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.
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.
Also
Clouds
Lucinda Parker
Laura Russo
805 NW 21st
O.G. Ab-Ex powerhouse and longtime arts educator Parker with a show of new paintings. 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.”
Marker
Marie Watt
PDX Contemporary Art
925 NW Flanders
Show of new work by Watt including “Trunk,” this incredible, sinuous cedar sculpture.
Laurie Danial
Froelick Gallery
714 NW Davis
Abstract paintings by Danial that feature tracings, structures, transparencies, the built and the organic.
POSTED: March 4th, 2010 | AUTHOR: admin | FILED UNDER: art | TAGS: art, autzen, brenda mallory, doppler pdx, elizabeth leach gallery, first thursday, froelick gallery, future death toll, igloo, jeff jahn, jordan tull, josh pavlacky, josh smith, laurie danial, lucas murgida, lucinda parker, marie watt, melody owen, pdx contemporary art, portland, salvatore reda, seth nehil, tractor | 1 Comment »
Should I tell you that I wrote this once already and that the computer ate my homework? You can tell me that what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. What are you doing First Thursday? Some suggestions.
First up, two shows about touring. At Compound Gallery (107 NW 5th) is Survival Drive a photo and drawing show with work by artist, Rei (Reijiro Mochizuki) and photographer, Hooky (Souichiro Fukuda) who chronicle Japan via a 131 day, 34,033km journey in the tradition of wandering great ukiyo-e artist Hokusai Katsushika, some 200 years gone.
And at Fontanelle Gallery The Art of Touring is a group exhibition featuring photography by Alissa Anderson (Vetiver), Hannah Mae Blair, Sharon Cheslow, Mia Clarke (Electrelane), Jem Cohen, Erika Spring Forster (Au Revoir Simone), Rebecca Gates, Emma Gaze (Electrelane), Megan Holmes, Andy Moor (The Ex), Tara Jane Oneil, Jean Smith (Mecca Normal) and more.
I am very much interested in seeing Jordan Tull’s installation, Reflexion, at Tractor. (Photo by Dan Mclaughlin.)
At Elizabeth Leach Gallery (417 NW 9th), Malia Jensen’s show of new sculpture and works on paper, Knee High to a Worm.
Night Poems, an installation by Aidan Koch and Paul Wagenblast at Pony Club Gallery (625 Everett #105) intrigues me.
And finally, before it comes down on August 8, please see Brennan Conaway’s In Joyful anticipation of Catastrophic Ruin- The First Colony at the PDX Contemporary Art (925 NW Flanders) Window Project (window on NW 9th at Flanders). Inside, find an exhibition of works by the late photographer, Terry Toedtemeier, entitled, Trees.
POSTED: August 4th, 2009 | AUTHOR: lisa | FILED UNDER: art | TAGS: art, compound gallery, elizabeth leach gallery, first thursday, fontanelle gallery, gallery, pdx contemporary art, pony club gallery | No Comments »
What’s interesting in Portland galleries this month?
Midori Hirose and Joshua Orion Kermiet do an installation (sculpture, collage, and works on paper) at Fontanelle Gallery (205 SW Pine).
Oracle 2, Victoria Haven, 2009, Silver gelatin print, 13″ x 13″ (20.5″ x 20″ framed)
I am looking forward to seeing Victoria Haven’s work at PDX Contemporary Across the Hall’s (925 NW Flanders) aptly named summer group show, Catch All. The exhibition has a variety of work from Brad Adkins, Monica Angle, Lydia Beebe, Victoria Haven, Philip Iosca, Vanessa Johnson, Justin L’Amie, James Lavadour, Raymond Meeks, Vanessa Renwick, Adam Sorensen, Storm Tharp, Marie Watt.
Also at PDX Contemporary (925 NW Flanders) Wes Mills’ Mondrian’s Forest.
And check Josh Pavlacky’s installation, Ark, at Tractor (328 NW Broadway). Pavlacky, whose website is in-progress/enigmatic is part of Appendix. Read Richard Schemmerer’s interview with Pavlacky re: Appendix on ArtLit. And here’s a past installation Pavlacky did at Appendix.
POSTED: July 1st, 2009 | AUTHOR: lisa | FILED UNDER: art | TAGS: art, first thursday, fontanelle gallery, galleries, gallery, pdx contemporary art | No Comments »
Gertrud and Otto Natzler at Museum of Contemporary Craft
It’s easy. We won’t have to stray far tonight to hit the high points of Portland’s First Thursday, when, as you know, the galleries stay open late with their August shows. Three spots in the DeSoto Building top our list for the night/month.
First up, we haven’t yet seen the show that opened at the Museum of Contemporary Craft on August 2, so first stop will be The Ceramics of Gertrud and Otto Natzler. She created these incredible forms, he developed a couple thousand experimental glazes and together they made 25,000 pieces, elevating vessel to fine art, and introducing modern European ceramics to America along the way through their LA studio and the classes they taught there.
“Alpine,” Robert Yoder, photo via Froelick Gallery
We’re also looking forward to seeing Robert Yoder’s Action Painting! at Froelick Gallery. Delicious vinyl and graphite collages from this Seattle artist aren’t paintings at all are they, but contain plenty of abstract action with a sometimes fractured, explosive surface, sometimes with twisted, falling flatforms. The Portland Art Museum just acquired a great piece of his entitled “Bank.” Now it’s your turn.
“New York Dolls”, Anton Perich at Augen
And you’ve seen many/most of these iconic photos before, pics of Edie Sedgwick, Joey and Debbie in bed, the Velvet Underground, but you’ll go see the new exhibition at Augen (716 NW Davis) anyway. Bande à part (band of outsiders) is an internationally traveling exhibition of work by photographers like Billy Name, Roberta Bayley, and Bobby Grossman (many more) who captured the New York underground scene in the 70’s and 80’s.
POSTED: August 7th, 2008 | AUTHOR: lisa | FILED UNDER: art | TAGS: art, ceramics, collage, exhibition, first thursday, galleries, museum of contemporary craft | No Comments »
Among our favorite regional artists is Seattle’s Jaq Chartier, whose exhibition Full Spectrum opens tonight, First Thursday, at Elizabeth Leach (417 NW 9th) for the month of July. Favorite because while the work is beautiful, subtle and melancholy in its coloration and form, the method is more beautiful. Chartier considers all of her works experiments, testing the interactions of layers of stain, paint, gels, inspired by images of DNA gel electophoresis.
POSTED: July 3rd, 2008 | AUTHOR: lisa | FILED UNDER: art | TAGS: art, exhibition, first thursday, visual art | No Comments »