ultra Q: TJ Norris

Curator, gallerist (the greatly missed, SOUNDVISION), visual artist, arts writer, TJ Norris takes a moment to answer the ultra Q in which we ask Portland’s movers and makers a number of pressing questions

Opening this Friday at the Guestroom Gallery (Mark Wooley’s annex gallery at the Wonder Ballroom complex at 128 NE Russell) is grey|area curated by TJ Norris. Trust Norris, whose shows at SOUNDVISION were always on the must-see list to lasso some of the more interesting artists in Portland for a show that in deliciously and typically Norris-esque fashion the kaleidescope of possibilities inherent in the notion of grey and all the in-between-ness it suggests. Look forward to seeing work by David Eckard, Scott Wayne Indiana, Ty Ennis, j.frede, Troy Briggs, Laura Fritz, Ellen George, and of course, Norris, himself. There’s an opening June 2 from 6-9 PM, or more interestingly, a panel chat on Saturday June 10 at 1 PM.

Recently, Norris took time out to answer the ultra Q.

TJ Norris

Qualities you most admire in design:
Elegant minimalism, neutralities. I am particularly fond of designers who cut to challenge the body, presenting an ‘other’ (being, thing). Design that conceals and may also present a layer of peek-a-boo attracts me. As a photographer, it’s a voyeur thing.

Qualities you most despise in design:
Glib, crackhead design following a flash trend. Too much is too much. It may seem “fun” in the moment but if it has no sense of timelessness – it’s simply recyclable.

Reading:
Beside the internet? I”ve been constantly fumbling through catalogues of work by sound sculptors Achim Wollschied, Carsten Nicolai and Christina Kubisch.

Listening to:
A new series of work on UK’s Lumberton Trading Company imprint, Aphex Twin’s eleven Analord EPs, and my guilty pleasure is replaying “Destroy Everything You Touch” by Ladytron!

Dream project:
To show my collaborative installation work in Japan. Maybe finally bring to light the “banned work” I conceived with artist/composer Terre Thaemlitz. We were selected for an exhibition about the transgendered body slated to open simultaneously with the Summer Olympics in Athens a year or two back. I thought the concept of bringing olympic bodies into the same major city where this ‘other’ body was on view made for a synergistically strange fusion. The museum director nixed the show in the final hours. It was disappointing because other contributors to this exhibition designed in London also included work by Genesis P. Orridge and Joel-Peter Witkin.

Favorite virtue:
Art as vocation

Favorite vice:
Other than moochi ice cream? Probably amassing a huge music library. And lately, Matthew Barney.

Tragic flaw:
Non-stop. I need a zen garden.

Secret superhero power:
Spending hours pounding the pavement, citywide with my camera, it can be endless, and it only energizes me more. Feet don’t fail me now!

That which keeps your afterburners firing:
Actually, I am working on adding a few coals on the bar-b behind-the scenes!

What you’d like to be when you grow up:
Me.

Portland’s best kept secret:
mmmmmum.

Portland heroes (sung or un-):
Artists like David Eckard and Brenda Mallory. Younger gallerists like Jenene Nagy and Ruthann Brown. Breathless do-it-all guys like Paul Middendorf and Scott Wayne Indiana. Oh, I could go on…it’s a great town!

Interesting on the horizon (PDX):
Opening “grey|area” at Guestroom Gallery this Friday, June 2. I am also having a small solo show in October at the still newish 12×16 Gallery on SE Division. On August 5th I will be “In Clover” (Mt. Scott Park, public art group show). In January my photographic objects have been included in an exhibition about “place” at Boise State University’s Visual Arts Center. Next year I am planning curatorial projects with both New American Art Union (April) and Newspace Center for Photography (October). My biggest news is that I will travel to Sweden for my first-ever solo exhibition abroad at the Neon Gallery in Brosarp to present “Infinitus”. This coincides with the conclusion of my ongoing Tribryd series of collaborative installations and the release of the CD/DVD set “triMIX” (the original soundtracks, de-constructed by Nobukazu Takemura, Mokira, Xela and several others). This will be released on Innova Recordings, part of the American Composers Forum.

Brett Superstar Stole My Name

it’s all post-Warholian to us

“What type of people buy your paintings?”

“You’re not supposed to talk about that. Let’s just talk about boots and Chinese food.”

– Student reporter and Andy Warhol, 1966

Barbara Feldon. Andy Warhol.

Not that it’s any coincidence, necessarily–if you care a whit about fashion, art, pop culture, the shade of Warhol falls long over the landscape–but we’re having a Warhol-in-ascendence moment, seeing his inky fingerprints everywhere. Maybe we tuned in because of the row of Warhol films at Clinton Street Video or The Warhol Look: Glamour, Style, Fashion that jumped off the shelf at us at Powell’s or photos of Linah Cocaine in full maquillage. From jaunty striped shirts to Reed soundtracks, to drawn-in eyebrows (either on a print or a face), silkscreens, overpainted photos and prints, and our favorite photo of Diana Vreeland, a Warhol Polaroid, we’re seeing the Everywhere Man everywhere. Even his doorstop of a diary (that we picked up at SMUT) is serving as a bedside table, holding up our copy of The New English Dandy and The Rova Improvisations by Clark Coolidge.

We used to write Mr. Warhol off with a big red lipstick X because he was the only artist anyone who knew nothing about art would ever name drop (oh, and Picasso). Boring, we thought. And how much was Warhol and how much was hype. But here at the barricades at the intersection of art and fashion and design, a position Warhol mined like never before, we take it all back. (Most of it.)

What got us started on all of this is that Brett Superstar (unrelated to Mona Superhero? same middle name?) is having a show at Redux (811 E Burnside), opening with a reception this Friday.

Bruch at Leach

Cris Bruch. Hemlock. 2006.

The writer and critic Robert Mittenthal once told Cris, “Your role in the space time continuum is that you take time and turn it into space.” *

One of the many great things about Elizabeth Leach is that she has the regional long view well in hand, having been a gallerist in Portland for a jillion years now. Most importantly to many of us, she’s not only been around, she’s had her finger on the pulse of contemporary, right-now art in the Northwest and beyond. So when Leach says, “[Cris] Bruch is well known for his performance based work in the 1980’s,” it adds fascinating backstory (we’re doing the research right now) and a megaton or two of impact to the sculptures Leach is showing this month by artist Cris Bruch.

*from “Paper Wealth” By Sean Elwood excerpted from an essay originally written for an exhibit at the Kirkland Art Center

Enamored at Moshi Moshi

Natalie Cartwright grew up surrounded by objects her parents collected on their travels. And as a child, her parents took her to places they’d been, places they remembered…including roadside attractions, like “a garden built entirely of shells.” One of the objects that acted powerfully on Cartwright’s imagination was her mother’s Noh mask, issuing an unspoken invitation to Japan. Moshi Moshi’s (811 E Burnside) first photography exhibition is Enamored, Cartwright’s photo travel diary of her exploration of Osaka and Tokyo. The show opens this Friday, June 2, with a reception from 6-9 PM.

White Out

In anticipation of the upcoming Little White Dress Show on June 8 at Disjecta, we consider that color that is all colors and no color. Guest contributor Tim DuRoche on white.

“. . .oh Lana Turner we love you get up” � Frank O’Hara

White is about elegance, cooling, and a hopeful balm and simultaneously about blurring, burning intensity�like the polarity between Grace Kelly’s wedding dress and the sweat-and sin-inducing tear of Jimmie Lunceford’s big band playing White Heat (delivered at a blistering 364 beats-per-minute). Read the rest of this entry »