August 9-12 Converge 45 Opens

Converge 45 is a Portland visual art event with strong curation. It was created to bring internationally acclaimed contemporary artists to Portland. It was created to create interactions between noted Portland artists and international artists. It was designed in an arc around curator Kristy Edmunds. This is the culmination of that arc for you to see.

The acclaimed guest artists have never had major shows in Portland. Ann Hamilton in a lyric minimal installationist. I've found her works simple and rich enough to not require an idea to stand on their own. For instance, Accountings, at the Henry, engaged textures underfoot, the smell of wax, and the sound of birds along with obsessively labored visual elements, the movement of birds, their droppings and South American ritual objects. Seattle has always had more commissioning resources and they have been working with Hamilton on another big project on the pier. Portland gets a more modest variation of her Armory project Event of a Thread https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fJ4umqXGjM: a series of swings activating curtains of shear cloth amidst poetic sound recordings. That evolved into Habitus, with an open source of collected readings, https://habitus-a-commonplace.tumblr.com/. Habitus is installed at the Centennial Mills ruin. It opens 2PM-5 Friday, followed by a talk 6:30 at Reed. The installation is open Friday – Sunday, 3PM-7, August 10 – September 16. Free. That area is not convenient for parking, so consider walking, biking and transit.

Jenny Holzer is a minimal word artist. She made the LED reader board her canvas akin to Barbra Krugers Life Magazine style printed word works. She has expanded her material canvas to architectural projections, billboard trucks and words on graffiti-style canvases. Her early work was aphorism-inspired; it's sharpened its political and social point over time. This show is a large collection of prints lent by the Jordan Schnitzer museum.It opens Thursday 5PM-7 with the artist speaking at 6. It is at PNCA and viewable PNCA gallery hours after. All free.

King School Museum of Contemporary Art has an international exhibition opening in the 15 NE Hancock apace Friday 4PM-7.

There are other free events through the weekend on the project website.

Converge 45, converge45.org. Various locations and times. Free

August 5 Together

Putting Itself Together is a show by Justin Caguiat, Indah Datau, Phil Davis and Sara Malpass. It's curated by recent art school grads Jenni Crain and Lydia Glenn-Murray. At Chicken Coop Contemporary www.chickencoopcontemporary.com 12400 SE Knapp 5PM-8 Free

August 4 Robot Uprising

Artists are the original and continuing technologists. Consider DaVinci. It goes back to the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Mesopotamians and Chinese. It goes back before them. In the current era, artists were early adopters of electronic sound, film and video.

So it's no surprise Dutch recent art school grads Marie Caye and Arvid Jense have a hackathon today with the readout tonight. The project theme is artificial intelligence and autonomous machines.

Sensory Performance at Blanc Space 215 SE 9th Ave, Studio 307 7PM Free

August 2 Westside Art Openings+

Many galleries are doing group shows. By coincidence, many of tonight's interesting shows close early at 8. Some are on the Eastside.



Grace Weston is a portland photographer known for constructing miniature dioramas and photographing them with short depth of field lenses. Many have the Lensbaby or plastic camera look of the center in focus and the surround in vague focus. Escaping Gravity is her first large scale installation, inspired by "loss, liberation and water." It will be exciting to see the result as she occupies the Nine Gallery.

In Blue Sky proper, Julie Anand and Damon Sauer have Ground Truth, photographs of 1960's era surveillance satellite ground targets from the Corona Project. The 60 foot diameter targets were used to calibrate spy satellite images of the Soviet Union and China. The satellites used film at about 170 megapixel resolution and up to 1.8 meter ground resolution, which was retrieved by airplanes capturing falling capsules. Light: On the South Side are 1970's candid portraits by Michael Abramson exposed in Chicago night clubs.

At Blue Sky Gallery www.blueskygallery.org Map 122 NW 8th 6PM-9 Free



Willie Little turned his communication degree into an art career combining the visual language of self-taught Southern artists with social commentary on our country's racial injustices, continuing. He also makes abstract paintings. Growing up in North Carolina, he now moves his residence and art career to Portland, Oregon, where we could use some help we don't think we need. He gave a talk on his work and move to Portland: https://vimeo.com/254145376. At Froelick Gallery www.froelickgallery.com 714 NW Davis early close 8PM Free



Hello! Good Morning! and Cargo bring a pop up of Tokyo's Tambourin Gallery. We are missing Matt Wagner's curation, this is likely a narrower, less edge, range of work. Cargo's show is Sunday 81 SE Yamhill 2PM-6. Both Eastside. At www.hellogoodmorningkids.com 2419 NE Broadway early close 4PM-8 Free



