VizArts Monthly: Canoes and ice cream are involved

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There’s no denying it—summer is here (well, technically, maybe not)! And what better way to enjoy the precious, fleeting sunny months in Portland than to look at art in small indoor spaces? OK, there might be more appropriate summertime activities, but in between all the biking and lounging in parks and rafting on rivers, the seasonal blooming of events and shows has plenty to offer. In addition to the following list, take note of S1’s anniversary party weekend, June 8—10, with details available at http://s1portland.com/.

Ice Cream Social
Through June 17
Dust to Dust, 3636 N Mississippi Avenue

Self-described as “part celebration of community and part utopian fantasy,” Ice Cream Social should be a fun, colorful, and surprising little show featuring a healthy number of local artists. Josh Bolin, Emily Counts, Brian Giniewski, Shaina Kastztelan, Erica Prince, Amy Santoferraro, and Jessie Rose Vala present drawings, sculptures, and paintings that take “the saccharin ideals that an ice cream social might conjure” as a jumping-off point for explorations of utopia, sexuality, and, of course, ice cream. Worth noting: for the opening, Jared Goodman created a new, summer-inspired vegan ice cream.

R.B. Kitaj: A Jew Etc., Etc.
June 7-September 30
Oregon Jewish Museum, 724 NW Davis Street

This exhibition will be the he first Northwest overview of the work of renowned painter R.B. Kitaj. Featuring 16 oil paintings and four drawings, the exhibition focuses on work created between 1990 and the artist’s death in 2007. Throughout his life, Kitaj was fixated on the conditions and questions surrounding Jewishness. This exhibition, curated by Bruce Guenther and informed by Kitaj’s personal assistant Tracy Bartley promises to display the painter’s exploration of his heritage and identity in an engaging, enjoyable show.

Sponsor

Immigrant Story
June 7-September 30
Oregon Jewish Museum, 724 NW Davis Street

Spurred by the visiable rise of xenophobia and intolerance in our community and the overall US, Portland resident Sankar Raman created the websiteThe Immigrant Story, which hosts photography projects that put faces and personal narratives to the numbers behind immigration. This led to an exhibition at the Muslim Education Trust, which has now been picked up by the Oregon Jewish Museum as part of its mission to connect their specific history with modern-day issues of inequality and prejudice. Three individual stories will be on display through the end of summer.

Richard Diebenkorn: Beginnings, 1942-1955
June 16-September 23
Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Avenue

This show features nearly 100 paintings and drawings from the Richard Diebenkorn Foundation, most of which haven’t been shown publicly before. This exhibition is the first to focus on work made by Diebenkorn during his evolution from representational landscape, to Surrealist-inspired work, to Abstract Expressionism, before his Ocean Park series propelled him to the center of the art world. The latest piece in the show, 1954’s Untitled (Horse and Rider) catches the restless hybridity of abstract and representational work that marked this early work.

Lisa Radon: Research and Development
Through June 30
ANX Gallery, 1015 SE Stark Street

Sponsor

“The tools get on without us.”

Portland artist and writer Lisa Radon presents in-progress research compiled during her residency with ADX. For the last three months, Radon has been living among the tools of the shared workshop of ADX like a Jane Goodall of robots and machines. Her work is full of questions of translation and mistranslation in the devices that “translate objects into zeros and ones and back again.” Her observations hint at personalities and wills hidden in the gears and parts of the machines. She notes the sweetness of the smell of the likely-toxic binder excreted by the Voxel 3-D printer, the colors of the CNC machine’s bits against their stock material, and the beauty of the articulated arms of a shoe-crochet machine.

Robert Bibler: Works on Paper
Through July 15
Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University, 700 State Street, Salem

Salem artist Robert Bibler has been combining his interests in storytelling, classic film, and Renaissance art in his masterful figurative work for more than 40 years. This exhibition features work on paper from 1974 to 2017, spanning most of the artist’s career. A rich visual feast for anyone interested in classical drawing and painting.

Children of Revulsion
Through June 16, by appointment only
Killjoy Collective, 222 SE 10th Avenue, #102B

Sponsor

Portland Center Stage at the Armory Nassim Portland Oregon

A wild, trippy show curated by Tabitha Nikolai featuring VR, digital art, about “about living inside media when you can’t go home again.” The long, exciting roster of young, inventive artists includes Alan Page (aka [sic][redacted]), Arisa Leisure, deSolid State, e. sakai leisure, #femmebreak (Seanna Musgrave with Erika Anderson, aka EMA) Garima Thakur, Laurence Myers Reese, Lysandra Frex, Rani Baker, Porpentine and Rook, and Stephanie Mendoza. Expect dark humor, technomancy, and new sensations, in a show that reflects Killjoy Collective’s mission to “engage women—women of color, women of all ages, women of all shapes and sizes, women with visible and invisible disabilities, immigrant women, indigenous women, queer women, trans women, and those who refuse to be put in a box.”

Note: Killjoy Collective is located inside the Troy Laundry Studios, and is not ADA accessible.

Hickory Edwards Carves a Dugout Canoe
Through June 7
Elisabeth Jones Art Center, 516 NW 14th Avenue

Hickory Edwards of the Onondaga Turtle Clan will be carving a traditional dugout canoe out of a 10-foot section of an old-growth fir salvaged from the Tillamook forest fire throughout the first week of June. This event is part of this new Pearl District gallery’s inaugural exhibit, The Condor and the Eagle: Moving Forward After Standing Rock. Hickory Edwards created the Sign Post at the Standing Rock protest. This should be a great opportunity to see native art of the Pacific northwest alive and as it happens, not just as an artifact in a museum.

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Photo Joe Cantrell

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