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Portland art blog + news + exhibition reviews + galleries + contemporary northwest art
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Friday 04.25.08 They Say Everything's Bigger in Texas  Dan Flavin, "Untitled" (detail foreground), 1996 Photographic highlights of my recent trip to Houston, featuring the stunning Menil Collection. (much more) Posted by Megan Driscoll on April 25, 2008 at 8:45 | Comments (10) PermalinkTuesday 04.08.08 Report From Berlin by Bean Gilsdorf 
clockwise from top L: Gabriele Basch, keychain from Guggenheim Berlin, Raymond Pettibon, Holocaust Memorial, graffiti, Hamburger Banhof visitors Place is a fundamental concept. There is something about a change in geography and language that reveals to the traveler a whole new way of thinking, a unique aesthetic. "Culture shock" is the relatively pejorative term we use for breaking out of our paradigm of living, but sometimes shock is both essential and welcome; an unfamiliar cultural environment is a wake-up call to those of us operating on autopilot. Like me, you might be sorry to see this perspective cast aside with a dismissive wave in last week's NYT Style Magazine. A Travel Spring 2008 article proclaimed, "Expats in Berlin have turned the city into one big arty party," as though the best reason to go to an international arts hub is for the revelry. But for artists and arts patrons, the best Berlin has to offer isn't the party, but the culture shock. Here are some of the highlights of what I found there last week:...(more) Posted by Guest on April 08, 2008 at 19:25 | Comments (4) PermalinkWednesday 12.12.07 NADA and Scope Fairs 2007  Bellwether had a successful looking single artist booth Well Portland's galleries all seemed to do ok to great in Miami last week and the WWeek covered some of the social side of it. As far as the best fair goes Id have to give the award to NADA. For years they have looked like purveyors of minor art world insider jokes, amateur hour scribbles and a general leg humping attitude towards Matthew Higgs. This year they grew up with numerous single artist booths and a strange new preoccupation with modernist abstraction. Be it mirrors with AbEx gunk on them or outright references to Suprematism or De Stijl. What's more it wasn't completely ironic, there was a real love for minimalism, clean lines and rewarding aesthetic experiences. It's like Dave Hickey has supplanted Higgs (both of whom have very different but somewhat equally narrow aesthetic preoccupations). The Scope fair was somewhat rough going and I'll tackle them last. ...(more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on December 12, 2007 at 13:45 | Comments (2) PermalinkTuesday 12.11.07 Art Positions and the Aqua Fairs, Miami 2007  Portland's favorite chicken accessorizer Laura Lima's pagent on South Beach. First off there were way too many fairs this year. If the fair isn't more established like ABMB, Nada, Aqua, Pulse, Art Miami and Scope it might be time to reconsider putting on an art fair. Depending how one counted it "21" fairs is simply an awful lot for any human collector to hit. Fairs like Pulse and Nada really know how to attact collectors and that is key for sattelite fairs to ABMB. Some like the Aquas seem to get by on quality, whereas other fairs like Scope seemed to be too big by half. Here is a rundown of Art Positions, Aqua Hotel and Aqua Wynwood. NADA (which I consider it to have been the clear winner this year for sattelite fairs) and Scope will have another post. (I missed Pulse so take that into consideration... as well as the fact that Ive been very critical of NADA in the past)  Cris Bruch's sculpture (FG) and Sean Healy's tigers (BG)at Portland's Elizabeth Leach Gallery ...(more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on December 11, 2007 at 15:20 | Comments (0) PermalinkSunday 12.09.07 Art Basel Miami Beach 2007  Terence Koh at Peres Projects (mirrors were big this year) As expected ABMB looked the best of all the fairs and the name galleries seemed to do quite well on sales, though NADA significantly upped their ante and was probably the most rewarding edgy fair now that theyve grown up a bit beyond trying to corner the hipster clique art market. Both Aqua fairs looked good for the most part and most of the Portland artists I met milling about Miami had sales to brag about. Matt McCormick has done probably the best (besides Chris Johanson). Overall, sales at the other fairs were significantly saner or worse (ie much less than 2006.. there will be a weeding out of fairs for 2008) and on the whole I felt the general quality/excitment of the work available was lower than in 2005. Scope was pretty terrible with a few notable exceptions... I'll have more on the other fairs. Right now I want to focus on the main event, ABMB:  Kehinde Wiley & Mickalene Thomas ( a onetime Portlander) at Rhona Hoffman (one of THE best booths this year)  Catherine Sullivan's B&W video at Catherine Bastide was the best thing I saw in Miami ...(much more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on December 09, 2007 at 1:28 | Comments (0) PermalinkTuesday 09.18.07 Jupiter Affair '07 - serene and surreal, to 80s music The Jupiter Affair 2007 comes through for the fourth year-- possibly more serene and surreal, as opening night goers meander through a maze of fresh art, to tunes from the 80s in the background. An opening eve, more conducive to art collecting and buying than last year's Friday bash, which featured local sounds of Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks. An air of excitement and nervousness as we hang on to the last days of summer. There is something about photographing art and people at this eve affair, as they move in and out of hotel rooms, that puts you in a bit of a Hitchcock-ian meets Body Heat mode of taking photos. The photos are not so much about documenting as they are about catching a feeling or a special kind of light from the eve. A gesture of a hand... a leaning up against a door. A Japanese monk sculpture smiles at you at James Harris. At a next turn, a performance artist in camo is breathing at you through the glass at 65 Grand... I liked not knowing what to expect at this Affair opening. 
