March 4 Celilo - Never Silenced

The New World, the US, the West, the Northwest, and us have Native American artists in our midst. Meet them. Some are the inaugural visual arts show at the Reser Performing Arts Center in Beaverton. It is the first public event in the space.

Don Bailey, Rick Bartow, Joe Cantrell, Jonnel Covault, Ed Edmo, Joe Fedderson, Analee Fuentes, Sean Gallagher, Lillian Pitt, Pah-tu Pitt, Richard Rowland, Sara Siestreem, Gail Tremblay, and Richard York show. Marie Watt is another not in this show, and she does large public sculptures and installations.

There are talks with several of the artists 2PM, March 13, and April 30, see the link.

The announcement wins the copywriting award for the month: "Our lives flow in historic currents, sometimes direct and personal, others, more distant. As NChi’Wana (the Columbia River) runs through our communities, the past flows through us, literally, culturally, and figuratively, defining the lives of people connected to it. Wyam (Celilo Falls), sacred and primary to Indigenous people for hundreds of miles around, was destroyed by The Dalles Dam in 1957, obliterating a way of life, a thriving fishery, and far more than that. The flooded falls displaced those who celebrated and relied upon its essential life-giving forces, destroying a vital culture."

This new venue is right on the TriMet MAX train line.

Thereser.org/event/celilo-never-silenced at the The Reser - Patricia Reser Center for the Arts www.thereser.org 12625 SW Crescent Street, Beaverton Map 6PM-8:30 Free

March 4 Eastside Art Openings

Hey kids, the Eastside is more back than lately.


Sun and Moon is at Splendorporium 3421 SE 21st 7PM-9 Free


Portal Immortal by Marissa Avila of @makemakepdx has a show and sale of everything, including their homebrewed kombucha. At Jailbreak Studios 910 SE Taylor 5PM-8 Free


A Walk in the Woods by Davis TeSelle, Bob Stensland, Rebecca Arthur, Kristen Etmund, and Jennifer Foran. It is at Sidestreet Arts 140 SE 28th 7PM-9 Free


East Creative is eventing titled as Escapism Through Art at 211 SE Madison 6PM-9 Free


Movie lounge and cafe 4TH Wall PDX is having an art show with no information other than it will be "hot" and "hugely successful" and their poster has an octopus at 1445 SE Hawthorne 6PM-10 Free

March 3 Westside Art Openings

We are not quite out of the woods yet on Covid, this is more what's up for a private visit throughout the month. Blue Sky and Nine move their opening to Saturday. No idea of percolations at the Everett Station Lofts.


Henk Pender is one of our late career painters. That means he has seen a lot, including wars. You can see some at a large show at the Oregon Jewish Museum. Henk Pender: Eyewhitness to History www.ojmche.org/events/henk-pander-the-artist-as-eyewitness-to-history/ at the Oregon Jewish Museum www.ojmche.org 724 NW Davis $8


Holding's gallery now has the daughter of Don't Shoot Portland. Some of those archives are in the gallery for your review as Feeling Documents: A Liberated Archives Experience. It is under the umbrella of University of Oregon Center for Art Research program Habits of Denial. By appointment. At Holding Contemporary www.holdingcontemporary.com 916 NW Flanders Free


PDX Contemporary has new work by gallery artists They have two locations now. Artists include Nick Blosser, Ellen George, Victoria Haven, Jeffry Mitchell, Joe Rudko, and Adam Sorensen. At PDX Contemporary Art www.pdxcontemporaryart.com 925 NW Flanders Map and 1825 B NW Vaughn Map Free


Sabina Haque is an activist artist who has been researching Portland communities and their history, wherever it may lead. (Un) Belonging admixes large drawings of people and their homeland-borders. Here the border of India-Pakistan and Mexico-US are explored in the abstract. There will be an artist talk March 13 at 2. At Waterstone Gallery www.waterstonegallery.com 124 NW 9th 5PM-8 Free


Tom Prochaska is another late career painter and instructor from PNCA. He is known for his rough impressionistic figures. Froelick also has a group show of some of their backstock on paper. At Froelick Gallery www.froelickgallery.com 714 NW Davis early close 8PM Free


