September 10
Church of Craft @ Doug Fir Lounge
The monthly church of craft is in session 11AM-4PM.
September 11
The New Economy of Chamber Music @ PNCA
How did classical music so effectively maneuver itself into near extinction? Brede Rørstad explores its potential for its repopulation in a free seminar "The New Economy of Chamber Music". At one time, classical music was pop music. Critics assailed Chopin: " The wildness in both the melody and harmony is for the most part excessive... We cannot imagine any musician, who has not acquired an unhealthy taste for noise, and scrambling, and dissonance, to feel otherwise than dissatisfied with the effect..." as perhaps electroacoustic, noise or microtonal music today! Hear and participate with Rørstad in plotting musics' path forward. 9:30AM-11 PNCA http://www.pnca.edu Free
Filmmaker on September 11 @ Audio Cinema/PICA TBA
September 11 is a day replete. Portland filmmaker Vanessa Renwick connects some of that with a film showing this evening:
"On September 11, the Oregon Department of Kick Ass presents an evening of films assembled by Vanessa Renwick which cast a meditative gaze on death in many forms. In Renwick's intense personal documentary work, edgy and grim poetry informs a deliberate and steady stare at extreme states of existence. Humans and other animals are forced to take decisive action. Everything is a matter of life and death.
Daniel Menche’s thundering live soundtrack propels her latest wildlife epic Hope and Prey. 9 is a Secret ponders mystical visitations from crows and ravens after Renwick changes her name. The found footage gem, Britton, S. Dakota is constructed solely of haunting portraits of children filmed standing in the street of a desolate town in depression era America. Also screening: two Vietnam era artifacts—Travis Wilkerson’s harrowing and hopeless National Archive, v. 1 and Bill Daniel’s Selective Service System Story, which revisits a filmmaker who shot himself in the foot on film to make a statement against the Vietnam War and to get out of the draft. The evening commences with Wilkerson’s Superior Elegy, a portrait of a 25 hour-long improvisational concert held in Duluth, Minnesota in honor of a murdered friend. Despite being scheduled for the weekend following September 11, 2001, the event’s organizers chose to perform as planned. In so doing, the event acquired an unintended poignancy. The resulting film reads almost like a prayer: quiet, formal, and full of inexplicable power."
8-9PM at Audio Cinema as part of TBA
226 SE Madison
8 PICA Members, 12 General, Free pass holders...
September 13
Mexican Butoh
Butoh is a strange and delicate thing. It is a modern dance form from Japan unlike any other movement art you have seen. It is improvised, sometimes based on images from nature. The site http://www.butoh.net, though outdated, is valuable. First created in 1959 amidst the post WW2 Japanese nationalist cultural movement, of which author Mishima was a leader, butoh was wild. Now it is unknown by many Japanese, while taking root worldwide. Diego Pinion is its Mexican instance. Pinion is known for his intense workshops in which psychodrama is the entry point for creating new movement. If you are a movement artist, or curious, if you can leave aside narrative and judgement and enter a dream state of pure body imagination, this will be a worthwhile performance. If you desire more, consider seeing Sanki Juku in Seattle November 21 - they are a sublime performance group and one of the preeminent butoh performance groups in the world.
7-midnight Someday Lounge (Backspace) 125 NW 5th $10
September 14
Art @ Local.35 Store
Clothing store Local.35 shows "Seneca" - work by Erik Railton, Molly Quon and Justin Hawkins. 7-9pm.
Music by DJ Entropy.
Local35
3556 SE Hawthorne Blv
www.local35.com
www.myspace.com/local35
September 16
Surreal Dog Walk @ NW Portland
Whether dividing the world is useful, I've my doubts. It can be argued though that there are dog people and cat people. I fall on the dog side. I'm more interested in the medium to larger size, but I've many friends who prefer medium to small. One breed falling into this category is the west highland terrier. Yearly Portland westie guardians mount a surealistic visual conspiracy and walk their dogs en masse. The sight of a few hundred identical dogs at walk is not an hallucination. They wander NW Portland in pack - details at http://dovelewis.org/events/Westie_Walk.aspx. Begins 10AM at NW 20th and Raliegh. Free to watch
Sustainable Building Tour @ Portland
Portland's Office of Sustainable Development (that combination of words is so beautiful and sensible) sponsors "Build it Green" a tour of 19 homes, a high rise and three communiy buildings selected for their innovation in construction, materials, habitat restoration and neogemutlichkeit. The cost is $15, but $10 for people who use public transport or bikes for the tour. Details at http://www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=129526. 11AM-5PM. See the link for the solar homes tour and sustainable materials information fair which is free.
Art Crimes of Ron English @ Missing Link
Ron English is an agitprop artist. I find clowns disturbing and he does not. His work is internationally known, the subject of a documentary, we are lucky to see the work in situ. I think the value is where his career arc meets his psyche - who among our friends have the same potential?
I am not damning with faint praise here. This is solid lowbrow work. The Missing Link openings are an undiscovered great thing, bring your friends, go!
The Missing Link 3314 SE Belmont 7PM free
Indian Music @ Lewis and Clark College
We are surrounded by music. Sometimes it is deeper into a genre that we desire to explore and sometimes it is broader. Tonight you may hear North Indian classical music should you desire on sarod, a stringed instrument, and the saxophone, accompanied by tabla. The concert is sponsored by Kalakendra at Lewis and Clark College in the Evans Auditorium. $15 advance/20 door, or consider a season ticket. 7:30PM Details at http://www.kalakendra.org/flyer.html and http://www.kalakendra.org/
Fetish Butoh Performance @ Someday Lounge
Butoh, the modern dance form, is not by nature dark. Often it is sublime and beautiful. Improvised, it is inspired by images. One of the founding artists, now 99 years of age, is working entirely with images of his mother, birth, and flowers.
In Portland though, the dark disturbing branch of butoh has drawn adherents. Tonight you may see a butoh fetish hybrid. Societas Insomnia performs a nightmare in which a child dreams the terror of an evil circuis master, fire performers, ritual suspension by flesh hooks and much writhing. Interestingly some of the performers embrace the dark side, and some are the sweetest people you could meet. The chorus is the butoh, the fetish performers, just themselves.
Performers include Soriah, Mizu Desierto, Malice Munz, Balance Suspension, The Fireninja, Ivizia Dakini, Cherry, Peach, Noah Mickens, Micah Perry, Synchronicity Frequency, Llewyn Máire, Lisa Newman, Germany, Pandora, Lana Guerra, Fredrick Zahl, Edifice Flesh, Yoshi Ironskin, Domina Betka Schpitz.
You may say echt, but if you are interested in today's boundaries of performance, this one may be worth your experience. Do not judge all butoh by this one though.
http://www.somedaylounge.com/performers/societas_insomnia/
Someday Lounge (Backspace) 125 NW 5th
10PM-Midnight $13
Monday, September 11, 2006
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Westside Art in September
Tonight's moon approaches earth at its closest in the year's cycle. What this all means, I have no idea.
Consider opening your evening with a free performance by Three Leg Torso http://www.3legtorso.com/ the gypsy chamber ensemble. They play at 6 in the Jameson Square Park at the corner of NW Johnson and 11th.
PICA's TBA festival opens with a performance at 8 by Brede Rørstad's Music Population Orchestra followed by Small Sails at 9 at Audio Cinema SE 3rd and Madison. 21 and over unfortunately, free fortunately.
Now for the visuals:
Valentines shows "Split Cities", photography by Portland and Brooklyn photographers Mikael Kennedy http://www.interruptart.com, Mike Powsner at http://www.mikepowsner.blogspot.com, Oriana Lewton-Leopold http://www.orianalewtonleopold.com, Sarah Meadows http://www.urbanhonking.com/owl, Brian Slaughter at http://www.babychickenwing.blogspot.com .
, Shayla Hason http://www.urbanhonking.com/dokuchan and Yoni Kifle http://svr84.ehostpros.com/~plrds84/plrdyk.htm collaborating with E*Rock http://www.urbanhonking.com/lightandsound/. Music by Ryan Boyle as DJ Pogostick Yankovich.
Art 6-9, open late, but bring a flashlight for arting after 9 232 SE Ankeny
Ogle shows photographs by Chelsea Mosher. Her earlier work reminds me of that of Liz Haley in that it can capture an enigmatic solo or group moment. In this work, Mosher collages her photos into perhaps surealistic compositions, rephotographed. Also showing is Philip Iosca. Both are part of the Portland Modern #4 group. 310 NW Broadway, doors close at 9.
PNCA hosts a long traveling group exhibition "Illegal Art" http://www.illegal-art.org/ themed on copyright and other intellectual property issues. Sampling pop culture provides a ready emotional ingredient to new work. The question is who owns that effect? The original creator? Or is it really a phenomena in each of our psyches?
PNCA graduate Heidi Cody's "American Alphabet" was used to form the group's logotype. Portland filmmaker Todd Haynes is also part of the illegal art group on the basis of his 1987 film Superstar, exploring pop singer Karen Carpenter's fatal struggle with anorexia. The film is stop action animated with BarbieTM/KenTM dolls as the actors. When art is outlawed, only the outlaws will have art...
until 9:30 PNCA 1241 NW Johnson
Leach Gallery shows "Supernormal" sculpture and relief forks by Sean Healy. Supernormal is themed upon high school social power dynamics which are thankfully discarded by most people by age 18 at the latest.
Until 9 417 NW 9th http://www.elizabethleach.com
The Portland Art Center mega complex presents video loops accompanied by live improvisation l by Paint and Copter. Listen to soundscapes by Seth Neihil in collaboration with dancer Linda Austin.
See "The Inside Game", selections from the personal collections of Elizabeth Leach, Joel Leib, Rod Pulliam, Justin Oswald and Jeffrey Thomas, all collectors and gallerists. The artists in the collections include: David Altmejd, Chandra Bocci, James Bolton, Claire Corey, Russell Crotty, Roe Ethridge, Harrell Fletcher, Harry Fritzius, Nick Di Genova, William Kentridge, Dinh Q. Le, Frank Magnotta, Roy McMakin, Lari Pittman, Rob Pruitt, Nick & Sheila Pye, Halsey Rodman, Will Rogan, TM Sisters, Dash Snow and Pinar Yolcan. Finally, perhaps because of our damp cool winters, Portland has become somewhat of a center for encaustic painting using wax pigments that must be melted on a hotplate to use. Tonight see a show juried by Elise Wagner, Jeff Gunn and SparkPlugArt of 32 encaustic artists.
http://www.portlandart.org 32 NW 5th
Rake Art shows work by Skyler McCaughey, Grace Luebke, April Alden. I am feeling particularly lazy so from the gallery press release:
" Skyler McCaughey's body of work, The Business of Sweetness is an exploration of what it really means to work and what work is in relation to our lives. She investigates the idea that not only do we work to make a living, but in turn the lives we lead can be defined by the way we work. She suggests that questions about goals and work performance should not be confined to the workplace, but should be asked for every aspect of our lives. This exploration of what one could call a life's work has culminated in an investigation into the lives of insects. Skyler considers insects, bees especially, as totems of industry, having an innate and insatiable work ethic. These are the icons of her work. Using constructed light boxes, etched glass, stainless steel, copper, and brass, she constructs a view into the lives of insects. Her interest in what happens when an unstoppable worker becomes exhausted is evident in the both the frenzied activity of "Punching In" and the fossilized amber stasis of "Work Environs". In these works, Skyler explores the sensations of feeling exhausted, yet simultaneously feeling capable of doing more. This is what she refers to as the work of our living: the alchemical transformation of pollen to honey.
Grace Luebke's 3-D installation/ performance art "Ephemeral Matter" is a conceptual design, symbiotically integrating form and dance in the site specific space of Rake Art Gallery. An installation of 200 yards of silacoat screen mimics the movement of shifting, slipping, and speeding momentum contained within an axis while coinciding with a butoh dance performance. Grace finds inspiration for her designs in butoh, an improvisational dance movement founded by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazou Ohno. The performance begins slowly, and gradually picks up to a fast, edgy pace. The combination of installation with live dance performance enforces a connection between spatial design and the body. This inevitably creates an interactive connection between viewer and installation once the dance performance has ended.
April Alden's work, consists of found materials from the natural environment applied to wood or canvas by means of gesso and encaustic wax. She draws her inspiration from the found materials which then dictate her organic and geometric arrangements. This process oriented work allows her to express a childhood reminiscence of collecting plant materials and obsessively manipulating them into various shapes and patterns."
http://www.rakeart.org 325 NW 6th
As usual the other Everett lofts are recommended.
Pulliam Deffenbaugh presents abstract contemporary baroque paintings by Brenden Clenaghen. Clenaghen adds unique icepick prick textures to his work. I like it.
Until 9 929 NW Flanders http://pulliamdeffenbaugh.com/
A side trip sometime in the month is called for to see the work of mid career artist and Reed professor Geraldine Ondrizek. She samples nature and science producing large scale sculptures. This show is entitled "M168: Tracing the Y Chromosome"
Oregon College of Art & Craft, 8245 S.W. Barnes Road
Ringler's Annex is not the greatest venue for art viewing, particularly their subterranean space. But this month it is well worth the visit to see paintings by Brett and Whitney Superstar. Their styles partner well, maintaining their individuality; their subject matter is often schematic plants and animals.
1223 S.W. Stark St.
Consider opening your evening with a free performance by Three Leg Torso http://www.3legtorso.com/ the gypsy chamber ensemble. They play at 6 in the Jameson Square Park at the corner of NW Johnson and 11th.
PICA's TBA festival opens with a performance at 8 by Brede Rørstad's Music Population Orchestra followed by Small Sails at 9 at Audio Cinema SE 3rd and Madison. 21 and over unfortunately, free fortunately.
Now for the visuals:
Valentines shows "Split Cities", photography by Portland and Brooklyn photographers Mikael Kennedy http://www.interruptart.com, Mike Powsner at http://www.mikepowsner.blogspot.com, Oriana Lewton-Leopold http://www.orianalewtonleopold.com, Sarah Meadows http://www.urbanhonking.com/owl, Brian Slaughter at http://www.babychickenwing.blogspot.com .
, Shayla Hason http://www.urbanhonking.com/dokuchan and Yoni Kifle http://svr84.ehostpros.com/~plrds84/plrdyk.htm collaborating with E*Rock http://www.urbanhonking.com/lightandsound/. Music by Ryan Boyle as DJ Pogostick Yankovich.
Art 6-9, open late, but bring a flashlight for arting after 9 232 SE Ankeny
Ogle shows photographs by Chelsea Mosher. Her earlier work reminds me of that of Liz Haley in that it can capture an enigmatic solo or group moment. In this work, Mosher collages her photos into perhaps surealistic compositions, rephotographed. Also showing is Philip Iosca. Both are part of the Portland Modern #4 group. 310 NW Broadway, doors close at 9.
