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Portland art blog + news + exhibition reviews + galleries + contemporary northwest art
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Friday 10.30.09 An interview with Tom Cramer  Tom Cramer, September 2009 Somewhat predictably, Tom Cramer's most recent show is his best to date (and it ends October 31st). It is an inventive mixture of cosmic energy, German Romanticism and hard nosed discipline, which helps make his work both unique and exquisite. In fact, for at least the last decade Tom Cramer has been Portland's best selling artist and what's more with his art cars, murals and totem statuary, no artist is more ubiquitous. Perhaps no artist represents Portland's character more, being at once both hermetic and brash, Cramer embraces the contradictions of making "earthier" art that is anything if not transcendent. He's also a bridge between the Portland artists of the 60's and the latest tidal wave young émigrés and was way overdue for an interview with PORT. We interviewed him in his North Portland home and here's what Portland's all but official artist laureate had to say.  ...(more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on October 30, 2009 at 15:51 | Comments (1) Permalinklectures  Ryan Pierce, "Comet" PORTstar Ryan Pierce is speaking tomorrow in conjunction with his show Written From Exile at Elizabeth Leach. Artist lecture • 11am • October 31 Elizabeth Leach Gallery • 417 NW 9th • 503.224.0521 (More: Vicki Halper for Craft Perspectives, Chris Knight at Clark College, The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Editorial Collective at PSU.) Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 30, 2009 at 15:30 | Comments (0) PermalinkThursday 10.29.09 ornaments and patterns  The fourth lecture in UO's School of Architecture and Allied Arts ongoing Machine in the Garden series is happening tomorrow. George Gessert will present Ornamental Plant Breeding for the 21st Century. Gessert is a writer and author on art and genetics whose book, Green Light: Toward an Art of Evolution is coming soon from MIT Press. In his lecture, Gessert will discuss "past and current uses of biotechnology to create new kinds of ornamental plants... Engineered ornamentals such as the red iris raise many questions, but he will focus on just one: what aesthetic criteria or assumptions are shaping the new plants?" Artist lecture • 12-1pm • October 30 University of Oregon White Stag Building • 70 Couch St. • Event Room Also happening at UO White Stag this weekend: The start of the 2009 Fall PUARL symposium touching on "the theories of Patterns and Pattern Languages." PUARL is the "Portland Urban Architecture Research Laboratory." The symposium will be kicked off by a public presentation & panel by Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein, Max Jacobson, and Ingrid King, authors of A Pattern Language. (Note: the presentation will be preceded by welcomes and introductions at 5pm and followed by a reception at 8:20pm.) Visit the PUARL website for more info on the symposium. Lecture & Panel • 7pm • October 30 University of Oregon White Stag Building • 70 Couch St. • Event Room Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 29, 2009 at 13:59 | Comments (0) PermalinkWednesday 10.28.09 Last Thursday Picks October 2009  Appendix presents Benjamin Young's installation Material Affair. "In collaboration with collected materials, Young sculpturally explores the tension, process, and ecology of synthesized form." Opening reception • 6-11pm • October 29 Appendix Project Space • South alley b/w 26th and 27th on NE Alberta St. • appendixspace@gmail.com  Jason Doizé False Front presents Jason Doizé's Hikikomori. Inspired by a found online confession, Doizé began to explore the Japanese concept of Hikikomori, or acute social withdrawal. Doizé's artistic take on the phenomenon asks the question: "To what degree do we open our 'little home boxes' we inhabit and allow others in? Maybe the idea of shutting-in isn't foreign at all. Maybe in the end we're all hikikomori." Opening reception • 6-10pm • October 29 False Front Studio • 4518 NE 32nd • jasondoize@mac.com Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 28, 2009 at 8:11 | Comments (0) PermalinkTuesday 10.27.09 Taking Full Stock of the Portland art scene, Part I "The goal of our intellectual efforts cannot be a static, polished possession...In our many efforts toward knowledge, science, math, logic as in life itself, it is the process, not the terminus, that should concern us - if we are wise." Bruce Aune Rationalism, Empiricism, and Pragmatism The fall season is in full swing, I've been here a little over a decade now and PORT is heading towards its 5th anniversary, so it seems like an opportune time to take full stock of the development of the Portland art scene. Part I is general and interrelated (nine ways to improve, Portland as a model city, and our recent past). Part II will be more specific, discussing artists - young, mid-career and old - different types of institutions, etc.  