AO has a group show, The Gound, with Edgar Arceneaux, Taylor Davis, Luc Fuller, Jay Heikes, Nick Herman, Adam Horovitz, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Pierre Leguillon, Ari Marcopoulos, Dianna Molzan, Todd Norsten, Jenelle Porter, Conny Purtill, Alex Slade, Oliver Strand, Ricky Swallow, Lesley Vance, Emmett Wilkins, and Keith Wilkins. At Adams and Ollman Gallery, the second of two members of the New Art Dealers Alliance www.newartdealers.org, www.adamsandollman.com 418 NW 8th early close 5PM-7:30 Free


Time In-Between: Temporal Matter(s) is the first-year readout of MFA students at PNCA. They have online reservations for the opening. Not sure how by appointment works. At PNCA www.pnca.edu 511 NW Broadway Map 5PM-7 Free


Blackfish has Alice Christine Walker with Unfinished Business: An Exploration of Grief, staged photos themed on her father's passing. They are doing their opening live and on Facebook Live. At Blackfish Gallery 420 NW 9th. 5PM-8 Free


Leach is doing opening on Facebook Live as they have been doing in the pandemic. Christine Bourdette has Mantle/Dismantle themed on geology. Works on paper from Julia Mangold are also up. At Elizabeth Leach Gallery www.elizabethleach.com 417 NW 9th Map Free

March 2 Basquiat’s Self-Portraits - Talk & Stream

In Eugene, Fred Hoffman dealer for Basquiat, and with more art world accomplishments, speaks. He is lately known for his monograph, The Art of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Basquiat has a Portland connection in Paige Powell. He was an important contributor to the NYC downtown cultural movement of the 1980s and brought graffiti art into the gallery world. There are primary source interviews with him you can find. The Eugene Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art has Self Portrait and Hardware Store as part of their short-term Shared Visions-on-loan. They are on display now until March 13 and May 15 respectively. Jean-Michel Basquiat's Self Portraits at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, 1430 Johnson Lane, Eugene. Stream https://youtu.be/b6sq6kIbSyQ 5:30PM Free

February 27 Land of Dreams

Iranian American artist Shirin Neshat is known for her photography and video art work. With Land of Dreams, she steps out into long form art film with professional actors. 

The protagonist artist, played wryly by Sheila Vand is a field worker for a future fictional census bureau. Her job is to collect dreams for the census. That leads to many surreal adventures. Her side gig is to steal the dreams and reenact them on her social media channel. Along the way, she collects a proposed paramour, played by William Moseley, and a bodyguard played by Matt Dillon. It is artfully shot in the American Southwest with an additional cast of strange characters. The feature film is paired with a gallery show by the same name. The gallery work is a large collection of straight black and white portraits of Southwesterners, and two video artworks.

The film center at the art museum shows the film, which is making its rounds of film festivals. It is yet rarely seen, but you can. Land of Dreams at the Northwest Film Center in the Portland Art Museum Whitsell Auditorium 1219 SW Park 3PM $12

February 20 Thank You for Supporting the Arts

Gene Youngblood (1943-2021) wrote Expanded Cinema and was an inspiration for the culture of the Internet in his famous essay Mass Media and the Future of Desire, 1977. In a Portland lecture, the recording of which was lost, he proposed a venn diagram of art within a circle and not-art without. No one would argue that the Mona Lisa and David are safely within the center of the definition of art enclosed by that circle. What is interesting is the boundary for an individual, a subculture or tribe, and how it varies over time.


Viva Las Vegas is a writer, musician, and a dancer. Her work, over years, is an intellectual exploration of sex work, social politics, and the experience of exotic dancing. Thank You for Supporting the Arts her film biography.


We live still in the Victorian age, in a puritan land, immersed in the media of beauty to sell soap. Our brains engage neuro-aesthetics formed from birth. In that neural wiring, emotion is entwined too. Viva Las Vegas is interested in how that all unwinds performing, and in individual personal conversations, in the club. The film is her explanation of how dancing is art within the circle.


PICA put together a fine exhibition of the history of sex work politics in Portland, the community of workers, and their artworks. https://www.pica.org/events/symposium-art-activism-publishing-sex-work. Oregon's famous First Amendment of the Constitution of 1857 is stricter than the federal one of 1787. In State v. Robertson, 1982, stripping moved into the circle of legal, from outside, not-legal, in Oregon. Now the line between art and not art is increasingly being discussed for the variety of sex work.