PNCA hosts a long traveling group exhibition "Illegal Art" http://www.illegal-art.org/ themed on copyright and other intellectual property issues. Sampling pop culture provides a ready emotional ingredient to new work. The question is who owns that effect? The original creator? Or is it really a phenomena in each of our psyches?
PNCA graduate Heidi Cody's "American Alphabet" was used to form the group's logotype. Portland filmmaker Todd Haynes is also part of the illegal art group on the basis of his 1987 film Superstar, exploring pop singer Karen Carpenter's fatal struggle with anorexia. The film is stop action animated with BarbieTM/KenTM dolls as the actors. When art is outlawed, only the outlaws will have art...
until 9:30 PNCA 1241 NW Johnson
Leach Gallery shows "Supernormal" sculpture and relief forks by Sean Healy. Supernormal is themed upon high school social power dynamics which are thankfully discarded by most people by age 18 at the latest.
Until 9 417 NW 9th http://www.elizabethleach.com
The Portland Art Center mega complex presents video loops accompanied by live improvisation l by Paint and Copter. Listen to soundscapes by Seth Neihil in collaboration with dancer Linda Austin.
See "The Inside Game", selections from the personal collections of Elizabeth Leach, Joel Leib, Rod Pulliam, Justin Oswald and Jeffrey Thomas, all collectors and gallerists. The artists in the collections include: David Altmejd, Chandra Bocci, James Bolton, Claire Corey, Russell Crotty, Roe Ethridge, Harrell Fletcher, Harry Fritzius, Nick Di Genova, William Kentridge, Dinh Q. Le, Frank Magnotta, Roy McMakin, Lari Pittman, Rob Pruitt, Nick & Sheila Pye, Halsey Rodman, Will Rogan, TM Sisters, Dash Snow and Pinar Yolcan. Finally, perhaps because of our damp cool winters, Portland has become somewhat of a center for encaustic painting using wax pigments that must be melted on a hotplate to use. Tonight see a show juried by Elise Wagner, Jeff Gunn and SparkPlugArt of 32 encaustic artists.
http://www.portlandart.org 32 NW 5th
Rake Art shows work by Skyler McCaughey, Grace Luebke, April Alden. I am feeling particularly lazy so from the gallery press release:
" Skyler McCaughey's body of work, The Business of Sweetness is an exploration of what it really means to work and what work is in relation to our lives. She investigates the idea that not only do we work to make a living, but in turn the lives we lead can be defined by the way we work. She suggests that questions about goals and work performance should not be confined to the workplace, but should be asked for every aspect of our lives. This exploration of what one could call a life's work has culminated in an investigation into the lives of insects. Skyler considers insects, bees especially, as totems of industry, having an innate and insatiable work ethic. These are the icons of her work. Using constructed light boxes, etched glass, stainless steel, copper, and brass, she constructs a view into the lives of insects. Her interest in what happens when an unstoppable worker becomes exhausted is evident in the both the frenzied activity of "Punching In" and the fossilized amber stasis of "Work Environs". In these works, Skyler explores the sensations of feeling exhausted, yet simultaneously feeling capable of doing more. This is what she refers to as the work of our living: the alchemical transformation of pollen to honey.
Grace Luebke's 3-D installation/ performance art "Ephemeral Matter" is a conceptual design, symbiotically integrating form and dance in the site specific space of Rake Art Gallery. An installation of 200 yards of silacoat screen mimics the movement of shifting, slipping, and speeding momentum contained within an axis while coinciding with a butoh dance performance. Grace finds inspiration for her designs in butoh, an improvisational dance movement founded by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazou Ohno. The performance begins slowly, and gradually picks up to a fast, edgy pace. The combination of installation with live dance performance enforces a connection between spatial design and the body. This inevitably creates an interactive connection between viewer and installation once the dance performance has ended.
April Alden's work, consists of found materials from the natural environment applied to wood or canvas by means of gesso and encaustic wax. She draws her inspiration from the found materials which then dictate her organic and geometric arrangements. This process oriented work allows her to express a childhood reminiscence of collecting plant materials and obsessively manipulating them into various shapes and patterns."
http://www.rakeart.org 325 NW 6th
As usual the other Everett lofts are recommended.
Pulliam Deffenbaugh presents abstract contemporary baroque paintings by Brenden Clenaghen. Clenaghen adds unique icepick prick textures to his work. I like it.
Until 9 929 NW Flanders http://pulliamdeffenbaugh.com/
A side trip sometime in the month is called for to see the work of mid career artist and Reed professor Geraldine Ondrizek. She samples nature and science producing large scale sculptures. This show is entitled "M168: Tracing the Y Chromosome"
Oregon College of Art & Craft, 8245 S.W. Barnes Road
Ringler's Annex is not the greatest venue for art viewing, particularly their subterranean space. But this month it is well worth the visit to see paintings by Brett and Whitney Superstar. Their styles partner well, maintaining their individuality; their subject matter is often schematic plants and animals.
1223 S.W. Stark St.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
August's End
August 24 Art Show Party @ Audio Cinema
ACVC, the Audio Cinema Visual Collective presents an art-show-band-party-benefiting P:ear. The visual work is curated by part of Gallery 500's old team.
Details and a list of artists at http://www.audiocinema.org. Party Thursday 6pm-2am, $8 donation requested. Art show Friday, Saturday and Sunday 11am - 7pm, admission by donation. 226 SE Madison
August 24 Art @ Missing Link
Vo Minh McBurney's shows "Monsters on Vacation". Hey monsters have a life too!
7 - 9 PM
flyer at www.missinglinktoys.com
Missing Link
3314 SE Belmont St
August 25 Grab Bag Performance @ the Portland Art Center
Susan Ploetz and Khaela Maricich are wrangling a new monthly performance night. It's an opportunity for performers and artists to experiment, to take a risk, to get feedback and to have fun; it is the same for the audience, but low key like a house party. So performer or audience performer, take advantage of this!
The first evening:
Pash (Susan Ploetz)
Brace Paine (of Gossip)
M. Blash (director of upcoming movie "Lying")
Khaela Maricich (of The Blow)
Admission is $3 or free for Portland Art Center Members (you can join at the event). Included in the admission is an actual grab bag. Beer and Wine for sale.
Portland Art Center
32 NW 5th Ave
Portland, OR 97209
503-236-3322
http://www.portlandart.org
August 31 The Music Population Orchestra @ the Doug Fir Lounge
The Music Population Orchestra continues its mission to bring music to the masses. $7, Doors 8, Show 9 at the Doug Fir Lounge www.myspace.com/thempo
August 31 Reed Curator Stephanie Snyder @ Seattle's Henry Art Gallery
Fron the Henry press release: "Check out the latest in art made just to the south [in Portland]. Stephanie Snyder joins special guests to discuss new activities in Portland and consider the work of Portland-based artists Kevin Abell, Dana Dart-McLean, Alex Felton, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Kristan Kennedy, MK Guth, Storm Tharp, and others. Part of what Snyder describes as Portland's "representational imaginary" the evening will consider an intergenerational group of Portland artists that explore 'self' through experimental film, drawing, painting, sculpture and social practice. These imagined and constructed self-discoveries are often created in dialog with art history, popular culture, and an interdisciplinary media practice signature to Portland's scene."
7 PM Henry Auditorium
$5 General / $3 Henry Members & Seniors / FREE for Students
and
September 1 some of the Eastside Galleries will have their openings.
ACVC, the Audio Cinema Visual Collective presents an art-show-band-party-benefiting P:ear. The visual work is curated by part of Gallery 500's old team.
Details and a list of artists at http://www.audiocinema.org. Party Thursday 6pm-2am, $8 donation requested. Art show Friday, Saturday and Sunday 11am - 7pm, admission by donation. 226 SE Madison
August 24 Art @ Missing Link
Vo Minh McBurney's shows "Monsters on Vacation". Hey monsters have a life too!
7 - 9 PM
flyer at www.missinglinktoys.com
Missing Link
3314 SE Belmont St
August 25 Grab Bag Performance @ the Portland Art Center
Susan Ploetz and Khaela Maricich are wrangling a new monthly performance night. It's an opportunity for performers and artists to experiment, to take a risk, to get feedback and to have fun; it is the same for the audience, but low key like a house party. So performer or audience performer, take advantage of this!
The first evening:
Pash (Susan Ploetz)
Brace Paine (of Gossip)
M. Blash (director of upcoming movie "Lying")
Khaela Maricich (of The Blow)
Admission is $3 or free for Portland Art Center Members (you can join at the event). Included in the admission is an actual grab bag. Beer and Wine for sale.
Portland Art Center
32 NW 5th Ave
Portland, OR 97209
503-236-3322
http://www.portlandart.org
August 31 The Music Population Orchestra @ the Doug Fir Lounge
The Music Population Orchestra continues its mission to bring music to the masses. $7, Doors 8, Show 9 at the Doug Fir Lounge www.myspace.com/thempo
August 31 Reed Curator Stephanie Snyder @ Seattle's Henry Art Gallery
Fron the Henry press release: "Check out the latest in art made just to the south [in Portland]. Stephanie Snyder joins special guests to discuss new activities in Portland and consider the work of Portland-based artists Kevin Abell, Dana Dart-McLean, Alex Felton, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Kristan Kennedy, MK Guth, Storm Tharp, and others. Part of what Snyder describes as Portland's "representational imaginary" the evening will consider an intergenerational group of Portland artists that explore 'self' through experimental film, drawing, painting, sculpture and social practice. These imagined and constructed self-discoveries are often created in dialog with art history, popular culture, and an interdisciplinary media practice signature to Portland's scene."
7 PM Henry Auditorium
$5 General / $3 Henry Members & Seniors / FREE for Students
and
September 1 some of the Eastside Galleries will have their openings.
Friday, August 18, 2006
August 19 & 20 Art Antics
Saturday August 19
Iron Artists Compete at N Vancouver & Failing SCRAP
SCRAP collects stuff and you can get it for cheap or free. It's super useful for schoolteachers on an art material budget, which is just about every public school teacher in Portland. Today they stage a very fun fundraiser the IRON ARTIST team competition. 10 teams receive a collection of materials to which they add their secret ingredients. They have 3 hours to sculpt an art-like structure to be judged by a celebrity panel. The winner is awarded the coveted Cup du SCRAP. Cheating is allowed. The teams and audience are encouraged to wear costumes. There will be a beer garden, food, kiddish things, a raffle with of things you want to need, bands and DJ's. Cheer your fav team to victory! Gates open at 12:30. At 1 the theme is announced and the teams begin their mad competition. The sculptures must be finished by 4 and the judges go to work. Around 5:30 your votes are due for the "People's Choice". Slightly afterwards the judges critique each piece and announce the recipient of the Cup du SCRAP. The raffle drawing is held. The event ends about 8. See the website for pics from previous years to get an idea and start planning your team for next year!
$5-10 donation (it's a find raiser)
Mostlandian Games at Col. Sanders Park
This is hard to explain. M.O.S.T. is a social art group. They are having an Olympics of unusual competitions: http://www.mostlandia.com/pages/championship.htm
Rose City Rollers Rollerderby at Portland Expo Center
Rose City Rollers teams Guns and Rollers, the Heartless Heathers, Break Neck Betties and the High Rollers, face off. This wacky and highly entertaining sport does have rules in which one each of the team members, designated by a different helmet color try to pass the other team members from behind. But those mean girls try to elbow them aside, hog the court and otherwise keep from being passed. Sort of like junior high. Meanwhile an all ages and varied crowd, some costumed to support their favorites, hoot, yowl and otherwise carry on. The cheering and jeering somehow seem more real than at a pro sports event. Expensive PBR supports county programs - that would be social services and jails. A most entertaining half time show, sometimes with the Sprockettes and the Zoobombers, means that with the pairings of four teams, the event runs from 6 to 9:30 or 10. Doors 5. Portland Expo Center - go by train on the light rail as parking is expensive. www.rosecityrollers.com $12 advance, $15 day of show and $20 for VIP's, though how that applies to Rollerderby I'm mystified.
Sunday August 20
Exchange Project at Homeland
Portland is one of the world's centers for social art. Artists such as Harrell Fletcher, Red 76, M.O.S.T, Miranda July and others work in this space.
Sunday for a few hours, Portland will be host to Vancouver, BC's Nancy Nisbet's Exchange Project. With a nod and a wink. perhaps, to eToy's traveling cargo containers, the Exchange Project is a free store of stories in objects on a semi truck.
You are invited to bring objects and exchange them with others on the truck. Each object comes with a story from its previous lifetime, in turn, your story, of your object will be recorded for its future journey of highways, truck stops and even border crossings.
The Exchange Project adds sly commentary too, on privacy and surveillance: each object is taged with an RFID - a tiny radio "bar code" which can be read at a distance of feet by anyone with a reader. (Note in recent news RFID tags have been demonstrated to be able to carry small computer viruses.)
Visit the Exchange Project at the Homeland squatter headquarters at 916 SE 34th Ave, across from the Belmont Stumptown anytime between 4 and 7PM. http://www.galleryhomeland.org
Iron Artists Compete at N Vancouver & Failing SCRAP
SCRAP collects stuff and you can get it for cheap or free. It's super useful for schoolteachers on an art material budget, which is just about every public school teacher in Portland. Today they stage a very fun fundraiser the IRON ARTIST team competition. 10 teams receive a collection of materials to which they add their secret ingredients. They have 3 hours to sculpt an art-like structure to be judged by a celebrity panel. The winner is awarded the coveted Cup du SCRAP. Cheating is allowed. The teams and audience are encouraged to wear costumes. There will be a beer garden, food, kiddish things, a raffle with of things you want to need, bands and DJ's. Cheer your fav team to victory! Gates open at 12:30. At 1 the theme is announced and the teams begin their mad competition. The sculptures must be finished by 4 and the judges go to work. Around 5:30 your votes are due for the "People's Choice". Slightly afterwards the judges critique each piece and announce the recipient of the Cup du SCRAP. The raffle drawing is held. The event ends about 8. See the website for pics from previous years to get an idea and start planning your team for next year!
