie, shows Polaroids Holiday Drifter of a Christmas wandering Portland's mainly empty streets for inspiration. At Stumptown www.stumptown.com 128 SW 3rd
Skate decks as a canvas are pretty archival. Ditto snowboards. Someday they'll show up on some museum walls. Monsieur T is an artistic streetwear concern, based in Portland. Monsieur T has invited many artist friends to make designs on decks or create skate themed art and this is the result. Jeremyville, Andrew Pommier,Bwana Spoons, Lance Mountain, Martin Ontiveros, APAK, Adam Haynes, Le Merde, Jon Humphries, Ruben Sanchez, Fred Mortagne, Huskmitnavn, Andrew Groves, I Love Dust, Arbito, Shawn Wolfe, Ryan Berkley, Scrappers Betsy Walton, Jay Howell, Klutch, Mark Warren Jacques, Lee Zeman, Jeff Proctor, Tom Webb, Brett Superstar and Steve Matthews have made work. For the opening of the show, which will also be online artwise throughout the month, Kez spins. At Hecklewood www.hecklewood.com 114 NW 3rd
Portlander's are all weather skaters everywhere. There is another skate deck art show tonight, benefiting Complete Skate, a youth tutoring and skating project in schools. Many Portland artists have made decks which are being auctioned online, ending 8PM tonight. You can see the decks in person at the auction closing party at DWR. Details at www.completeskate.org/ondeck/ DWR Portland Studio 1200 NW Everett until 8
PNCA photograd Chloé Richard ’06 shows candid portraits of friends from LA and Berlin. The work has a French New Wave feel, very light and real. The show's title makes the reference too. And, well, she's French. At Valentines 232 SW Ankeny
December 3 Social Practice Everywhere
I was not aware that social practice art had infiltrated even the undergraduate PSU art program. The BFA students have a Public Social University project of short talks on useful things for the public. Today's classes are:
Eric Steen provides his survey, best to worst, of film depiction of utopia and distopia, in science fiction. (1:30PM-2)
Greg Wandering Yeti and Adam Stone speak about Permaculture and demonstrate Chinese internal martial arts, drawing a relationship between them. (2PM-3)
Tracé Hulette demonstrates basic mending with thread and needle. (3PM-3:30)
Davis Eliason Brown gives practical advise on hip hop rapping including positive message, collaboration, rapping with others and linguistics (3:30PM-4)
You can find more about the project at psuart.blogspot.com It's at the main downtown library in the US Bank Room 2PM-5. Free
Eric Steen provides his survey, best to worst, of film depiction of utopia and distopia, in science fiction. (1:30PM-2)
Greg Wandering Yeti and Adam Stone speak about Permaculture and demonstrate Chinese internal martial arts, drawing a relationship between them. (2PM-3)
Tracé Hulette demonstrates basic mending with thread and needle. (3PM-3:30)
Davis Eliason Brown gives practical advise on hip hop rapping including positive message, collaboration, rapping with others and linguistics (3:30PM-4)
You can find more about the project at psuart.blogspot.com It's at the main downtown library in the US Bank Room 2PM-5. Free
December 2 Wild Beauty as a Book
The Art Museum has a show of photographs of the mighty Columbia River, curated by Terry Toedtemeier. The West drew post Civil War photographers who imaged landscapes for a society influenced by transcendentalism. Ultimately the combination inspired the preservation movement, the creation of national parks and finally the Columbia Gorge scenic overlay, the first of its type. Tonight hear Toedtemeier and coauthor John Laursen present the book Wild Beauty, Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge, 1867-1957 and discuss their selection of images for the show and the book. At Powells Books www.powells.com Corner West Burnside and 10th 7:30PM Free
Sunday, November 23, 2008
November 24 Matthew Higgs at PSU
Portland seems to be having a run of talks by curators and this is one. Matthew Higgs was deeply immersed in the Young British Artist movement, and sometimes critical of its direction. Then he hopped the pond to immerse himself into the artist world of San Francisco. He is now curator at the White Columns which takes enough of an interest in Portland to have rented a room at the art Affair at the Jupiter Hotel. He has curated at the ICA in the UK and CCA on the West Coast. He is able to discover the most interesting vectors in the artist world in each location, in advance of sometimes the commercial art machine or independent of it. Let's hope he can advise the Museum on curator matches. Part of the most often excellent Portland Monday Night Lecture Series at PSU. Higgs spins disco on vinyl at 320 SE 3rd late, free. Talk in Shattuck Hall, Room 212, 1914 SW Park Avenue, at the corner of SW Broadway and Hall on the PSU campus. 7:30PM Free
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
November 20 Inner China
China. Over 2500 years of unbroken history and a quarter of the world population. A lot of MFA graduates yearly. I think it is an individual responsibility to try to understand China. Here is an opportunity. Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow William A. Callahan and Richard Kraus, Portland State University professor, speak: "Who is China?"
Chinese is peppered with idiomatic slogans. Education incorporates a study of classic literature far beyond the Western approach. These ideas are woven deeply into the culture along with a dose of Confucianism. The speakers explore Chinese culture filtered through leading public intellectuals known in the West such as philosopher Zhao Tingyang, writer Jiang Rong, film directors Zhang Yimou and Ang Lee, and artist Cai Guo-Qiang.
This talk is part of PNCA's engagement with China and is cosponsored by the International Studies Department at Portland State University, a strong recruiter of Chinese students to Portland.
At PNCA NW 13th and Johnson 12:30PM Free
Chinese is peppered with idiomatic slogans. Education incorporates a study of classic literature far beyond the Western approach. These ideas are woven deeply into the culture along with a dose of Confucianism. The speakers explore Chinese culture filtered through leading public intellectuals known in the West such as philosopher Zhao Tingyang, writer Jiang Rong, film directors Zhang Yimou and Ang Lee, and artist Cai Guo-Qiang.
This talk is part of PNCA's engagement with China and is cosponsored by the International Studies Department at Portland State University, a strong recruiter of Chinese students to Portland.
At PNCA NW 13th and Johnson 12:30PM Free
November 20 LAIKA at Artspark
If you don't know what Artspark is, you should find out. It is a way for artists to organize as their own advocates disguised as a series of short talks and plenty of meeting other creative people. Each presenter has 6 minutes at 6PM to speak about their projects. With one presenter a month, the rest of the evening is unstructured person to person time. Tonight LAIKA gives a short update on their projects. At the Livingroom Theaters. 5PM-7 Free. RSVP at Artspark
Saturday, November 15, 2008
November 19 Designing Dreams, Engineering Desire
This topic is as vast as it is important. There has been a broad shift to human-centered design augmented by ethnographic practices to capture the functional and emotional needs and embeds of people who will actually use objects. Most believe the process heavily hinges upon the intuitive insights of creatives. I would add the brain chemistry response of similarity, novelty and sampling critical life stage associations. Beauty is good too.
A panel considers design and possibilities created by ever changing technology. What is our emotional relationship to objects? How do we imagine the future? Are we entering an era of significant green and sustainable design? What is the role of "open source" design, also known as open design?
Some who have considered these ideas include Marc Gobe on emotional branding, Kevin Roberts on emotion, branding and objects, Donald A. Norman on emotional industrial design, William McDonough and Michael Braungart on biomimetic design. Of course R. Buckminster Fuller who proposed meeting the needs of the world's population by doing more with less.
Panelists considering your questions:
Sohrab Vossoughi founder of ZIBA Design (www.ziba.com), which has incorporated artists and sustainability into branding projects in addition to its well known industrial design of objects.
Portland architecture blogger, writer and filmmaker Brian Libby (www.portlandarchitecture.com).
Musician, thinker and community outreach organizer for Portland Center Stage, Tim DuRoche.
Daniel H. Wilson, robotics engineer and author of Where’s My Jetpack? A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future That Never Arrived.
This event is part of DWR's Designs on Portland series and presented in cooperation with:
R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe at Portland Center Stage (www.pcs.org/bucky) The Viridian design movement is an example of Fuller prinicples, I would declare it successful rather than kill it.
Manufactured at the Museum of Contemporary Craft (www.contemporarycrafts.org)
Raymond Loewy: Designs for a Consumer Culture at Oregon Historical Society (www.ohs.org)
At DWR Portland Studio 1200 NW Everett. Doors 6:00PM, program 6:30 Free
A panel considers design and possibilities created by ever changing technology. What is our emotional relationship to objects? How do we imagine the future? Are we entering an era of significant green and sustainable design? What is the role of "open source" design, also known as open design?