Film Thank You for Supporting the Arts https://hollywoodtheatre.org/events/thank-you-for-supporting-the-arts/ at Hollywood Theater 7:30PM $10

November 19-21 Seattle Butoh Festival

Butoh is a strange dance performance style. Up in Seattle they are having a 3 day festival of performance and workshops. One of the performers visiting is Vangaline from New York City. Her book offers a contextualization of the performance process in feminism and neuroscience. Events at https://www.daipanbutohcollective.com/seattle-butoh-festival. Yaw Theaterin Seattle Georgetown 6520 5th Ave S $20+

November 13 Longest Dry Cleaning Origin

Yellena James has poppy paintings that may be sea life or land plants, Origin. At Stephanie Chefas Projects www.stephaniechefas.com 305 SE 3rd Ave #202 - the City Sign Building, formerly a low cost artist space Map. Free 1PM-6 

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Emmanuela Soria Ruiz opens The Longest Leg, video work. At Fuller Rosen Gallery www.fullerrosen.com 1928 NW Lovejoy Map 5PM-8 Free 

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The UK brings quartet Dry Cleaning to Portland. Their music video for Strong Feelings is great glitch video work, inspired by discrete cosine encoding errors, over their solid instrumental rhythms. Their breakout was Magic of Meghan an abstract reaction to royals Americans can never understand. Two of the members of the band are art professors, including the talk lyrics singer. At Vitalidad Movement Center 116 SE Yamhill Doors 8PM $25

November 6 Softwood Landscapes, Water Murmurs, Bottoms Up Proximities

Three new shows take Adams and Ollman Gallery to mid-December when the pandemic should be over amiright?

Joy Feasley has Lysuslukker, abstract and impressionistic romantic landscapes, paintings and silk screen on photographs. Emma cc Cook has impressionistic black, grey and white landscape paintings of barns and billboards in the countryside of her base in Austin and around the Midwest and South. Vince Skelly has In Between, softwood sculptures. 

At Adams and Ollman Gallery, the second of two members of the New Art Dealers Alliance www.newartdealers.org, www.adamsandollman.com 418 NW 8th 1PM-4 Free

Natalie Ball collaborates with artist Annelia Hillman in Water:NFS, themed on water problems in the Klamath Basin. The artists speak at 6. Lucy Cotter is a well known curator. This is her last show of her curatorial residency at Oregon Contemporary. It is Proximities, a rehearsal, an archive by Katarina Zdjelar of Serbia. She represented Serbia at the 2009 Venice Biennale. 

At the Oregon Center for Contemporary Art, in the shadow of Paul Bunyan  www.oregoncontemporary.org 8371 N. Interstate Map 5PM-8 Free

A group show, Nobody's Fool, closes tonight. At Carnation Contemporary www.carnationcontemporary.com in the Disjecta building 8371 N Interstate#2. 5PM-8 Free

Bottoms Up by Jeremy LeGrand, and Murmurs by Nathanael Moss, open. The works of each are colorful and graphic. At Well Well Projects www.wellwellprojects.com in the Disjecta building 8371 N. Interstate#1 Map 5PM-8 Free

November 4 Westside Art Openings

November First Thursday is much like October, few in person items. 

Blue Sky is open in person. Likely Blackfish and PDX are open. Leach is live-streaming artist interviews. 

October 23 Night to Dawn

Zena Zezza is an independent project by Sandra Percival who did curatorial work for Yale Union. Continuing the noted Zezza curatorial arc, they present Yang Fudong from Shanghai's Yejiang/The Nightman Cometh to Dawn Breaking.