Broadcast at Lewis and Clark College (Dara Birnbaum's Hostage, 1994, in background)  Rose McCormick's Grande Ronde concluded NAAU's Couture series last weekend There have been many excellent shows this season so far, including Rose McCormick's Grand Ronde, Broadcast at Lewis & Clark, Tom Cramer at Laura Russo, Jesse Hayward & Ethan Rose at TBA, Jordan Tull at Littlefield, Vanessa Renwick at Blue Sky, Ryan Pierce at Elizabeth Leach, and Processions at PSU, plus China Design Now and Raphael's Valeta at the Portland Art Museum. Portland definitely has a strong scene by anyone's standards, but it's not without its challenges. Only recently have our two top visual arts institutions (PAM and PNCA) embarked on serious campaigns with major donor education components. With PNCA celebrating its centennial this month, it's important to remember that they were the same entity a mere decade and a half ago and that only recently have the two organizations concentrated heavily on endowments and legacy gifts. The situation reminds me of the odd and sometimes beautiful combination of youth and age I come across in Portland. Now we seem to be at a tipping point where Portland could be more than just a great place for artists and become a better place for art. It's a subtle distinction that everyone should be considering..... (much more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on October 27, 2009 at 14:13 | Comments (2) PermalinkChina Architecture Now  Architecture by Yung Ho Chang Architect Yung Ho Chang is lecturing this week at PAM in conjunction with the ongoing China Design Now exhibition. In China Architecture Now Chang will discuss "how the rapid changes in contemporary China's economy, mobility and consumerism are profoundly affecting architectural practice in the country." Chang is founding head of the Graduate Center of Architecture at Peking University and co-founder, with his wife Lijia Lu, of Atelier Feichange Jianzhu. He is also currently the head of the MIT Department of Architecture. Architecture lecture • 7pm • October 29 Portland Art Museum • 1219 SW Park • 503.226.2811 Update: Backroompdx is hosting a dinner conversation with Yung Ho Chang this Friday. Tickets ($65/e) are still available. More info on their website. Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 27, 2009 at 12:47 | Comments (0) PermalinkMonday 10.26.09 artists needed The Trim/Vojdani Gallery at p:ear, "a nonprofit program that builds positive relationships with homeless and transitional youth... through education, art and recreation," is seeking artists for their regional juried exhibition. This year's holiday season show is called "12 Days of P:ear" and will feature up to 12 artists. Submissions are due by November 6. More info on the exhibition and submission requirements on their website.
The Mount Hood Community College's student literary magazine Perceptions is seeking submissions from artists, writers, photographers, videographers, and musicians. You don't have to be affiliated with the school. The open call is through January 15, 2010. Please contact Jonathan Morrow of the English department for more details. Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 26, 2009 at 10:52 | Comments (0) PermalinkFriday 10.23.09 Processions: an Elaborative Cartography at PSU  Processions: an Elaborative Cartography (detail) For the past few months a group of artists consisting of; Maggie Casey, Zachary Davis, Joshua Pavlacky and Benjamin Young has demanded increasing attention in the Portland art scene by opening an unlikely space in a garage. It is called Appendix and it's just off Alberta Street. Though always experimental, their earlier site specific exhibitions at Appendix Gallery and Tractor have ranged from promising to some of the best of the year. But the thing that really got my attention was... (more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on October 23, 2009 at 23:59 | Comments (0) Permalinkthe masters  Raphael, "La Donna Velata or La Velata (The Woman with the Veil)," c.1516 PAM presents Raphael's Woman With a Veil, on view October 24 - January 3, 2010. On loan from the Medici collection, the museum will be showing "one of the most important paintings of the Renaissance" alone for your curiosity and contemplation. Exhibition • October 24, 2009 - January 3, 2010 Portland Art Museum • 1219 SW Park • 503.226.2811  Francisco Goya y Lucientes, "The sleep of reason produces monsters," c.1798 Reed College is bringing David Rosand to speak on Things Never Seen: Graphic Fantasy and the Dreaming Draftsman. The lecture, happening in conjunction with the Cooley Gallery's ongoing The Language of the Nude: Four Centuries of Drawing the Human Body exhibition, will "address a basic tenet in the long tradition of Western aesthetics: the distinction between fantasia and mimesis." Rosand is a professor of art history at Columbia who specializes in Renaissance visual culture. Art history lecture • 7pm • October 26 Reed College • 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd. • Vollum lecture hall Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 23, 2009 at 13:26 | Comments (1) PermalinkPortland art scene in National Geographic Traveler Ok, the good news is its not yet another NY/LA times travel story on Portland
but the November/December
issue of National Geographic Traveler does a similar tour. Not really a big deal and none of
this is new to anyone who lives here, but it was nice that they discussed the
Pearl District, PNCA and the Everett Station Lofts. Congrats to ON gallery and
Portland's Susan
Seubert who got to do the photos. Art is turning into a major industry in
this city. Most interesting it discusses Portland as a "model city"
... something we need to take much more seriously here. Always interesting to see how the world views Portland and compare it to how Portlanders see themselves.