Photography by Sarah Henderson - www.sirenapictures.com 
White Columns, from New York 
Under the rain tent... 
James Harris Gallery, from Seattle, features monk sculptures by Akio Takamori. ...(more) Posted by Sarah Henderson on September 18, 2007 at 21:13 | Comments (2) PermalinkMonday 09.10.07 Radial imagery in Art Ok, I have a lot of theories about this trend/trope. There is a sense of inward and outward motion in this type of radial imagery. It might signify a way to both leave the world and or to project an outward sense of change? It is both explosive and inward reflective. Either way it is everywhere in art right now and there are plenty of historical precedents. I'll let the images speak for themselves:
 Tomma Abts, Teete, 2003, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. © Jon Pratty / 24 Hour Museum  Mark Grotjahn Untitled (Green Butterfly Red Mark Grotjahn 04) 2004 ...(more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on September 10, 2007 at 0:30 | Comments (7) PermalinkWednesday 07.25.07 Craft PDX Block Party - attracts and engages many One more DeSoto Project posting from PORT. As you may know by now, the Museum of Contemporary Craft hosted Craft PDX: A Block Party
this past Sunday. This event attracted and kept crowds throughout the entire 7.5 hour event, ending on fine musical notes of 3 Leg Torso. - Photo essay by Sarah Henderson -     Posted by Sarah Henderson on July 25, 2007 at 19:39 | Comments (0) PermalinkFriday 07.20.07 From Daisy Kingdom to DeSoto Project: Portland's New Art Cluster - Photography by Sarah Henderson -  Blue Sky photography.  Preparators and contractors continue their install for the re-opening of Museum of Contemporary Craft.  Charles A. Hartman Fine Art features elegant photographic works by Camille Solyagua. Posted by Sarah Henderson on July 20, 2007 at 12:49 | Comments (0) PermalinkMonday 02.26.07 Some picks from the Armory Show 2007 Posted by Amy Bernstein on February 26, 2007 at 13:40 | Comments (3) PermalinkSaturday 01.27.07 Portland's Aerial Tram Opens - Sci-fi transpo in real life Sci-fi transportation is here-- impressive in form and function. Portland's new aerial tram transforms how we see the city and ourselves. It changes how many will move about the city from this point on.
- Photography by Sarah Henderson -      ...(more) Posted by Sarah Henderson on January 27, 2007 at 12:10 | Comments (5) PermalinkWednesday 12.13.06 Miami Art fairs (part 3, favorites) by Amy Steel 
Miami fair favorites...(more) Posted by Guest on December 13, 2006 at 17:57 | Comments (2) PermalinkSunday 12.10.06 Miami Art fairs (part 2) by Amy Steel Portland has a striking presence in Miami. Chris Johanson and Harrell Fletcher are showing at Jack Hanley at the Nova fair. Motel, Small A, and Elizabeth Leach are all at Aqua. PDX is at the Flow fair.
 Chris Johanson's painting at Nova. Nova is apart of the main fair (Art Basel Miami Beach) and encompasses all the spaces on the building perimeter. Its intention is to showcase "emerging" artists. ...(more) Posted by Guest on December 10, 2006 at 16:11 | Comments (14) PermalinkFriday 12.08.06 Miami Art fairs (part I) by Amy Steel  The part of Southern Florida im staying in is a little resort town outside of Miami called Hollywood, or "Hollywierd" as my friend calls it. It reminds of me of a David Hockney painting with its pastel colors and swimming pools- yes that tiny white dot in the background is a cruise ship. 