$5-10 donation (it's a find raiser)
Mostlandian Games at Col. Sanders Park
This is hard to explain. M.O.S.T. is a social art group. They are having an Olympics of unusual competitions: http://www.mostlandia.com/pages/championship.htm
Rose City Rollers Rollerderby at Portland Expo Center
Rose City Rollers teams Guns and Rollers, the Heartless Heathers, Break Neck Betties and the High Rollers, face off. This wacky and highly entertaining sport does have rules in which one each of the team members, designated by a different helmet color try to pass the other team members from behind. But those mean girls try to elbow them aside, hog the court and otherwise keep from being passed. Sort of like junior high. Meanwhile an all ages and varied crowd, some costumed to support their favorites, hoot, yowl and otherwise carry on. The cheering and jeering somehow seem more real than at a pro sports event. Expensive PBR supports county programs - that would be social services and jails. A most entertaining half time show, sometimes with the Sprockettes and the Zoobombers, means that with the pairings of four teams, the event runs from 6 to 9:30 or 10. Doors 5. Portland Expo Center - go by train on the light rail as parking is expensive. www.rosecityrollers.com $12 advance, $15 day of show and $20 for VIP's, though how that applies to Rollerderby I'm mystified.
Sunday August 20
Exchange Project at Homeland
Portland is one of the world's centers for social art. Artists such as Harrell Fletcher, Red 76, M.O.S.T, Miranda July and others work in this space.
Sunday for a few hours, Portland will be host to Vancouver, BC's Nancy Nisbet's Exchange Project. With a nod and a wink. perhaps, to eToy's traveling cargo containers, the Exchange Project is a free store of stories in objects on a semi truck.
You are invited to bring objects and exchange them with others on the truck. Each object comes with a story from its previous lifetime, in turn, your story, of your object will be recorded for its future journey of highways, truck stops and even border crossings.
The Exchange Project adds sly commentary too, on privacy and surveillance: each object is taged with an RFID - a tiny radio "bar code" which can be read at a distance of feet by anyone with a reader. (Note in recent news RFID tags have been demonstrated to be able to carry small computer viruses.)
Visit the Exchange Project at the Homeland squatter headquarters at 916 SE 34th Ave, across from the Belmont Stumptown anytime between 4 and 7PM. http://www.galleryhomeland.org
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Antarctica and Minnesota in Photographs by Friends
Albina Press presents the photographs of friends, Gretchen Vaudt and Michelle Ott. Portlander Vaudt records images of a canoe trip, in the Boundary Waters, spanning the United States' Minnesota and Canada, also friends. At least I think we are friends. For me the landscape has a feeling of nostalgia. The north woods psychic and historic geography is documented by brilliant author William Cronon who is writing a landscape history of nearby Portage Wisconson. Vaudt has a great image of a birch wood, it has a similar feel to one of her recent images of a wall filled with discarded chewing gum, a uniform field of very individualistic objects. Ott, an Antarctic resident, captures beautiful bleak landscapes from which she excises objects marking human presence. These photos are c-prints with the emulsion removed from small areas and mounted on light boxes. The effect mimics Antarctic's 24 hour sunlight and fierce ultraviolet flux through the hole in the atmosphere's ozone layer over Antarctica and Patagonia, also man made. Ott has worked in Antarctica for three years and has a feel for the land and ice, or land of ice. If you have seen the Al Gore film on global warming, you may see in Ott's landscapes, edited to remove humans' affect on the land, a metaphor of hope for the larger impact we have had on the climate, Antarctica's soul.
Until 8 4637 N. Albina Ave at Blandena
Until 8 4637 N. Albina Ave at Blandena
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Outdoor Art Installations Saturday Aug 5 - One Day Only
Scott Wayne Indiana has put together a project of site specific art on the land, in Mt Scott Park. Given our relationship to wild nature, within the city limits and so easily accessible without, I would like to see more. Here's hoping Indiana's LA friends take an interest in creating landscape art here.
Indiana's show is reminiscent of Mathew and Maxine Lennon's Horsehead Project in Seattle in the 90's. I only visited the last one held out in the woods. Searching out the art with no maps brought pleasant surprises in the woodland's nooks. That year the organizers sponsored a raffle with the prize being the privelege of smashing a Chihuly sculpture. I didn't win
Artists making work include: Abi Spring, Adam Graves, Blinglab (Marne Lucas/Bruce Conkle), Bonnie Fortune, Brenda Mallory, Carolyn Zick, Gretchen Bennett, Gwenn Seemel, Hamish Grieve, Harvest Henderson, Jacqueline Ehlis, Justin Oswald, Marty Schnapf, Megan Scheminske, Micheal Keenen, Mylissa Fitzsimmons, Paige Saez and TJ Norris.
http://www.39forks.com/inCLOVER.htm
Noon-7 Mt Scott Park SE 72nd and Woodstock Free
Indiana's show is reminiscent of Mathew and Maxine Lennon's Horsehead Project in Seattle in the 90's. I only visited the last one held out in the woods. Searching out the art with no maps brought pleasant surprises in the woodland's nooks. That year the organizers sponsored a raffle with the prize being the privelege of smashing a Chihuly sculpture. I didn't win
Artists making work include: Abi Spring, Adam Graves, Blinglab (Marne Lucas/Bruce Conkle), Bonnie Fortune, Brenda Mallory, Carolyn Zick, Gretchen Bennett, Gwenn Seemel, Hamish Grieve, Harvest Henderson, Jacqueline Ehlis, Justin Oswald, Marty Schnapf, Megan Scheminske, Micheal Keenen, Mylissa Fitzsimmons, Paige Saez and TJ Norris.
http://www.39forks.com/inCLOVER.htm
Noon-7 Mt Scott Park SE 72nd and Woodstock Free
Eastside Art in August
At 811 E Burnside:
Yes shows "Maximum Warriors", post aesthetic impressions of '80's cultural excursions, curated by Seattle's Devon Varmega and featuring the art of Dearraindrop (New York), Andrew Jeffrey Wright (Philladelphia), Zeloot (Rotterdam), Seripop (Montreal), Matt Lock (Austin), Devon Varmega (Seattle), E*Rock (Portland) and Brent Wadden (Berling, Germany). E*Rock's 1999 unit and Romancing play.
Renowned shows printmakers working in silk-screens, photogravure, intaglio, wood-block, and lithography in styles they term "New Brow". Artists include: Jennifer Leong, Erik Sandberg, Tony Zepeda, Yoko Tanaka, Bowen Park, Pamela Henderson, Thomas Lee Bakofsky, Julie Murphy, Alex Gross, Youshi Li, and Seth Drenner. Most of the artists are associated with Art Center Pasadena, formerly known for for its automobile design programs, now it is a powerhouse art school all around. These prints are quite good.
http://www.renownedgallery.com
Redux recyclers/reusers/repurposers show show Lucia Johnson. http://www.reduxpdx.com
Moshi-Moshi/the Grass Hut Gallery show work by Seattle's Le Merde - lowbrow cute. http://www.moshi-moshi.com/
Small A continues their group show until mid month but closes at 6 this evening. 1430 SE 3rd http://www.smallaprojects.com
NAAU shows paintings by Mazana Bruggeman, her abstractions of landscapes, "You are Here". To me they feel like Google Earth, something that could not be said a year ago. From the artist: '"You Are Here" is an exploration of the relationship between physical environment (in this case Portland) and mental space. Both affect each other and seem to inform each other. A slight shift in attitude, emotion, intellect (mental)? can change the way you notice and interact with streets you move through and visual stimuli you encounter every day. The reverse is also true. This work is about creating a view of these spaces, an unattainable perspective that makes it possible to see the chaos in the grid and the grid in the chaos.' Perhaps this is what NSA is grappling with daily. I say let's paint secret message art on our roofs. http://newamericanartunion.com/ 922 SE Ankeny
Burnside Proper presents "First Friday Under the Big Top" with "clowns (!?*#), music, games, prizes freaks and magicians" as well as handmade goods by Patrick Powell, Hubris and Sophrosyne, Emily McHenry and Moving Circus. 624 E Burnside 7-10pm
Meanwhile over at the Woolley Gallery at the Wonder Ballroom there will be a show themed on motorcycles. There are a myriad of motorcycle cultures, here's hoping the scoot gangs of Portland will softly roar in this evening. I'm not sure if the show will finesse the culture-commerce balance but their announcement sketches out the evening:
"The opening night event begins with the gallery opening at 5:00 pm. At approximately 7:30, motorcycles design and build will be presented by 4 motorcycle designers, including Michael Czysz and his "C1"...the new American Superbike, and Paul Gaudio and the new Norton Commando. After the Design and Build, local film artists including "Lines" will present their motorcycle Film Extravaganza. The opening will conclude in the Wonder Ballroom with Portland's premier DJ Mr. MUMU and DJ Teenage. Admission is free and all ages are invited to attend"
http://www.markwoolley.com http://www.wonderballroom.com 128 N.E. Russell
Newspace photo continues their curated national group show. http://www.newspacephoto.org 1632 SE 10th
Yes shows "Maximum Warriors", post aesthetic impressions of '80's cultural excursions, curated by Seattle's Devon Varmega and featuring the art of Dearraindrop (New York), Andrew Jeffrey Wright (Philladelphia), Zeloot (Rotterdam), Seripop (Montreal), Matt Lock (Austin), Devon Varmega (Seattle), E*Rock (Portland) and Brent Wadden (Berling, Germany). E*Rock's 1999 unit and Romancing play.
Renowned shows printmakers working in silk-screens, photogravure, intaglio, wood-block, and lithography in styles they term "New Brow". Artists include: Jennifer Leong, Erik Sandberg, Tony Zepeda, Yoko Tanaka, Bowen Park, Pamela Henderson, Thomas Lee Bakofsky, Julie Murphy, Alex Gross, Youshi Li, and Seth Drenner. Most of the artists are associated with Art Center Pasadena, formerly known for for its automobile design programs, now it is a powerhouse art school all around. These prints are quite good.
http://www.renownedgallery.com
Redux recyclers/reusers/repurposers show show Lucia Johnson. http://www.reduxpdx.com
Moshi-Moshi/the Grass Hut Gallery show work by Seattle's Le Merde - lowbrow cute. http://www.moshi-moshi.com/
Small A continues their group show until mid month but closes at 6 this evening. 1430 SE 3rd http://www.smallaprojects.com
NAAU shows paintings by Mazana Bruggeman, her abstractions of landscapes, "You are Here". To me they feel like Google Earth, something that could not be said a year ago. From the artist: '"You Are Here" is an exploration of the relationship between physical environment (in this case Portland) and mental space. Both affect each other and seem to inform each other. A slight shift in attitude, emotion, intellect (mental)? can change the way you notice and interact with streets you move through and visual stimuli you encounter every day. The reverse is also true. This work is about creating a view of these spaces, an unattainable perspective that makes it possible to see the chaos in the grid and the grid in the chaos.' Perhaps this is what NSA is grappling with daily. I say let's paint secret message art on our roofs. http://newamericanartunion.com/ 922 SE Ankeny
Burnside Proper presents "First Friday Under the Big Top" with "clowns (!?*#), music, games, prizes freaks and magicians" as well as handmade goods by Patrick Powell, Hubris and Sophrosyne, Emily McHenry and Moving Circus. 624 E Burnside 7-10pm
Meanwhile over at the Woolley Gallery at the Wonder Ballroom there will be a show themed on motorcycles. There are a myriad of motorcycle cultures, here's hoping the scoot gangs of Portland will softly roar in this evening. I'm not sure if the show will finesse the culture-commerce balance but their announcement sketches out the evening:
"The opening night event begins with the gallery opening at 5:00 pm. At approximately 7:30, motorcycles design and build will be presented by 4 motorcycle designers, including Michael Czysz and his "C1"...the new American Superbike, and Paul Gaudio and the new Norton Commando. After the Design and Build, local film artists including "Lines" will present their motorcycle Film Extravaganza. The opening will conclude in the Wonder Ballroom with Portland's premier DJ Mr. MUMU and DJ Teenage. Admission is free and all ages are invited to attend"
http://www.markwoolley.com http://www.wonderballroom.com 128 N.E. Russell
Newspace photo continues their curated national group show. http://www.newspacephoto.org 1632 SE 10th
Westside Art in August
Tonight I propose a fashion sandwich. You must get an early start though. Begin at City Hall's sustainable fashion show Locally Grown at 5pm. Finish at Holocene's Design Your Own Fashion Show. The details are below.
We have a new batch of commissioners in City Hall and they are shaking things up. Live bands on the steps. Art openings early on first Thursdays, from 5-7. This one I recommend and it's a chance to talk to city staffers about what artists need in Portland.
If you have ever visited the bins, you are aware of fashion's resource intensive short life. Cotton requires large doses of pesticides to grow while synthetics are made of who knows what. Vegans eschew wool, leather and all manner of skins too. So one approach is reuse. The artist Pipiloti Rist, in a 1998 interview, proposes people "sew labels into their clothes; on the labels they would write where the clothes had been worn, what happened when they wore them and so on. Every piece of clothing would carry with it a full record of everything it had experienced." Last summer the Red 76 art collective produced their own version of this idea. Some of the clothing isn't landfilled but ends up in Africa as detailed in "How Susie Bayer's T-Shirt Ended Up on Yusuf Mama's Back", the oddessy of a piece of clothing traversing continents by returned Peace Corps volunteer George Packer.
Portland designers who reconstruct clothing are tapping this reuse meme too.
Another approach is to use bamboo fibers or fiber mixes and this is the approach Anna Cohen and Sameunderneath have taken. So for more information, just go to the event:
Portland Designers Anna Cohen, Sameunderneath and Saffrona show clothing of sustainable fabric.
Accessories of sustainable fabrication will be shown by Entermodal, Lucina, Nora Catherine and DoubleCross Belt Co..
Artists showing work include: Roll Hardy, Faulkner Short, Miss Mona Superhero, Pasha, Mary Culbertson, Shirley Barley, Shannon Richardson , Matt Raufman, Alia Smith, Colleen Coover, Jennifer Hazzard, Brian Parnell, David Burkvan, Saska Schmidt, and Terence Healy.
They will have food and drink too.
City Hall 1221 SW 4th Between Madison and Jefferson 5-7pm Free
The Music Population Project plays new chamber music in he street on NW 13th between Davis and Everett. Expect two sets, one at 7 and one at 8. L&C music schooled composer, conductor, director, Brede Rørstad, creates cinematic music from traditional classical instruments and sometimes electronic sounds. The Music Population Orchestra only performs a few times a year, so see this. http://thempp.com details the project's raison d'être. 7pm and 8pm sets, NW 13th between Everett and Davis. Free.
The Laura Russo gallery shows watercolors by Henk Pender. Pender is known for somewhat dark interior landscapes with perhaps a touch of surrealism. Dutch, he extends the masters' traditions into much more psychologically complex territory. Until 9 805 NW 21st Ave http://www.laurarusso.com/
Augen shows very bright geometric paintings by Eva Lake. Some would call them op-art, art that taps the base mechanisms of the retina and lower visual cortex in our very complex and not well understood visual system to produce a sense of vibration in the image. Until 9 817 SW 2nd http://www.augengallery.com/
Leach Gallery shows work by late career artist Lee Kelly. Kelly is welll known for large stainless steel sculptures installed outdoors around the Northwest. Any art that involves a crane is worth extra points with me. Where would we be without Sera's Tilted Arc or Seattle's Hammering Man? Perhaps there are clues for Portland's emerging artists, how do you get to late career and working large in stainless steel?