Claire Fontaine is an artist duo, British and Italian, working in Paris. They adopt conceptual and readymade tactics. Same War Time Zone is a pair of clocks representing the people of Gaza separated from the people of Israel by a wall. The floor of the gallery is papered with news, printed on paper. The artists usually operate in museums, so this show is special for Portland. At Williamson|Knight williamsonknight.com 916 NW Flanders 6pm-8 early close Free



Upfor has a 5 year anniversary show. They have good curation. If you are not familiar with them, it is a good opportunity to see their range. At UpFor Gallery www.upforgallery.com 929 NW Flanders early close 6PM-8 Free



P:ear has Inner Landscapes by Jeff Leake. He works with neuroscientists to study neuroaesthetics. At P:ear www.pearmentor.org 338 NW 6th early close 5PM-8 Free



Butters has a 30th anniversary group exhibition by gallery artists Katherine Levin-Lau, Julie Rall, Dorothy Goode, Ted Katz, Debra Van Tuinen, Jeffrey Butters, Andrea Schwartz-Feit, Susan Hall, Mark Rediske, Axel Breutigam, Fred Holcomb and more. Eastside. At Butters Gallery www.buttersgallery.com 157 NE Grand Early close 6PM-8 Free



Everett Lofts are recommended as always. It's easier for you to see them all than for me to write suggestions. Some close as early as 9PM. At the Everett Lofts 625 NW Everett. Bounded by NW Everett, Broadway, Flanders and 6th Map closing ranges from 9PM-10ish Free



The Ace Hotel has a First Thursday experimental music event curated by Sounds et al. It pairs well with Veriform's sound gallery First Thursday, but it detracts from people flowing to galleries and it is a very small space. This month: Szymon Kaliski and Amulets. In the Ace Hotel Lobby 1022 SW Stark 6PM-8 Free

July 26 Secrets

Fin de Cinema live has the animated short films of Czech director Jiri Barta. www.holocene.org/event/1713643-fin-de-cinema-short-films-portland/ at Holocene 1001 SE Morrison. Doors 8PM, show 9. $10

July 25 Broad Band

Claire Evans reads from her book Broad Band: The Untold Story of Women Who Made the Internet. We are hoping for a volume 2, including Anita Borg, Deborah Estrin, Adelle Goldberg, Lucy Suchman, Lynn Conway, Lixia Zhang, Barbara Simons, Monique Morrow and many others. Our standards processes and research leadership benefit from women being involved. More, please. At Powell's 3rd floor. www.powells.com. 10th and W Burnside 7:30PM Free

July 21 You Graf First

YU has commissioned and loaned art by Irish artist Cathy Wilkes. It's an impressive undertaking by YU - Wilkes is the British contribution to the Venice Biennale and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2008. She makes large installations including figures which would be at home on a life-size Laika set, and paints. The artist studios in the building are also open. Recommended. At Yu Contemporary Art www.yucontemporary.org 900 SE 10th. 4PM-6 Free



The Portland Street Art Alliance and For the Love, and Bridges throw down at Taylor Electric today. The burned warehouse ruin is a parking lot with one of the few active legal graf spots. Painting, breaking, MC, DJ, food, drink. www.TaylorElectricProject.org at Taylor Electric 240 SE Clay. Noon-10PM $5



Pop up gallery First Brick has Jodie Cavalier and Alex Deets. There may be music and a fashion show. Deets: www.instagram.com/the_envelope_pdx/. At The Envelope 5430 N Mississippi. 6PM-8 Free

July 18 Object Artifacts

Rose Dickson is a minimal artist in a variety of mediums. She speaks about her process and narrative. Sponsored by the Portland Art Museum Photography Council. It's a brown bag lunch in the Miller Room (first floor to the right in the lobby of the former the Masonic temple) of the Mark Building. 1219 SW Park Noon Free

July 7 OV

Martina de Porres and Lucas Argento have a show. It is at the always recommended OV Project Space, a gallery in the basement of a home, Portland style-y. At OV Project Space 7604 SE Washington 8PM-11 Free

July 6 Eastside Art Openings

Nationale has an unusual first Friday opening tonight. It is paintings Cover Up by Sarah Mikenis. Bright and Summery, using found fabric as canvas. At Nationale www.nationale.us 3360 SE Division Map 6PM-8 Free



True Measure is the artist studio Jesse Reno and Melissa Monroe. They are doing more shows of guest artists, including this month's Skate X Collage, a group show with Matt Mercurio, Jeremy Pegg, Ryan Bodiroga, Corey Lee Nicholson, Skip Marcotte, Jacob Silberger-Franek, Phonkadelic, Scott Majors, Paul Fujita and Rob Rodgers. At True Measure truemeasuregallery.com 3022 E Burnside 6PM-10 Free



