VISUAL ART

The misdirected tizzy over shredded Banksy

Jennifer Rabin considers the target of Banksy's auction prank

October 11, 2018 // NEWS & NOTES, VISUAL ART //

Last week, during the ache and anticipation of the Kavanaugh debacle, the art world had its own to-do. Sotheby’s auctioned off a painting, Girl With Balloon, by the street artist Banksy. A split second after it sold for $1.4 million, its unassuming gold frame shredded it into what some reporters would have us believe are now worthless strips of a formerly precious work of art.

Girl With Balloon at Sotheby’s in London on Image posted on Banksy’s Instagram account

Arts writers were aflutter. What would happen next? Would this void the sale? What would it do to the resale value? “Sotheby’s has not named the client whose $1.4 million purchase was destroyed,” one article informed us, perfectly illustrating the art world’s inability, or willful refusal, to see past an object to the intention behind it.

They missed the point.

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Astoria show features trash-talking artists

Winners of the Coastal Oregon Artist Residency received a stipend, studio space and access to materials to create recycled works of art

October 9, 2018 // COAST, CULTURE, FAMILY, VISUAL ART //

On Saturday, when artists Cara Mico, Stephen Shumaker and Wenda Vorce welcome guests to their art gallery opening, they’ll be sharing their interpretations of what it means to truly turn one man’s trash into another’s treasure.

Winners of the Coastal Oregon Artist Residency — Wenda Vorce (left), Cara Mico, and Stephen Shumaker — will exhibit their work made from trash in a show that opens Saturday in Astoria. The residency is co-sponsored by Astoria Visual Arts (AVA) and Recology Western Oregon. Photo by: Agnes Field

The three are this year’s winners of the third annual Coastal Oregon Artist Residency, a collaboration between Recology Western Oregon and nonprofit Astoria Visual Arts to raise awareness of recycling and the creation of art through the use of repurposed and discarded materials.

The artists, who began their work July 2, received a monthly stipend, access to materials and dedicated studio space at Recology’s Astoria Recycling Depot and Transfer Station over three months.

Here, they talk about their passion for making the Earth a better place, one piece of trash at a time.

Cara Mico

Mico is the program director for the Cannon Beach Arts Association. Her show is called Broken Records, a reference, she said, “to all of the changes that have taken place in my lifetime.” It includes nine paintings, four sculptures, an installation piece, and “a bunch of Christmas ornaments.” All will be for sale.

Mico, who lives in Nehalem, describes herself as a “kind of a magpie.”

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Enigmatic “Theory of Nothing” proffers a peaceful place to be

Adam Rupniewski’s installation in the Art Harvest Studio Tour combines sculpture, music, and poetry for a must-see experience

October 8, 2018 // LANGUAGE ARTS, NEWS & NOTES, THEATER, VISUAL ART, YAMHILL //

The 26th annual Art Harvest Studio Tour of Yamhill County is now live, and for those who missed out on the first weekend, take heart: It goes three more days, and this weekend’s weather looks picture perfect, with sunny days and highs in the low 70s. That means lots of crispy orange and yellow leaves swishing at your feet as you hike through wine country meeting our amazing artists.

These calls are subjective, of course, and while studio tours inevitably feature at least one artist who has “must-see” work on display, Adam Rupniewski’s Theory of Nothing installation, tucked away in a second-floor ballroom in downtown McMinnville, is so wildly unique that you really must see it. Trust me, Mac has more than a dozen artists on this countywide tour, so you can’t go wrong by starting your travels downtown on Third Street, where book artist Marilyn Worrix’s sprawling upstairs apartment hosts several artists, including Rupniewski.

From Adam Rupniewski’s “Physiology of Dreams” collection, “Mona Linda,” oil pastel on paper, is one of many pieces on display as the Art Harvest Studio Tour of Yamhill County continues Oct. 12-14.