Also on view are works by Hans Haacke, Dinh Q. Le, Ken Lum and Kimsooja inspired by their relationship to their home countries. Le, from Viet Nam, is known for weaving photographs of Viet Nam War cinema stills and photojournalism snaps; he was born in 1968 and relates to that wartime through its artifacts.
Until 9 417 NW 9th http://www.elizabethleach.com
PDX presents Sun Spots, new landscape paintings by James Lavadour. Lavadour is known for his individualistic abstract landscape paintings inspired by Eastern Oregon vistas.From the artist's statement: "Every painting talks about some ancient thing that is as old as ground we walk on and connects us all in a shared existence." If you are interested in landscape painting, you might want to take a look at Lavadour's work.
Until 8. 925 NW Flanders Street http://www.pdxcontemporaryart.com
The Everett Station spaces are always worth a look. I rarely get the whole scoop ahead of time, but did get word of these:
Tilt Gallery shows Freeway Hypnosis paintings by Jonathan Leach and soft sculpture-prints by Amy Steel.
625 N.W. Everett St., #106
Melissa Armstrong shows Entomology 211 themed on bugs in the lobby 625 N.W. Everett St.
Love Punk is a show of visual art and music by hey Lover http://www.heylovermusic.com. Music at 8. Hovercraft 328 NW Broadway #114
Influence, a show by Nicky Kriara, Hadley Hutton & Winnie McDonnald will be at Backspace.
http://www.backspace gallery.com 115 NW 5th to midnight
Just be design presents a new show by Kobe's Digmeout design collective. Details at http://www.justbedesign.com/JBD03/compound/0806_digmeout06/digmeout06.html . Please someone in Portland, let's get something like this going here. 107 NW 5th
Motel Gallery shows Wind Inside by Liz Harris, a show of drawings and a drawing installation. I'm interested to see how this relates to Linda Hutchins work of a few months ago. Harris recently relocated from Oakland to Portland. http://www.motelgallery.com NW Couch between 5th and 6th.
Upper Playground of San Francisco, as we have written previously, opens a store in the old Fashion Incubator space. Artist designers Herbert Baglione, Sam Flores, Jeremy Fish, Mike Giant, Estevan Oriol and Saber will be showing their work. They are out and about Saturday doing graf-murals and then having a book signing Sunday. Stop into the store or check their web site at http://www.upperplayground.com for details. They are a store with a blog too: http://upperplayground.blogspot.com/ Corner of Couch and NW 5th
The Portland Art Center presents several shows in their new space: a show of Art Media employees, past and present, with 40% of sales going to support PAC; Eclipse, a sound installation by David Abel and John Berendzen in the Light and Sound Gallery; Waiting Room, an installation by Scott Wayne Indiana; and Focus Group, an installation by Houston. http://www.portlandart.org 32 NW 5th
Kendra Binney, a talented lowbrow artist, maybe a kindler and gentler Mark Ryden* crossed with some serious kawaii sensibility, shows her paintings at Berbati's. Usually I view this type of work with a jaundiced eye, but in this case it's well executed and I like it. Oh, and very reasonably priced too. 19 SW 2nd until late
http://www.berbati.com/
*Ryden has gotten darker as his painting skills have advanced; in the style of filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet who made Delicatessen and City of Lost Children. Binney's work works for children as well as older children while Ryden's and Jeunet's works are strictly adult.
Sonia Kasparian shows dreamy portraits, rendered in layers. Sometimes the layers are window screen, patterned with bright pigments, suspending the images' highlights in parralax. Also outstanding is a full scale wedding dress in window screen. In lesser hands this subject material would be merely mythical, however Kasparian tempers this tendency by mixing industrial materials and a sensitive touch. http://www.buttersgallery.com520 NW Davis
Valentine's present a show by Alicia Cortney Eggert. Music by Gary Wiseman, Tre', and Bark, Hide and Horn
From Valentine's press release: "Alicia Cortney Eggert was born and raised in New Jersey as the daughter of a Christian minister, and spent four years of her early childhood living in Cape Town, South Africa, where her parents were missionaries during the Apartheid. She studied Scandinavian architecture and design at Denmark's International Study program in Copenhagen, and graduated from Drexel University, in Philadelphia, with a degree in Interior Design. Using common household objects and accessible materials, her artwork explores the essence of human nature in modern society, revealing it's presence and impact on aspects of every-day life, and examining it's relationship to the natural world. In addition to creating and exhibiting her own work, Alicia also organizes and curates multidisciplinary art events in Portland, Oregon, under the name of Kitchen Sink.
All My Clothes is a series of studies relating to the ideas of ownership and identity that focus on the artist's personal wardrobe. Every item of clothing was scrutinized, catalogued and drawn in detail. Each and every tag and label were removed from the clothes and sewn together one-by-one to create a vague shape of the artist's physical profile. The project's culmination will be an installation consisting of every single clothing item tied together to form an enormous mass, which will hang on the wall and be on display for the entire month of August."
Art 6-10, open late 232 SE Ankeny
Consider ending your evening at Holocene for Design Your Own Dance Party with actual designers spinning on the tables along with DJ SewWhat and DJ 1996 Olympics. There will be a raffle of some sweet custom clothing, a showing of 10 Minute Creations, impromptu designs, and an "I'm a top model" photo booth. $5-8 sliding scale at the door goes to support the production costs for the upcoming September Fashion Week 1001 SE Morrison http://www.holocene.org
We have a new batch of commissioners in City Hall and they are shaking things up. Live bands on the steps. Art openings early on first Thursdays, from 5-7. This one I recommend and it's a chance to talk to city staffers about what artists need in Portland.
If you have ever visited the bins, you are aware of fashion's resource intensive short life. Cotton requires large doses of pesticides to grow while synthetics are made of who knows what. Vegans eschew wool, leather and all manner of skins too. So one approach is reuse. The artist Pipiloti Rist, in a 1998 interview, proposes people "sew labels into their clothes; on the labels they would write where the clothes had been worn, what happened when they wore them and so on. Every piece of clothing would carry with it a full record of everything it had experienced." Last summer the Red 76 art collective produced their own version of this idea. Some of the clothing isn't landfilled but ends up in Africa as detailed in "How Susie Bayer's T-Shirt Ended Up on Yusuf Mama's Back", the oddessy of a piece of clothing traversing continents by returned Peace Corps volunteer George Packer.
Portland designers who reconstruct clothing are tapping this reuse meme too.
Another approach is to use bamboo fibers or fiber mixes and this is the approach Anna Cohen and Sameunderneath have taken. So for more information, just go to the event:
Portland Designers Anna Cohen, Sameunderneath and Saffrona show clothing of sustainable fabric.
Accessories of sustainable fabrication will be shown by Entermodal, Lucina, Nora Catherine and DoubleCross Belt Co..
Artists showing work include: Roll Hardy, Faulkner Short, Miss Mona Superhero, Pasha, Mary Culbertson, Shirley Barley, Shannon Richardson , Matt Raufman, Alia Smith, Colleen Coover, Jennifer Hazzard, Brian Parnell, David Burkvan, Saska Schmidt, and Terence Healy.
They will have food and drink too.
City Hall 1221 SW 4th Between Madison and Jefferson 5-7pm Free
The Music Population Project plays new chamber music in he street on NW 13th between Davis and Everett. Expect two sets, one at 7 and one at 8. L&C music schooled composer, conductor, director, Brede Rørstad, creates cinematic music from traditional classical instruments and sometimes electronic sounds. The Music Population Orchestra only performs a few times a year, so see this. http://thempp.com details the project's raison d'être. 7pm and 8pm sets, NW 13th between Everett and Davis. Free.
The Laura Russo gallery shows watercolors by Henk Pender. Pender is known for somewhat dark interior landscapes with perhaps a touch of surrealism. Dutch, he extends the masters' traditions into much more psychologically complex territory. Until 9 805 NW 21st Ave http://www.laurarusso.com/
Augen shows very bright geometric paintings by Eva Lake. Some would call them op-art, art that taps the base mechanisms of the retina and lower visual cortex in our very complex and not well understood visual system to produce a sense of vibration in the image. Until 9 817 SW 2nd http://www.augengallery.com/
Leach Gallery shows work by late career artist Lee Kelly. Kelly is welll known for large stainless steel sculptures installed outdoors around the Northwest. Any art that involves a crane is worth extra points with me. Where would we be without Sera's Tilted Arc or Seattle's Hammering Man? Perhaps there are clues for Portland's emerging artists, how do you get to late career and working large in stainless steel?
Also on view are works by Hans Haacke, Dinh Q. Le, Ken Lum and Kimsooja inspired by their relationship to their home countries. Le, from Viet Nam, is known for weaving photographs of Viet Nam War cinema stills and photojournalism snaps; he was born in 1968 and relates to that wartime through its artifacts.
Until 9 417 NW 9th http://www.elizabethleach.com
PDX presents Sun Spots, new landscape paintings by James Lavadour. Lavadour is known for his individualistic abstract landscape paintings inspired by Eastern Oregon vistas.From the artist's statement: "Every painting talks about some ancient thing that is as old as ground we walk on and connects us all in a shared existence." If you are interested in landscape painting, you might want to take a look at Lavadour's work.
Until 8. 925 NW Flanders Street http://www.pdxcontemporaryart.com
The Everett Station spaces are always worth a look. I rarely get the whole scoop ahead of time, but did get word of these:
Tilt Gallery shows Freeway Hypnosis paintings by Jonathan Leach and soft sculpture-prints by Amy Steel.
625 N.W. Everett St., #106
Melissa Armstrong shows Entomology 211 themed on bugs in the lobby 625 N.W. Everett St.
Love Punk is a show of visual art and music by hey Lover http://www.heylovermusic.com. Music at 8. Hovercraft 328 NW Broadway #114
Influence, a show by Nicky Kriara, Hadley Hutton & Winnie McDonnald will be at Backspace.
http://www.backspace gallery.com 115 NW 5th to midnight
Just be design presents a new show by Kobe's Digmeout design collective. Details at http://www.justbedesign.com/JBD03/compound/0806_digmeout06/digmeout06.html . Please someone in Portland, let's get something like this going here. 107 NW 5th
Motel Gallery shows Wind Inside by Liz Harris, a show of drawings and a drawing installation. I'm interested to see how this relates to Linda Hutchins work of a few months ago. Harris recently relocated from Oakland to Portland. http://www.motelgallery.com NW Couch between 5th and 6th.
Upper Playground of San Francisco, as we have written previously, opens a store in the old Fashion Incubator space. Artist designers Herbert Baglione, Sam Flores, Jeremy Fish, Mike Giant, Estevan Oriol and Saber will be showing their work. They are out and about Saturday doing graf-murals and then having a book signing Sunday. Stop into the store or check their web site at http://www.upperplayground.com for details. They are a store with a blog too: http://upperplayground.blogspot.com/ Corner of Couch and NW 5th
The Portland Art Center presents several shows in their new space: a show of Art Media employees, past and present, with 40% of sales going to support PAC; Eclipse, a sound installation by David Abel and John Berendzen in the Light and Sound Gallery; Waiting Room, an installation by Scott Wayne Indiana; and Focus Group, an installation by Houston. http://www.portlandart.org 32 NW 5th
Kendra Binney, a talented lowbrow artist, maybe a kindler and gentler Mark Ryden* crossed with some serious kawaii sensibility, shows her paintings at Berbati's. Usually I view this type of work with a jaundiced eye, but in this case it's well executed and I like it. Oh, and very reasonably priced too. 19 SW 2nd until late
http://www.berbati.com/
*Ryden has gotten darker as his painting skills have advanced; in the style of filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet who made Delicatessen and City of Lost Children. Binney's work works for children as well as older children while Ryden's and Jeunet's works are strictly adult.
Sonia Kasparian shows dreamy portraits, rendered in layers. Sometimes the layers are window screen, patterned with bright pigments, suspending the images' highlights in parralax. Also outstanding is a full scale wedding dress in window screen. In lesser hands this subject material would be merely mythical, however Kasparian tempers this tendency by mixing industrial materials and a sensitive touch. http://www.buttersgallery.com520 NW Davis
Valentine's present a show by Alicia Cortney Eggert. Music by Gary Wiseman, Tre', and Bark, Hide and Horn
From Valentine's press release: "Alicia Cortney Eggert was born and raised in New Jersey as the daughter of a Christian minister, and spent four years of her early childhood living in Cape Town, South Africa, where her parents were missionaries during the Apartheid. She studied Scandinavian architecture and design at Denmark's International Study program in Copenhagen, and graduated from Drexel University, in Philadelphia, with a degree in Interior Design. Using common household objects and accessible materials, her artwork explores the essence of human nature in modern society, revealing it's presence and impact on aspects of every-day life, and examining it's relationship to the natural world. In addition to creating and exhibiting her own work, Alicia also organizes and curates multidisciplinary art events in Portland, Oregon, under the name of Kitchen Sink.
All My Clothes is a series of studies relating to the ideas of ownership and identity that focus on the artist's personal wardrobe. Every item of clothing was scrutinized, catalogued and drawn in detail. Each and every tag and label were removed from the clothes and sewn together one-by-one to create a vague shape of the artist's physical profile. The project's culmination will be an installation consisting of every single clothing item tied together to form an enormous mass, which will hang on the wall and be on display for the entire month of August."
Art 6-10, open late 232 SE Ankeny
Consider ending your evening at Holocene for Design Your Own Dance Party with actual designers spinning on the tables along with DJ SewWhat and DJ 1996 Olympics. There will be a raffle of some sweet custom clothing, a showing of 10 Minute Creations, impromptu designs, and an "I'm a top model" photo booth. $5-8 sliding scale at the door goes to support the production costs for the upcoming September Fashion Week 1001 SE Morrison http://www.holocene.org
Sunday, July 23, 2006
July 27 Art Organism Launch
Art Organism launches with a performance by Small Sails, an experimental set by Courtney Taylor-Taylor and members of the Dandy Warhols and a video by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist. Rist is known for making art at the the intersection of pop culture and identity. She played in the Swiss art-girl-rock-band Les Reines Prochaines, one of whoms performances is described as a: "big, thick cake of bodypoems, scientific lectures, tricks, sounds, lightgames and songs. It's a performance about dangers, miracles and early history". Recently Rist was the artistic director of the 2001 Swiss National Exibition and responsible for curating into that show Scofidio and Diller's building on the lake constructed entirely of fog and documented in their book Blur:The Making of Nothing. Rist is represented by Hauser & Wirth of London, the gallery also of Jason Rhoades, the subject of Organism's next art exhibition.