It opens today in a warehouse downtown. It is not entirely mobility accessible on all floors, contact the organizers if you need that. Zena Zezza zenazezza.org at 1857 Hallock & McMillan building. It is the red door on SW Oak by SW Naito Parkway. 2PM-5 Free

October 22 Mecanica Mechanics

Chris Chandler opens Art-Mecanica. He fits well in Portland's romance with art printmaking birthed by Gordon Gilkey, and the Portland letterpress crowd of the IRPC, the CC Stern Type Foundry and others. Chandler's method is to carve type into large woodblocks, print them, then deconstruct and collage the prints into the final piece. Chandler is the latest Stumptown Coffee Roasters Artist Fellow. At Stumptown www.stumptowncoffee.com 128 SW 3rd 5PM-7 Free

October 20 Vampire Wonders

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) is a slow, surreal, vampire story of the Czech new wave, and based on an earlier Czech novel. It is an art film in monochrome. Akila Fields (Palm Dat) and Noah Bernstein play a live soundtrack. It is part of the Fin de Cinema series, always beautiful. At Holocene 1001 SE Morrison. Proof of vaccination required. Doors 8PM, show 830. $10

October 16 Transmitting Receiving Receiving Transmitting

Michelle Segre is a sculptor-installationist. She has a show, Transmitters and Receivers, opening at the Lumber Room today. A quick take is that her work is Miro-like, crossed with more organic forms than Sarah Sze. It is an interesting selection of a late career artist. At The Lumber Room lumberroom.com 419 SW 9th, above Liz Leach Map 4PM-6 Free

October 9-10 Here and Now

We are a little Covid late to this party, but a new artist group, showing in itinerant spaces, Playground, has an interesting group show, Here and Now. You can see what they are up to with their list of artists: V Maldonado, MK Guth, Dylan Beck, Carl Diehl, Rachel Milstein, Rachel Rodriguez, Sarie Bettineski, Marty Trammell, Crimson Ravarra, Limei Lai, Taylor Evans, Sydney Kattine, Eli West, Shezuet Harger Miller, Subarna Talukder Bose, Julianna Paradisi, Lauren Sinner, Nathan Cooper, Justin Tuttle, Warren Simon, Autumn Cornell, Perry Chandler, Kevin Smith, Ahuva S. Zaslavsky, Tyler Young, Lynn Stephens Massey, and Yasmin Correa. Several of their talks have passed, but this Saturday and Sunday, as the show is closing, has the following schedule of events: Saturday: 2:30PM - Artist Talk - Tyler Young 3PM - Group portrait drawing - Taylor Evens 3:30PM - Live painting - Taylor Evens Sunday: 2:30PM - Artist talk - Warren Simon 3:30PM - Live Music - Cortez Ravarra. See Playground https://playgroundgallery.org 140 NW 4th 11AM-5PM Free

October 9 Travels

The Seattle Asian Art museum is guesting a favorite travel writer, Colin Thubron. I've been fortunate to travel unusual places. I enjoy the great writers on the exerience. We have synapses and neurotransmitters for travel. Thuberon makes full use of those, relating research, amid observations, and wraps it up with a touching emotional experience. His latest work is The Amur River: Between Russia and China on which he speaks. You can join by https://seattleartmuseum.org/visit/calendar/events?EventId=78631 10AM-11:30 Free

October 7 Westside Art Openings

Mapping Utopia by Manal Abu-Shaheen’s are photographs exposed in Beirut, Lebanon. He was born in 1982. The civil war slightly overlapped. Most of the work is urban photography with an ironic and surreal bent admixed with The Yale School. 

Noelle Mason has X-Ray Vision vs. Invisibility. We each have eyes and a gaze. Technical means such as night vision, radar, and infrared sensors are available and they are used to surveil the US border with Mexico. Mason has sampled and recontextualized images from the the US Border Patrol and border vigilantes. She has also commissioned a carpet hand woven in Mexico from a satellite image. Her work was selected by the Critical Mass competition. This show is strongly recommended. Check the video of her gallery talk as available.  