Posted by Jeff Jahn on October 23, 2009 at 11:11 | Comments (5) PermalinkThursday 10.22.09 Blue PLAY  MP5 presents Blue. Curator TJ Norris invited Matthew Haggett, Todd Johnson, and Victor Maldonado to interpret the open theme of "blue" in the lofts. Highlights include Spherelab: Blue, a site-specific installation using adhesive-backed-vinyl applied directly to walls and other surfaces by Haggett, Blue Velvet, a group show interpreting the classic Lynch film organized by Johnson, and a curatorial experiment by Maldonado featuring a collection of "funny, dirty or politically incorrect jokes." The show runs October 24 - December 27, 2009. Opening reception • 7-9pm • October 24 Milepost 5 • 900 NE 81st • 503.998.4878  This Sunday, Disjecta hosts Play, "an evening of interactive installations, performance and single channel screenings." Dustin Zemel and Ben Popp collaborated on an interactive video "environment" headlined by visiting experimental filmmaker Kenny Reed. "Installation, screenings and audio segments offer an intimate showcase and variety of media works exploring image and sound while creating an atmosphere of dialogue, wonder and PLAY." One night interactive installation • 7pm-midnight • October 25 Disjecta • 8371 N Interstate • 503.286.9449 Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 22, 2009 at 12:55 | Comments (0) PermalinkThursday links In case you missed it yesterday on Radio PNCA Modou Dieng interviewed Arnold Kemp, discussing how to make Portland a better art city. I'll be on next November 4th.
Tyler Green talks with MoMA's Connie Butler about Nacy Spero... rest in peace. Remember art fairs and how they were ruining/saving the art world? Well Artnet reports on the latest Frieze over in London. Breaking into the boy's club: In the Guardian Jeanne Gang's new Aqua tower in Chicago is the tallest skyscraper ever designed by a woman (to be built thus far). Not certain if taller is better but in Chicago it's a tradition worth upholding. Posted by Jeff Jahn on October 22, 2009 at 12:02 | Comments (0) PermalinkWednesday 10.21.09 processions  Processions The coordinators of Alberta' Appendix Project Space present Processions: an Elaborative Cartography at PSU's Recess Gallery (dept. of architecture). The work is a collaborative installation by Maggie Casey, Zachary Davis, Joshua Pavlacky and Benjamin Young: "Navigating the topology of the individual, the group, and emergent form, the exhibition is an exploration of process and its structure. Processions is an ecology of making. Composed of a series of hung arcs, each informed by its companion, the resulting structure exists as a material pause in an evolution of possible choices." The artists recommend that viewers show up to the reception promptly, "as the piece is best experienced over the transition from daylight to dusk." Artist talk • 4pm • Shattuck Hall Annex • October 23 Opening reception • 5pm • Shattuck Hall Terrace • October 23 Recess Gallery • Shattuck Hall • 1914 SW Park Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 21, 2009 at 10:24 | Comments (1) PermalinkTuesday 10.20.09 Tuesday ponderings In the NYT's
Karen Rosenberg considers cut paper as art (Tom Friedman, Olafur Elliason
and an absent Yuken Teruya) at the Brad
Cloepfil designed Museum of Art and Design
If Terry Toedtemeier and John Laursen don't win the Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction in the Oregon Book Awards for Wild Beauty I'd be very surprised. Even without the award the book is a legacy that cannot be underestimated. It's simply the most important book to be published in the state in over a decade! Brian Libby discusses this year's AiA Design Awards. Suddenly, architecture in Portland doesn't seem so staid... responsible maybe but not staid no longer. Oh and since the Oregonian still does not have an architecture critic I'm going to declare the obvious, Libby is the architecture critic of record in the state and has been since Randy Gragg left. Posted by Jeff Jahn on October 20, 2009 at 11:27 | Comments (0) Permalinkpnca/ocac lectures  Zahid Sardar Zahid Sardar, author and designer of New Garden Design and San Francisco Modern, is lecturing this week for PNCA & OCAC's MFA in Applied Craft & Design program. Sardar has written and lectured for many years on architecture, interiors, garden design, craft, and design. Scholar lecture • 6:30-7:30pm • October 22 Craft & Design Studios • The Bison Building • 421 NE 10th  Ellen Dissanayake at UW's Burke Museum Ellen Dissanayake will be giving next week's MFA in Applied Craft & Design lecture. Dissanayake is "an independent scholar, author, and lecturer... whose Darwinian viewpoint provides a broader understanding of the arts than is customary in most theoretical approaches: the arts are integral to human nature and they evolved to help individuals adapt to their physical and social environments." Scholar lecture • 6:30-7:30pm • October 29 Craft & Design Studios • The Bison Building • 421 NE 10th Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 20, 2009 at 8:51 | Comments (0) PermalinkMonday 10.19.09 Memory/Frequency at Worksound Memory/Frequency is a tightly curated show that explores cognitive dissonances