Organism creates a conversation between creative artists, designers, engineers, filmmakers, architects, ecologists, musicians, entrepreneurs and scientists. Organism engages artists and creative people of international reputation through existing personal networks. In turn, the creative networks that touch Organism expand, becoming more richly interconnected.
Tickets are $15 in advance and available at the Wonder Ballroom box office. Artists in any field may become members for the coming year - it's included just this night in your admission. Early - Doors 7:30, Show at 8.
http://www.artorganism.org/
Organism creates a conversation between creative artists, designers, engineers, filmmakers, architects, ecologists, musicians, entrepreneurs and scientists. Organism engages artists and creative people of international reputation through existing personal networks. In turn, the creative networks that touch Organism expand, becoming more richly interconnected.
Tickets are $15 in advance and available at the Wonder Ballroom box office. Artists in any field may become members for the coming year - it's included just this night in your admission. Early - Doors 7:30, Show at 8.
http://www.artorganism.org/
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
14-17, 20-23, 27, 29 July
July 14
Portland Modern #4 Art Show
This edition of Portland Modern, curated by Kristan Kennedy and Matthew Stadler includes artists Roberta Aylward, Amber Bell, Michael Boyle, David Corbett, Alex Felton, Anna Fidler, Caleb Freese & Justin Gorman, Sarah Gottesdiener, Liz Haley, Levi Hanes, Mary Henry, Philip Iosca, Eva Lake, Jonathan Leach, Isaac Lin, Marne Lucas, Rae Mahaffey, Jeannie Manville, Chelsea Mosher, Daniel Peterson, Shawn Records, Spirit Quest (Khaela Maricich & Melissa Dyne), Amy Steel, and Casey Watson. See the work in person, and many artists, no doubt at Disjecta. Enter on SE 3rd under the Burnside Bridge and read the signs in the neighborhood carefully, if parking a car, as there are some tricky restrictions which could result in an unpleasant tow. 7-10 Free
July 14-16
Jazz Festival at Cathedral Park in St. Johns
This all weekend festival is free! Tri Met might be a great way to get there, or by bike, easily transported on the Max. Schedule at http://www/cpjazz.com FREE
July 15
While geeks have been out of fashion, then in, free never goes out of style.
I think my earliest awareness that there was such a thing as an environmental problem was contemplating where there would be enough space to dump garbage. Well of course we've figured that out - in the ocean and in China. Although construction waste is the largest contributer to our landfills, generating 2 pounds of waste per square foot of construction, electronics waste, at 2-5% of the waste stream (see the photos of Seattle artist Chris Jordan 1,2,3), is rising the fastest. Oh yeah, it's toxic. That's why Portland is way in front of the curve with the Rebuilding Center and Free Geek.
Free Geek collects old computers. Volunteers assemble the working parts and load them with free software (Linux et al). In exchange for volunteering, you get a free computer to connect to the Internet, create your writings, mail, IM, maybe even start your own blog! You don't need any special skills to participate, they teach you everything you know. Meanwhile they are saving them from the landfill!
Those geeks like fun too, so from 1-7PM they host the Geek Fair! with entertainment by the Sprockettes, bands, sword swallowers, a dunking booth and a beer garden. Ever wanted to smash a printer with a sledghammer and YouTube it? You can there. Plenty of kid friendly events too. Details: http://www.freegeek.org/geekfair/index.html
In a related note, Dell has announced free home pickup and recycling of all Dell equipment. Since the company has a record of the exact materials that went into making each piece of equipment, it can efficiently separate materials for recycling.
www.freegeek.org
1731 SE 10th Free
July 15
Homeland River Themed Public Art Show on the Willamette
Homeland , Paul Middendorf and Paige Saez, present "Scratching the Surface" - Portland and out of town artists' responses to our relationship with the River. Artists include: Nicole Amore, Susie Bartley, Troy Briggs, Christopher Buckingham, Sara Cella Tim DuRoche, David Eckard, Eliza Fernand, Daryl Freier, Kim Hamblin, Liz Haley, Sean Healy, Ryan Jeffrey, Kristen Kennedy, Andrew Klause, Todd Kurtzman, Kendra Larson, Jonathan C Leach, Carly Leinheiser, Erin Letterman, Gabriel Liston, Shira Loa, Mary Mattingly, Lisa Maurine, Betty McEntyre, Paul Middendorf, TJ Norris, Tracy Olsen, Eugenia Pardue, Ben Pink, Public Media Works, Lisa Radon, Jenny Richardson-Greene, Ethan Rose, Adam Ross, Paige Saez, Ben Stagl, Amy Steel, Andy Stout, Jennifer J Strawn, Tucker Teutsch, Annette Thurston, Joe Thurston, Aaron HH Trotter, Max Turner, John Vitale and Vicki Wilson.
Today, Saturday, from 6:00-9:00PM the project will kick off with a reception by the River between Salmon and Main on the EAST side. You can pick up a map there to explore the installations and performances of Scratching the Surface.
More events on July 15, 19, 21, 22, 27 and 29 are listed at http://www.galleryhomeland.org/calendar.php. I believe everything is free, contact Homeland with questions - contact info is on their website.
July 17
Edward Tufte presents a seminar on information design. Details at a previous post.
July 20
The Film Center presents Portland Expose, a 1957 film noir, set here (!). It's exposure of corruption and vice is "Hotter than Phenix City Story", a potboiler of the time.
It's on the roof of the Mallory/deLux Hotel parking garage and kicks off a series of films at that location. doors 8 music 9, film at dusk. http://www.nwfilm.org/nowshowing/top_down/top_down.html $5
July 21-23
German Director Werner Herzog, who has a pretty good shelf going at Movie Madness will be sampled on the big screen at Cinema 21. To be prepared, consider renting there Burden of Dreams in advance, a film about the making of Fitzcarraldo, which will be shown at the festival in large format where it can be fully appreciated. In the film, taking 5 years to complete, Herzog recreated an historic event in which a steamship was hauled by block and tackle over a mountain in the Amazon. I am not making this up. http://www.cinema21.com
July 22
Charlotte LaVictorie of Yes and Genevieve Dellinger, Hazel Cox, and Don Jones of Denwave present a fashion show in the Yes boutique with the runway extending outside the 811 building. 811 E Burnside. Details to follow, or get them direct from our fashion friends at http://www.ultrapdx.com.
July 27
Art Organism Ecosystem Launch Party at the Wonder Ballroom - details to follow
July 27
The Film Center presents The Bellboy directed by Jerry Lewis in 1960 on the roof of the Mallory/deLux Hotel parking garage. Doors 8, music 9, film at dusk. http://www.nwfilm.org/nowshowing/top_down/top_down.html $5
July 27
See Loosers Weepers, art by Ryan Bubnis at the Missing Link. 7-10
From 6-8 it's a Dunny Trading PartyTM. First you need a checklist. OK. Now some strategy. There is a new cafe next to the missing link accommodating more art space and more creature space too, with coffee, gelatto and panini sandy's if you need some food power for the evening. 3314 SE Belmont http://www.missinglinktoys.com
July 29
Jessie Dayton's Honkytonk and Hot Rod Music Festival at the Jubitz Ponderosa Lounge
July 29
Portland Art Museum Biennial
From 800 submissions, the Museum's new curator of contemporary art, Jennifer Gately has selected 34 artists. Gately, fresh to Portland, visited studios, asked for opinions and looked at a few thousand slides. The result is a snapshot in time of what is going on here, now, many of the names will be familiar to readers.
The artists are: Brad Adkins (Portland), Marcy Adzich (Eugene), Holly Andres (Portland), Pat Boas (Beaverton), Chandra Bocci (Portland), Michael Brophy (Portland), Benjamin Buswell (Portland), Grace Carter & Holly Andres (Portland), David Eckard (Portland), Andrew Ellmaker & Mark Brandau (Portland), Ty Ennis (Portland), Anna Fidler (Portland), Emily Ginsburg (Portland), Heidi Preuss Grew (Salem), Jesse Hayward (Portland), Mark Hooper (Portland), Houston (Portland), Jo Jackson (Portland), Kristan Kennedy (Portland), Zack Kircher (Portland), K.C. Madsen (Portland), Federico Nessi (Portland), Lucinda Parker (Portland), Matthew Picton (Ashland), Brittany Powell (Portland), Shawn Records (Portland), Vanessa Renwick (Portland), David Rosenak (Portland), Storm Tharp (Portland), Mariana Tres (Portland), Laura Vandenburgh (Springfield), Bill Will (Portland), Amanda Wojick (Eugene)
This evening, view the exhibition and discuss it over a party in the Museum courtyard, with music by White Rainbow and DJ Copy. At 8:15 biennial sculptor David Eckard will perform. Attendance by invitation, RSVP by July 21 at 503-276-4299
July 29
Interkosmos Cosmonaut Romance on Film @ Film Center Whitsell Auditorium
Wow another strange thing happening the same night right underneath the Biennial party! I'll just reprint the Film Center's description, I would not know where to begin rewriting it:
'"Jim Finn’s INTERKOSMOS, a retro gust of Communist utopianism, is set to open the New York Underground Film Festival. A cosmonaut romance set aboard a 1970s East German space mission to colonize the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, INTERKOSMOS weaves together lovingly faked archival footage, charmingly under-motivated musical numbers, propagandistic maxims (“Capitalism is like a kindergarten of boneless children”), stop-motion animation (of a suitably crude GDR-era level), a Teutonic (and vaguely Herzogian) voiceover, and a superb garage-y Kraut-rock score (by Jim Becker and Colleen Burke). Finn’s deadpan is immaculately bone-dry, and his antiquarian fastidiousness is worthy of Guy Maddin.”—Dennis Lim, THE VILLAGE VOICE. How can you miss it? (71 mins.) Jim Finn will introduce his film.'
Tickets $7/6/4 - general/members/under 12 7PM
Portland Modern #4 Art Show
This edition of Portland Modern, curated by Kristan Kennedy and Matthew Stadler includes artists Roberta Aylward, Amber Bell, Michael Boyle, David Corbett, Alex Felton, Anna Fidler, Caleb Freese & Justin Gorman, Sarah Gottesdiener, Liz Haley, Levi Hanes, Mary Henry, Philip Iosca, Eva Lake, Jonathan Leach, Isaac Lin, Marne Lucas, Rae Mahaffey, Jeannie Manville, Chelsea Mosher, Daniel Peterson, Shawn Records, Spirit Quest (Khaela Maricich & Melissa Dyne), Amy Steel, and Casey Watson. See the work in person, and many artists, no doubt at Disjecta. Enter on SE 3rd under the Burnside Bridge and read the signs in the neighborhood carefully, if parking a car, as there are some tricky restrictions which could result in an unpleasant tow. 7-10 Free
July 14-16
Jazz Festival at Cathedral Park in St. Johns
This all weekend festival is free! Tri Met might be a great way to get there, or by bike, easily transported on the Max. Schedule at http://www/cpjazz.com FREE
July 15
While geeks have been out of fashion, then in, free never goes out of style.
I think my earliest awareness that there was such a thing as an environmental problem was contemplating where there would be enough space to dump garbage. Well of course we've figured that out - in the ocean and in China. Although construction waste is the largest contributer to our landfills, generating 2 pounds of waste per square foot of construction, electronics waste, at 2-5% of the waste stream (see the photos of Seattle artist Chris Jordan 1,2,3), is rising the fastest. Oh yeah, it's toxic. That's why Portland is way in front of the curve with the Rebuilding Center and Free Geek.
Free Geek collects old computers. Volunteers assemble the working parts and load them with free software (Linux et al). In exchange for volunteering, you get a free computer to connect to the Internet, create your writings, mail, IM, maybe even start your own blog! You don't need any special skills to participate, they teach you everything you know. Meanwhile they are saving them from the landfill!
Those geeks like fun too, so from 1-7PM they host the Geek Fair! with entertainment by the Sprockettes, bands, sword swallowers, a dunking booth and a beer garden. Ever wanted to smash a printer with a sledghammer and YouTube it? You can there. Plenty of kid friendly events too. Details: http://www.freegeek.org/geekfair/index.html
In a related note, Dell has announced free home pickup and recycling of all Dell equipment. Since the company has a record of the exact materials that went into making each piece of equipment, it can efficiently separate materials for recycling.
www.freegeek.org
1731 SE 10th Free
July 15
Homeland River Themed Public Art Show on the Willamette
Homeland , Paul Middendorf and Paige Saez, present "Scratching the Surface" - Portland and out of town artists' responses to our relationship with the River. Artists include: Nicole Amore, Susie Bartley, Troy Briggs, Christopher Buckingham, Sara Cella Tim DuRoche, David Eckard, Eliza Fernand, Daryl Freier, Kim Hamblin, Liz Haley, Sean Healy, Ryan Jeffrey, Kristen Kennedy, Andrew Klause, Todd Kurtzman, Kendra Larson, Jonathan C Leach, Carly Leinheiser, Erin Letterman, Gabriel Liston, Shira Loa, Mary Mattingly, Lisa Maurine, Betty McEntyre, Paul Middendorf, TJ Norris, Tracy Olsen, Eugenia Pardue, Ben Pink, Public Media Works, Lisa Radon, Jenny Richardson-Greene, Ethan Rose, Adam Ross, Paige Saez, Ben Stagl, Amy Steel, Andy Stout, Jennifer J Strawn, Tucker Teutsch, Annette Thurston, Joe Thurston, Aaron HH Trotter, Max Turner, John Vitale and Vicki Wilson.
Today, Saturday, from 6:00-9:00PM the project will kick off with a reception by the River between Salmon and Main on the EAST side. You can pick up a map there to explore the installations and performances of Scratching the Surface.
More events on July 15, 19, 21, 22, 27 and 29 are listed at http://www.galleryhomeland.org/calendar.php. I believe everything is free, contact Homeland with questions - contact info is on their website.
July 17
Edward Tufte presents a seminar on information design. Details at a previous post.
July 20
The Film Center presents Portland Expose, a 1957 film noir, set here (!). It's exposure of corruption and vice is "Hotter than Phenix City Story", a potboiler of the time.