Rupniewski was born in Poland in 1958 and emigrated with his then-wife and baby son after that country’s martial law expired in July 1983. He lived in several European nations before coming to Oregon in 1986, sponsored by the Presbyterian Church in Portland. He earned his MFA in 1998 from Portland State University, which is where he first showed Theory of Nothing.

Before arriving at the exhibit’s latest incarnation, the viewer traverses a long, wide hallway displaying Rupniewski’s Physiology of Dreams cycle (nearly all works in oil pastel on paper). The cycle was inspired by two unusual dreams, one from a period of seclusion in the Massif Central mountains of Ardèche, France, and the second from a week-long film festival featuring work by the remarkable Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. Rupniewski elaborates in his artist’s statement:

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Art notes: Happy birthday, Hallie

Salem's Hallie Ford Museum turns 20, The Art Gym is unmoored again, Lommasson's "Stories of Survival," Portland Open Studios, Ogawa's kiln.

October 7, 2018 // CULTURE, VISUAL ART //

Salem’s Hallie Ford Museum of Art has had such an impact on art and artists in the Pacific Northwest that it’s a bit of a surprise to remember it’s only twenty years old. But that’s the case: Its official birthday was Wednesday, October 3, and to celebrate (modestly) it extended its hours for the day and served cake and refreshments to visitors.

Olbrantz

John Olbrantz, who’s directed the museum since it opened and set it on its course to becoming a model of a small art museum, gave a lecture on the museum’s birthday, looking back on its beginnings and forward to what’s ahead. In his twenty years in Salem he’s helped build the Hallie Ford into not just an art center for Willamette University, its parent institution, but also the museum for its city and a vital arts player in its region.

More talks are to come:

Dobkins

Rebecca Dobkins, the museum’s energetic and innovative curator of Native American art and an anthropology professor at Willamette, will lecture on Wednesday, October 10, on the museum’s longstanding relationship with contemporary indigenous artists, one of its great strengths: In addition to building an excellent small permanent collection of Native American art, Dobkins and the museum routinely assemble special exhibitions on indigenous art and artists.

Cuno

The following day – Thursday, the 11th – James Cuno, president and chief executive officer of the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, will lecture on the role of university museums. For Cuno, it’s a homecoming of sorts: He’s a 1973 graduate from Willamette, with a degree in history.

Both lectures are free.

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Nature, art, and activism on the Oregon Trail

Signal Fire alumni consider Oregon's colonial past and ecological present at PNCA

October 5, 2018 // VISUAL ART //

By STEPHANIE LITTLEBIRD

Unwalking the West is a group exhibition at the Center for Contemporary Art and Culture at the Pacific Northwest College of Art showcasing Signal Fire alumni who completed the Unwalking the West wilderness program in 2016. The artists retraced segments of the Oregon Trail in reverse to examine the lingering legacies of colonialism and consider present ecological challenges.

Signal Fire started in 2008 when activist Amy Harwood joined artist Ryan Pierce in a collaborative effort to unite their two communities. The intention of this partnership was to foster appreciation for the natural world by connecting artists to the wilderness and advocating for the protection of open spaces.

Ten years later, the program leads trips year-round for artists who want to deepen their relationship to nature and learn about equitable access to public lands. Additionally, the program provides opportunities for artists and creative activists to engage with the environment directly through unique and immersive residencies.

Emmy Lingscheit, Remediators (2018)

Upon entering the exhibition at PNCA, one is confronted by large-scale relief prints depicting Pleurotus ostreatus, commonly known as the oyster mushroom. Artist Emmy Lingscheit’s work is delicately carved and visually striking in its balance of light and dark. Her mark making is intentional and beautifully exalts the anatomy of this humble organism.

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VizArts Monthly: Big shows on tap

Around the galleries this month: James Lavadour, Judy Cooke, Chris Rauschenberg, Terry Toedtemeier

October 2, 2018 // CULTURE, VISUAL ART //

October is here, and the arts calendar isn’t slowing down. The Portland Biennial has announced its curatorial team, featuring Portlanders Yaelle S. Amir and Ashley Stull Meyers, and Seattlite Elisheba Johnson. Meanwhile, Nationale has added Francesca Capone to its stable of artists, and the Stumptown artist fellowship (curated by Nationale director May Barruel) has opened a new show (see below).

