CULTUREPHILE: PORTLAND ARTS

“Hung Far Low” Sign Returns!

Classic Chinese gaff is back.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Sep 02, 2010 at 12:00AM 0 Comments

Prepare once again to get stuck at this corner, behind people taking pictures.

The iconic, unforgettable placard reading, “Hung Far Low,” is scheduled to be re-hung in Chinatown today! If you’re not already elbowing your way around Tom McCall Waterfront Park for a better view of the Symphony, you might swing by NW 4th Avenue and NW Couch Street for the sign’s dedication ceremony. The 200-lb sign, which lorded over its neighborhood location from 1928 to 2005, serving as a conversation piece, a landmark, and a testament to Chinese-American history, was eventually removed for safety reasons—but area tenants lobbied hard for its return.

By the way, “Hung Far Low,” in Taisan dialect, means “Almond Blossom Fragrance.” So stop snickering.

Culturephile can only feature a few First Thursday picks, but for a more comprehensive list of upcoming events, visit the Arts & Entertainment Calendar!

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Tags: First Thursday, Architecture, heritage, history

Attic Gallery Shows Steel Horses

Joe Warren/Weld-Designed makes animal forms out of recycled spare steel parts.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Sep 02, 2010 at 12:00AM 0 Comments

Part man, part beast, all parts! Showing through September.

The Attic Gallery (206 SW First Avenue between SW Oak St. and SW Pine St.) presents a few Joe Warren reclaimed-steel sculptures. Imagine you’re at a scrapyard, and all the spare parts reconfigure into man and animal shapes. This exhibit features a horse that would look right at home in Sci-Fi western series Firefly, and a centaur that could cameo in Transformers.

Culturephile can only feature a few First Thursday picks, but for a more comprehensive list of upcoming events, visit the Arts & Entertainment Calendar!

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Tags: Art, Galleries, Craft, First Thursday, kitsch, gallery, folk art

Tender Loving Empire
Showcases Soft-Sculpture

Kelly Rundle’s heart-melting felt, plus musical guests!

Posted by: Anne Adams on Sep 02, 2010 at 12:00AM 0 Comments

These skates could roll all over your tender li’l heart. Rundle’s soft-sculpture will be showing at TLE throughout September.

Love Always (solo project of Kathy from The Thermals) and Woodwinds (solo project of boppin’ redhead hottie Megan Spear, of Jared Mees & The Grown Children) will provide the live backing tracks for the opening night of Kelly Rundle’s cozy soft-sculpture show at the headquarters of local record label and craft-curio carrier, Tender Loving Empire (412 SW 10th Avenue). Surrender to the benevolent power of Tender Loving Empire. TLE will hug and kiss and never hurt you.

Culturephile can only feature a few First Thursday picks, but for a more comprehensive list of upcoming events, visit the Arts & Entertainment Calendar!

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Tags: Galleries, folk art, gallery, folk music, northwest music, TLE, portland music, crafts, First Thursday, Craft, sewing

Mercy Corps Hosts
Reframing Re-entry

Recently released female felons photo-document their journeys.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Sep 02, 2010 at 12:00AM 0 Comments

When you get out of prison, you get a bus ticket and the clothes you wore going in. You may miss your inmate “family,” and rewards for good behavior. You have to check the box on every form forever, that says “convicted felon.” Psychologist and recalcitrance researcher Joni Kabana brings these post-prison hurdles to light, as she supplies women who’ve just been released from prison with journals and cameras, and then displays their combined images and writings. Brace yourself for a surge of empathy. These photographs will show throughout September at Mercy Corps Action Center, 45 SW Ankeny Street.

Also, if this topic tugs your heartstrings, please have a look at PM’s recent photojournalism feature, A Woman’s Work by Cassandra Nelson.

Culturephile can only feature a few First Thursday picks, but for a more comprehensive list of upcoming events, visit the Arts & Entertainment Calendar!