Some who have considered these ideas include Marc Gobe on emotional branding, Kevin Roberts on emotion, branding and objects, Donald A. Norman on emotional industrial design, William McDonough and Michael Braungart on biomimetic design. Of course R. Buckminster Fuller who proposed meeting the needs of the world's population by doing more with less.
Panelists considering your questions:
Sohrab Vossoughi founder of ZIBA Design (www.ziba.com), which has incorporated artists and sustainability into branding projects in addition to its well known industrial design of objects.
Portland architecture blogger, writer and filmmaker Brian Libby (www.portlandarchitecture.com).
Musician, thinker and community outreach organizer for Portland Center Stage, Tim DuRoche.
Daniel H. Wilson, robotics engineer and author of Where’s My Jetpack? A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future That Never Arrived.
This event is part of DWR's Designs on Portland series and presented in cooperation with:
R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe at Portland Center Stage (www.pcs.org/bucky) The Viridian design movement is an example of Fuller prinicples, I would declare it successful rather than kill it.
Manufactured at the Museum of Contemporary Craft (www.contemporarycrafts.org)
Raymond Loewy: Designs for a Consumer Culture at Oregon Historical Society (www.ohs.org)
At DWR Portland Studio 1200 NW Everett. Doors 6:00PM, program 6:30 Free
Thursday, November 13, 2008
November 19 All Julie All the Time
PNCA faculty member and artist Julie Perini presents video and performance at PCC Cascade entitled All Julie All the Time. There is something about a sit down snack in the gallery too. I think at their core all artists are activists, some are just shy, but not Perini. She fuses this philosophy with thoughtful sampling, politics, documentation, social performance, teaching and organizing. Opening event PCC Cascade Gallery in Terrell Hall. 705 N. Killingsworth 4PM-7 Free (continues gallery hours to December 31)
November 18 Public Access Findings as Cinema
The Cinema Project usually presents artist and obscure films on film. Not always though. Tonight is is a compilation of public access television from Winnipeg, Canada. As cable companies use the public road right of way to string their cables, cities extract public studios and channels for anyone to make video and show it. We own the right of way and we get the access. (In Portland it is www.pcmtv.org - free classes, free equipment, your own show free).
The greatest strength of open access is its greatest weakness too. This program addresses that by presenting a curated slice of tens of thousands of hours of cable access produced in Winnipeg Canada in the late 1970s through the 1980's.
More details at the Cinema Project website www.cinemaproject.org.
At the new Cinema Project space 11 NW 13th Ave, top floor. Elevator access is provided, please come to the door to request. 7:30PM $6
The greatest strength of open access is its greatest weakness too. This program addresses that by presenting a curated slice of tens of thousands of hours of cable access produced in Winnipeg Canada in the late 1970s through the 1980's.
More details at the Cinema Project website www.cinemaproject.org.
At the new Cinema Project space 11 NW 13th Ave, top floor. Elevator access is provided, please come to the door to request. 7:30PM $6
November 18 Pecha Kucha 5
Pecha Kucha is an international series of short informal presentations focused on design and culture. Originated in Japan, it was an opportunity for designers to show work and influences as images without a language barrier. I believe the Portland series was inspired by Teruo Kurosaki. Each presenter has 20 slides to present for 20 seconds each - a total of 6 minutes and 40 seconds. Pecha Kucha draws an audience of designers and architects. The presentations have been engaging and thought provoking, such as a photo essay on abandoned high rise building shells in Bangkok repurposed into high rise gardens. The loose theme tonight is discretion. Tonights presenters are Heather Hanrahan and Rodger Bridges, www.nemodesign.com; Kevin Cavenaugh, www.14parcels.com; Paige Saez, www.paigesaez.org; Garrett Strickland www.unwin-dunraven.org; Larissa Hammond and Tigerlilly Holyoak, www.myspace.com/feyvenue; Ron Blessinger , www.thirdangle.org; architect Aaron Whelton and writer Matthew Korfhage. Locally organized by architect-planners Cityscope. At the salad warehouse 939 SE Alder Doors 7:30PM, talks 8:20 (20:20!) Free (donations encouraged)
November 17 Diego Piñón and Stephanie Smith
Diego Piñón is a Mexican branch of the global family tree of butoh. Founded in Japan in 1959, it has been passed from teacher to student, from performing group to individual performer and from performer to audience. Along the way each individual has drawn from it, and contributed.
Drawn to dance and movement, Piñón studied many movement and theater systems, incorporating his own uniquely Mexican traditions. Along the way, he encountered butoh, performing with Byakko-Sha and Min Tanaka's Maijuku. (I would disagree with the article's statement that Tanaka is second only to Hijikata, that is absurd. Tanaka is a gifted primarily self taught mover.) My experience with Piñón is as a workshop teacher who uses psychodrama techniques derived from each individual's history to create unique and sometimes intense movement. Piñón speaks of his work in a talk sponsored by Portland butoh's Headwaters Studio and Portland State University's Department of Japanese Language, Dance and Theater. Piñón has been teaching a workshop the last few days, so his students may be able to relate their experiences.
At Smith Memorial Center, Room 328/9, 7PM Free
Meanwhile, at the always excellent PSU Art Department Monday Night Lecture Series, Stephanie Smith speaks. Sustainability is big in Portland now, but Smith has been exploring it as a theme in her curatorial activities for some time. Her interest in socially engaged public practice in art is a great complement to similarly themed work in the PSU art programs. It has moved to a new location this semester - Shattuck Hall, Room 212, 1914 SW Park Avenue, at the corner of SW Broadway and Hall on the PSU campus. 7:30PM Free
Past Monday night lectures can be viewed at PICA normal working hours. Free.
Drawn to dance and movement, Piñón studied many movement and theater systems, incorporating his own uniquely Mexican traditions. Along the way, he encountered butoh, performing with Byakko-Sha and Min Tanaka's Maijuku. (I would disagree with the article's statement that Tanaka is second only to Hijikata, that is absurd. Tanaka is a gifted primarily self taught mover.) My experience with Piñón is as a workshop teacher who uses psychodrama techniques derived from each individual's history to create unique and sometimes intense movement. Piñón speaks of his work in a talk sponsored by Portland butoh's Headwaters Studio and Portland State University's Department of Japanese Language, Dance and Theater. Piñón has been teaching a workshop the last few days, so his students may be able to relate their experiences.
At Smith Memorial Center, Room 328/9, 7PM Free
Meanwhile, at the always excellent PSU Art Department Monday Night Lecture Series, Stephanie Smith speaks. Sustainability is big in Portland now, but Smith has been exploring it as a theme in her curatorial activities for some time. Her interest in socially engaged public practice in art is a great complement to similarly themed work in the PSU art programs. It has moved to a new location this semester - Shattuck Hall, Room 212, 1914 SW Park Avenue, at the corner of SW Broadway and Hall on the PSU campus. 7:30PM Free
Past Monday night lectures can be viewed at PICA normal working hours. Free.
November 15 Iceland to Rocksbox
Rocksbox presents Asmundur Asmundsson, known for his wry and irreverent installations. This is perfect for Portland artist Patrick Rock, a good agitator in his own right, to bring to polite Portland. At Rocksbox Fine Art www.rocksboxfineart.com 6540 N Interstate Opening 7PM-11 See the website for continuing hours.
November 15-16 333 Studio Open House
This long operating artist space at 333 NE Hancock opens its studios this weekend. It has incubated many years of artists and continues to do so. There is a group show in the common spaces curated by Anna Fidler. The current list of artists may be found at their website boxliftbldg.googlepages.com Stop by Saturday 4PM - 10 (Performance at 9PM) Sunday 12Noon - 5.
November 13-15 tEEth Performs
I have only had peripheral exposure to this experimental dance performance group. They present their performance Grub. More info at www.rubberteeth.com At IFCC. Performances 7PM and 9. $15
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
November 13 Ignite Selfless
I am interested in many things, but this blog hews to art - with a few excursions, including Ignite. Ignite is a cross between Toastmasters and speed dating for the software and web development creative community. Speed dating in the sense that short presentations equal shorts programs in film festivals. If you are bored, a change of scenery is only minutes away. Each presenter has 20 slides, 15 seconds each, 5 minutes total. Very ADD - in a good way. Portland presentations have been a mix of irreverent, how to and occasionally serious.
