ultra

If a tree falls “building” is built in the forest on a bluff in the middle of nowhere and no one was there to hear see it, does it make a sound?

Answer: yes. Lead Pencil Studio’s “Maryhill Double,” a lo-fi replica of the Maryhill Art Museum which was installed somewhere along the Columbia Gorge from July to October 2006, continues to make an impact, it’s ghostly afterglow burned into the collective PDX art memory whether we made the trek to the Gorge or not.

Tonight, Wednesday, May 30, Disjecta presents “Spatial Inquiry,” a lecture on art and architecture by Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo of Seattle-based Lead Pencil Studio at the Wieden + Kennedy Atrium ( 224 NW 13th Ave). Han and Mihalyo are set to discuss the “architectural aspiration of creating spaces for nothing.” (We’ve always appreciated the definition of art as the creation of the thing for which there is no use, and we love “nothing.”)

The duo recently showed at the Henry Art Gallery and currently have work at the Exploratorium in San Francisco and Lawrimore Project in Seattle.

Portland-based photographer Ann Ploeger’s distinctive photos take the mundane and give it a hyperreal edge. She mainly shoots portraits of regular people in their environments (or in an environment that could well be theirs), but these photos are anything but regular. It’s something in the straightforward, unposed poses — a little awkward or blocky — something in the light that can be a a bit eerie, something in the colors, which are like additional characters in the portraits as in an Almadovar movie. If anything, they feel like they owe a debt to Cindy Sherman, though Ploeger shoots non-Ploeger subjects. But Ploeger is doing her own thing.

You’ve likely seen her work. She’s also done photos for local apparel designers (Midgewear) and covers for local publications like the Mercury.

The national release party for her first book, aptly titled, Portraits, is Thursday, June 7 at No Fish Go Fish Restaurant (3962 SE Hawthorne) from 8-11pm. If you just can’t wait, the book is available for pre-sale (free shipping) at the publisher’s website.