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Tags: Art, Photography, First Thursday, women

Weekend Picks!

Farm-fresh roots rock, arborial acrobatics, Buddhist revels, and Broadway classics

Posted by: Anne Adams on Aug 06, 2010 at 12:00PM 1 Comments

Sand, sailors, and the formidable Bloody Mary, blow through town on a South Pacific Broadway breeze.

First Friday
First Thursday. Last Thursday. It seems every gallery district wants to lay claim to one notable monthly day. In biblical parlance, “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first,”—and if too many more neighborhoods do this, Culturephile will cease to know first from last, or head from a**. That said, Central Eastside calls official dibs on First Friday, and invites you to revel in the burgeoning eclectica of its galleries. And it’s actually looking pretty good. Some highlights: Newspace Center for Photography will feature New Work by much-lauded anthropology-minded photographer Linda Connor. Poboy Art will showcase the prolific and intricate rock-poster designs of EMEK, and newly-gilded gallery Golden Rule’s grand opening, will hypnotize with the brightly-colored folk illustrations of Inner Lands by Howard Gillam, which manage to simultaneously evoke Medieval manuscript illuminations, and South-American animal totems.

South Pacific
Culturephile caught this production with an intent to review it. But since Culturephile’s date was too swept-up in beach fantasies to endure any hints at critique, and the production itself will pull out with the tide by the time this weekend subsides (it ends Sunday)—South Pacific lands in Weekend Picks. Suffice to say the production is near-perfect. It breezes into town from Broadway, complete with all amenities: A-level singing, acting, and dancing; photorealistic sets; and a rigorous commitment to the classic material. As an added bonus, this show turns up its tropical heat with High School Musical 2 alum Anderson Davis as Lieutenant Cable, who is every bit as “damn sexy” as the character Bloody Mary’s lines purport him to be.

That said, be forewarned: While it’s easy to be beguiled into island delirium, and while the singing and dancing completely “sell it,” it’s hard to overlook the offhanded xenophobia that comes with the script. Yes, we’re transported to a beautiful beach; on the other hand, we’re deployed into World War II, and hence have to overhear a lot of smack-talk about “the Japs” and watch the story’s romantic heroes battle their own inner prejudices. Picture a carefully-sealed crate on the beach. Upon prying it open, you find museum-quality parcels of vintage dry goods—but tucked among them, perfectly preserved rations of racial tension. What retains the play’s relevance and moves you past the cringes, are the gorgeous and unforgettable songs, from the intoxicating “Bali Ha’i,” to the swooningly romantic “Some Enchanted Evening,” to the winkingly sapphic “Honey Bun.” Classics all, and deftly delivered.

Obonfest
Obon is a 500-year-old Japanese custom of honoring the departed through three days of family gathering and traditionally includes a communal dance of joy known as Bon-Odori. Celebrate Obon in Portland at the Oregon Buddhist Temple where traditional Japanese food will be served, Martial Arts and Tanuki Taiko (a relatively recent art-form of ensemble drumming) will be demonstrated, and activities for all ages abound.*

Art In The Dark
The spinning, swooping sylphs of AWOL Dance Collective attempt once again to suspend your disbelief, as they perform aerial feats in twilit trees at the World Trade Center Atrium.

Pickathon
Head for Happy Valley (an actual place) for three days of exuberant indie roots rock at nearby, far-out, Pendarvis Farm. Earlier this week, Culturephile heard more about the fest and the farm straight from the horse’s mouth, in an interview with founder Zale Schoenborn. Also note: this year marks the Pickathon debut of hometown heroes Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside, and Typhoon.

Weekend Picks are published every Friday at noon, and highlight just a few of your local entertainment options. For a more comprehensive list of events, visit the Arts & Entertainment Calendar.