The existential hobble of Powerpoint acknowledged, these evenings tend to be fun events with smart people. Ignite Portland 4 is at the Bagdad Theater. There tends to be a long line occasioned by the required OLCC ID check for age 21 admittees only. Holders of the free sold out advance tickets at 5:30PM, the line at 6:15PM, Presentations 7PM-10 Free
Portland filmmakers span shorts to features. The nature of the art can be the transition between making small and making large. Longtime Portland artist-filmaker Jacob Pander has created his first large film Selfless with brother Arnold. Its timely Portland themes of architectural ego, green and identity theft play out in a feature length thriller; premiere here. Part of the NW Film and Video Festival. Portland Art Museum Whitsell Auditorium. Arrive Early. 7PM $7-8
The existential hobble of Powerpoint acknowledged, these evenings tend to be fun events with smart people. Ignite Portland 4 is at the Bagdad Theater. There tends to be a long line occasioned by the required OLCC ID check for age 21 admittees only. Holders of the free sold out advance tickets at 5:30PM, the line at 6:15PM, Presentations 7PM-10 Free
Portland filmmakers span shorts to features. The nature of the art can be the transition between making small and making large. Longtime Portland artist-filmaker Jacob Pander has created his first large film Selfless with brother Arnold. Its timely Portland themes of architectural ego, green and identity theft play out in a feature length thriller; premiere here. Part of the NW Film and Video Festival. Portland Art Museum Whitsell Auditorium. Arrive Early. 7PM $7-8
Monday, November 10, 2008
November 12 CCA Curator on Curation
Jens Hoffman is the curator's curator with a strong background in London, arguably a more contemporary environment than New York. He speaks at PNCA NW 13th and Johnson 6:30PM Free
November 10 Southern Exposure Talk
Southern Exposure is a long running experimental art center in San Francisco. Hear Courtney Fink, director of 15 years, speak on sustainable art centering - Southern Exposure has been in operation for 34 years!
It is part of the PSU Monday Lecture Series. This series has been consistently engaging. It has moved to a new location - Shattuck Hall, Room 212, 1914 SW Park Avenue, at the corner of SW Broadway and Hall on the PSU campus. 7:30PM Free
It is part of the PSU Monday Lecture Series. This series has been consistently engaging. It has moved to a new location - Shattuck Hall, Room 212, 1914 SW Park Avenue, at the corner of SW Broadway and Hall on the PSU campus. 7:30PM Free
Friday, November 07, 2008
November 8 Global Local Butoh(s)
Hard choice tonight.
Kyoto butoh artist Katsura Kan presents a performance with his students drawn from Portland butohists. Kan is one of the deep thinkers of butoh as noted earlier about his lecture. He is a Buddhist, informing his work and draws dancers and inspiration from across Asia, South America and Africa. He explores the regional differences in indigenous butoh. Our Portland butoh is different than, say the butoh of Thai shamans. We spent some time out at art openings discussing arts funding and art culture here and in Japan Thursday. He brings that same curiosity and brilliance to creating and exploring movement. This evening, Sheri Brown and Douglas Ridings from Seattle make a special appearance. Brown is known for evocative facial presence which almost disappears. Ridings incorporates South Indian dance into his butoh. The performance is in the Headwaters Studio at Disjecta. The space is intimate, holding about 20, make a reservation. Reservations email mizudesierto (AT) gmail (DOT) com 8PM $5-15
A different butoh are hip hop moves by b-boys and b-girls. Hip hop culture is life and we are living it. Part of it are beautifully unbelievable b-boy/b-girl moves. One of the most mad dope b-boy/b-girl events of the year is The Foundation. Eight years strong. On no publicity outside the community. 2 on 2 battles. DJ's Sugarman and Computer Fam of the Buttermilk Baby Makers. All proceeds benefit Ethos www.ethos.org In the Reed Student Union doors 6:30PM, show 7. $7
Kyoto butoh artist Katsura Kan presents a performance with his students drawn from Portland butohists. Kan is one of the deep thinkers of butoh as noted earlier about his lecture. He is a Buddhist, informing his work and draws dancers and inspiration from across Asia, South America and Africa. He explores the regional differences in indigenous butoh. Our Portland butoh is different than, say the butoh of Thai shamans. We spent some time out at art openings discussing arts funding and art culture here and in Japan Thursday. He brings that same curiosity and brilliance to creating and exploring movement. This evening, Sheri Brown and Douglas Ridings from Seattle make a special appearance. Brown is known for evocative facial presence which almost disappears. Ridings incorporates South Indian dance into his butoh. The performance is in the Headwaters Studio at Disjecta. The space is intimate, holding about 20, make a reservation. Reservations email mizudesierto (AT) gmail (DOT) com 8PM $5-15
A different butoh are hip hop moves by b-boys and b-girls. Hip hop culture is life and we are living it. Part of it are beautifully unbelievable b-boy/b-girl moves. One of the most mad dope b-boy/b-girl events of the year is The Foundation. Eight years strong. On no publicity outside the community. 2 on 2 battles. DJ's Sugarman and Computer Fam of the Buttermilk Baby Makers. All proceeds benefit Ethos www.ethos.org In the Reed Student Union doors 6:30PM, show 7. $7
November 7 Eastside Art Openings
The Eastside has serious galleries mixed with pure fun. For example Fourteen30 Contemporary presents NEW CONSTRUCTION by artists Nick van Woert and Nicholas Pittman. Sculptor van Woert, inspired by the Russian Conctructivists, used material high and low for formal sculptures. Manwhile Pittman creates bright abstract patterns which would be at home in the Ecstasy show of a few years back All this at Fourteen30, www.fourteen30.com 1430 SE 3rd Avenue
Meanwhile over at Worksound is a meditation on Air Nouveau. Psu professor Horia Boboia shows work along with LA artists Andrea Fellers and Darcy Bartoletti. Rounding out the show are San Francisco artist Sophie De Lignerolles and continuing from last month Samantha Wall. At Worksound www.worksoundpdx.com 820 SE Alder
Must Find Truth... I think we dis, but it is always a continuing endevour, including at Gallery Homeland. This is the name of a show of Roxanne Jackson of macabre beasts. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org corner SE 11th and Division
There is more fun to be had including shows in the 811 Block at Redux and Grass Hut, Newspace Photography, Destroystore and I'm sure plenty more!
Meanwhile over at Worksound is a meditation on Air Nouveau. Psu professor Horia Boboia shows work along with LA artists Andrea Fellers and Darcy Bartoletti. Rounding out the show are San Francisco artist Sophie De Lignerolles and continuing from last month Samantha Wall. At Worksound www.worksoundpdx.com 820 SE Alder
Must Find Truth... I think we dis, but it is always a continuing endevour, including at Gallery Homeland. This is the name of a show of Roxanne Jackson of macabre beasts. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org corner SE 11th and Division
There is more fun to be had including shows in the 811 Block at Redux and Grass Hut, Newspace Photography, Destroystore and I'm sure plenty more!