Artist talk 5PM tonight by Noelle Mason. Saturday 11AM by Manal Abu-Shaheen. Registration for the artist talks is required to limit safe attendance. Proof of vaccination required. At Blue Sky Gallery www.blueskygallery.org Map 122 NW 8th early close 6PM-8 Free

 

Michael Brophy has Passage, NW landscape paintings inspired by road trips. Audrey Tulimiero Welch has Damascus: Mapping Place, Home, & Exile, abstract paintings. At Laura Russo Lee Gallery www.russoleegallery.com 805 NW 21st early close 5:30PM-7 Free

Everett Lofts has one opening on a spooky theme tonight at the Chaos Gallery. It's easier for you to see them all than for me to write suggestions. Some close as early as 9PM. At the Everett Lofts 625 NW Everett. Bounded by NW Everett, Broadway, Flanders and 6th Map 6PM-10 Free

The Elizabeth Leach Gallery is doing their opening of Stephen Hayes and Gregg Renfrow on Youtube and Facebook live. Details on thir website. At Elizabeth Leach Gallery www.elizabethleach.com 417 NW 9th Map Free

As far as we can tell, the other usual suspects have continuing shows and/or are open regular hours or by appointment, but not First Thursday evening in Covid time.

October 2 Salt Flood Spooky Lavender

Salt - A Story of the Land & Landscape is a show of aerial photographs by Sandra Chandler of salt evaporation ponds at the edges of the San Francisco Bay. You can get an idea at https://www.salt.photography/gallery/. At the Murdoch Collections 2219 NW Raleigh 3PM-7 Free

Lavender House is a video work at Oregon Contemporary by Sarah Rara themed on the vicissitudes of the landlord-tenant relationship. It is even humorous. The artist, and the curator Asha Bukojemsky, formerly of Portland, and now working in LA, speak at 5:30PM At the Oregon Center for Contemporary Art, in the shadow of Paul Bunyan www.oregoncontemporary.org 8371 N. Interstate Map 5PM-8 Free

Maria Lux has Waiting for the Flood, photographs. She wins the copyright award for "Continuing Lux’s recent work on de-extinction (bringing extinct animals back from the dead), Waiting for the Flood asks how alternative stories, emotions like humor and weirdness, and irreverent approaches to mainstream environmentalism can help us cope with, and perhaps reimagine, what appears to be inevitable." 

At Carnation Contemporary www.carnationcontemporary.com in the Disjecta building 8371 N Interstate#2. 6PM-9 Free

Spooky Season is a group show on that theme curated by Jessie Weitzel Le Grand, who had a recent excellent show at Chefas. Artists include Andrea Alonge, Paolo Puck, Sarah Hughes, Yaloo Ji Yeon, Pam Puck, Dan Lam. Anthony Roberto, Jenny Ollikainen, Jessie Weitzel Lagrand, Jeremy Legrand, and Alyson Provax. The closing show is October 30 with costumes encouraged. At Well Well Projects https://www.wellwellprojects.com/ in the Disjecta building 8371 N. Interstate#1 Map 5PM-8 Free

September 30, October 2, 9, 12, 16, 19, 23, 26 Bourgeois: What is the Shape of This Problem

Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy7xJhImnLw has worked with large themes of family, the body, death, and the unconscious informed by memories of family problems and WWI from her childhood. This show is prints and collages, while two of her sculptures are on loan to Oregon Contemporary nee Disjecta. Her parents were tapestry restorers, so you will find textile collage, and also a few spiders for which she was known. 

The gallery has invited local artists to respond to her work. On October 12, 19, and 26, artists Srijon Chowdhury, Ellen Lesperance, and Jovencio de la Paz will speak at noon.

It is textile month for many Portland galleries, and there is a participatory weaving studio, good for you and children on Saturdays this month and to see the show. See the calendar and open times on their website. 

At the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Portland State University https://www.pdx.edu/museum-of-art/ 1855 SW Broadway Free

September 4 Masked

The Portland art world is going into Covid-Delta masked mode for good reason.

It is not our usual interest, but the Pearl District art stands are up this weekend. Blue Sky is open special hours and Converge 45 is on their published hours.

Mia Farrington and Nathan Paul Rice have openings today. At Stephanie Chefas Projects www.stephaniechefas.com 305 SE 3rd Ave #202 - the City Sign Building, formerly a low cost artist space Map. Free 1PM-6 Free masks and social distancing

Tips on Falling has activated. Ursa Nüffer-Rodriguez and Holly Haney has Tips on Them themed on their trans life. Right now, the dream of the Portland 90s is alive in self managed spaces and the LGBT+ community. At Tips on Failing www.failing.exposed 3903 N Michigan Map 7PM-10 Free

Disjecta/Oregon Contemporary has a closing tonight 5PM-8.