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Tags: Art, musical, pickathon, Last Thursday, Music, Weekend Plans, Events, Theater, First Thursday, Museums, First Friday

First Thursday

Still life, simple stones, and surreal painted fables.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Aug 05, 2010 at 12:00PM 0 Comments

Hibiki Miyazaki’s Latch Them Softly makes you yearn for a story. At Augen Gallery.

GALLERY OPENINGS

Augen Gallery
Hibiki Miyazaki

This artist’s name brings to mind author Haruki Murakami (Wind Up Bird Chronicles). Far be it from Culturephile to force a fit, but the heady, disorienting, whimsical feel of Murakami’s writing, would actually be quite nicely accompanied by the images of Miyazaki, which also mix children’s-story motifs with a modern, surreal feel.

Chambers Gallery
Echo Pool, Resting Stones

Please permit a haiku:
seven black stones sit,
gazing on pond’s reflection,
nothing more than this.

Resting Stones chillax beside the Echo Pool, Chambers Gallery

Froelick Gallery
Neptune’s Picnic, Patterns and Memories

Katherine Ace’s masterful realistic still-lifes in oils, seem to bring to light the cheerful entropy of consumption. Overturned glasses and ravaged rind-fruits sometimes perch atop a drifting pile of loose newspaper, and sometimes are submerged underwater.

Katherine Ace paints feasts laid to waste. Froelick Gallery.

Meanwhile, Charles Dazler Knuff’s black bronzes comprised of functional found-object shapes, equally evoke chess pieces, farmscape silos, and factoryscape chimneys.

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Tags: Portland Art, Museums, First Thursday

First Thursday Picks

Gallery openings explore many dimensions, and indie cult faves close the evening.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Jun 30, 2010 at 04:00PM 0 Comments

GALLERY OPENINGS

Blue Sky Gallery
From the Studio of Roy Lichtenstein
by Laurie Lambrecht. Artist Talk at 6:30pm.
Photographer Laurie Lambrecht served a stint assisting the iconic Roy Lichtenstein, and photo-documented his preparation for an exhibition at the Guggenheim (pictured). The result is an “art-within-art” series of photographs that expose the processes and postures of one of the 20th-century greats, in his element.

Laura Russo Gallery
Mel Katz: New Wall Sculptures
Responsible for enough Portland sculptures to be considered a fixture himself, Mel Katz continues his exploration of shape and contour.

Group Exhibition of Gallery Artists: Paintings, Sculpture, Textiles, Works on Paper
Culturephile favorite:
Tom Fawkes and Judith Poxson Fawkes. Between Tom’s photorealistic acrylic paintings of Mediterranean gardens and architecture, and Judith’s massive, intricate, tapestries, this Portland married couple displays mind-boggling mastery of detail and deft, skilled execution. The work of each of these shrewd, crafty Fawkeses will be on display.
Other contributors include:
Betty Merken and Lucinda Parker—Bold, blocky abstracts
Mary Josephson and Gregory Grennon—Naïve folk intensity, hints of Kahlo
Kim Osgood and Henk Pander—Unique slants on still life.
Anne Siems Sherrie Wolfe—Renaissance riffing.
Erik Stotik and Jay Backstrand—Sensory overload iconoclasm.

3-D Center of Art & Photography
Digital Stereo Paintings by Theo Prins
Fourteen digital paintings produced using a graphics tablet, inspired by the bustling marketplaces of Seoul, Saigon, Hanoi, Bangkok, and Chiang Mai.

The Caretaker 3D, starring Dick Van Dyke
In this 3D film, which debuted earlier this year at the Malibu Film Festival, Van Dyke portrays the legendary 1930’s handyman tasked with maintenance and repair of the famous “HOLLYWOOD” sign (which, at the time, read “HOLLYWOODLAND.”)

MUSIC

Mississippi Studios
Ioa & Alan Singley
Amanda Spring, erstwhile known as the pink-haired, pitch-perfect singer and intricate math drummer of the indie-rock combo Point Juncture Washington (a band, not a town) has jumped front and center for Ioa, a lush 7-member lineup supporting her unwavering alto croon and utterly unique songcraft. And if you’re not careful, Alan Singley, affable bandleader of Pants Machine and longtime all-ages house-show hero, will ride his bike right into your heart.