If you’re thinking that fall is a great time to review what the Portland art scene has to offer, you’re in luck – the latest edition of the Grapefruit Juice Artist Resource guide has just been released. This un-editorialized compendium of local venues, organizations and other resources for and by artists is available for free at many locations, including Passages Bookshop, Nationale, Ampersand, and Monograph Bookwerks. A noteworthy addition to the shows listed below is a group show opening at PCC’s North View Gallery. The Work Continues features six Portland artists including OCAC Dean Jiseon Lee and the prolific and talented Samantha Wall.

As Far as I Can See From Here, James Lavadour

James Lavadour: All That I Can See From Here

October 3 – 27
PDX Contemporary, 925 NW Flanders

New paintings by Northwest favorite James Lavadour. Lavadour’s trademark style – wild, rich, and full of precise accidents – plays with material and representation to capture some of the mystery and majesty of landscape while never denying their paintfulness. If you’ve somehow never seen Lavadour’s work, this is a good chance to see some fresh samples. If you’re familiar, you’re sure not to be disappointed.

Waterpark Second Thoughts, Ralph Pugay

Stuck on the Ride

October 6 – November 30
Open Signal, 2766 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd

If you’ve ever felt that the subject matter of exhibitions in Portland is hard to figure out or repetitive or vague, then you can’t miss this show full of waterparks and rollercoasters. Ryan Woodring, an interdisciplinary artist and former special effects instructor at Open Signal, has curated an exhibition that examines amusement parks place in American culture and media. Artists Ralph Pugay, Erin Mallea, Kristin Lucas, Claire Hentschker and Yaloo explore the subject matter through projection art, virtual reality, video and painting.

Painting by Anya Roberts Toney, photo by Mario Gallucci

Anya Roberts Toney

Through November 26
Downtown Stumptown, 128 SW 3rd

The show marking Anya Roberts-Toney’s awarding of the Stumptown Artists Fellowship features an arresting and beautiful set of détourned still-lives. Roberts-Toney “play[s] with this idea of flowers representing the female body, and by incorporating moments of rupture and fantasy, I seek to consider a counter-femininity that is powerful, self-possessed, and disregarding of the viewer’s satisfaction.” These impressive, self-possessed paintings command the space of the flagship Stumptown location downtown. If you go to see them, pick a quieter time for the cafe so you can spend some time with them.

Indian Cove, Terry Toedtemeier

Terry Toedtemeier: Sun, Shadows, Stone

October 20, 2018 – February 17, 2019
Tacoma Art Museum
1701 Pacific Avenue, Tacoma WA 98402

Self-taught photographer and curator Terry Toedtemeier (1947–2008) is best known for his monumental, haunting photographs of Oregon’s iconic natural features – the coast, the Columbia River Gorge, and the high desert. Beginning with snapshots from a moving car, he went on to become an accomplished photographic craftsman, influenced by the photographic traditions of the American West and the evidence of its geographic history. TAM remarks that “Toedtemeier often sought to capture the most dramatic images of places that have been shaped first by catastrophic geological events, then by the imprint of humans.” Part of the Northwest Perspective Series, this exhibition runs through mid-February, with a members celebration event on Saturday, November 17.

Hoi An – by Chris Rauschenberg

Chris Rauschenberg Photographs

October 4 – 28
Nine Gallery, 122 NW 8th St

A new set of photographs taken in Vietnam by Rauschenberg will be on display in the Nine Gallery space in the back of Blue Sky Gallery.

