December 29th, 2009 § 0
This week’s Newcity Art picks Brains, Brilliancy, Bohemia: Art & Politics in Jazz-Age Chicago as one of their top 5 groundbreaking shows of 2009. Check out the list here.
The catalog for the exhibition has just been reprinted. The new edition features a new cover, additional essays and materials, plus a DVD of The More Things Stay the Same. Pick up a copy here.
December 18th, 2009 § 0
Check out some nice press for Tough Stuff from the Buff, screening in Buffalo this week! Here in the Buff News and here in the Artvoice!
November 25th, 2009 § 0
The Dill Pickle Club is organizing a honking huge art show, bookshop and event series at the Eyeful Gallery that opens Thursday, December 3rd at the First Thursday artwalk. Go here for all the details.
I’m making four short videos to promote the event, one to be released each week of the month long show. Here’s the first installment.
Special thanks to Christopher Doulgeris of Hooliganship and Felix and Huck from the Cardboard Songsters.
WORK | PROGRESS also celebrates two publications I produced for the Dill Pickle Club — Brains, Brilliancy, Bohemia: Art and Politics in Jazz-Age Chicago and Art for the Millions: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA. Head to the store for more info and to pick up a copy.
November 6th, 2009 § 0
PNCA has a jaw-dropping show up of woodcuts by Sandow Birk. The show runs through January 8.
TONIGHT (FRI, NOV 6th): Julie Sabatier gives demos on everything DIY, including live demos on making radio, terrariums and bacon at The Woods.
TOMORROW (SAT, NOV 7th): Portland Center Stage celebrates the grandaddy of zines with a Power O’ The Press Printer’s Fair. The Dill Pickle Club will be tabling 10AM-1PM.
November 3rd, 2009 § 0
Political dissident artist collective Just Seeds treats Portland to not 1 but 2 shows in November: both opening this Thursday (Nov 5)! SEA Change hosts Opposable Thumb, a show about the effects of the human hand, while Reading Frenzy presents Charting our Course, a show about education, literacy and books. Just Seeds runs this fantastic website, as well as producing individual and collective work about political issues and social movements. They also recently printed this Celebrate People’s History poster I helped design on The Dil Pickle Club.
Then, on Friday (Nov 6), Artichoke Music (3130 SE Hawthorne) hosts The Salmon Nation Artist Project, a tribute to our bio-region for the love of fish. The event features readings by several songsters and long-time fisher poets, including: Pat Dixon, Dave Densmore and the always formidable Moe Bowstern. Having been to The Fisher Poets Gathering for the last several years, I can safely say this is a fascinating and unique look into an amazing folk art/ working class subculture working at the grassroots level. You’d be sorry to miss it.
October 31st, 2009 § 1
Last week I noticed something different in my new neighborhood. A block from my office, a speaker could be heard in the background. I went to go check it out, and saw people milling about the Central City Concern building, a relief agency that provides temporary housing.
Installed at the intersection of the Broadway and NW Everett, at the old Golden West Hotel, is a new display honoring the contributions of what was once the heart of Portland’s first African American community. From roughly 1890-1920, the area around the Golden West consisted of many African American businesses, including restaurants, barbershops, hotels and more. As someone deeply interested in social history, this came as news to me.
The display, which is artfully done, consists of six panels and a visitor activated loud speaker playing recollections of long-time African American residents. Organized by the Old Town History Project (I can’t seem to find any information about this group — does anyone know anything about them?), the project was funded by the City of Portland Vision Into Action program and Oregon Council for Humanities.
Check out a preview of the panels here, or simply stop by the Golden West building at NW Everett and Broadway. Related is a blog about the project, Golden West Project: Black in Portland History.
October 30th, 2009 § 1
I remember reading Joel Schalit’s columns in Punk Planet as a teenager. A longtime writer for zines and independent magazines (he was editor of the great zine Bad Subjects), Schalit has moved on to author and edit books, including Jerusalem Calling and The Anti-Capitalism Reader.
On Monday, November 9th Schalit will be at Powell’s Book @ Cedar Hills Crossing in Beaverton to read from Israel vs. Utopia, a new collection of essays about America’s controversial political involvement in the Middle East.
From Akashic, the book publisher:
In his new book, Israel Vs. Utopia, Israeli American journalist Joel Schalit distinguishes between the Israel he knows, and the image of it that exists in the imagination of Americans. Israel is a state of mind, Schalit argues, as much as it is its own sovereign state. Exploring this tension, in America, in Israel, employing a combination of personal observation, political, and cultural commentary, Schalit defines the instability of Israel, as a metaphor, and America’s troubled love for it, as only an Israeli American would know.
September 25th, 2009 § 1
a short list of some happenings around town in the coming weeks:
1. Noam Freakin’ Chomsky is speaking at the First Unitarian Church in Portland, Friday, October 2, as part of EcoNverge, a conference exploring solutions to the global financial and environmental crises. The weekend conference features an impressive lineup of lectures and workshops, and has nearly 50 participating organizations. From their site:
The Northwest region of the United States has pioneered effective responses to environmental and economic problems in the past. A decade ago the “Battle for Seattle” during the World Trade Organization Ministerial meetings sparked a critical reevaluation of neoliberal globalization. Now that this model has been discredited, it is time for us to collectively determine what comes next.
For the full schedule, check out their site: http://www.econvergence.org
2. Matthew Stadler is directing an interesting new project, Publication Studio, at the Ace Hotel. In addition to printing and binding small run books on demand, the Publication Studio will apparently host social gatherings and conversations with its published authors. The hours appear to be somewhat irregular, so your best bet is to check their site.
3. Local documentarian Ivy Lin has recently completed a new film, Come Together Home, a documentary on a Chinese burial ground in Portland in which as many as 1,500 bodies were exhumed and shipped to China amongst anti-foreign sentiment in the 1920s. In the film Lin documents her journey back to China to investigate the whereabouts of the remains. Come Together Home premiers at the Someday Lounge, October 11th, and is a fundraiser for Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery (an initiative to save the burial ground-turned vacant lot).
4. The Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission and the Littman Gallery at Portland State University have teamed up to present “Dorothea Lange in Oregon: 1939 Farm Security Administration Photos,” an exhibition of WPA photos Lange took during her time in Oregon. I had the privilege to see an advance copy of the exhibition catalog, and it looks phenomenal. The show opens Thursday, October 1 and runs through November 25. A schedule of related talks is posted on OCHC’s website: http://www.ochcom.org/.