November 7-9 Flocks and Tumbles
Portland has many interesting creative concentrations. One is a small concentration of composers and experimantal soundscape creators inspired by and coinspiring the NW Electroacoustic Music Organization. Multi artist Seth Nehil presents Flock & Tumble based on these ideas. "Flock & Tumble is a concert for 6 audio speakers, 4 video projections, and a 12-person choir. Shouts, voices and songs articulate a “creatureality”, evoking the patterns which emerge among frog calls, fish schools and insect swarms. While performers navigate the space around and among the audience, glimpses of dance by Linda Austin and "Woolly Mammoth Comes to Dinner" flash across screens, percussive bursts scatter and melodies cluster. Each performance will be different, guided by a rhythmical/musical choreography that determines rules of interaction. Bold sound and intentional play merge wildness and precision in a multimedia celebration of 'becoming-animal'”. All this takes place November 7, 8, 9, at AudioCinema, 226 SE Madison, doors 7:30PM show 8:00 $10
Thursday, November 06, 2008
November 6 Westside Art Openings
City hall shows art themed on Portland's music world, a very successful creative community in Portland. Artists include Laura Domela, Norm Eder, Mike King, Anthony Pidgeon, Diane Russell, Gary Houston, Alica J. Rose, Alexander Rokoff, Guy Burwell, Jason Quigley, Ben Wilson, Casey Burns, Josh Elliott, Josh Elliott, Sarah White, Michelle Motta, Nicolle Farup & Autumn de Wilde. At City Hall 1221 SW 4th 5PM-7 Free
At Stumptown Coffee, White Rainbow performs. 128 SW 3rd. 7-8ish
Backspace shows Ladies of the Rib: paintings by 5 women artists: Anna Todaro, Alisha Wessler, Chowchessna, Taryn Tomasello & Nicole Linde. Their work is inspired by the Sumerian civilization of 4000 BC near the conflience of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers - that would be in present day Iraq. Lady of the Rib is a reference to a Sumer myth which may have inspired the Eve from Adam's rib myth. At Backspace www.backspace.biz 115 NW 5th Ave
Painter Laura Ross-Paul is known for her rich use of color in impressionistic portraits. This work captures the light of summer modulated by our gentle leafy canopy. At Froelick 714 NW Davis
I love cast glass, but it is a material that sometimes overwealms the work. However this month Silvia Levenson shows "It's not Living Alone", a crituque of our love-hate relationship with mood-stabilizing pharms. She comments that her work is inspired by Chuck Palahniuk. At Bullseye 300 NW 13th
PNCA continues it's global engagement with work by Iranian Shiva Ahmadi and Chinese artist Baochi Zhang In the Feldman Gallery www.pnca.edu Corner NW Johnson and 13th
The Woolley gallery has a group show of small works by Michael T. Hensley, Bernard O. Gross, Alison O'Donoghue, Julia Stoops, Jennifer Mercede, Jenny Rideout, Carol Yarrow, Brigitte Dortmund & Angelina Woolley. Mark Woolley Gallery 817 SW 2nd Ave
Video art is too little seen in Portland. A great example is the 4 screen installation at The Urban Farmer by Matt McCormick. I have not seen the group show at Quality Pictures curated by artist Jacob Dyrenforth and Eva Respini, Assistant Curator of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art, but if you are interested consider Videos and Vodka: Selections from Video Salon. Artists include Guy Ben-Ner, Ian Cooper, Tanyth Berkeley, Duke and Battersby, Christopher Miner, Ohad Meromi, Lisa Oppenheim, John Pilson, Lisi Raskin, Robin Rhode, Laura Riboli and Halsey Rodman. At Quality Pictures 916 NW Hoyt
At Stumptown Coffee, White Rainbow performs. 128 SW 3rd. 7-8ish
Backspace shows Ladies of the Rib: paintings by 5 women artists: Anna Todaro, Alisha Wessler, Chowchessna, Taryn Tomasello & Nicole Linde. Their work is inspired by the Sumerian civilization of 4000 BC near the conflience of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers - that would be in present day Iraq. Lady of the Rib is a reference to a Sumer myth which may have inspired the Eve from Adam's rib myth. At Backspace www.backspace.biz 115 NW 5th Ave
Painter Laura Ross-Paul is known for her rich use of color in impressionistic portraits. This work captures the light of summer modulated by our gentle leafy canopy. At Froelick 714 NW Davis
I love cast glass, but it is a material that sometimes overwealms the work. However this month Silvia Levenson shows "It's not Living Alone", a crituque of our love-hate relationship with mood-stabilizing pharms. She comments that her work is inspired by Chuck Palahniuk. At Bullseye 300 NW 13th
PNCA continues it's global engagement with work by Iranian Shiva Ahmadi and Chinese artist Baochi Zhang In the Feldman Gallery www.pnca.edu Corner NW Johnson and 13th
The Woolley gallery has a group show of small works by Michael T. Hensley, Bernard O. Gross, Alison O'Donoghue, Julia Stoops, Jennifer Mercede, Jenny Rideout, Carol Yarrow, Brigitte Dortmund & Angelina Woolley. Mark Woolley Gallery 817 SW 2nd Ave
Video art is too little seen in Portland. A great example is the 4 screen installation at The Urban Farmer by Matt McCormick. I have not seen the group show at Quality Pictures curated by artist Jacob Dyrenforth and Eva Respini, Assistant Curator of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art, but if you are interested consider Videos and Vodka: Selections from Video Salon. Artists include Guy Ben-Ner, Ian Cooper, Tanyth Berkeley, Duke and Battersby, Christopher Miner, Ohad Meromi, Lisa Oppenheim, John Pilson, Lisi Raskin, Robin Rhode, Laura Riboli and Halsey Rodman. At Quality Pictures 916 NW Hoyt
Friday, October 31, 2008
November 3 Global Stages and Social Practice
Katsura Kan is a longtime Kyoto butoh master. He performed with Byakko-sha, formed by Isamu Osuka, an offshoot of Dairakudakan in a Kyoto factory. While Byakko-sha presented a wild, mad and chaotic flavor, Kan is very analytic and considered.
A friend studied with him in Kyoto. After a year or two of classes, she learned of a performance his group was making in another Japanese city. She implored Kan to allow her to assist, collecting tickets, doing lights, anything needed for the performance. His response was a note of the location, you can make it if you like.
Finding a location in Japan is a challenge for Japanese. For Westerners without the language, it is a supreme challenge. Within a neighborhood, banchi, of pedestrain-oriented curvalinear streets without names, addresses were assigned in chronological order of building in a neighborhood, not linear order on a named street!
My friend set out early in the morning to the performance. She arrived, miraculously, an hour before the performance at the site. There Kan was surprised to see her. "Oh, you made it?". "Get in costume, the performance is in an hour and you are in it." You can imagine her response. She performd and well, continuing with Kan's traveling performing group for a year or two. Later he was planning a new performance. He selected dancers, but not her. She protested. His response: "Do you remember your first time on stage? You were raw, with an intensity. It is time for another to feel that."
Kan has worked to form a pan-Asian butoh, collaborating in Indonesia and Thailand. He is also known for drawing movement, sampling, from his dancers. Tonight he speaks on the origins of butoh in Japan.
Butoh was first performed in 1959. A common theory is that it was inspired by the atomic bomb in 1945. I believe it was inspired by the youth and artistic cultural movement for Japanese cultural soverenity. At the time, writers such as Mishima represented a return to traditional Japanese values along with creative and social liberalization. There were also massive protests in the streets against the terms of the US-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty. The founder of butoh was from Northern Japan and was influenced by Japan's nature-based philosophy, Shinto. This is the explanation in Michael Blackwood's documentary. Byakko-sha's Isamu Osuka does relate that he was in the womb of his mother in 1945 Hiroshima and has a prebirth memory of the bomb's illumination. Kan, a Buddhist, perhaps will have a comment on the impact of Japanese philosophy on butoh and how Americans can find their unique butoh. That would be social practice.
The lecture has been organized by Mizu Desierto and Professor Larry Kominz of Portland State University's Center for Japanese Studies and with the help of the Dance program at PSU's Theater Arts Department. Kan teaches workshops and performs this week at the Headwaters Studio at Disjecta.
The lecture is in Smith Hall room 327/8/ 6:30PM Free!
Darren O'Donnell is a polymath. Writer of novels, maker of theater and a social practice artist. Mammalian Diving Reflex forms a pattern for O'Donnell's performances. They range from his haircuts by children project to on stage work. I think his talk will be entertaining, but I'm not really sure what he does so maybe just see his website and decide if it sounds fun and exciting.
It is part of the PSU Monday Lecture Series. This series has been consistently engaging. It has moved to a new location - Shattuck Hall, Room 212, 1914 SW Park Avenue, at the corner of SW Broadway and Hall on the PSU campus. 7:30PM Free
A friend studied with him in Kyoto. After a year or two of classes, she learned of a performance his group was making in another Japanese city. She implored Kan to allow her to assist, collecting tickets, doing lights, anything needed for the performance. His response was a note of the location, you can make it if you like.
Finding a location in Japan is a challenge for Japanese. For Westerners without the language, it is a supreme challenge. Within a neighborhood, banchi, of pedestrain-oriented curvalinear streets without names, addresses were assigned in chronological order of building in a neighborhood, not linear order on a named street!
My friend set out early in the morning to the performance. She arrived, miraculously, an hour before the performance at the site. There Kan was surprised to see her. "Oh, you made it?". "Get in costume, the performance is in an hour and you are in it." You can imagine her response. She performd and well, continuing with Kan's traveling performing group for a year or two. Later he was planning a new performance. He selected dancers, but not her. She protested. His response: "Do you remember your first time on stage? You were raw, with an intensity. It is time for another to feel that."
Kan has worked to form a pan-Asian butoh, collaborating in Indonesia and Thailand. He is also known for drawing movement, sampling, from his dancers. Tonight he speaks on the origins of butoh in Japan.