 

Painting by Judy Cooke

Judy Cooke: Conversation: Aluminum, Oil, Rubber

Through October 27
Elizabeth Leach Gallery, 417 NW 9th Ave

Subject of a recent Artswatch interview, Judy Cooke has become one of the Pacific Northwest’s most established abstract painters. For the past 30 years, she has explored abstraction and the structures of painting, working with formalism, color fields, and specific materiality.“ Her new series ”Conversation: Aluminum, Oil, Rubber” verges on the sculptural, embracing rubber and aluminum as both painting supports and materials.

Also opening at Elizabeth Leach this month are Portland-based artist Mark Palmen’s small, intricate embroideries, “influenced by his diverse interests ranging from art history and fashion to metaphysical investigations surrounding the cosmos.” An exhibit of Malia Jensen’s sculptural works, which opened last month, will also be on display, including a re-firing of a sculpture started decades ago.

 

Stills from Post Analog

Post Analog: Paloma Kop and Sara Goodman

Through October 21
Grapefruits Art Space, 2119 N Kerby, Suite D

New media artist, poet, curator, VJ, and teacher Sara Goodman and electronic media artist Paloma Kop have packed a remarkable amount of analog video synthesis and glitch art into the small warehouse Grapefruits gallery. This is a show for anyone who gets excited when they see a Sony Trinitron in a gallery. These pieces of original video synthesis come out of a community of artists working with technology that was once considered cutting edge but now refers to a very specific – and fading – moment in technological history. Citing “an increased resurgence of analog tools to create and distribute newly created video content,” this movement is drawn to pre-digital means of making video precisely because of its imperfections and technical demands on the creator. Bonus: some work was created using a device called a Wobbulator.

Venus, Mars – Paul X. Rutz

Paul X. Rutz and Amanda Hampton Wray: Into A Study

October 27
Ford Gallery, 2505 SE 11th Ave

The opening for this show is a one-night event that the artists refer to as “both an art installation and a carefully planned neuroscience study.” An ambitious and unusual project for the Ford Gallery, which has curated the atrium of the Ford Building since Gallery Homeland left, this exhibition is a collaboration between painter Paul X. Rutz and neuroscientist Amanda Hampton Wray. Sparked by Rutz’s questions about how people view new paintings, they have created an interactive exhibit in which viewers neural activity will be measured by Wray while they view Rutz’s paintings, which interrogate the history of the “female” and “male” symbols seen everywhere from bathroom doors to tarot cards.

Art Harvest Studio Tour of Yamhill County reaps as it sows

The art, in many media, is for sale, but the real bounty lies in the dialogue between artists and visitors about the creative process

September 30, 2018 // CULTURE, FAMILY, VISUAL ART, YAMHILL //

Given the confluence of autumn colors and great art, it’s tempting to employ hyperbole when talking about Yamhill County’s Art Harvest Studio Tour, but I’ll spare you a Thesaurus Drop and just lay out the facts.

The 26th annual event includes 40 artists, working in virtually every medium imaginable: watercolor, oil, acrylic, bronze, copper, steel, glass, stone, pastels, charcoal, silver, wood, paper, clay, fiber, tiles, beeswax, digital, and mixed media. It kicks off Friday and runs six days over two weekends. You can visit one, a dozen or all 40 artists if you have time. They’re concentrated in Yamhill County’s two largest cities, McMinnville and Newberg, but you’ll also find artists in Amity, Dundee, Carlton, Yamhill, Sheridan, and Willamina.

The cost to jump into this self-guided tour of local color and creativity? Eight bucks.

Sure, on any weekend, you can spend a day visiting galleries and exhibitions, but this is the one time of year when local artists invite the public into their studios (which often are also their homes), where they answer questions, educate, do demonstrations. Yes, you can buy stuff, but that’s not ultimately the point.

Last week I reached out to a handful of participating artists, both new and returning, to get their take. Of those, none illustrated the point quite so well as paper carver Doug Roy. He’s been working his magic with paper for more than a quarter-century and has participated in Art Harvest for two decades.

Paper carver Doug Roy cuts colored paper into impossibly tiny pieces and turns them into intricate pictures such as this one, titled “Reefers.”

He told me this story.

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