Meryl Pataky has neon along with abstract landscapes - Crumbling Castles by Adam Friedman. At Stephanie Chefas Projects www.stephaniechefas.com 305 SE 3rd Ave #202 - the City Sign Building, formerly a low cost artist space Map. 7PM-10 Free



Finding Figures is a show of figurative approaches Gracie Ellison, Pace Taylor, Nicolo Gentile. At Project Object projectobject.co 2502 NE Sandy Blvd. 5PM-8 Free



The 811 is a retail destination sometimes with art to explore. A fun thing this evening is a plant exchange hosted by Haunt. At Haunt www.hauntstudio.blogspot.com 811 E Burnside Suite #113 7PM-9 Free



Black Box has group show Camera Work: Landscape and Architecture. At Black Box Gallery www.blackboxgallery.com 811 E Burnside, Suite 212 upstairs Early close 5PM-8 Free


All at 811 East Burnside Map



Eutectic has a show of functional pots for food. At Eutectic Gallery www.eutecticgallery.com 1930 NE Oregon 6PM-9 Free

July 5 Westside Art Openings

Many galleries are doing group shows or carrying over this month as the dog days arrive early.



Jerry Mayer and Ellen George are a Portland art couple known for their minimal sculpture work solo and duo. Mayer is one of the founding members of the Nine space within Blue Sky. Nine has been operating for 10 years in its current space, before that in the Solheim building. In most galleries, the walls are patched and painted between shows. Ten years of patching and painting have left some bumps and binks in the walls of the Nine. In Here, the artists have outlined the scars in pencil.

In Blue Sky proper, Pedro David has Hardwood, documenting eucalyptus plantations in Brazil and Alia Ali has Borderlands.

At Blue Sky Gallery www.blueskygallery.org Map 122 NW 8th 6PM-9 Free



Eva Lake in s Portland artist nee New York. She has done op art paintings. She has also done some pretty handsome collages. Her newest are an Egypt series, combining dynastic imagery with images of women. At Augen Gallery www.augengallery.com 716 NW Davis early close 8PM Free



Everett Lofts are recommended as always. It's easier for you to see them all than for me to write suggestions. Some close as early as 9PM. At the Everett Lofts 625 NW Everett. Bounded by NW Everett, Broadway, Flanders and 6th Map closing ranges from 9PM-10ish Free



The Ace Hotel has a First Thursday experimental music event curated by Sounds et al. It pairs well with Veriform's sound gallery First Thursday, but it detracts from people flowing to galleries and it is a very small space. This month: Invisible Cities and Jonathan Sielaff. In the Ace Hotel Lobby 1022 SW Stark 6PM-8 Free

June 30 Seedy

Albina is one of Portland's oldest neighborhoods and was an independent city at one time. It's been thoroughly destroyed by highways, railroads and access to the river blocked by large industrial facilities and ruins. It's polluted too. There are a few old buildings in the neighborhood for a sense of what was: the old Widmer building, Beam and Anchor, some buildings on Russell, the old Ripe Family Dinner building, and some are artist work spaces. The North Coast Seed Building is one, a complex of artist studios in Albina. Today is their annual open studios, most of the artists open their studios. They also have a large solar array on the roof! Strongly recommended. May not be perfectly wheel chair accessible. At 2127 N. Albina Noon-8 Free

June 28 On Film

Tatsuo Takei is an Osaka-based surfing photographer who travels the world shooting on film. If you have seen the film Endless Summer, his work has that feel. He drops his book Authentic Wave in Portland tonight. It is a history of classic longboard surfing. He has been traveling to California for 20 years and living the #vanlife for three months a year shooting it.

He has worked hard to find the 60's cars and casual shots that make the best surfing seem effortless. The film is graded to the classic Kodachrome and very noisy Tri-X vintage look. He shoots Super 8 and stills on vintage cameras too. The film version of Authentic Wave has a pretty goofy 50s-60s jiggly jangly soundtrack. It's a great complement to his short on surfer Tommy Witt.

At Leeward, 2504 NE Sandy 7PM Free

June 23 Home School Field Day

Field Day is an arts event, primarily performance, organized by Home School. All the infos, there's a lot: http://homeschoolpdx.tumblr.com/. At Reed College 3203 SE Woodstock 2PM-8 Free

June 22-23 A Hiddur Mitzvah: My Own Saviour, I Do

A Hiddur Mitzvah: My Own Saviour, I Do is a 24 hour media installation by Kello Goeller. It is her personal impressionist meditation on the 24 hour (x 7 x 365 x hope it ends soon!) media culture.

