art

Art Portland

Did anyone else notice that last First Thursday (and First Friday too) was wall-to-wall? Good that good weather brings the art-lover out in Portlanders, but crowds do not make for optimum art viewing. So here’s a little checklist of what’s worth your time in the waning days of June. On 82nd you can already buy fireworks, closer to the river, you can buy (and look at) art.

Stop #1 is Eastside at the New American Art Union (922 SE Ankeny) where Jesse Hayward has curated The Hook Up with some of Portland’s most interesting artists, curators, gallerists, and critics: Brenden Clenaghen, Jacqueline Ehlis, Ellen George, Sean Healy, Jeff Jahn, Jenene Nagy, TJ Norris, Stephanie Robison. While the title of the show could sound weird in the context of the players in it, it’s meant to address the influence of installation practice on wall-based art. We love Jenene Nagy’s “Meadow” where the painted form on the wall spills off into three dimensions, caught by braced planes.

Now to the Pearl/Chinatown. If you missed the hit-or-miss hours of Genuine Imitation (625 NW Everett #110), you may not have seen Trish Grantham’s show there. Not to worry, Grantham’s work is available for sale and viewing online here. We were reflecting the other day that the little sidewalk sign she once painted for Fresh Pot on Hawthorne is going to be quite valuable one day.

ultra loves APAK, the collaborative duo of Ayumi and Aaron Piland whose work is up at Compound (107 NW 5th). Incidentally, if you bought the APAK with the two figures coaxing the sloth from the tree with a slice of cake, you could give it to us for our birthday. (ultra is two in June).

Alison Owen’s installation at Tilt Gallery and Project Space (625 NW Everett #106) is going to be trickier. You’ll have to schedule an appointment, but in some ways, this is as it should be–just you and the work–as Owen’s installation involves subtle modifications of the gallery space (a painted shadow, say), enough to say that something is happening here, little epiphanies for the viewer willing to meet the work more than halfway.

POSTED: June 24th, 2007 | AUTHOR: lisa | FILED UNDER: art | TAGS: art, art, portland | No Comments »

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