and synchronicities through the work of three PNCA professors; Carl Diehl, Lennie
Pitkin and Tracey Cockrell. It's a taut, liminally fringed show at Worksound that
is even more mysterious for the fact that its curator has chosen to remain anonymous.
Rest assured though, whomever put these three in one place definitely knows their
stuff.
 Carl Diehl's Puzzling the Ficto-Quizzical (w/Weird Fiction) digital/electronic video, 2009 photo Jeff Jahn As shows go, Memory/Frequency is uneasy in character but excellent and it is perversely infused with... (more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on October 19, 2009 at 11:58 | Comments (1) Permalinkpecha kucha & art on alberta  MFA in Applied Craft & Design students hard at work, from their blog If you're curious about PNCA & OCAC's new MFA in Applied Craft and Design, here's your chance to get to know the students and their ideas. In conjunction with the ongoing Call + Response exhibition, the Museum of Contemporary Craft, PNCA, and OCAC present a Pecha Kucha-inspired night. Pecha Kucha is "a concept that grew out of the Tokyo design community, featuring a series of concise presentations." MFA in Applied Craft and Design students will present ideas and images in a modified format of roughly 3.5 minutes each. Student presentations • 5:30pm • October 21 Museum of Contemporary Craft • 724 NW Davis • 503.223.2654 Unrelated: Art on Alberta, the organization that coordinates community artistic endeavors in NE Portland, is seeking volunteers. In addition to an open board position, they need an Alberta street historian, an Art on Alberta historian, volunteer writers to contribute to their blog and newsletter, a media assistant, and a gallery assistant. Learn more about these volunteer positions here. Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 19, 2009 at 10:56 | Comments (0) PermalinkFriday 10.16.09 lecture, panel, participation  Tom Cramer's opening Tom Cramer is lecturing this weekend at Laura Russo in conjunction with his ongoing exhibition of new work. Artist lecture • 11am • October 17 Laura Russo Gallery • 805 NW 21st • 503.226.2754  Professor and Composer Ye Xiaogang In China Design Now-related news: PAM is hosting China Music Now, a panel discussion exploring the state of musicians in China. Eric Priest, an assistant professor at the University of Oregon specializing in Chinese intellectual property law, will join Ye Xiaogang, widely regarded as one of the leading composers in China today, to discuss the following questions: "How do musicians in China make a living? Who is their audience? And how is the business of music changing in China?" Panel • 4pm • October 18 Portland Art Museum • 1219 SW Park • 503.226.2811  October's STOCK dinner is happening this weekend. The concept: "Stock is a monthly public dinner event and presentation series, which funds small to medium-sized artist projects. Organized by artists Katy Asher, Amber Bell and Ariana Jacob and hosted by Gallery Homeland in Portland, Oregon, diners pay a modest $10 for a dinner of homemade soup and other local delicacies and the chance to take part in deciding which artist proposal will receive the evening's proceeds. In other words, the dinner's profits immediately become an artists grant, which is awarded according to the choice of the diners. Winning artists will present their completed work at the following Stock dinner." RSVP required! Contact portlandstock@gmail.com. Art dinner • 6-8pm • October 18 Gallery Homeland • 2505 SE 11th • portlandstock@gmail.com Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 16, 2009 at 9:43 | Comments (0) PermalinkThursday 10.15.09 another round of opportunities Beginning with an announcement: In 2010, Disjecta will mount its first biennial survey of Portland contemporary art. Work will be exhibited at Disjecta and the IFCC in spring 2010, and the program is being organized and curated by Linfield director Cris Moss. Studio visits will happen before artist selections are announced, and Moss expects to visit at least 300 studios to select over 20 artists. Stipends will be available. Interested artists should send "full contact information including mailing address, email and phone number, a link to their work, or three attached images to pdx2010@me.com. Ongoing information about the show will be available here.