Butoh was first performed in 1959. A common theory is that it was inspired by the atomic bomb in 1945. I believe it was inspired by the youth and artistic cultural movement for Japanese cultural soverenity. At the time, writers such as Mishima represented a return to traditional Japanese values along with creative and social liberalization. There were also massive protests in the streets against the terms of the US-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty. The founder of butoh was from Northern Japan and was influenced by Japan's nature-based philosophy, Shinto. This is the explanation in Michael Blackwood's documentary. Byakko-sha's Isamu Osuka does relate that he was in the womb of his mother in 1945 Hiroshima and has a prebirth memory of the bomb's illumination. Kan, a Buddhist, perhaps will have a comment on the impact of Japanese philosophy on butoh and how Americans can find their unique butoh. That would be social practice.
The lecture has been organized by Mizu Desierto and Professor Larry Kominz of Portland State University's Center for Japanese Studies and with the help of the Dance program at PSU's Theater Arts Department. Kan teaches workshops and performs this week at the Headwaters Studio at Disjecta.
The lecture is in Smith Hall room 327/8/ 6:30PM Free!
Darren O'Donnell is a polymath. Writer of novels, maker of theater and a social practice artist. Mammalian Diving Reflex forms a pattern for O'Donnell's performances. They range from his haircuts by children project to on stage work. I think his talk will be entertaining, but I'm not really sure what he does so maybe just see his website and decide if it sounds fun and exciting.
It is part of the PSU Monday Lecture Series. This series has been consistently engaging. It has moved to a new location - Shattuck Hall, Room 212, 1914 SW Park Avenue, at the corner of SW Broadway and Hall on the PSU campus. 7:30PM Free
November 2 Baraka at Jáce Gáce
An amazing film shot all over the world on 70mm. At Jáce Gáce, Art, Waffles and Beer. 2045 SE Belmont 8PM Free
October 31 - November 2 Wilkes+Barber
There is something about duets. Cydney Wilkes and Mike Barber have been doing them together for some time and it shows. Music in the Middle is based on a score from composer Heather Perkins. The duo created movement based on a visual version of the score, without hearing it. They also perform a Deborah Hay work. All this is at small
Conduit 918 SW Yamhill Street, 4th floor. Friday-Sunday 8PM and 2PM Sunday $15, $12 artists & students Reserved tickets at brownpapertickets.com/event/45382
Conduit 918 SW Yamhill Street, 4th floor. Friday-Sunday 8PM and 2PM Sunday $15, $12 artists & students Reserved tickets at brownpapertickets.com/event/45382
October 31 Holloween and Elections
I am very serious about elections. In many other countries, people are literally loosing their lives to vote. But politics and voting are fun and exciting too, it is an opportunity for optimism. Changing the world is a challenge, it should be a fun challenge! Trick or Vote is the Bus Project's very fun effort to get voters to turn in their mail ballots. It's a nation wide effort in some other cities reminding people to vote, person to person. In Portland come in costume at 3:30PM or 5:30PM to Audio Cinema, 226 SW Madison. Bring your friends! Groups will head out from there to neighborhoods where they will knock on doors reminding people to VOTE! After there is a free party for volunteers at the same meetup location. ($10 for non volunteers) At 1000 realistically idealistic people, it will be the funnest party in Portland! Details http://www.trickorvote.org/
October 30-November 2 Catlin Sale
Cultural anthropology is so fascinating. There is an opportunity to practice it by examining findings at the Catlin Gabel Rummage Sale. It's a fund raiser for financial aid for the school. Everything from fancy jewelry, toys, furniture, clothes/costumes, kitchen stuff and old super-8 gear. At the Expo Center "Go by Train". Thurs. 5PM-9; Fri. 10PM-6; Sat. 9AM-9PM 25% off everything; Sun. 9AM-3PM 50% off everything and special cheap bag sales/ make a deal.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
October 27 Matt McCormick on Film
The slow food movement proposes local ingredients, minimally processed with loving care and consumed with gentle relish. It is the opposite of fast food. Many question other forms of human endeavour, spawning slow movements in design and other activities. In a way, slow is not exactly the right adjective, it is more about appropriate speed and intent.
Mat McCormick's films are slow films in intent; they are really not slow though. They are perfectly adapted to our place. They allow the viewer to enter quietly without being browbeaten by action or theatrics. They unfold quietly and manifest themselves unexpectedly. McCormick created and ran the PDX Documentary and eXperimental Film Festival for a few years which he curated with like films.
His work spans documentary-like material, public service announcements, friends' music videos, art installation and increasingly projects with actors, including a recent feature which has just finished shooting.
See McCormick show and speak on his work at the PSU Monday Lecture Series. This series has been consistently engaging. It has moved to a new location - Shattuck Hall, Room 212, early arrival recommended. 7:30PM Free
Mat McCormick's films are slow films in intent; they are really not slow though. They are perfectly adapted to our place. They allow the viewer to enter quietly without being browbeaten by action or theatrics. They unfold quietly and manifest themselves unexpectedly. McCormick created and ran the PDX Documentary and eXperimental Film Festival for a few years which he curated with like films.
His work spans documentary-like material, public service announcements, friends' music videos, art installation and increasingly projects with actors, including a recent feature which has just finished shooting.
See McCormick show and speak on his work at the PSU Monday Lecture Series. This series has been consistently engaging. It has moved to a new location - Shattuck Hall, Room 212, early arrival recommended. 7:30PM Free
Thursday, October 23, 2008
October to Thanksgiving
A beautiful installation has been up for a few weeks. Artist LeBrie Rich has made a felted Thanksgiving dinner in a display window. You can see it anytime in the 11th Street side window at Knit and Purl, corner SW Alder and 11th.
Monday, October 20, 2008
October 20 Public Artist, Architect, Planner
Every field is crying out for creative thinkers. That has allowed sculptor Buster Simpson to expand his projects from public sculpture to planning and designing civic structures. You may have seen one of his public sculptures by the Convention Center light rail stop - it is a large forest log and watering system creating a plant succession of tree sprouts. Simson speaks at the PSU Monday Lecture Series. This series has been consistently engaging. It has moved to a new location - Shattuck Hall, Room 212, double the old location's capacity. 7:30PM Free
Thursday, October 16, 2008
October 18 Classical Indian Flute Master
Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia is a master of the bansuri. From this bamboo flute of six finger holes, he produces tones spanning five and one half octaves. He is considered one of the finest performers on the instrument in the world. His raga playing is supremely sensitive as you may judge from these three videos. He has collaborated with Western musicians and is chair of the World Music Department at the Rotterdam Music Conservatory. Tonight he is accompanied by Rupak Kulkarni, flute; Rakesh Chaurasia, flute; Subhankar Banerjee, tabla and Bhavani Shankar, pakhawaj. Presented by Kalakendra www.kalakendra.org at the First Congregational Church, 1126 SW Park Avenue. 7:30PM $25 advance, $30 at door, discounts for members.
October 17 Yuko Ota Butoh at Headwaters Studio
Jinen Butoh takes as its inspiration everything, not differenting between nature, objects we make and our constructions in thought. The founder joined Bishop Yamada's Hoppo-Butoh-ha in Hokkaido. Hoppo-Butoh-ha evolved from Dairakudakan, active to this day.
Yuko Ota, a Jinen influenced performer, journeys all the way to Portland to perform tonight. Later she offers a workshop, bringing a different thread of butoh to movers here. The performance is at the Headwaters Studio at Disjecta in Kenton, very close to the Paul Bunyan statue.
Joining Ota will be Death Posture from Seattle, much less scary than it sounds, and purveyor of sublime duet. Mizu Desierto and her Portland group perform too. Mizu directed the very amazing Midsummer Night's Dream at Peninsula Park. At 8371 N Interstate. 8PM sharp, doors close. $15
Yuko Ota, a Jinen influenced performer, journeys all the way to Portland to perform tonight. Later she offers a workshop, bringing a different thread of butoh to movers here. The performance is at the Headwaters Studio at Disjecta in Kenton, very close to the Paul Bunyan statue.