It's on the roof of the Mallory/deLux Hotel parking garage and kicks off a series of films at that location. doors 8 music 9, film at dusk. http://www.nwfilm.org/nowshowing/top_down/top_down.html $5
July 21-23
German Director Werner Herzog, who has a pretty good shelf going at Movie Madness will be sampled on the big screen at Cinema 21. To be prepared, consider renting there Burden of Dreams in advance, a film about the making of Fitzcarraldo, which will be shown at the festival in large format where it can be fully appreciated. In the film, taking 5 years to complete, Herzog recreated an historic event in which a steamship was hauled by block and tackle over a mountain in the Amazon. I am not making this up. http://www.cinema21.com
July 22
Charlotte LaVictorie of Yes and Genevieve Dellinger, Hazel Cox, and Don Jones of Denwave present a fashion show in the Yes boutique with the runway extending outside the 811 building. 811 E Burnside. Details to follow, or get them direct from our fashion friends at http://www.ultrapdx.com.
July 27
Art Organism Ecosystem Launch Party at the Wonder Ballroom - details to follow
July 27
The Film Center presents The Bellboy directed by Jerry Lewis in 1960 on the roof of the Mallory/deLux Hotel parking garage. Doors 8, music 9, film at dusk. http://www.nwfilm.org/nowshowing/top_down/top_down.html $5
July 27
See Loosers Weepers, art by Ryan Bubnis at the Missing Link. 7-10
From 6-8 it's a Dunny Trading PartyTM. First you need a checklist. OK. Now some strategy. There is a new cafe next to the missing link accommodating more art space and more creature space too, with coffee, gelatto and panini sandy's if you need some food power for the evening. 3314 SE Belmont http://www.missinglinktoys.com
July 29
Jessie Dayton's Honkytonk and Hot Rod Music Festival at the Jubitz Ponderosa Lounge
A festival at a truck stop. OK.
The Rose City Rollers will perform. I do not want to take any responsibility for this, so from the Rollers' web site:
"Beer. BBQ. Hot Rods. Choppers. Customs. Rat Rods. Clothing. MUSIC on 2 stages... One stage will be outside on 2 flatbed trailers, rawkin' the beer garden and the show... Inside, a fully stocked bar, complete with dance floor, pool tables, and plenty of room on stage for the music event of the summer in Portland!
Gates open at noon, first band @ 2pm, goes on until 1am
BANDS:
JESSE DAYTON
THREE BAD JACKS (SPECIAL PORTLAND APPEARANCE - 7PM!!!)
BLACKOUT RADIO
THE SKIRTCHASERS
EAT YOUR HEART OUT
SHAWN HAWKINS AND THE OFFENDERS
THE RAILERS
POWER OF COUNTY
HOLYSH*TRS
$12 ----For more info (503) 345-0300
The Ponderosa lounge at Jubitz 10310 N Vancouver Way, Portland, OR (right off of I-5 near Portland Meadows and the Portland International Raceway)"
Now those truck stops paid a lot of money to remodel a Masonic Temple into the Art Museum contemporary art wing, so I say, live and let live. But you might mention if you visit that biodiesel would be good for their business.
July 29
Portland Art Museum Biennial
From 800 submissions, the Museum's new curator of contemporary art, Jennifer Gately has selected 34 artists. Gately, fresh to Portland, visited studios, asked for opinions and looked at a few thousand slides. The result is a snapshot in time of what is going on here, now, many of the names will be familiar to readers.
The artists are: Brad Adkins (Portland), Marcy Adzich (Eugene), Holly Andres (Portland), Pat Boas (Beaverton), Chandra Bocci (Portland), Michael Brophy (Portland), Benjamin Buswell (Portland), Grace Carter & Holly Andres (Portland), David Eckard (Portland), Andrew Ellmaker & Mark Brandau (Portland), Ty Ennis (Portland), Anna Fidler (Portland), Emily Ginsburg (Portland), Heidi Preuss Grew (Salem), Jesse Hayward (Portland), Mark Hooper (Portland), Houston (Portland), Jo Jackson (Portland), Kristan Kennedy (Portland), Zack Kircher (Portland), K.C. Madsen (Portland), Federico Nessi (Portland), Lucinda Parker (Portland), Matthew Picton (Ashland), Brittany Powell (Portland), Shawn Records (Portland), Vanessa Renwick (Portland), David Rosenak (Portland), Storm Tharp (Portland), Mariana Tres (Portland), Laura Vandenburgh (Springfield), Bill Will (Portland), Amanda Wojick (Eugene)
This evening, view the exhibition and discuss it over a party in the Museum courtyard, with music by White Rainbow and DJ Copy. At 8:15 biennial sculptor David Eckard will perform. Attendance by invitation, RSVP by July 21 at 503-276-4299
July 29
Interkosmos Cosmonaut Romance on Film @ Film Center Whitsell Auditorium
Wow another strange thing happening the same night right underneath the Biennial party! I'll just reprint the Film Center's description, I would not know where to begin rewriting it:
'"Jim Finn’s INTERKOSMOS, a retro gust of Communist utopianism, is set to open the New York Underground Film Festival. A cosmonaut romance set aboard a 1970s East German space mission to colonize the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, INTERKOSMOS weaves together lovingly faked archival footage, charmingly under-motivated musical numbers, propagandistic maxims (“Capitalism is like a kindergarten of boneless children”), stop-motion animation (of a suitably crude GDR-era level), a Teutonic (and vaguely Herzogian) voiceover, and a superb garage-y Kraut-rock score (by Jim Becker and Colleen Burke). Finn’s deadpan is immaculately bone-dry, and his antiquarian fastidiousness is worthy of Guy Maddin.”—Dennis Lim, THE VILLAGE VOICE. How can you miss it? (71 mins.) Jim Finn will introduce his film.'
Tickets $7/6/4 - general/members/under 12 7PM
Friday, July 07, 2006
July 9 Church of Craft @ Doug Fir
The church of craft - Crafty Wonderland - continues. Work for sale by Portland's crafty vixens complements a DIY zone for learning new skills. 11AM-4PM. http://www.craftywonderland.com at the Doug Fir Lounge Free
Rose City Rollers Rollerderby July 8 &15
Rose City Rollers at the Portland Expo Center
The Rose City Rollers Roll at 6. Go by Train. http://www.rosecityrollers.com
and
Seattle vs Portland Rollerderby @ Hanger 27 in Seattle
Rollers. They love to skate, they love to talk shit, they love to drink and they especially love to travel to another city to do it! So road trippin' audience and Seatown homies, see Portland's Heartless Heathers, Guns n Rollers, Breakneck Betties and High Rollers skate at Seattle's Throttle Rockets, Grave Danger, Sockit Wenches and the Derby Liberation Front. The city of roses verses the city of rats... It's at Hanger 27 in Magnuson Park. 7400 Sandpoint Way $15 advance, $20 day of show general, $20/25 reserved bleacher seats, under 12 kids $8 doors 4:30, goes to 10.
http://rosecityrollers.com/
The Rose City Rollers Roll at 6. Go by Train. http://www.rosecityrollers.com
and
Seattle vs Portland Rollerderby @ Hanger 27 in Seattle
Rollers. They love to skate, they love to talk shit, they love to drink and they especially love to travel to another city to do it! So road trippin' audience and Seatown homies, see Portland's Heartless Heathers, Guns n Rollers, Breakneck Betties and High Rollers skate at Seattle's Throttle Rockets, Grave Danger, Sockit Wenches and the Derby Liberation Front. The city of roses verses the city of rats... It's at Hanger 27 in Magnuson Park. 7400 Sandpoint Way $15 advance, $20 day of show general, $20/25 reserved bleacher seats, under 12 kids $8 doors 4:30, goes to 10.
http://rosecityrollers.com/
July 8 Foster Art Walk
Artists, seeking refuge from Portland's raging rents are infiltrating Foster Road (Saint Johns too, I predict downtown Vancouver in the future...). Now they are activating Foster Road itself, home to a plumbing store, piano store, gun shop, Russian restaurant, Tango studio, and fire strippers, I mean dancers. Art will be shown at the Meticon, 5925 SE Foster Rd.The Cosmos Bar and Grill 6219 SE Foster will have art and DJ's Jimmie Jamma, Jinn, and Joe Dairy. Art on the street too
10AM-6PM and FREE.
If you are interested in participating contact http://www.thevisualrevolution.org or http://www.myspace.com/thevisualrevolution. Another project of this group of artists was successfully infiltrating and showing art in biff and buffyland, the Barracuda nightclub, of which we will speak no further.
10AM-6PM and FREE.
If you are interested in participating contact http://www.thevisualrevolution.org or http://www.myspace.com/thevisualrevolution. Another project of this group of artists was successfully infiltrating and showing art in biff and buffyland, the Barracuda nightclub, of which we will speak no further.
July 8 Contact Improv Dance Performance and Jam
Contact is one of those creative drugs. For those with the jones, nothing else will do. It's the most self indulgent of the improvised modern dance forms, but that impulse is tempered by the collaborative elements of movement, balance and support. Its audience is typically people who have studied dance from a young age and then in college. Yes, modern dance is obscure. Tonight the group Lavamonkey, from Chicago, incorporates improvisors Charles Campbell, Stefanie Cohen, Carl Grimm, Erica Hagen, Mark Koenig, and Luv Seamon from Portland, Olympia, Santa Fe, New York, and Ann Arbor. They perform with Portland's Touchmonkey, Patrick Gracewood and Carolyn Stuart. Afterwards, the audience is invited to jam. 8pm (doors open at 7:30- first come, first seated!)
Performance Works NW- 4625 S.E. 67th
$10-$20 sliding scale
Performance Works NW- 4625 S.E. 67th
$10-$20 sliding scale
Thursday, July 06, 2006
July 6 First Thursday Art Openings
July encapsulates the birthday of the USA. July 4th we're some 240 years old. Compare that to previous empires: the Egyptian Empire, 2720 years; the Persian Empire , 398 years; the Roman Empire, 520 years and the Byzantine Empire, 1058 years. The problem, as they all found, is that as the empire expands to control territory and protect the trade routes required to exploit more natural resources, its military costs become a drain on the economy, weakening the country and ultimately leading to its downfall. For a statistics-filled book expanding on this theme in recent history, see Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of Great Powers.
Me? I'm putting my bets on China.
First Thursday Art Openings July 6
This month there is a lot happening! Rather than arranging items in order of importance, I'm arranging the events in walking order, taking into account closing times. Go by foot-bike. Car parking will be impossible. Of course, most exhibitions can be seen later in the month, Tuesday through Saturday... Must see's are *
See early or catch up on later in the month:
The Laura Russo gallery shows Bouquet, by German artist Anne Siems, now Seattle based. Siems began her work using recycled materials as a canvas - old grocery bags and newspapers - laminated by wax and then painted with her own formula of wax medium. The new work references the formal compositions of 19th century studio photographs with a collage of dream elements. Somehow I'm envisioning a reference too, to the Wandervogel. Let's hope we are not headed in that direction as a country... Interestingly, Justine Kurland is fascinated by our Oregon Wandervogel, and their off-the-grid intentional communities, I wonder if she is going to the Oregon Country Fair ? Until 9 805 NW 21st Ave http://www.laurarusso.com/
City Hall presents some sort of Bike Art Show at City Hall early 5-7PM 1221 SW 4th
Froelick Gallery shows paintings by Nat Meade and photos by Robert Hollingsworth. Meade documents performance like actions, almost photographically. Hollingsworth captured scenes in the 1950's created by others or nature, terming them "plagraphy" - plagiarism/photography. That concept now is so accepted to not even require the acknowledgment of naming. Until 9 817 SW 2nd http://www.froelickgallery.com
Stumptown Coffee shows maze/ bird feet track abstract work, seemingly created from rubber stamps. It's not heartstabbing me, but it is still an interesting exploit of the rubber stamp aesthetic, sort of populist printmaking. It's by Abra Ancliffe. By the way, Cathy Joy Young, shows outsider-style work that has a luminous, almost oil pastel palette - think Jessie Reno, and of equal quality, at the Division Stumptown. Until 9:30 128 SW 3rd
Now time for a break, or a convenient meet point, over stimulating herbal liquors and the current art show at Apotheke. http://www.apotheke-nw.com
There is a show at W+K - Exploration of the Role of Failure in the Creative Process. You aren't taking enough risks if you don't fail upon occasion. Until 9 NW 13th between Everett and Davis.
Bullseye continues Anna Skibska's insane lampworked glass latices, suspended in freespace. Opening are photos fused into glass for you photographers seeking an archival process good for a few thousand years. Until 9 300 NW 13th http://www.bullseyeconnection.com
For a perspective in time, if not culture, consider a show of historical photographs of the Pearl District at 1306 NW Hoyt on the 4th floor with well earned food and drinks for your climb. Until 9 1306 NW Hoyt
Bluesky presents photographs by Julie Blackmon and Mike Smith. Blackmon's images depict childhood's life. Smith travels Southern Appalachia, capturing a world which to us looks so foreign. I wonder if a photographer from there came to Portland, what they would photograph that telegraphs our identity? Bike messengers outside Stumptown? The Zoobomb bike park? Jay's garage, with B99 biodiesel? Kids playing in the Jameson fountain in NW? Last Thursday on Alberta at the clown house? The Rose parade? Something to think about... regional caricature. Til 9:30 1231 NW Hoyt http://www.blueskygallery.org/
Photographer Grace Weston shows Private Thoughts, images of her miniature modeled worlds , painstakingly constructed and lit. Each is a metaphor in its content, and, in its process. Until 9 http://www.pushdotstudio.com/ 830 NW 14th Ave
The Elizabeth Leach Gallery shows late career artist Robert Calvo who uses maps as his base concept. Until 9 417 NW 9th http://www.elizabethleach.com
Blackfish shows recent art school graduates, so pot luck... 420 NW 9th http://www.blackfish.com
At PDX Gallery, Joe Macca shows Oxygen Paintings, minimalist abstractions inspired by the act of breathing: "I have developed a language of abstract curvilinear forms assigned soft gradations of color to describe this breathing. The forms intend to capture moments of pleasure, pain, tension, joy, rage, etc...I use a buildup of thin translucent coats of paint and exaggerated form and color to capture light within the surface, adding to that drama".