Ground Kontrol Barcade
DJ Diabetic (aka Shepard Fairey)
If rumors—and posters—are true, then Ground Kontrol’s usual lineup of video-game-beep-drowning DJ’s will feature an extra-special guest: guerrilla graphic-art god Shepard Fairey. Think you don’t know who that is? You do. Trust and obey. Even if he’s hunched under a hoody, avoiding everyone’s gaze and spinning terrible tunes, you can boast later about being in the same room.

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Tags: Art, Portland Art, Museums, First Thursday, Music

“Pre-kend”

This week, culture can’t wait.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Jun 02, 2010 at 12:39PM 2 Comments

It’s a unique week, ladies and gentlemen. It started late, and I’m afraid these upcoming events will yet again rend you from your desk. Might as well surrender now, to the power of the pre-kend.

TONIGHT
Comedian Hannibal Buress
Bridgetown Comedy brings Saturday Night Live contributing writer and standup stylist Hannibal Buress to Mississippi Studios.

THURSDAY
QDoc 2010
Count on a drag queen to execute a deft kickoff—of a garter, a troublemaker, or an event. This year, The Queer Documentary Film Festival has tapped the talents of San Francisco veteran Vicki Marlane, still kicking well into her 70’s, to introduce the first feature, Forever’s Gonna Start Tonight, which also stars Marlane and honors her storied past. QDoc will continue throughout the weekend at the Clinton Street Theater. Visit the trailer page for heart-melting moments from many of the fest’s featured films.

OBT’s Dance United
Oregon Ballet Theater invites you to the second annual Dance United. They’ve also thoughtfully invited an elite cadre of world-class ballet companies (Australia, Miami, and San Francisco Ballets, just to name a few). Most of the evening’s offerings are “Pas De Deux,” or “dance for two,” so come prepared to witness en pointe displays of one-on-one passion.

Portland Piano International presents Phyllis Chen
Portland Piano International is expanding its parameters—or rather, compressing them—with a foray into a smaller room, and a shorter span of ivories. In the cabinlike confines of the Doug Fir, toy piano prodigy Phyllis Chen will tickle the tiny keys, supported by the accordion stylings of Courtney Von Drehle of 3 Leg Torso.

First Thursday
Consider this a friendly reminder: it’s time once again, to traipse around the Pearl in search of treasure. For more on this month’s specific offerings, see Graham’s Bell’s preview picks, below.

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Tags: First Thursday, Comedy, Dance, Events, Music

First Thursday Preview

What’s going on at the galleries?

Posted by: Graham Bell on Jun 01, 2010 at 11:00AM 2 Comments

After the Explosion by Bailey Winters

Do you like to get dressed up on the weekends and take in a bit of culture? Too bad. The real creative calendar markers know to wear their walking shoes and thick-rimmed fashionista art school glasses on the first Thursday of every month. Get a glimpse of all that Portland’s art galleries have to offer for June and then spend the rest of the summer being smug whenever anyone mentions an artist by name. Here are some good bets:

New American Art Union – Bailey Winters

If photo-realistic painting and revolutions are your thing, then you’re going to love Ambush: The Story of the TDA. Bailey Winters’ vivid images depict a fictional revolutionary group living on the West Coast during the early 2000s. Mixing cartoon-like scenery with highly-detailed figural imagery, these narrative pictures draw the viewer through the story and tell the tale of the people shown. Explanatory titles add back story to enhance the tableaux.

PDX Contemporary Art – Storm Tharp and Brad Adkins

Fresh from a successful showing at the Whitney Biennial, Storm Tharp’s new works are sure to be hot tickets on the local, national and international levels. His intense portraits capture the chaos of spreading ink within carefully controlled forms while his colorfield work hovers in between solid blocks and vaporous musings of hue.