Seminal cultural theorist Bill McKibben, with a career spanning the New Yorker and 350.org, undertook a similar labor with his 1992 Age of Missing Information project. Since, the media has greatly perfected its hooks, daggers, triggers and assault on privacy as well as assault on identity.

Goeller's project is more Joycean, filtered through the lens of a working media art maker in today's culture. The source material is primarily a long accumulation of artist-made source footage, not commercial footage.

Goeller brings the Jewish spiritual philosophy practice of hiddur mitzvah to the making and viewing the video. It is a sharpening and deepening exercise. The 25 hour event is contextualized within the tradition of Sabbath and the ritual of Shabbat.

Friday at 8:45PM ritual candles will be enflamed and blessings over bread and wine entoned. Then there will be a short performance by Goeller. The 24 hour video begins at 9PM. Ending the cycle Saturday at 9PM there will be a one hour discussion with the artist.

Goeller is a great experimental artist. We are always excited when they make larger projects with funding and collaborators. Sight unseen, this might be an example.

The exhibit space requests you contact them by private message ahiddurmitzvah@gmail.com to experience the installation late night or morning. The venue has stairs. Please contact as soon as you can for ADA accessibility.

It is in a private residence.

At My Apartment Wall http://www.megangraceharned.com/my-apartment-wall/ 6804 SE Pardee 8:45PM Friday to 10PM Saturday

June 22 Meet Brand Colors

Where We Meet is a show of artists Ektor Garcia and Pei-Hsuan Wang guest curated by Little Rock's Good Weather Gallery. The Chicken Coop Gallery openings are leisurely and a good opportunity for conversation and a snack. At Chicken Coop Contemporary www.chickencoopcontemporary.com 12400 SE Knapp 5PM-8 Free



Vala Rae is a collaborative exhibition and brand launch by Jessie Rose Vala and Emily Rae Counts of functional ceramics. At Dust to Dust http://dusttodust.space 3636B N Mississippi - inside Beacon Sound Map 6PM-8 Free



Colors So True is the first solo exhibition by photographer Clifford Prince King from LA. At Melanie Flood Projects, www.melaniefloodprojects.com 420 SW Washington St #301 6PM-8 Free

June 21 The Bern

Amy Bernstein is a smart arts writer and a unique painter. Tonight she is the guest artist selecting a work at the Portland Art Museum and discussing her response to it. The event is limited to an intimate group, so suggest getting tickets on the Art Museum website in advance. At the Portland Art Museum 1219 SW Park. 6PM-8 $5 members, $19.99 non-members (includes museum admission)

June 9 La La Land

LA is strongly connected with the emergence of Pop Surrealism - Lowbrow Art - at La Luz de Jesus Gallery and 01. The expansion of that movement of primarily self taught artists-illustrators is the "New Contemporary Art" movement promoted by Culver City's Thinkspace, and is closely connected with Juxtapoz Magazine. Hi Fructose travels the same terrain. Thinkspace has been guesting itself into cities around the world to promote the movement. Thinkspace frames it as the West Coast vs the "rabid ‘conceptual-turn’" in East Coast art. Most of the art is presented without narrative.

The LA/PDX show includes 80 artists promoted by the gallery, and includes some Portlanders. But the style will be familiar from Backspace, Jason Brown at Goodfoot, Playground PDX, Compound and Hellion.

LA/PDX www.antlerpdx.com/pages/laxpdx at Antler Gallery www.antlerpdx.com 2728 NE Alberta 6PM-11 Free

June 8 Expired Research

Lisa Radon is a Portland writer, poet and artist. She has Research and Development, sculptures and a reading. It is the result of her residency at ANX which offers access to otherwise very difficult to engage fabrication facilities. At adxportland.com ANX Gallery 1015 SE Stark 6:30PM Free



Grapefruits has been having a good run with guest curators. This is that, Expired Recollection, photographs by Lula Durango and Roman Lopez. There will be live music at the opening too. At Grapefruits Art Space, 2119 N. Kerby Ave., Suite D, grapefruitsartspace.org 6PM-9 Free

June 7 Portland Chinatown Museum

The Portland Chinatown Museum opens tonight with a photography show by Dean Wong. Raised in Seattle's Chinatown as second generation, he is the first artist in residence at the Portland Chinatown Museum. He is also the creator of the book Seeing the Light: Four Decades in Chinatown. More on the photographer: www.thestranger.com/visual-art/2016/08/22/24492606/dean-wong-has-been-the-portraitist-of-chinatown-for-four-decadesand-he-is-so-not-done and lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/why-chinatown-still-matters/.

Recommended. At the Portland Chinatown Museum https://www.portlandchinatownmuseum.org/ 127 NW 3rd. 4PM-8 early close Free