The PDX window project presents sculptural work by Molly Torgeson: GENERATE: "a series that renders movement, transformation and growth. This installation signifies multiplicity, which is produced and launched into the atmosphere" in steel. Until 8. 925 NW Flanders Street http://www.pdxcontemporaryart.com *
Portland artist James Bolton, now half through his painting MFA at LA's Claremont, shows new paintings with a sort of fern leaf or random hatch motif, brushed and sprayed. Boulton showed large colorful abstract paintings in a previous PAM Biennial. Some of that that work seemed to reference sushi, an apt metaphor for tasty work you crave, but which requires an educated palette. He has simplified his gestural elements, and his colors too, while maintaining great strength in both. The work is titled Traffication: "The title of this exhibition comes from an invented word to describe the concurrent events that disaffect drivers from the immediate task of driving; the ones that end up changing the flow of traffic and consequently the urban architecture of time." Until 8 925 NW Flanders Street http://www.pulliamdeffenbaugh.com *
Vino Paradiso shows post ironic cartoonish scenes characters in life by Lucia Johnson. Sort of rotoscoped snapshots. Until 10 417 NW 10th http://vinoparadiso.com/art_gallery/art_gallery_july06.html
Ogle shows installations and constructions by Valentina Graziano. This gallery has established a niche showing large installations, often of organic materials, that are too large or uneconomic for other galleries. The work often taps into our Northwest instance of arte povera. Until 8:30 310 NW Broadway http://www.ogleinc.com
I love this.! A toy with a life story. So I'll just reprint it! :
"In 1955 SUG was born in a remote part of Iceland. He weighed in at a 40lbs and was an astounding 43" long. Today, the real SUG is all of 7'7" and weighs 655lbs. He continues to base his operations out of a remote location in the moonlike landscape of northern Iceland. (I guess sort of a Icelandic yeti... -R)
SUG's mission is simple: to assist the people of the world who are in desperate need of help. He has no affiliation with any one government and is not concerned with the politics of his actions, but rather views his role in global terms. His privately funded aid expeditions take him into the most dangerous areas of the world usually bringing him into war-torn regions, toxic atmospheres or other inhospitable conditions. Years of exposure to these extreme environments has taken a toll on his massive body. SUG's abnormally small noggin is a result of wearing early handmade protective suits that did not give him proper protection. As a result, his head shrank and prolonged exposure rendered his face featureless. After he realized what was occurring, modifications were made to the next generation of suits to eliminate these issues and the shrinking has stopped. His atrophied right arm is a result of a small tear in the third generation suit resulting in the brief exposure of his naked arm to a highly toxic environment while working in a subterranean location in Oklahoma. The arm was reduced in size almost immediately and is, for the most part, unusable. His current suit is the ninth iteration and appears to be nearly flawless. SUG1s bag contains 4 vials of undefined liquids. They have reportedly been gathered over the years from native medicine men, scientists and his own research. The four liquids can be mixed together in various amounts and combinations to formulate a "silver bullet" serum to cure any ailment currently known to man. SUG continues to develop more advanced serums and equipment and he continues to accept missions that put him in harms way for the good of the World."
This show is of SUG figures, produced by Portland's Derek Welch and Jason Bacon's UNKL www.unklbrand.com. Tonight, a large group of great artists present their interpretation of SUG. Artists SUGin' include: Derek Welch, Jason Bacon, Rob Mars, KOZIK, NYC Lase, Maol, Super 7, Jeremyville, Tristan Eaton, Mr. Jago, Miq, Kow Yokoyama, Ren Sakurai, Saiman Chow, Martin Ontiveros, Bwana Spoons, Corey Smith, Brian Elliot, Ryan Bubnis, Akira Wakui, Shin Tanaka, Charlie Kraft, Jesse Rend, APAK, Akira Wakui Ippei Gyoubu, Madoka, Kinoshita, Cicci, Kubota Mari, MAD BARBARIANS, BARON UEDA, PCP, Nekoshowgun and Zanpon. This will be good.
In other news, SF's Upper Playground http://www.upperplayground.com, somewhat a Just Be Design copycat, is moving to the old Fashion Incubator space across the street.
Until 10 107 NW 5th http://www.justbedesign.com/JBD03/main.html *
The Portland Art Center opens a new sound art show The Lineage of Harmonic Sensation by Adam Bailey and new work by Sarah Gunderson, the invitation has a pleasingly blurred photo of the Oaks Park roller rink. Other exhibitions continue. until 10 32NW 5th http://www.portlandart.org
Next door Backspace presents a great show. James Newell shows sculptural wall boxes themed on maps and landscape. Newell's previous show there included commemorative plates themed on America's own chemical WMD's. Kim Hamblin shows graphic representations made of thin sheets of vinyl strategically tacked. Michelle shows photo-like paintings of dark industrial landscapes. Dan Ness, who also has a show at the Goodfoot shows his paintings drawn from found graphics and photos. Until midnight 115 NW 5th http://www.backspacegallery
Then head back up toward the Everett Lofts, always recommended...
I think Rake is doing a good job. So I'm reprinting this excellent press release. I have not seen the show, so I don't know how it compares to the quality of the writing, but Rake has created a great network, so I say yea!
"Michael Endo is an international artist who has a rich, yet youthful, career. His works in oil posses the meticulous patience of the Italian Renaissance, with an edgy interplay of the abstract mood evoking atmospheric movement. He approaches his subjects as an investigator. Every painting is an attempt to better understand who we are as individuals, who we are as a community, a civilization, and ultimately, as a species. Who are we when we're not trying to be anything? What do our surroundings reveal about our personalities? This investigation has led him to the spaces that we create around and between ourselves and each other. Zeno's dichotomy paradox tells us that in order to travel from one point to another we must first reach the halfway point. Every distance can be halved, meaning that no matter what the measured distance is between himself and any other person, the space separating us is infinite.
How do we bridge the infinite divide?
Through Lines of Communication"
Until 10 325 NW. 6th Ave. Http://www.rakeart.org
Now to decompress...
Valentines shows Art is People Too: Jack Bouba, Liz Goltz, Lauren Hobsen and Rikki Rothenberg. Valentines is a good place to recap the night's art events over food and a drink, they have music too by Sustentacula. For some thoughts on their location's awesomeness... Until late 232 SW Ankeny
Save your energy, Friday's are events are equally packed...
Me? I'm putting my bets on China.
First Thursday Art Openings July 6
This month there is a lot happening! Rather than arranging items in order of importance, I'm arranging the events in walking order, taking into account closing times. Go by foot-bike. Car parking will be impossible. Of course, most exhibitions can be seen later in the month, Tuesday through Saturday... Must see's are *
See early or catch up on later in the month:
The Laura Russo gallery shows Bouquet, by German artist Anne Siems, now Seattle based. Siems began her work using recycled materials as a canvas - old grocery bags and newspapers - laminated by wax and then painted with her own formula of wax medium. The new work references the formal compositions of 19th century studio photographs with a collage of dream elements. Somehow I'm envisioning a reference too, to the Wandervogel. Let's hope we are not headed in that direction as a country... Interestingly, Justine Kurland is fascinated by our Oregon Wandervogel, and their off-the-grid intentional communities, I wonder if she is going to the Oregon Country Fair ? Until 9 805 NW 21st Ave http://www.laurarusso.com/
City Hall presents some sort of Bike Art Show at City Hall early 5-7PM 1221 SW 4th
Froelick Gallery shows paintings by Nat Meade and photos by Robert Hollingsworth. Meade documents performance like actions, almost photographically. Hollingsworth captured scenes in the 1950's created by others or nature, terming them "plagraphy" - plagiarism/photography. That concept now is so accepted to not even require the acknowledgment of naming. Until 9 817 SW 2nd http://www.froelickgallery.com
Stumptown Coffee shows maze/ bird feet track abstract work, seemingly created from rubber stamps. It's not heartstabbing me, but it is still an interesting exploit of the rubber stamp aesthetic, sort of populist printmaking. It's by Abra Ancliffe. By the way, Cathy Joy Young, shows outsider-style work that has a luminous, almost oil pastel palette - think Jessie Reno, and of equal quality, at the Division Stumptown. Until 9:30 128 SW 3rd
Now time for a break, or a convenient meet point, over stimulating herbal liquors and the current art show at Apotheke. http://www.apotheke-nw.com
There is a show at W+K - Exploration of the Role of Failure in the Creative Process. You aren't taking enough risks if you don't fail upon occasion. Until 9 NW 13th between Everett and Davis.
Bullseye continues Anna Skibska's insane lampworked glass latices, suspended in freespace. Opening are photos fused into glass for you photographers seeking an archival process good for a few thousand years. Until 9 300 NW 13th http://www.bullseyeconnection.com
For a perspective in time, if not culture, consider a show of historical photographs of the Pearl District at 1306 NW Hoyt on the 4th floor with well earned food and drinks for your climb. Until 9 1306 NW Hoyt
Bluesky presents photographs by Julie Blackmon and Mike Smith. Blackmon's images depict childhood's life. Smith travels Southern Appalachia, capturing a world which to us looks so foreign. I wonder if a photographer from there came to Portland, what they would photograph that telegraphs our identity? Bike messengers outside Stumptown? The Zoobomb bike park? Jay's garage, with B99 biodiesel? Kids playing in the Jameson fountain in NW? Last Thursday on Alberta at the clown house? The Rose parade? Something to think about... regional caricature. Til 9:30 1231 NW Hoyt http://www.blueskygallery.org/
Photographer Grace Weston shows Private Thoughts, images of her miniature modeled worlds , painstakingly constructed and lit. Each is a metaphor in its content, and, in its process. Until 9 http://www.pushdotstudio.com/ 830 NW 14th Ave
The Elizabeth Leach Gallery shows late career artist Robert Calvo who uses maps as his base concept. Until 9 417 NW 9th http://www.elizabethleach.com
Blackfish shows recent art school graduates, so pot luck... 420 NW 9th http://www.blackfish.com
At PDX Gallery, Joe Macca shows Oxygen Paintings, minimalist abstractions inspired by the act of breathing: "I have developed a language of abstract curvilinear forms assigned soft gradations of color to describe this breathing. The forms intend to capture moments of pleasure, pain, tension, joy, rage, etc...I use a buildup of thin translucent coats of paint and exaggerated form and color to capture light within the surface, adding to that drama".
The PDX window project presents sculptural work by Molly Torgeson: GENERATE: "a series that renders movement, transformation and growth. This installation signifies multiplicity, which is produced and launched into the atmosphere" in steel. Until 8. 925 NW Flanders Street http://www.pdxcontemporaryart.com *
Portland artist James Bolton, now half through his painting MFA at LA's Claremont, shows new paintings with a sort of fern leaf or random hatch motif, brushed and sprayed. Boulton showed large colorful abstract paintings in a previous PAM Biennial. Some of that that work seemed to reference sushi, an apt metaphor for tasty work you crave, but which requires an educated palette. He has simplified his gestural elements, and his colors too, while maintaining great strength in both. The work is titled Traffication: "The title of this exhibition comes from an invented word to describe the concurrent events that disaffect drivers from the immediate task of driving; the ones that end up changing the flow of traffic and consequently the urban architecture of time." Until 8 925 NW Flanders Street http://www.pulliamdeffenbaugh.com *
Vino Paradiso shows post ironic cartoonish scenes characters in life by Lucia Johnson. Sort of rotoscoped snapshots. Until 10 417 NW 10th http://vinoparadiso.com/art_gallery/art_gallery_july06.html
Ogle shows installations and constructions by Valentina Graziano. This gallery has established a niche showing large installations, often of organic materials, that are too large or uneconomic for other galleries. The work often taps into our Northwest instance of arte povera. Until 8:30 310 NW Broadway http://www.ogleinc.com
I love this.! A toy with a life story. So I'll just reprint it! :
"In 1955 SUG was born in a remote part of Iceland. He weighed in at a 40lbs and was an astounding 43" long. Today, the real SUG is all of 7'7" and weighs 655lbs. He continues to base his operations out of a remote location in the moonlike landscape of northern Iceland. (I guess sort of a Icelandic yeti... -R)
SUG's mission is simple: to assist the people of the world who are in desperate need of help. He has no affiliation with any one government and is not concerned with the politics of his actions, but rather views his role in global terms. His privately funded aid expeditions take him into the most dangerous areas of the world usually bringing him into war-torn regions, toxic atmospheres or other inhospitable conditions. Years of exposure to these extreme environments has taken a toll on his massive body. SUG's abnormally small noggin is a result of wearing early handmade protective suits that did not give him proper protection. As a result, his head shrank and prolonged exposure rendered his face featureless. After he realized what was occurring, modifications were made to the next generation of suits to eliminate these issues and the shrinking has stopped. His atrophied right arm is a result of a small tear in the third generation suit resulting in the brief exposure of his naked arm to a highly toxic environment while working in a subterranean location in Oklahoma. The arm was reduced in size almost immediately and is, for the most part, unusable. His current suit is the ninth iteration and appears to be nearly flawless. SUG1s bag contains 4 vials of undefined liquids. They have reportedly been gathered over the years from native medicine men, scientists and his own research. The four liquids can be mixed together in various amounts and combinations to formulate a "silver bullet" serum to cure any ailment currently known to man. SUG continues to develop more advanced serums and equipment and he continues to accept missions that put him in harms way for the good of the World."
This show is of SUG figures, produced by Portland's Derek Welch and Jason Bacon's UNKL www.unklbrand.com. Tonight, a large group of great artists present their interpretation of SUG. Artists SUGin' include: Derek Welch, Jason Bacon, Rob Mars, KOZIK, NYC Lase, Maol, Super 7, Jeremyville, Tristan Eaton, Mr. Jago, Miq, Kow Yokoyama, Ren Sakurai, Saiman Chow, Martin Ontiveros, Bwana Spoons, Corey Smith, Brian Elliot, Ryan Bubnis, Akira Wakui, Shin Tanaka, Charlie Kraft, Jesse Rend, APAK, Akira Wakui Ippei Gyoubu, Madoka, Kinoshita, Cicci, Kubota Mari, MAD BARBARIANS, BARON UEDA, PCP, Nekoshowgun and Zanpon. This will be good.
In other news, SF's Upper Playground http://www.upperplayground.com, somewhat a Just Be Design copycat, is moving to the old Fashion Incubator space across the street.
Until 10 107 NW 5th http://www.justbedesign.com/JBD03/main.html *
The Portland Art Center opens a new sound art show The Lineage of Harmonic Sensation by Adam Bailey and new work by Sarah Gunderson, the invitation has a pleasingly blurred photo of the Oaks Park roller rink. Other exhibitions continue. until 10 32NW 5th http://www.portlandart.org
Next door Backspace presents a great show. James Newell shows sculptural wall boxes themed on maps and landscape. Newell's previous show there included commemorative plates themed on America's own chemical WMD's. Kim Hamblin shows graphic representations made of thin sheets of vinyl strategically tacked. Michelle shows photo-like paintings of dark industrial landscapes. Dan Ness, who also has a show at the Goodfoot shows his paintings drawn from found graphics and photos. Until midnight 115 NW 5th http://www.backspacegallery
Then head back up toward the Everett Lofts, always recommended...
I think Rake is doing a good job. So I'm reprinting this excellent press release. I have not seen the show, so I don't know how it compares to the quality of the writing, but Rake has created a great network, so I say yea!