Thus, a pool sculpture by the cuban collaborative duo Los Carpinteros @ Sean Kelly ABMB.... (more) Posted by Guest on December 08, 2006 at 10:41 | Comments (0) PermalinkSunday 10.01.06 An Affair to Remember ... Jupiter Gala Rocks
 - Photography by Sarah Henderson - 
 more ... Posted by Sarah Henderson on October 01, 2006 at 0:03 | Comments (3) PermalinkMonday 09.18.06 Print That: A Studio Visit with Rae and Mark Mahaffey 
Rae and Mark Mahaffey have been a persistent, if quiet, backbone of the Portland art scene for 14 years and will be the subject in a show of 14 international and local artists at PAM's Gilkey Center on Sept 30th. The 14 artists have been culled from a list including heavyweights like Hans Haacke, Dana Schutz, Tony Fitzpatrick and local legend, Gregory Grennon.  Master printmaker Mark Mahaffey & masterful pattern artist Rae Mahaffey ... (more) - All photos by Sarah Henderson unless otherwise noted - Posted by Sarah Henderson on September 18, 2006 at 0:00 | Comments (0) PermalinkWednesday 05.10.06 An afternoon with Paul Fujita of Zeitgeist Gallery  Zeitgeist founder and artist, Paul Fujita, spent time with PORT during his last days of living at his gallery, Zeitgeist, in the Everett Station Lofts. At 7 years in this location it's likely the longest lived gallery space in the artist run lofts long history as a cultural incubator. We talk about his life, engagement, skating and art. Next to preparing for a couple of large solo shows into 2007, he's moving into a house with his fiancee and seeking to push himself as an artist possibly more than ever. His unpretentiousness and interest in working with accessible materials such as broken skateboards, acrylic gel and... (this is the first in a series of photoblogs, click below for more) Posted by Sarah Henderson on May 10, 2006 at 23:54 | Comments (0) PermalinkSaturday 04.15.06 In the future everybody will be famous for 30 minute parking  I love these telephone pole interventions... a couple of years ago this same pole was covered in odd bits of fake fur. This one just grins and grins and grins... Posted by Jeff Jahn on April 15, 2006 at 14:11 | Comments (1) PermalinkThursday 01.19.06 Three Galleries/Three Artists, photo essay by Sarah Henderson 
Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery features dyanmic subtlety of Icelandic artist, Hildur Bjarnadottir (and her boots)... 
Elizabeth Leach Gallery features backlit installations of Hap Tivey on First Thursday... 
Backspace features installation creations of James Newell, there is more... Posted by Sarah Henderson on January 19, 2006 at 11:42 | Comments (0) PermalinkSunday 01.08.06 First First Thursday Photoblog part 3 Continuing across Burnside into SW, I walked along second street to Augen Gallery. It was approaching 9 and things seemed to be winding down. I arrived at Augen and Froelick just as everything was being put away. Augen gallery has a show in the back of Marcel Dzama! I was excited to see it, but they had already lowered the lights in the next room, so instead I looked at Susan Larsen and Patrick Collentine's "Kolorbar, Present Perfect". These are landscape photographs in which a figure holds a seven foot color bar test pattern in front of their body at the same distance in every frame. The test pattern gives a true CMY RGB color reference for each photograph, which I imagine they work from when developing the pictures. The point seems to be that the photograph on display is as true to the real color of the landscape as can possibly be humanly acheived. The name of the show suggests that the photographers are trying to perfect the present, and see the tools of photography as a means to that end. This seems like a laughably futile idea, like the king in "The Little Prince" who commands the sun to rise every morning, and there is something funny about these grand landscapes with someone holding a test pattern over their head in the middle of them. And how does creating a photograph of something perfect it? Perhaps the title refers to perfecting the photograph. A perfect photograph can be thought of as a perfect record of the present.
Stephen Hawking would argue that a photograph is only a good representation of time when you use Euclidean Space-Time, in which time is one-dimensional, a line, and lines are of course constructed of a series of points. Each point could be represented by a single photograph. The perfect model for the Euclidean concept of time is of course the film, a series of still photographs. But in the Einsteinian model, which we now accept as the truth, time is simply one function of larger, inter-related phenomena. In Einstein, space, motion, gravity, mass, energy, and time are all interchangeable, all relative. So Stephen Hawking constructs a model of time as a "light cone" a set of possibilites which can be redirected as any of these factors change.  Posted by Isaac Peterson on January 08, 2006 at 8:15 | Comments (19) PermalinkFriday 01.06.06 First First Thursday Photoblog part 2 Ok, I'm going to finish my photoblog with this post, and I hope you'll forgive it being silly and jittery. Also, I really like people leaving comments and filling in the gaps in my coverage and or thinking so please continue to do that. Hopefully this will give you an overview of the experience even if it doesn't provide a thorough analysis.