At PDX Across the Hall, Brad Adkins presents a variety of new works that continue his interest in reasserting ordinary objects and their contexts. Referencing everything from household implements to his fellow artists, the artist takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to the manufactured art object.

Froelick Gallery – Two of a Kind

Showcasing works by several local artists, this exhibition pairs 17 photographers with 17 painters and asks them to create portraits of each other. The results explore the ways artists in different media approach the portrait genre and their fellow creative minds. Works include pieces by Laura Ross-Paul, Susan Seubert, Leiv Fagereng and Katherine Ace.

Blue Sky Gallery – Christine Osinski and Alejandro Cartajena

Christine Osinski’s black and white images of shoppers are not mere snapshots. They are quick images that probe the personalities of their subjects. Taken in the ubiquitous setting of the supermarkets, Osinski’s photographs capture private moments in the public sphere.

The photographs by Alejandro Cartajena find themselves exposing places usually overlooked by society. By highlighting the worn and abandoned areas of Mexico, Cartajena forces a reexamination of urban decay and the process of dilapidation.

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Tags: Portland Art, First Thursday

First Thursday April

Posted by: Lisa Radon on Apr 01, 2010 at 09:23AM 0 Comments

LESS
Victor Maldonado
Froelick Gallery
714 NW Davis
Reception April 1 5-8 PM

Recently back from showing at EAST/WEST BERLIN, Maldonado has been thinking about border crossings, the immigrant experience, and growing up as an indigenous man, a Mexican-American man, and assimilation. For Maldonado these “Green Screen” paintings—each representing the exact dimensions of one of the televisions that have been in his life—speak to his experience of learning English from watching American television and what that means for the process of acculturation with Maldonado a case study of a broader immigrant experience.

Higher Ground
Karl Burkheimer
DOPPLER PDX
625 NW Everett Street #109
Reception April 1 5:30-9 PM

Burkheimer goes vertical, investigating “his interest in the space, real or perceived, between the object of contemplation and the object of utility. Using the gallery as his architectural reference, Burkheimer created objects within the space as points of exchange with the public.” Department Head at OCAC, Burkheimer in the last year was curated into the Call + Response exhibition at MoCC and co-curated the one-night exhibition Open House Opening.

New Work
Julia Mangold

Selected Drawings
Donald Judd

Elizabeth Leach
417 NW 9th

Leach shows Julia Mangold’s wax and graphite-coated sculptures with a group of related graphite and wax drawings on paper and board. It will be interesting to see how these works have a conversation with a selection of drawings by Donald Judd also on show.

The Great Recession
Michael Mandiberg
Feldman Gallery at PNCA (1241 NW Johnson)
Reception April 1 6:30 PM

Exploring the psychic implications of the current economic difficulties as well as “late Capitalism, gold hoarding, and the end of an empire.” He says of his work: “I am an a appropriationist at heart. I derive visual inspiration from the internet, conceptual art, design, the end of print, and the dying American empire.”

EXPO
Colin Matthes
IGLOO
625 NW Everett #102

For his first solo exhibition in the Northwest, Milwaukee-based artist Colin Matthes is doing a short-term residency at Igloo gallery, culminating in a site-specific installation of scavenged scrap wood and found objects with high tech gizmos and survival gear to “create a lighthearted, yet poignant installation referencing stage sets, flea markets, unrealized innovations, and trade work. The installation will focus on creating an environment that invites the viewer to imagine small victories in hostile locations while encouraging reflection of how our own lifestyles contribute to creating these dynamics.”

working with doubt
Josh Smith
Manuel Izquierdo Gallery at PNCA
1241 NW Johnson
Reception Thursday April 1, 6-9 PM

FOG: A Spring Group Show
Artur Silva, Calvin Ross Carl, Grant Hottle, John Berry, Laura Mackin, Lisa Berry, Lisa Kowalski
Half/Dozen Gallery
625 NW Everett #111
Opening Reception April 1 6-9 PM