Joining Ota will be Death Posture from Seattle, much less scary than it sounds, and purveyor of sublime duet. Mizu Desierto and her Portland group perform too. Mizu directed the very amazing Midsummer Night's Dream at Peninsula Park. At 8371 N Interstate. 8PM sharp, doors close. $15
October 17 Photographer Jim Lommasson at NAAU
Lommasson is known for idea-driven photographic meditations on American life. An outstanding example was his work in New Orleans after Katrina, Heaven and Earth. As part of the visionary NAAU Couture series, he is back with a show of portraits of Afghan and Iraq War veterans, Exit Wounds. Lommasson's interviews accompanying the work trace their experiences of war and returning. Many of his veteran subjects display photos they made at war. At New American Art Union www.newamericanartunion.com 922 SE Ankeny Opening 6PM-9 Free
October 17 Equilibrium: The Human Mash Up
The Human Mashup is a collaborative project of the Working Artists Studio-Gallery, visualists, DJ's, the Software Association of Oregon and developer Brad Malsin's Olympic Mills/B&O Warehouse Building in its gallery helmed by Chris Haberman. Wherecamp, with other events later, is also involved.
Working Artists principal, Adrienne Fritze, issued a call to artists for work themed on the survival of all species in a changing planet. The show is the result. Artists Adrienne Fritze, Angela Gay, Dante Cohen, David Burke, Jack Gabel, Jesse Lindsay, Judy Devine, Lea Keohane, Mario Robert III, Richard Schemmerer, Rio Wrenn, Sabina Haque and Theresa Weil participate. We hope these mashups will continue to bring creatives from radically different communities together, sharpening the art dialog.
3 hours only. At 107 SE Washington. 4PM-7 Free
Working Artists principal, Adrienne Fritze, issued a call to artists for work themed on the survival of all species in a changing planet. The show is the result. Artists Adrienne Fritze, Angela Gay, Dante Cohen, David Burke, Jack Gabel, Jesse Lindsay, Judy Devine, Lea Keohane, Mario Robert III, Richard Schemmerer, Rio Wrenn, Sabina Haque and Theresa Weil participate. We hope these mashups will continue to bring creatives from radically different communities together, sharpening the art dialog.
3 hours only. At 107 SE Washington. 4PM-7 Free
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
October 15 Hillary Pfeiffer's Love Bugs
From the artist: "Every year the Lovebugs swarm. It's their mating process-traveling in a giant mass of writhing pheromones. In recent decades, as their native habitat in the forests has been depleted, the Lovebugs have migrated toward the roadways to act out their seasonal ritual. They are drawn to the scent of automobile exhaust fumes, which chemically replicates the odor produced by the female insect to attract their male counterparts and alert them of their fertility. Quite often, individuals in a swarm are randomly looping, spiraling, or corkscrewing around in a dizzying search for their mates, rather than following a linear flightplan.
People swarm too. In bars, parks, highways, gyms, malls. We often gather together and watch each other, observing our mating rites which include clothing, gesture, demeanor. We flirt, looking into each other's eyes for the kinesthetic cues that it's okay to do so. sWarm by Hilary PfeiferLanguage is a big part of courtship, and it is from this place that I chose the title for this installation. When George Gershwin wrote 's Wonderful, he was taking note of the way that humans often elide the spoken word, letting some parts drop away and others merge. When we are speaking affectionately to lovers, our language is softer and more melodic than usual. Words loop from thought to thought, much like the lofty flight pattern of a giddy bug. -hilary."
Artist Hillary Pfeifer shows her Love Bugs until November 15 at Relish www.shoprelish.com. 1715 NW Lovejoy
People swarm too. In bars, parks, highways, gyms, malls. We often gather together and watch each other, observing our mating rites which include clothing, gesture, demeanor. We flirt, looking into each other's eyes for the kinesthetic cues that it's okay to do so. sWarm by Hilary PfeiferLanguage is a big part of courtship, and it is from this place that I chose the title for this installation. When George Gershwin wrote 's Wonderful, he was taking note of the way that humans often elide the spoken word, letting some parts drop away and others merge. When we are speaking affectionately to lovers, our language is softer and more melodic than usual. Words loop from thought to thought, much like the lofty flight pattern of a giddy bug. -hilary."
Artist Hillary Pfeifer shows her Love Bugs until November 15 at Relish www.shoprelish.com. 1715 NW Lovejoy
October 15-18 Cinema Project Opens New Home
The Cinema Project shows films on film. Properly exposed, processed and projected film has a wider dynamic range between light and dark, more gradations, greater resolution and color more closely matching the real world than does video. No compression artifacts either. Not only will this be the case for some time into the future, but some experimental artists' work from the past is only available on film.
The Cinema Project has done itinerant outdoor showings, programmed Film Center showings and maintained a long, often sold out residency at the New American Art Union (thanks Ruthann Brown!)
Now they have their own home sweet home downtown. They open it with this program. It is an opportunity to see rare film and in person discussions with filmmakers and artists.
Full details on all at the Cinema Project www.cinemaproject.org
Wednesday Opening Night
Todd Haynes on Film
Portland director Todd Haynes is famous for outstanding sensitive commercial films such as Safe, Far From Heaven and I'm Not There. He started with beautiful experimental work such as Superstar and Poison. Velvet Goldmine forms somewhat of a transition. Superstar, 1987, tells the tragic story of very successful singer Karen Carpenter who died of anorexia. In the film, BarbieTM dolls play the characters with stop action animation. Watching for only a few moments, you are drawn in, the strange nature of the 'actors' disappears far beneath the compelling story. The others I have seen include a Far From Heaven, a lushly filmed exploration of the inner life of a 50's housewife and Velvet Goldmine, a madcap search for a missing pop star's life. From humble BarbieTM beginnings, Haynes is famed as an actors' director.
This evening, Visiting Professor of Film History at Hamilton and Harvard, Scott MacDonald discusses the films with Haynes, interspersing film segments as context.
At the Portland Art Museum Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 SW Park. 8PM $8
Thursday Canyon Cinema
Canyon Cinema began as an itinerant venue for artists to show their films in 1961 San Francisco, backyards to basements. Later it evolved into a distributor and archive of experimental film. Today you can find artist films at Canyon unavailable anywhere and on film, unfortunately the rental prices are oriented to institutions, following the film model. This would be in contrast to subsequent models such as VHS/DVD sales and rental, Netflix, BitTorrent, Hulu, YouTube, MobiTV and so forth. Hey but we started out with this saying film was good!
Tonight there are 3 programs: 6PM - Canyon Men, 8PM a talk on Small Cinemas, and 9PM Canyon Women. All of the programs have been compiled by Scott Macdonald.
Friday Lost and Found Party
This evening the focus are two filmmakers, Ina Archer and Kevin Jerome Everson. I believe both work in the manner of Craig Baldwin, intercutting found footage with a sharp political intent.
The evening program focuses on Ina Archer at 6PM; a discussion on sampling the archive of black representation on film as a tactic, 7:45PM; and the films of Kevin Jerome Everson at 9PM.
At 10:30PM there is a dance party wrap.
Saturday Archives and the Films of Joseph Cornell
This is an action packed day -
12:00PM-2:00 Archiving Portland Arts Now, moderated by Matthew Stadler (free)
2:30PM The Women’s Film Preservation Fund
3:30PM Afternoon Tea & Social (free)
5:00PM The Films of Joseph Cornell - Infinite Affinities: Film and Collage
7:00PM Preserved and Unpreserved Films From Anthology Film Archives
9:30PM More Films of Joseph Cornell
Sunday Projecting The Future
More
1:30PM Artist Distribution Avenues and Choices: Why, Where, and How
3:30PM New Experimental Cinema by the Cinema Project
5:30PM Filming (In) War: Recent Lebanese Video
8:30PM Expanded Cinema Comes Alive
and
10:30PM Closing Night Party Live Music by Evolutionary Jass Band, Tara Jane O’Neil, and Sad Horse. 21+. The Cleaners corner Stark and SW 10th $10/ Free with event ticket stubs
Unless elsewise noted, events are at at the Cinema Project's new screening room 11 NW 13th Street 4th floor. Limited capacity, doors 30 minutes in advance. Each event $6 or $3 for Cinema Project members. $30 all event pass available.
The Cinema Project website details the individual films and artists at http://cinemaproject.org/screenings.html#expframes.
The Cinema Project has done itinerant outdoor showings, programmed Film Center showings and maintained a long, often sold out residency at the New American Art Union (thanks Ruthann Brown!)
Now they have their own home sweet home downtown. They open it with this program. It is an opportunity to see rare film and in person discussions with filmmakers and artists.