(Lots more! Salem Art Association, Wall Space/23 Sandy, College Book Art Association, Babelgum Metropolis Art Prize, and Art in Hand.) Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 15, 2009 at 8:29 | Comments (0) PermalinkWednesday 10.14.09 Ugly links Brian Libby goes to "The
Couv" and checks out Maya Lin.
Mighty Toy Cannon considers Portland's Ugly... Is the Portland Building the world's ugliest as some suggest? No, but It is probably the most dated edifice to the 80's I can imagine. On the plus side it has an installation art program with a stipend. I've never seen an installation that actually played off the 80's nostalgia, but someone should. Posted by Jeff Jahn on October 14, 2009 at 10:27 | Comments (1) PermalinkTuesday 10.13.09 art escape  Portland Mural Defense is facilitating Art Spark this month. They'll explore the importance and history of murals in Portland, and muralist Robin Dunitz will be present. Art chat • 5-7pm • October 15 Art Spark @ Zaytoons • 2236 NE Alberta  Gretchen Hogue Ongoing at Ditch Projects: Gretchen Hogue's ESCAPE ROUTES/disposable comfort. "Unearthing new meaning in images pilfered from the detritus bins of the electronic age, ESCAPE ROUTES/disposable comfort constructs psychic landscapes for internal weather patterns. The models from an industrial safety catalog populate a distracted world of imperfect isolation and impenetrable protection. Endless loops trace the pulse of elusive escape routes, plotted and re-plotted, the internal blueprints for self-preservation." Exhibition • October 10-31, 2009 Ditch Projects • 305 S 5th Ave #190 Springfield, OR • info@ditchprojects.com Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 13, 2009 at 12:07 | Comments (0) PermalinkTuesday Links RACC has a brand spanking new
website... the old one was oh so 2001.
The Whitney Museum is moving ahead with their expansion near the High Line. I suppose the recession is over, is Chelsea too? Tyler Green asks the AAMD the tough question about the recent rash of private collector shows in major museums and gets dodged. Can the Barnes really be improved upon... doesn't look like it. Private art collections create special context for themselves and something IS lost irrevocably by trying to popularize something this important. In the case of the Barnes it's context on a level that has no equal. Posted by Jeff Jahn on October 13, 2009 at 11:31 | Comments (2) PermalinkMonday 10.12.09 PAM CHINESE DESIGN PREVIEW: BOLD + RED ALL OVER The opening of China Design Now ushered in a new era for the Portland Art Museum, one where design and an eye on the future join the museum's extensive and longstanding displays of China's past. As THE social event of 2009 the Patron Preview last Friday showed Portland's engagement as a globally active design city and open minded host.