“A fog-laden photo by Lisa Berry (the show’s namesake), the repurposed home videos of Laura Mackin and the playful use of interior/exterior spaces by Grant Hottle all welcome the new season with hesitant, but open arms. Whether it is the vaguely familiar mountains mirrored in new work by Calvin Ross Carl, the scribbled paint strokes by Lisa Kowalski, or the playful assemblage by Artur Silva, this show will make you want to go outside and breath a chest full of fresh air. John Berry’s subtly crafted linocut may be the quiet kid in the corner not yet ready to venture out and greet the season.”

Empirical Geodism
Chelsea Lynn Linehan and Nathanael Thayer Moss
Tractor
328 NW Broadway
Opening April 1 6-10 PM

“A sensory experience of visual and sonic stimulations,” with new paintings, paper sculptures, drawings, and a collaborative light/sound sculpture.

[caption id=“attachment_5415” align=“alignleft” width=“430” caption=" Toshiko Okanoue, Noon Song, 1954. Photolithographic collage."][/caption]

Drop of Dreams
Toshiko Okanoue
Charles A. Hartman Fine Art
134 NW 8th
Reception April 1 5:30-8:30 PM

A show of original surrealist photolithographic collages from the early 1950s by the Japanese artist, Toshiko Okanoue. "Okanoue’s collages, created when she was in her mid-20s in post-war Japan, were constructed largely from American picture magazines such as Life and Vogue. Mining these rich visual sources of American popular culture, Okanoue’s beautiful surrealist imagery expresses the dreams of a young female artist in Japan standing at the crossroads of events and movements of enormous historic significance.

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Tags: Portland Art, First Thursday

First Thursday March

too much good

Posted by: Lisa Radon on Mar 04, 2010 at 10:00AM 0 Comments

Portland has come out swinging in the field of art for 2010 with strong shows right and left, from regional masters to intriguing visitors, excellent group shows…and March looks just as good. Here are some shows you might hit.

Marker
Marie Watt
PDX Contemporary Art
925 NW Flanders

Show of new work by Watt including “Trunk,” this incredible, sinuous cedar sculpture.

Clouds
Lucinda Parker
Laura Russo
805 NW 21st

Regional abstract expressionist powerhouse and longtime arts educator Parker with a show of new paintings inspired by the weather. Parker gives a talk Saturday, March 27, at 11 AM.

Letters from Switzerland
Melody Owen
Elizabeth Leach
417 NW 9th

“For Letters from Switzerland, using the tools and media of the Swiss-originated Dadaists, Owen created a precise and strange group of collages, examining feelings of dislocation and disconnection. Featuring bisected animals spilling flowers from their guts, and hotels sprouting roots that can’t find purchase, these works allude to the deracinated experience of the contemporary traveler.”

Laurie Danial
Froelick Gallery
714 NW Davis

Abstract paintings by Danial that feature tracings, structures, transparencies, the built and the organic.

Grassland Alphabet
Seth Nehil
In House Gallery
625 NE Everett St. #106

“…calligraphic exercises – letter-forms constructed from waves and clusters of marks. I imagined a field of wheat attempting to form itself into words, a mute landscape swelling in the wind, blades of grass arranging and aligning themselves.”

Constrain to Vertical
Brenda Mallory
DOPPLER PDX
625 NW Everett Street #109

Fabric wall pieces inspired by stacks of UPS “end-of-day” barcodes + Agnes Martin.

GRIP, GRASP, GROPE, AND FONDLE
Lucas Murgida
Autzen Gallery
2nd Floor PSU Neuberger Hall, Room 205, 724 SW Harrison

SF artist Murgida makes work through (and addressing) his work … conducting “research” while employed as cabinetmaking, restaurant work, locksmithing, and now yoga instruction. Artist talk/performance at opening.