Full details on all at the Cinema Project www.cinemaproject.org
Wednesday Opening Night
Todd Haynes on Film
Portland director Todd Haynes is famous for outstanding sensitive commercial films such as Safe, Far From Heaven and I'm Not There. He started with beautiful experimental work such as Superstar and Poison. Velvet Goldmine forms somewhat of a transition. Superstar, 1987, tells the tragic story of very successful singer Karen Carpenter who died of anorexia. In the film, BarbieTM dolls play the characters with stop action animation. Watching for only a few moments, you are drawn in, the strange nature of the 'actors' disappears far beneath the compelling story. The others I have seen include a Far From Heaven, a lushly filmed exploration of the inner life of a 50's housewife and Velvet Goldmine, a madcap search for a missing pop star's life. From humble BarbieTM beginnings, Haynes is famed as an actors' director.
This evening, Visiting Professor of Film History at Hamilton and Harvard, Scott MacDonald discusses the films with Haynes, interspersing film segments as context.
At the Portland Art Museum Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 SW Park. 8PM $8
Thursday Canyon Cinema
Canyon Cinema began as an itinerant venue for artists to show their films in 1961 San Francisco, backyards to basements. Later it evolved into a distributor and archive of experimental film. Today you can find artist films at Canyon unavailable anywhere and on film, unfortunately the rental prices are oriented to institutions, following the film model. This would be in contrast to subsequent models such as VHS/DVD sales and rental, Netflix, BitTorrent, Hulu, YouTube, MobiTV and so forth. Hey but we started out with this saying film was good!
Tonight there are 3 programs: 6PM - Canyon Men, 8PM a talk on Small Cinemas, and 9PM Canyon Women. All of the programs have been compiled by Scott Macdonald.
Friday Lost and Found Party
This evening the focus are two filmmakers, Ina Archer and Kevin Jerome Everson. I believe both work in the manner of Craig Baldwin, intercutting found footage with a sharp political intent.
The evening program focuses on Ina Archer at 6PM; a discussion on sampling the archive of black representation on film as a tactic, 7:45PM; and the films of Kevin Jerome Everson at 9PM.
At 10:30PM there is a dance party wrap.
Saturday Archives and the Films of Joseph Cornell
This is an action packed day -
12:00PM-2:00 Archiving Portland Arts Now, moderated by Matthew Stadler (free)
2:30PM The Women’s Film Preservation Fund
3:30PM Afternoon Tea & Social (free)
5:00PM The Films of Joseph Cornell - Infinite Affinities: Film and Collage
7:00PM Preserved and Unpreserved Films From Anthology Film Archives
9:30PM More Films of Joseph Cornell
Sunday Projecting The Future
More
1:30PM Artist Distribution Avenues and Choices: Why, Where, and How
3:30PM New Experimental Cinema by the Cinema Project
5:30PM Filming (In) War: Recent Lebanese Video
8:30PM Expanded Cinema Comes Alive
and
10:30PM Closing Night Party Live Music by Evolutionary Jass Band, Tara Jane O’Neil, and Sad Horse. 21+. The Cleaners corner Stark and SW 10th $10/ Free with event ticket stubs
Unless elsewise noted, events are at at the Cinema Project's new screening room 11 NW 13th Street 4th floor. Limited capacity, doors 30 minutes in advance. Each event $6 or $3 for Cinema Project members. $30 all event pass available.
The Cinema Project website details the individual films and artists at http://cinemaproject.org/screenings.html#expframes.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
October 13 Andrea Zittel
Andrea Zittel has made making new objects for everyday life, and living with them, her work. One striking example are lightweight living pods in the California desert landscape. Zittel has made clothing and furniture too. Her clothing projects were inspired by office work where she was required to wear something nice. Her response has been a self-designed piece of clothing she wears daily for months. She develops and lives with her experimental, practical and economical furniture. She is an almost practical, almost impractical, industrial designer, only constrained by the fact that she lives her life with the work. The result is beautiful.
After a few years prototyping her living pods in the California desert near Joshua Tree, Zittel cofounded the High Desert Test Sites. Once a year artists converge on the site to make and share art in landscape.
Another Zittel open source social practice project is her Interloper hiking club. Walkers gather in costume for wilderness hikes. Sometimes their hikes inhabit art fairs.
The essence of Zittel's effort is to create a minimal implementation of something we each are familiar with from everyday life. In the viewer, that can create a new sense of creativity.
She speaks at the PSU Monday Lecture Series. This series has been consistently engaging. It has moved to a new location - Shattuck Hall, Room 212, double the old location's capacity. 7:30PM Free
After a few years prototyping her living pods in the California desert near Joshua Tree, Zittel cofounded the High Desert Test Sites. Once a year artists converge on the site to make and share art in landscape.
Another Zittel open source social practice project is her Interloper hiking club. Walkers gather in costume for wilderness hikes. Sometimes their hikes inhabit art fairs.
The essence of Zittel's effort is to create a minimal implementation of something we each are familiar with from everyday life. In the viewer, that can create a new sense of creativity.
She speaks at the PSU Monday Lecture Series. This series has been consistently engaging. It has moved to a new location - Shattuck Hall, Room 212, double the old location's capacity. 7:30PM Free
Friday, October 10, 2008
October 10,11,16,18 Seattle Butoh
Haruko Nishimura presents her latest production Silvering Path. She describes it: One dance of eros, earth and the slug; one battle of the Weeble Wobble vs. the Ninjas; and one Monstrous Grandmother. Nishimura has been making lush, humorous and intense butoh in Seattle, often in collaboration with musicians the Degenerate Art Ensemble (formerly the Young Composers Collective). Opines Seattle's Stranger: "Nishimura is a hypnotic, versatile, and harrowing performer. Part Butoh maestro and part woodland creature, she can shift from a spider-monster to Marlene Dietrich to a forlorn ghost with a few simple gestures." I would say that is accurate. With Mandy Greer, crochet art; Ian Lucero, film and Colin Ernst, sculptural costume. Live adventurous music by Jeffrey Huston and Joshua Kohl. Dress art by Anna Lange. Video art installation by Leo Mayberry. Show review here. At the FREE SHEEP FOUNDATION 4408 3rd ave (at Battery) in belltown * $15 * http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/42588/
Thursday, October 09, 2008
October 9 Dishwashers on Bikes
Once upon a time there were copy machines. That spawned photocopy art and self published zines - paper-based - before the world wide web. One Portlander, Pete Jordan, rode that ride, traveling the country as a dishwasher and writing of it in his zine as Dishwasher Pete. That zine morphed to book: Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States. Then Pete headed to the Netherlands to study city planning and fell in love with Amsterdam's bikes. The city's winding streets, canals and bridges constrain streets to small cars and slow speeds, ideal for bikes. So in love with the city bike culture, he asked his wife if they could stay. Now six years later, they have a small bike shop and Pete writes two bike columns in the local paper. He will read from his book in progress, In the City of Bikes: An Up Close Look at Amsterdam, tonight, against a projected backdrop of street scenes from the city.
Nickey Robare shows her film Small Movements on the Sprockettes, Portland's pink precision minibike dance team. She performed with them, so this is an intimate view of their amazingness. Art on the wall by Tiago DeJerk, bike themed. Musician Baby Dollars closes the evening with probably dancing.
Organized by original zinesters Reading Frenzy. At the Cleaners, corner SW Stark and 10th 7PM Sliding scale $3 or greater.
Nickey Robare shows her film Small Movements on the Sprockettes, Portland's pink precision minibike dance team. She performed with them, so this is an intimate view of their amazingness. Art on the wall by Tiago DeJerk, bike themed. Musician Baby Dollars closes the evening with probably dancing.
Organized by original zinesters Reading Frenzy. At the Cleaners, corner SW Stark and 10th 7PM Sliding scale $3 or greater.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
October 4 Visualization Center Opens with Dumb Type (NY)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a university known for strong visual arts and engineering programs, is opening a performance and research center, EMPAC. The first director is a founding director of Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany. This is a new building and program for a project that has been established for a few years.
They will have residencies and collaboration opportunities ongoing. Facilities include immersive projection, controlled sound environments, supercomputers and a very technical staff.
The program is focused on visualization for art and science.
There are some amazing opening performances, including Dumb Type's Voyage tonight. Every time I have seen this group, I have been floored. They mix idea, emotion, movement, sound, video and lighting in a way that works together, rather than distracting.
So if you are reading this in that part of the country, you might enjoy it!
EMPAC is in Troy, NY, 120 miles North of New York City
They will have residencies and collaboration opportunities ongoing. Facilities include immersive projection, controlled sound environments, supercomputers and a very technical staff.
The program is focused on visualization for art and science.