"Michael Endo is an international artist who has a rich, yet youthful, career. His works in oil posses the meticulous patience of the Italian Renaissance, with an edgy interplay of the abstract mood evoking atmospheric movement. He approaches his subjects as an investigator. Every painting is an attempt to better understand who we are as individuals, who we are as a community, a civilization, and ultimately, as a species. Who are we when we're not trying to be anything? What do our surroundings reveal about our personalities? This investigation has led him to the spaces that we create around and between ourselves and each other. Zeno's dichotomy paradox tells us that in order to travel from one point to another we must first reach the halfway point. Every distance can be halved, meaning that no matter what the measured distance is between himself and any other person, the space separating us is infinite.
How do we bridge the infinite divide?
Through Lines of Communication"
Until 10 325 NW. 6th Ave. Http://www.rakeart.org
Now to decompress...
Valentines shows Art is People Too: Jack Bouba, Liz Goltz, Lauren Hobsen and Rikki Rothenberg. Valentines is a good place to recap the night's art events over food and a drink, they have music too by Sustentacula. For some thoughts on their location's awesomeness... Until late 232 SW Ankeny
Save your energy, Friday's are events are equally packed...
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Future Tense July
Not withstanding time's mutability proposed by string theory's stalking of Grand Unification Theory, it's possible to focus Google's vast resources, like Blogger, to creating posts in future time. So for readers with longer event horizons, here are some July things upcoming:
Some musings on Joan Jett besides her appearance (which is July 16)
I cannot quite wrap my head around aging metal bands on reunion tours. I think it's more than never having my own metal phase. It seems irrelevant. But I am fascinated by the career arc of performers. So say your friends are rockers now, or maybe you are a rocker. What the fuck does 47 look like?
At 15 Joan Jet joined the all girl Runaways, blasting raw freedom out to the world. The girl that blew out every window and door for women to express themselves in music however they wanted. She produced punkers the Germs. Rejected by the major labels, she founded her own label Blackheart records, singing about it in her song "Bad Reputation". With her own band, Joan Jett was the first American rocker to perform in Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In the 90's Jett recorded with Kathleen Hanna, Donita Sparks and Kat Bjelland, profoundly inspiring Olympia's riot grrrl breakout and influencing generations of female rockers to follow.
Jett has the cover interview in the current Herbavore magazine in which she muses on eating PBJ sandwiches on the road and the "What would Joan Jett do?" T-shirt phenomena.
Now more political than ever, Jett's black punk star burns on strong today.
Jett appears as part of the Warped Tour with a million other bands. Which of those will burn with intensity 32 years hence?
This picture is from the NY kickoff for the tour.
Warped Tour Columbia Meadows http://www.warpedtour.com/ Ticket details to follow
You can have it all - beauty and clarity - Edward Tufte on Information Design July 17
See "Presenting Data and Information" by Yale emeritus professor Edward Tufte in Portland. I have attended the seminar and recommend it. Tufte is highly engaging, you will not be bored for a moment, and will take away many ideas which you can apply to presenting information on your projects.
Tufte's thesis is that in order to make decisions based on complex data, it needs to be presented clearly, not simplified to the point of stupidity. Tufte illustrates his ideas with innumerable examples, including some of the earliest movable type books on science. In the seminar I took, his white gloved assistants circulate by every attendee, so you can see the first editions of Galileo, Euclid and Newton, 4-500 years old, some with little pop up 3d cutouts! He also presents case studies where the failure to communicate information clearly has lead to disastrous consequences, for example, presentations made to support subsequently lost space shuttle launches, the Challenger and the Columbia (1,2). You may be surprised that Tufte is critical of PowerPoint, and how it is typically used. (David Byrne, who went to art school at RISD, produced a somewhat tongue in cheek counter critique of Tufte in a book of Powerpoint art entitled Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information.)
Tufte is author of 3 major books: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information & Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. You may find them locally to get an idea of Tufte's range or review excerpts on Amazon.com. These are handsome coffee table books, and may be helpful in explaining to your grandparents what you do in an engaging way.
If you take the course, the books are included, along with a chart produced in 1869 clearly illustrating factors leading to the failure of Napoleon's march on Moscow of 1812. That chart is way, way cooler than it sounds. (The width of the line represents the number of soldiers in Napoleon's army mapped geographically on their march. The bottom scale shows the drop in temperature, from freezing to -22F, and the resulting loss of life as the army retreated. Of 442,000 who crossed the border in today's Lithuania, 10,000 returned. War, sad as always...)
The class is $360. Groups of 10 or more registering together save 25%. Full time students may attend for $180. Note the books alone would cost $147. Registration and more detail on the content of the course is available at http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/courses
Info on the location is available upon registration. The last time it was in a big room in the Convention Center, so get there early for a seat up front.
Some musings on Joan Jett besides her appearance (which is July 16)
I cannot quite wrap my head around aging metal bands on reunion tours. I think it's more than never having my own metal phase. It seems irrelevant. But I am fascinated by the career arc of performers. So say your friends are rockers now, or maybe you are a rocker. What the fuck does 47 look like?
At 15 Joan Jet joined the all girl Runaways, blasting raw freedom out to the world. The girl that blew out every window and door for women to express themselves in music however they wanted. She produced punkers the Germs. Rejected by the major labels, she founded her own label Blackheart records, singing about it in her song "Bad Reputation". With her own band, Joan Jett was the first American rocker to perform in Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In the 90's Jett recorded with Kathleen Hanna, Donita Sparks and Kat Bjelland, profoundly inspiring Olympia's riot grrrl breakout and influencing generations of female rockers to follow.
Jett has the cover interview in the current Herbavore magazine in which she muses on eating PBJ sandwiches on the road and the "What would Joan Jett do?" T-shirt phenomena.
Now more political than ever, Jett's black punk star burns on strong today.
Jett appears as part of the Warped Tour with a million other bands. Which of those will burn with intensity 32 years hence?
This picture is from the NY kickoff for the tour.
Warped Tour Columbia Meadows http://www.warpedtour.com/ Ticket details to follow
You can have it all - beauty and clarity - Edward Tufte on Information Design July 17
See "Presenting Data and Information" by Yale emeritus professor Edward Tufte in Portland. I have attended the seminar and recommend it. Tufte is highly engaging, you will not be bored for a moment, and will take away many ideas which you can apply to presenting information on your projects.
Tufte's thesis is that in order to make decisions based on complex data, it needs to be presented clearly, not simplified to the point of stupidity. Tufte illustrates his ideas with innumerable examples, including some of the earliest movable type books on science. In the seminar I took, his white gloved assistants circulate by every attendee, so you can see the first editions of Galileo, Euclid and Newton, 4-500 years old, some with little pop up 3d cutouts! He also presents case studies where the failure to communicate information clearly has lead to disastrous consequences, for example, presentations made to support subsequently lost space shuttle launches, the Challenger and the Columbia (1,2). You may be surprised that Tufte is critical of PowerPoint, and how it is typically used. (David Byrne, who went to art school at RISD, produced a somewhat tongue in cheek counter critique of Tufte in a book of Powerpoint art entitled Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information.)
Tufte is author of 3 major books: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information & Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. You may find them locally to get an idea of Tufte's range or review excerpts on Amazon.com. These are handsome coffee table books, and may be helpful in explaining to your grandparents what you do in an engaging way.
If you take the course, the books are included, along with a chart produced in 1869 clearly illustrating factors leading to the failure of Napoleon's march on Moscow of 1812. That chart is way, way cooler than it sounds. (The width of the line represents the number of soldiers in Napoleon's army mapped geographically on their march. The bottom scale shows the drop in temperature, from freezing to -22F, and the resulting loss of life as the army retreated. Of 442,000 who crossed the border in today's Lithuania, 10,000 returned. War, sad as always...)
The class is $360. Groups of 10 or more registering together save 25%. Full time students may attend for $180. Note the books alone would cost $147. Registration and more detail on the content of the course is available at http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/courses
Info on the location is available upon registration. The last time it was in a big room in the Convention Center, so get there early for a seat up front.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
June Ends
This is little catch up on a few shows running through the end of the month...
At Stumptown downtown, photographer John Valls shows Cuba: a first look. His candid style, large format prints do not immediately telegraph the locale. This was Valls' aim. There are innumerable recognizable images of old Havana, with its buildings decaying in a tropical climate and '50's American cars, the ultimate icon of America's lost manufacturing might. Valls avoids this pitfall, focusing on people, who are really any country's ultimate value. The images effectively use a saturated Kodacolor palate and the exposure's depth of field to produce tender pictures. At Blue Sky, this work would be black and white, it would also have much less impact. For the print size, the prices are reasonable, here's hoping that public art programs, food businesses or a Cuban restaurant buys some. Here's also hoping that the artist gets down an editioning strategy and gallery shows. www.johnvalls.com Stumptown SW 3rd
I initially was not excited about James Riswold's show at Augen. He has created a large format print of DaVinci's The Last Supper as a paint by number canvas. I'm unsure Riswold calculated the pop culture relevance in advance, but there you have it. The work goes beyond the "one hit wonder - one idea artwork" weakness of much art. Paint by number is a conceptually rich metaphor, and the work is just fun to look at in the unpainted print form. Decide for yourself. http://www.augengallery.com/Artists/riswold.html Augen Gallery 817 SW 2nd
June 30
The art museum is free Friday June 30
At Stumptown downtown, photographer John Valls shows Cuba: a first look. His candid style, large format prints do not immediately telegraph the locale. This was Valls' aim. There are innumerable recognizable images of old Havana, with its buildings decaying in a tropical climate and '50's American cars, the ultimate icon of America's lost manufacturing might. Valls avoids this pitfall, focusing on people, who are really any country's ultimate value. The images effectively use a saturated Kodacolor palate and the exposure's depth of field to produce tender pictures. At Blue Sky, this work would be black and white, it would also have much less impact. For the print size, the prices are reasonable, here's hoping that public art programs, food businesses or a Cuban restaurant buys some. Here's also hoping that the artist gets down an editioning strategy and gallery shows. www.johnvalls.com Stumptown SW 3rd
I initially was not excited about James Riswold's show at Augen. He has created a large format print of DaVinci's The Last Supper as a paint by number canvas. I'm unsure Riswold calculated the pop culture relevance in advance, but there you have it. The work goes beyond the "one hit wonder - one idea artwork" weakness of much art. Paint by number is a conceptually rich metaphor, and the work is just fun to look at in the unpainted print form. Decide for yourself. http://www.augengallery.com/Artists/riswold.html Augen Gallery 817 SW 2nd
June 30
The art museum is free Friday June 30
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
June 24: Bus Project Party
Portland's poltical subcultures are varied. High tech neo libertarians, cobb building city repairators, salmon saving watershed activists, sustainability wizards, tree hugger-climbers, peak oilers, more, I'm sure. One fun group is the Bus Project. They are not afraid to play to win in the conventional system of electoral politics. They travel around the state in their biodiesel-fueled silver tour bus, registering voters in key districts, and then on election day, they get them to vote. Their guiding principle is the Dean Axiom - that elections are determined by disenchanted non-voters in their 20's. For all this hard work door to door, they celebrate yearly, and raise operating funds, with a bash.
The party Drive begins at 6 with a VIP event, then gets fully in gear at 8 with bands Liv and the Warfield Project, The Retrofits, Justin Carroll and the Time Being as well as Calvin Johnson. Later mad dancing ensues with DJ’s Ben and Ravi. They will also show the results of their competition to make a video about the Bus.
6PM VIP Event $125, 8PM Party $18/9 students at Machineworks warehouse NW 14th and Marshall
The party Drive begins at 6 with a VIP event, then gets fully in gear at 8 with bands Liv and the Warfield Project, The Retrofits, Justin Carroll and the Time Being as well as Calvin Johnson. Later mad dancing ensues with DJ’s Ben and Ravi. They will also show the results of their competition to make a video about the Bus.
6PM VIP Event $125, 8PM Party $18/9 students at Machineworks warehouse NW 14th and Marshall
June 24: Tibetan Medicine Documentary
Filmmaker Heather Harlow/ Red Door Films presents her documentary in progress, Balancing the Elements: Tibetan Medicine in Exile. Tibet has a long continuous culture which was preserved by its monasteries. Their medical system is said to descend from the Buddha's medical teachings of about 500BC and is formalized in the rGyud-bzhi, books of 156 chapters and 5900 verses. The Tibetan system of medicine proposes an ideal balance of body elements. Imbalances caused by lifestyle, diet, the environment, spirits and negative thoughts lead to ill health. The root of all diseases are said to be the three mental poisons: desire, hatred and confusion. Tibetan practitioners diagnose patients by pulse (as in Chinese medicine), and examination of the tongue, skin, eyes, ears and gait. Though Tibetan physicians did not have access to the scientific method and the useful aspects of Descartes' reductionism, their emphasis on the impact of mental processes on the immune system is spot on. In the West, the most accessible book on Tibetan medicine (though ponderously encyclopedic) is Health Through Balance: An Introduction to Tibetan Medicine by Yeshi Donden, personal physician to the Dali Lama. No word on admission yet, but I'm sure if you have some extra cash they could use it to fininsh the film.
At Rake Art 325 NW 6th 7PM
At Rake Art 325 NW 6th 7PM
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
June 22 - Match of the Millenium: Art vs Advertising
EBay Power Seller Andrew Dickson, Portland filmmaker, EBay performance artist and one half of creative power coupleTM with craft star Susan Stars, speaks on "Art vs Advertising". You, the audience, carry on the debate. Come prepared to mark your territory. Did I mention that the debate will be fueled by free PBR, who, along with the Portland Advertising Federation, is sponsoring the event? PBR's lack of advertising has fueled its indy cred, now it's gingerly experimenting with Portland promotions.
In Portland, where everyone is creative, this question is no joke. Sell out? Send work your artist friends way? Support a family? One band, their song becoming an ad soundtrack, explained "it's not whether you sell out, it's when".
A famous example was the fallout from the use of the Verve song "Bittersweet Symphony" (1997). The band was condemned harshly for the use of the song in a shoe commercial. In fact, the band had lost ownership of their song to the evil Rolling Stones, who claimed a licensed sample in the song was too long. Over Verve's objection, the song was sold by the Stones and the band didn't get a cent.Dickson will review examples of collaboration and antagonism between artists and advertisers. After presenting "EBay Power Seller" performances, Dickson himself was tapped by a local ad agency to create a character for a campaign by a big shoe company. Other artists have rejected corporate collaboration. The ultimate example - Adbusters, where artists and agency creatives working on the sly, produce work that is copied widely in the industry it disses.
An interesting historical perspective is offered in the book Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counter Culture and the Rise of Hip Consumerism by Baffler editor Thomas Frank.
Thursday June 22 at Disjecta 230 E Burnside Doors and taps open 5:45, match at 6:30 $10 Disjecta members, else $15 probably 21+
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