This is part one of a two part invitation to see some exhibitions closing tomorrow. Don’t miss Josh Smith’s “The Righteous Foundation of Us” at the Miguel Izquierdo Gallery at PNCA (825 NW 13th). It’s utopian, architectural, accumulative like a coral reef, windowed like a modernist modular housing dream. And the form, here, you can see is magnificent. But don’t take my word for it, take a minute and go check it out, feel the scale, (and are we talking about density in the urban core and what it means, good, bad, ugly, and here: beautiful?) before it makes way for whatever comes next.
POSTED: February 25th, 2009 | AUTHOR: lisa | FILED UNDER: art | TAGS: art, josh smith, pnca, the righteous foundation of us | No Comments »
What better way to give winter the kiss-off than to transport yourself, in your imagination, to a roadside astroturfed wonderland where your prime responsibilities boil down to placing a colored ball into a little hole with a small chrome-y stick. Bermuda shorts, Sperry topsiders (sans sock), and a little camp shirt.
Dave Selden’s Labyrinth hole
Tuesday’s the first night of The Fourth Annual Holocene Minigolf Art Invitational, February 24-25 at PM ($8). Once again, Holocene gathers artists, designers, architects, gallery collectives who each create an approximation of a mini golf hole, interpreted refreshingly loosely. Expect “giant mushroom forests, maneuvering into a wooden tiger, and puzzling quantum physics with Schrodingers Cat…Heaven, Hell…the Willamette River…pancakes.” Best hole design gets a $1000 prize.
Jack Bouba & Stacey Mairs
Jesse Pardun, Carl Jansen & Nate Lee
Drew Marshall & Heather Campbell
Scott Mazariegos & John Larsen
John Bacone
Jason Kentta & David Bertman
Tom O’Toole & Ada Mayer
FLAVOURspot
SCRAP Creative Re-Use
Together Gallery featuring Timothy Karpinski, Seth Neefus, & David Wien
Pony Club Gallery
The Pancake Clubhouse Historic Township and Activity Destination for the Living Arts (welcomes you!)
Music from Tender Forever (Melanie Valera) on Tuesday and Guidance Counselor (Ian Anderson) Wednesday.
POSTED: February 24th, 2009 | AUTHOR: lisa | FILED UNDER: art | TAGS: art, holocene, portland | No Comments »
Is this not the perfect moment for a lecture on design entrepreneurship?
In a timely move, PNCA and OFFICE PDX are bringing in Jerry French, founder of French Paper, the only independently owned paper mill in the US, and acclaimed designer Charles S. Anderson, founder of Minneapolis-based Charles S. Anderson (CSA Design who together in 2006 launched Pop Ink. They’re giving a lecture “Art As Commerce, designing and selling your own product (the story of POP INK)” Wednesday, February 25 at 6:30 PM at PNCA’s Swiggert Commons (1241 NW Johnson).
POSTED: February 24th, 2009 | AUTHOR: lisa | FILED UNDER: art | TAGS: art, pnca | No Comments »
Calling all crafters, craftspeople, artists who employ craft, designers, architects, fashion designers, and the list goes on. You need to know about this talk tomorrow, Saturday, February 21 at the White Stag building (70 NW Couch) at 2:30. Glenn Adamson is a design theorist and head of research at the V&A, but if that sounds hifalutin’, he’s written a very down-to-earth if incredibly comprehensive/expansive book called _Thinking Through Craft_ which covers a range of craft-related ideas from a Marxist view of the crafty girl to why craft is seen as art’s little cousin.
This weekend “School of Architecture and Allied Arts, University of Oregon”:http://aaa.uoregon.edu/ and the “Museum Contemporary Craft”:http://www.museumofcontemporarycraft.org band together to bring Adamson to town for “Craft in the 21st Century: Directions and Displacements,” part of the “Craft Perspectives Series, Museum of Contemporary Craft”:http://www.museumofcontemporarycraft.org/programs_lecture.php.
By 2:30 you should be done with breakfast and in that little lull of not yet getting ready to go out tonight. Plus, if you haven’t had occasion to check out the White Stag building yet, where U of O’s architecture outpost is housed, here’s your chance. And it’s free.
From the press release:
A leading force in the development of an academic framework for craft, he is hailed by writer and historian Garth Clark as “one of craft’s fresh, young, nontraditional voices.” Adamson dispenses with clichéd approaches to craft theory, posing such questions as: “Is craft truly a subcategory of art, or rather its antithesis, challenging art’s most fundamental values?” “Why is craft perceived as subservient to art?” “Could craft’s orphaned status actually be its great strength?” Framing his discussion broadly throughout contemporary aesthetic culture, Adamson provides ripe context for a range of visual practitioners – including fine artists, designers, architects, historians and indie crafters.
Glenn Adamson is head of graduate studies and deputy head of research at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. His focus of research ranges from modern craft and industrial design to English and American decorative arts during the 17th and 18th centuries. Adamson holds at Ph.D. in art history from Yale University and is the author of “Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens Shaped Your World and Thinking Through Craft”:http://www.powells.com/partner/33529/biblio/9780262511865, published in late 2007. Adamson is also an editor of the “Journal of Modern Craft”:http://www.powells.com/partner/33529/s?kw=journal%20of%20modern%20craft and a contributing essayist to “Unpacking the Collection: Selections from the Museum of Contemporary Craft”:http://www.museumofcontemporarycraft.org/salesgallery_publications.php. His forthcoming anthology “The Craft Reader”:http://www.bergpublishers.com/?tabid=5096 will be released in 2009.
POSTED: February 20th, 2009 | AUTHOR: lisa | FILED UNDER: art | TAGS: art, craft, event, museum of contemporary craft | No Comments »
This is the dim sum cart of dance classes with a rotating cast of some of Portland’s most interesting contemporary dancer/choreographers who typically don’t teach. It’s also an invitation to dance in the inner circle of the contemporary PDX dance scene because really, HEAVY ROTATION addresses this core (not corps) group of Players–innovative movement thinkers/performers–giving them a way to dance with, inspire, learn from each other that’s outside of rehearsal or performance. “We want to dance in a room with you and you and you.”
Coordinated by dance artists Kathleen Keogh and Noelle Stiles, it’s 4.5 months of weekly classes with the facilitator switching up every two weeks. Emily Stone’s two weeks will meld Tom Waits and Jazzercize, yet another reason we love Emily Stone. Woolly Mammoth (Keogh, Katie Arrants, and Rikki Rothenberg) will make little dances with you via close looking (analogue of close listening), creating repeatable phrase from kinetic response. Check out who’s leading class each week, because the experience will differ dramatically…ranging into goddess territory with Mizu Desierto, for example. Participating artists include Tracy Broyles, Linda Austin, Mizu Desierto, Wendy Hambidge, Tahni Holt, Katrina O’Brien, Paige McKinney, Shannon Bierly, and you.
Don’t show if you’re expecting to point your toes and do ballet hands (or jazz hands for that matter).
Begins this Sunday, February 15 at 10 at The Headwaters at Disjecta 8371 N Interstate. See the website for details.
POSTED: February 14th, 2009 | AUTHOR: lisa | FILED UNDER: dance | TAGS: art, dance | No Comments »