So, this is PDX Contemporary. The new show is by Victoria Haven, entitled "The Lucky Ones". I only got a few images here because the delicacy of the work made it difficult to photograph. In essence, It appears to be intricate, architectural structures drawn or painted on paper. Mostly the ink or paint seemed close in color and value to the paper itself, and while this made it almost impossible to photograph, it made the images seem to float on the page. The work is simple and ephemeral, and communicates the primary rudiments of space without mimesis. When comparing it with Cynthia Lahti (the last show at PDX) it seems a curatorial arc is emerging having to do with delicate, spare drawings on fragile paper...or art as ephemera 
Posted by Isaac Peterson on January 06, 2006 at 13:58 | Comments (0) PermalinkThursday 01.05.06 Heeeeyyy Yoooouuuuu Guuuuuys! Seriously, where is everybody? Wow, this was one of the slowest first Thursdays ever! Where are you, fleet footed denizens of the art world? Has your formerly relentless desire for visual culture finally been satiated? Are you sitting at home writing thank you cards? Its really warm out tonight! Luckily you have your little Isaac to do an extensive photoblog for you...
Posted by Isaac Peterson on January 05, 2006 at 23:45 | Comments (6) PermalinkFriday 12.30.05 Artists using Clothes part 2 - Ghosttown The new Red 76 project, Ghosttown had its official consolidation last night, launching the Ghosttown clothing exchange.
The space is located at 338 NW 6th Ave., Portland, OR Hours of Operation Wednesday- Sunday 12pm - 7pm This address is at the corner of Flanders and 6th in Northwest, an unremarkable retail space temporarily converted into a "store" by Red 76 masterminds Kris Soden and Sam Gould. The space infiltrates its surroundings. It is a quotidian brick storefront with large sheets of paper covering the windows. The way to find it is to look for the tiny drawing of a ghost on the glass door that opens directly onto the corner of the block. 
Upon entering Ghosttown, one discovers that it is indeed a store. Ghosttown operates on an alternative economy, based not on the government supported symbolism of money, but rather on the currency of interpersonal emotional interaction. Which to many, myself included, is distinctly more valuable.... Posted by Isaac Peterson on December 30, 2005 at 15:24 | Comments (1) PermalinkArtists using Clothes part 1- Chandra Bocci Two significant works, one having just closed and the other just about to open, have involved artists using clothes as a sculptural material or as a vehicle for interaction. These are Chandra Bocci's Clothes Towers and Ghosttown.
You may not have seen the Clothes Towers, because I wasn't quick witted enough to blog it while it was up, but having been around PNCA while it was being constructed I photographed the whole process. So now I can give you some idea of it through a retro-active photoblog, even though it has already been de-installed. Organized by student services and the student activities council at PNCA, it was designed by Chandra Bocci and cooperatively constructed by the student body at PNCA. 
This installation is easy to locate within Bocci's general artistic phenomenology. Clothes are organized according to the spectrum and attached to freestanding wooden center structures. The towers are arranged in the space organically, giving the appearance of "just having grown there."... Posted by Isaac Peterson on December 30, 2005 at 15:03 | Comments (0) PermalinkMonday 12.05.05 Art Basel Miami Beach 2005 
Barbara Kruger at Art Basel Miami Beach Art Basel isn't all that challenging as far as viewing goes (nearly all of it is museum approved) but it does serve as a good barometer for what is overripe and what art world staples remain fresh. The Aqua and Pulse fairs were a lot fresher and with more interesting work... I'll post on those others plus NADA soon. Let's just say NADA is both trying too hard and not hard enough... Although there were a few good things there. For those who missed it here is a ABMB tour of the better stuff. In person it was a far more punishing viewing endurance experience. 
Two artists that never seem to grow stale are... Posted by Jeff Jahn on December 05, 2005 at 2:22 | Comments (0) PermalinkSunday 11.06.05 1st Thursday and Friday, photoblogging Portland Art Crawls  Michael Brophy with some of his sumi ink drawings at Laura Russo Gallery. Fresh off several successful museum shows, a CD cover for Sleater-Kinney and a nice review in Art Forum, Brophy went for something more immediate than paintings this time.  Mona Hatoum's anti war poster on PNCA's walls (the painted rectangles by architect Randy Higgins are code for Rimbaud's "Departures")... Posted by Jeff Jahn on November 06, 2005 at 22:34 | Comments (2) PermalinkTuesday 10.04.05 Catherine Clark Gallery Photoblog by Jen Rybolt Posted by Guest on October 04, 2005 at 16:19 | Comments (0) PermalinkSunday 10.02.05 The Affair Photoblog 
 Posted by Isaac Peterson on October 02, 2005 at 10:18 | Comments (0) Permalink |
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