It's been a week but Portland artist Scott Wayne Indiana has some nice dada ball pictures on his site of people he knows and doesn't know. PICA's dada ball is Portland's ultimate art party, although calling it a "surreal" experience of course isn't quite historically correct. Although dada and surrealism were related, they weren't the same and dada was in many ways the more serious and radical movement, whereas surrealism was more about public scandal (which in many ways seems less radical to us after watching Michael Jackson's life unfold). The later surrealists included Andre Breton and Jean Arp (who was also a dadaist just to make things more confusing and therefore more interesting) etc.

Next big art party is the opening of the Affair @ the Jupiter hotel art fair this Friday and then the opening of the Portland Art Museum on Saturday the 1st of October. Pfeeewwwww it's a busy fun time in Portland. For our readers from far away, we now have Jet Blue in Portland... get on it if you want to have a fun art weekend totally unlike LA and New York. Different is good.

Jeff, it seems like in the midst of writing “witty” copy I chose a complicated adjective to describe a party. While derived from the word Surrealism - marking a movement as you point out - separate and distinct from Dada, the word does indeed have a secondary meaning: "dreamlike". For those who attended the Dada Ball I think the term dreamlike is quite appropriate. For some the party was a nightmare and for others a dream come true. Either way the fluttering of art historical correctives that have cropped up- in defense of Dada and/or clarity are duly noted.

Next year I’ll leave the art speak out of it and just talk about all the naked revelers.

KK