Wrecking Crüe
IGLOO
625 NW Everett #102

Titled cute, this is a group show of work by Jordan Tull, Josh Smith, Salvatore Reda, Joshua Pavlacky, and Jeff Jahn (like the j-alliteration…should Salvatore change his first name?). Bullet points from the quite poetic statement:

+ constructed space
+ structural invention
+ half-made/half-undone
+ hypershapes
+ blueprints and Outer Space
+ rendering philosophical material from impulsive architecture

3X_PWN_TRANZ
Future Death Toll
Tractor
328 NW Broadway

sometimes when you pick up the pwn, you don’t know who is on the other line.
sometimes when you pick up the pwn, you do all the talking.
sometimes when you pick up the pwn, the pwn does all the talking for you.

I’m into the idea of “evidence of a past or future mission to transmit” as well as the machines of communication.

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Tags: Portland Art, First Thursday

First Thursday February

it’s a knockout

Posted by: Lisa Radon on Feb 03, 2010 at 12:00PM 0 Comments

This is a month that promises a wealth of remarkable exhibitions including sharp-looking group shows at both Elizabeth Leach Gallery and Half/Dozen, Oregon Painting Society at Manuel Izquierdo at PNCA, plus new work by Jaq Chartier (Leach), Bean Finneran (PDX Contemporary), and something intriguing from Lindsay Aucoin at Tractor. And that’s just the exhibitions opening on Thursday! Receptions generally start at 6 or 6:30 PM. Websites have details. Stay tuned for Friday openings.

SuperNatural
Jaq Chartier
Elizabeth Leach
417 NW 9th
The gallery, as I do, calls Chartier’s work both lush and minimal. Like test strips or views through a microscope, this is work that is quietly beautiful.

Re-Present
Pat Boas, Adam Chapman, Isaac Layman, Joe Park, Xiaoze Xie
Elizabeth Leach
417 NW 9th
According to the gallery, “the artists in Re-Present consider the differences between representation and perception.” Boas’ work I respect very much, recontextualizing the everyday info-stream via excision, and Layman I was introduced to by the recent show at the Archer Gallery. I’m perhaps most interested to see Chapman’s video drawing portraits.

Shadowgut
Oregon Painting Society
Manuel Izquierdo Gallery
825 NW 13th
I don’t know much about what this arts collective is doing for this show, (Derek Franklin says its the dark opposite of their Autzen show) but their recent exhibition at Autzen was widely lauded. They’re adventurous, smart, and surprising.

Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now
The Philip Feldman Gallery + Project Space
1241 NW Johnson
Sweeping exhibition of posters, photographs, ephemera capturing over 40 years of international social activism. Graphically powerful reminder of stakes and role that art/design has played in agitating for social change.

The Quadratic Logogram of Almost Everything: The Democracy of the Contemporary Art Object
Half/Dozen
625 NW Everett St. #111
Excellent group of artists, smart curator, and interesting premise, I’m going to dig into more fully in short order. I wouldn’t miss this group show curated by Derek Franklin with work by David Corbett, Alex Felton, Kristan Kennedy, Sterling Lawrence.

Incidence and Pattern
Bean Finneran
PDX Contemporary Art
925 NW Flanders
“For the past seven years I have been working with a single elemental form, a curve as a meditation upon multiplicity in nature."

T9
Lindsay Aucoin
Tractor
328 NW Broadway
“I’m interested in word play, idea play, picture play- anything that interrupts the way we normally see things. … T9 is an abstract look at technology as a means of communication.”

Inland Empires
Tyler Kohlhoff
Tribute Gallery
328 NW Broadway #117
“Inland Empires focuses on the transitional habitats of the Interior West. In a series of two studies, the artist leverages anti-narrative to explore space as found artifacts of the abandoned." It’s a first PDX show for this artist of what look to be lovely , moody photos.

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Tags: Portland Art, First Thursday