Impressive catering and production design by Vibrant Table Photography by Sarah Henderson - www.sirenapictures.com 
 Luwayne "Buzzy" Sammons ... (much more) Posted by Sarah Henderson on October 12, 2009 at 8:09 | Comments (2) Permalinkon film  Deep Leap Microcinema presents Sign Languages tonight. The films in tonight's screening explore "notions of language, semiotics, translation and communication," featuring work by Stephanie Barber, Les Leveque, Oliver Laric, Ben Russell, Catarina Simoes, James Whipple, Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa, Frank Zadlo, Aleksandra Domanovic, Nathaniel Stern, Diane Borsato, Erik Bünger, and more. Film screening • 9pm • October 12 @ Valentine's • 232 SW Ankeny  The Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society Tomorrow Cinema Project is screening The Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society: Dream Films 1926-1972. Artist and curator Zoe Beloff will present a selection of works from the Freud-inspired Society. "Ranging from the touching to the ecstatic, these amateur films explore the inner lives of Society members and are a true combination of science and spectacle." Film screening • 7:30pm • October 13 • $6 Cinema Project • 11 NW 13th Ave • 4th Floor Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 12, 2009 at 7:48 | Comments (0) PermalinkFriday 10.09.09 China Design NOW  China Design Now exhibition entrance (photo Jeff Jahn) Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you've probably heard that PAM is about to launch China Design Now, a traveling exhibition (from London's Victoria & Albert Museum) on contemporary Chinese design. The show "explores the recent explosion of critically compelling design and architecture projects created in China, contextualizing the impact of rapid economic development on these projects in the country's major cities." In conjunction with the exhibition, many spaces around Portland are hosting Chinese-related exhibitions and events - check out the CDN blog to learn more. The show's opening weekend is being kicked off with two related lectures at the museum. On Saturday, John Jay, global executive creative director of Wieden + Kennedy and founder of their Shanghai office, will present China Youth Now, an exploration of "the latest media, technology, and fashion created to appeal to Chinese youth today." On Sunday, Beth McKillop, director of collections and keeper of the Asian Department at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, will present Creativity in the Era of Globalization, in which she will discuss "the changing economic and cultural contexts that have fueled an explosion of creativity in Chinese graphic design, fashion, and architecture in Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Beijing." Of course, keep an eye on this space for more news & reviews related to CDN. Exhibition • October 10, 2009 - January 17, 2010 Portland Art Museum • 1219 SW Park • 503.226.2811 Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 09, 2009 at 9:24 | Comments (0) PermalinkThursday 10.08.09 Anne Wilson: A Portable Interview  Anne Wilson's Portable City 2008 What do you learn from your students - and how does/has that impacted your own practice? I have been thinking a lot about this question. Before I took the recent rotation as department chair of Fiber and Material Studies at SAIC more... Posted by Alex Rauch on October 08, 2009 at 14:21 | Comments (0) Permalink2nd Friday  Carl Diehl Another gallery celebrating the PNCA centennial this month is Worksound with Memory/Frequency. They'll be featuring sculpture, sound, video, and photography by Carl Diehl, Tracey Cockrell, and Lennie Pitkin, all faculty at PNCA. Opening reception • 7-11pm • October 9 Worksound • 820 SE Alder • mojomodou@gmail.com  Anna Weber Nationale is featuring a new series of paintings and drawings by Anna Weber, whose work is "inspired by geometry, architecture, maps, textiles, sign painters, symmetry, balance, falling, and floating." Opening reception • 6-8pm • October 9 Nationale • 2730 E Burnside • nationale.portland@gmail.com Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 08, 2009 at 9:14 | Comments (0) PermalinkWednesday 10.07.09 white stag/box  UO Portland is opening a new gallery space at their downtown White Stag building. The "White Box's" inaugural exhibition will be Inspiration China (an informal tie-in to PAM's upcoming China Design Now): "For Inspiration China, the students created individual art pieces--in various forms of technology and media--that reference and re-interpret Chinese antiquities from selected pieces of the JSMA [Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, on the Eugene campus] collection. The new work is presented in a modern context to establish a dialogue between old and new, past and present." Opening reception • 5-7pm • October 8 White Box • 24 NW 1st • White Stag Building Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 07, 2009 at 9:03 | Comments (0) PermalinkTuesday 10.06.09 PSU & PCC  Dorothea Lange, c.1939 PSU's Littman Gallery is exhibiting Dorothea Lange in 1939, a collection of FSA photographs presented by the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission. During the Great Depression, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) hired photographers like Lange to "portray the suffering of rural Americans in terms understandable to the urban middle class." Lange became known for her extraordinary work as an American documentarian, and this series has an obvious and important relevance to our delicate economic situation today. The show will run through November 25, 2009. Reception • 5-7pm • October 8 PSU Littman Gallery • 1835 SW Broadway • Smith Building Rm 250 (More: Mack McFarland at PSU's White Gallery and Mary Warner at PCC's Cascade Gallery.) Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 06, 2009 at 9:13 | Comments (0) PermalinkMonday 10.05.09 LOTS of lectures  Anne Wilson Chicago-based artist Anne Wilson will be lecturing twice this week in Portland. Wilson is a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a renowned craft artist who coined the term "sloppy craft." First, she'll present Liminal Networks at Reed College: "Employing familiar, domestic materials, including table linen, bed sheets, human hair, thread, and lace, Wilson explores the larger themes of time, loss, private and social rituals." Wilson's second appearance will be a craft dialogue with Josh Faught, Nan Curtis, and Jessica Jackson Hutchins on the topic of "sloppy craft" at PNCA. The dialogue is anticipation of the exhibition on that theme at MoCC in 2010-2011, co-curated by Faught and MoCC curator Namita Gupta Wiggers. (Keep an eye on this space for an interview with Wilson.) Artist lecture • 7pm • October 8 Reed College • 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd • Vollum Lecture Hall Craft conversation • 1-3pm • October 10 PNCA • 1241 NW Johnson • Swigert Commons (Much, much more: Kartz Ucci at Clark College, MulvannyG2 at UO White Stag, Matthew Stinchcomb of Etsy at CYAN/PDX for PNCA, Jacqueline Ehlis at PAM, and Martin Kersels at MoCC for PNCA.) Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 05, 2009 at 10:41 | Comments (1) PermalinkSaturday 10.03.09 Rothko skies in Portland A couple times a year Portland is covered with an intense lavender glow at
dusk. It's partially due to the way the west hills block the sunset but allow the reflected light from the clouds. Sometimes it is so intense that all of the dogs, cats, birds and insects go silent. Its effects are not unlike a ganzfield only somewhat more intense because it silences many of the normal city sounds. It happened again today and it always
reminds me of Mark Rothko, who grew up here. (read Arcy's historical account
of Rothko's
Portland years here).
 Portland sky (no color enhancements), see larger image here. For comparison here is a mature Rothko: 
Mark Rothko, Red on Maroon 1959 Tate © 1998 by Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko Now I'm not contending that Rothko was painting skyscapes but it is impossible to think that the father of experiential art would not have been sensitive to this intense effect of depthless yet infinitely deep color. I also discussed this effect in an early Rothko painting of Portland. Ive also suggested we could name the new Willamette Transit/Pedestrian bridge after Rothko, he is after all the city's most famous son (yet is under recognized). Posted by Jeff Jahn on October 03, 2009 at 22:59 | Comments (1) PermalinkFriday 10.02.09 film & local culture  Still from Janie Geiser's "Magnetic Sleep" Cinema Project & Pacific University are screening Magnetic Sleep by Janie Geiser. The film is a nine-part serial about a woman hypnotist, Marceline, and her journey across an ever-changing landscape. This textual/cinematic project "channels" early experimental filmmakers such as Man Ray and Maya Deren. Film screenings • 7:30pm • October 6 & 7 • $6 Cinema Project • 11 NW 13th Ave • 4th Floor  The Oregon Cultural Trust is celebrating Oregon Day of Culture... week(?!). From October 1-8 they're sponsoring music, theater, ethnic festivities, and some visual arts. Visit the official website to learn more about related events throughout the state.  Imogen Cunningham Our neighbors up north are also exploring local artistic heritage. A Concise History of Northwest Art opens this weekend at the Tacoma Art Museum. The exhibition is drawn primarily from TAM's permanent collection and will include work from the mid-1800s to the present day from Washington, Oregon, western Montana, Idaho, British Columbia, and Alaska. Exhibition • October 3, 2009 - May 23, 2010 Tacoma Art Museum • 1701 Pacific Ave, Tacoma, Washington Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 02, 2009 at 10:22 | Comments (0) PermalinkThursday 10.01.09 First Friday Picks October 2009  Kimi Kolba Pushdot presents Linger by Kimi Kolba. Kolba's photography focuses on the contemporary night landscape, asking the viewer to allow themselves time to adjust to the images the way their eyes take time to adjust to the darkness of night. She explores "the new, the northwest urban and industrial, and the psychological" in the surrounding landscape. Opening reception • 6-9pm • October 2 Pushdot Studio • 1021 SE Caruthers • 503.224.5925 (More.) Posted by Megan Driscoll on October 01, 2009 at 9:30 | Comments (0) Permalink |
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