There are some amazing opening performances, including Dumb Type's Voyage tonight. Every time I have seen this group, I have been floored. They mix idea, emotion, movement, sound, video and lighting in a way that works together, rather than distracting.
So if you are reading this in that part of the country, you might enjoy it!
EMPAC is in Troy, NY, 120 miles North of New York City
October 3 Eastside Openings
Taking inspiration from James Baldwin, "The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers", Reversed Reality is a show of Chinese, French and Portland artists. Wei Hsueh, at PNCA, brings four Hong Kong artists. Pang Qian Guo, Beatrix Pang draws connections between prople in Hong Kong and Portland using photography and sound. Lau Xue Cheng, Hanison Lau samples traditional Chinese culture such as poetry and landscape painting and repurposes it to contemporary art. Wong Wai Yin, Doris Yin samples everyday objects and remakes. Ma Ho Yin, Florian Ma samples pop culture and high culture. For this show he has a lighting installation. Cheikh Ndiay from Lyon presents paintings and installation, some inspired by streetscapes. Samantha Wall from Portland shows drawings themed on strong women. Don't miss this. At Worksound www.worksoundpdx.com 820 SE Alder
In the 811 Block
Grass Hut shows work from Islands Fold™ artists' residencies paired with Grass Hut artists. Islands Fold is the home of Angela Conley and Luke Ramsey on Pender Island, B.C. Artists visit for a time and make work. It's a beautiful intimate project. Luke has a poetic explanation for it all. Artist resident matchups include Spencer Hibert + Marco Zamora, Johnathan R. Storm + Dawn Riddle, Luke Ramsey + Jill Bliss, Zeesy Powers + Scrappers, Ben Jacques + Le Merde, Irana Douer + Betsy Walton, Bwana Spoons + Theo Ellsworth, Charlotte Walton + Fawn Gehweiler, Oliver Hibert + Owen Plummer, Maseman + Arbito, Shawn Wolfe + Kinoko and Howie Tsui + Apak. In each pairing, one artist drew an island and sea, then mailed it to the other, who added the island home and inhabitants. Luke himself shows his solo-island drawings too. At Grass Hut www.grasshutcorp.com
Sword and Fern has the pen and ink drawings of Seattle artist cybele phillips. Sword and Fern swordandfern.blogspot.com
Redux, queen of reuse, has drawings and paintings by Norman Chambers, "space cadet". Another copywriting award is in order:
"In my work I constantly look to the future past that never was, where obsolete electronic devices and other strange gizmos that don't do anything in particular, coexist with stifled cartoon people, science fiction ephemera, idealized and simplified landscapes with exaggerated, oversimplified clouds and horizons. All of these coexist as a combination for a sort of perverse utopian/dystopian still life approximation. Logan's Run meets Zardoz on the set of Sleeper perhaps?
I take quite a bit of inspiration from the 70's illustrations of Jean Girard (Moebius), the amorphic blobs of Hans Bellmer, the future visions of Syd Mead, the vivid pop-art Psychedelia of Guy Peellaert, and of course my own skewed perspective, filtered through a sort of absurd sub-Archigram collage futurism. I try to tell stories that don't necessarily reveal themselves, yet provide a wealth of visual information from which the viewer may draw his/her own conclusions". At Redux www.reduxpdx.com
All 811 E. Burnside
Rio Wrenn shows work on fabric patterned by rust. This work was last seen at Rake. It's a great metaphor and definitely sustainable. At Lille Boutique 1007 E Burnside
NAAU is in the last days of a great show previously noted. The camera obscura is best seen in daylight, the brighter the better. Ends October 5. At New American Art Union www.newamericanartunion.com 922 SE Ankeny
John Brodie, in probably the best named show of the year, presents painting collages in a show titled "My Carbon Footprint Weighs a Ton". Brodie is bright and poppy, capturing well current memes and zeitgeists of the culture at large. To do so, he samples and reuses the layered archaeology of wheatpasted old school paper billboards and movie posters. This work is best seen in person, big, bright and up close. At Jáce Gáce www.jacegace.com 2045 SE Belmont
galleryHOMELAND is hewing to a regular first Friday opening schedule. This month it is "Instinctive Inquiry", installations and works on paper by Susan Murrell. Murrell fully occupies Homeland's sprawling space with maybe biomorphic abstractions including organic sand paintings! This is a great show to get lost in, in a good way! www.galleryhomeland.org 2505 SE 11th Avenue
Pushdot has "Letting the Horses Loose", Polaroid shots of toy horses, Pushdot reprocessed, by Elizabeth Soule and "Patterns of Change", lightboxes with patterns suggesting Japanese indigo prints, under water life, and things found only under microscopes by Meagan Geer. At Pushdot Studio www.pushdotstudio.com 1021 SE Caruthers
Newspace has photos by Myron Filene & Jeff Shay of built landscapes. www.newspacephoto.org 1632 SE 10th
In the 811 Block
Grass Hut shows work from Islands Fold™ artists' residencies paired with Grass Hut artists. Islands Fold is the home of Angela Conley and Luke Ramsey on Pender Island, B.C. Artists visit for a time and make work. It's a beautiful intimate project. Luke has a poetic explanation for it all. Artist resident matchups include Spencer Hibert + Marco Zamora, Johnathan R. Storm + Dawn Riddle, Luke Ramsey + Jill Bliss, Zeesy Powers + Scrappers, Ben Jacques + Le Merde, Irana Douer + Betsy Walton, Bwana Spoons + Theo Ellsworth, Charlotte Walton + Fawn Gehweiler, Oliver Hibert + Owen Plummer, Maseman + Arbito, Shawn Wolfe + Kinoko and Howie Tsui + Apak. In each pairing, one artist drew an island and sea, then mailed it to the other, who added the island home and inhabitants. Luke himself shows his solo-island drawings too. At Grass Hut www.grasshutcorp.com
Sword and Fern has the pen and ink drawings of Seattle artist cybele phillips. Sword and Fern swordandfern.blogspot.com
Redux, queen of reuse, has drawings and paintings by Norman Chambers, "space cadet". Another copywriting award is in order:
"In my work I constantly look to the future past that never was, where obsolete electronic devices and other strange gizmos that don't do anything in particular, coexist with stifled cartoon people, science fiction ephemera, idealized and simplified landscapes with exaggerated, oversimplified clouds and horizons. All of these coexist as a combination for a sort of perverse utopian/dystopian still life approximation. Logan's Run meets Zardoz on the set of Sleeper perhaps?
I take quite a bit of inspiration from the 70's illustrations of Jean Girard (Moebius), the amorphic blobs of Hans Bellmer, the future visions of Syd Mead, the vivid pop-art Psychedelia of Guy Peellaert, and of course my own skewed perspective, filtered through a sort of absurd sub-Archigram collage futurism. I try to tell stories that don't necessarily reveal themselves, yet provide a wealth of visual information from which the viewer may draw his/her own conclusions". At Redux www.reduxpdx.com
All 811 E. Burnside
Rio Wrenn shows work on fabric patterned by rust. This work was last seen at Rake. It's a great metaphor and definitely sustainable. At Lille Boutique 1007 E Burnside
NAAU is in the last days of a great show previously noted. The camera obscura is best seen in daylight, the brighter the better. Ends October 5. At New American Art Union www.newamericanartunion.com 922 SE Ankeny
John Brodie, in probably the best named show of the year, presents painting collages in a show titled "My Carbon Footprint Weighs a Ton". Brodie is bright and poppy, capturing well current memes and zeitgeists of the culture at large. To do so, he samples and reuses the layered archaeology of wheatpasted old school paper billboards and movie posters. This work is best seen in person, big, bright and up close. At Jáce Gáce www.jacegace.com 2045 SE Belmont
galleryHOMELAND is hewing to a regular first Friday opening schedule. This month it is "Instinctive Inquiry", installations and works on paper by Susan Murrell. Murrell fully occupies Homeland's sprawling space with maybe biomorphic abstractions including organic sand paintings! This is a great show to get lost in, in a good way! www.galleryhomeland.org 2505 SE 11th Avenue
Pushdot has "Letting the Horses Loose", Polaroid shots of toy horses, Pushdot reprocessed, by Elizabeth Soule and "Patterns of Change", lightboxes with patterns suggesting Japanese indigo prints, under water life, and things found only under microscopes by Meagan Geer. At Pushdot Studio www.pushdotstudio.com 1021 SE Caruthers
Newspace has photos by Myron Filene & Jeff Shay of built landscapes. www.newspacephoto.org 1632 SE 10th
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