June 1 Eastside Art Openings

Half Dozen closes its current brick and basement space, L/R, tonight. They have been consistently good here, in LoBu, and in the Everett Lofts. We wish them the best in their next adventure. The closing show is Drone Kitsch by Carl Diehl. It is a good candidate for copywriting of the week: "pulling from UFO lore for inspiration, playing on themes of technological anxiety, imagining nostalgic objects from an estranged futurity." At Half/Dozen Gallery www.halfdozengallery.com 722 E Burnside (enter on 8th) 6PM-9 Free



Union|Pine has Double Exposure, a group photo show from Mikola Accuardi, Holly Andres, Nina Bakos, Jaclyn Campanaro, Brendan Coughlin, Jon Duenas, Jay Fitzgerald, Parker Fitzgerald, J.R. Furbus, Randall Garcia, Laura Leon, Maryann Parrone, Jeremy Pelley, Boone Rodriguez, Alicia J Rose, Matt Schulte, Tatum Shaw, Christine Taylor, Kimberly Warner and Patrick Richardson Wright. At Union/Pine www.unionpine.com 525 SE Pine 7Pm-late Free



Manchus is consistently presenting video. Tonight they open Three-Way Migration by Christine Taylor. Taylor is a noted photographer, so exciting to see her video projects. At Manchus Clothing www.machusonline.com 542 E Burnside 6PM-9 Free



Black Box has Mirror, Mirror, a varied portrait show, curated by Holly Andres. Some are quite striking. At Black Box Gallery www.blackboxgallery.com 811 E Burnside, Suite 212 upstairs 5PM-8:30 Free



Nicholas P Wilson is a photographer focused on Portland fashion and portraits. He has his first solo show tonight at Haunt. Then he graduates from high school. He is one of those great photographers in your high school class. At Haunt hauntstudio.blogspot.com 811 E Burnside 7PM-9 Free



Redux has illustrator Brooke Weeber. At Redux www.reduxpdx.com 811 E Burnside 6PM-9:30 Free



Nationale has swirly glitter clouds by Rikki Rothenberg. This swirly artist is also cofounder of Portland movement performance group Woolly Mammoth Comes to Dinner. In conjunction with her exhibition, Rothenberg and Seattle performer Allie Hankins do a movement work in the gallery on Saturday, June 23rd. At Nationale thenewnationale.com 811 E Burnside Map 6PM-9 Free




Newspace has Growing Up, by Daniel Farnum - meditations on the Midwestern landscape. Also a show of work by the instructors at Newspace. At Newspace Photo www.newspacephoto.org 1632 SE 10th Map 6PM-9 Free



The Ford Building opens many of its varied studios this evening, on all the floors. Gallery Homeland will have their video show powered up and sponsors an experimental music concert. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org in the Ford Building www.fordbuildingpdx.com 2505 SE 11th x Division. Enter through the cafe on the corner if the main doors on 11th are locked. 6PM-9 Free



Pushdot has landscape photographs from childhood Norway, primarily stark waterscapes by Joanne Fielder. They were made on occasion of grieving for the loss of her mother.

June 1-3 ADX is 1

Coop shop and creative center ADX is one year old today. They are launching a prototyping and manufacturing service for Portland creative entrepreneurs. Friday is a reception. Saturday is a show of member projects and a talk at 2PM on prototyping and taking products to market. Sunday is a barbecue. You can check their website for details. At adxportland.com 417 SE 11th x Stark Map Free

May 31 Alberta Madness

The first full on Last Thursday of the season is tonight. The street will be closed, be kind to the neighbors.


Flight 64 has Secret Beasties, etchings by Martha Daghlian and Megan Hanley printed from copper plates. Both draw inspiration from organic lifeforms. At Flight 64 Print Studio www.flight64.org 2934 NE Alberta Behind Bella Faccia Pizza on the NE 29th-30th Alley. Map 6PM-9 Free



Seth Nehil has Children's Games, a video installation at 1422 NE Alberta.



Screaming Sky has Mystic Critters, by Tripper Dungan 3d anaglyph paintings, meaning in plainspeak, you need red and cyan filtered glasses to see the effect. Fun! Also work by noted outsider artist Klutch, creator of the Vinyl Killers series. Often worth stopping by Antler next door. At Screaming Sky www.screamingskygallery.com 1416 NE Alberta Free



Appendix will be closed tonight. But Ampersand and Monograph are always worth a visit.

May 30 - June 9 The 1 Festival Movement

This would fall under modern dance, theater, performance and improvisation. It's a mix of in town and visitors. Included are Elizabeth Huffman, Damaris Webb, Mark Hayes, Eric Hull, Cindy Tennant, Luciana Proaño, Portland Playback Theatre, Kristine Anderson, Matthew Nelson, Rachel Slater, Eowyn Barrett, Ed Alletto, Christine Bonansea, Vanessa Skanze, Anet Ris-Kelman, Sara Zalek, Kat MacMillan, Alan Sutherland, Stephanie Lanckton, Wobbly, Aura Fischbeck, Emily Gregory, Mindy Dillard, Mary Rose, Emily Stone, John Johnson, SubRosa Dance, Laurence Kominz, Qaos, Noah Peterson, Bill Ratner, Beth Lorio, PDX Dance Collective, Keyon Gaskin, Adriana Butoi, Micah Perry and the Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble. Descriptions of the performances and performers are on the website www.the1festival.com/services/the-line-up/ At the Headwaters Theater, by www.witdpresents.com 55 NE Farragut St. #9. The theater is in the back of the building by the active railroad tracks facing Winchell Street. Map Times and admission on the website

May 30 Recycling

Ampersand opens works on paper by Heather Cavalieri and John Hundt. Cavalieri incorporates found paper into her handmade papers, it's recycling! Hundt is a collage artist, that's recycling too. At Ampersand Vintage Printed Material www.ampersandvintage.com 2916 NE Alberta, Ste B. Map 6PM-9 Free



It goes well with the show Chat with Flowers by Salem artist Christian Alborz Oldham, who exhibits primarily outside the region. Oldham's strategy is digital sampling from internet sources. He is known for graphic design for music projects. The show is open tonight and June 1-3. At Appendix Project Space www.appendixspace.com On the alley between 26th and 27th, South of Alberta. Map 7PM-10 Free

May 22-27 Let's Get Experimental

Portland has a new Experimental Film Festival. One was created by Portland filmmaker Matt McCormick. Artist and filmmaker Gretchen Hogue then assumed responsibility for it. Now version 2.0 has been created by Grand Detour. They continue the tradition of including video installation in the program with a show opening tonight at Gallery Homeland 6PM-9, then regular gallery hours. You can see the whole schedule and the distributed venues at www.effportland.com. Some events, including the gallery show are free.

May 19 Le Mall

The Mall galleries open their new shows tonight.

At Place, placepdx.tumblr.com a gallery on the 3rd floor of the Pioneer Place Mall. Also the People's art of Portland and the Woolley Gallery. If the mall appears closed, enter the film theater building adjacent, travel through the tunnel to the Place mall, and take the elevator to the 3rd floor, sometimes the bridge on the 3rd floor is open too. 700 SW Fifth. 6PM-9 Free

May 18 Shapes and Smiles

Who can argue with shapes and smiles? Not me. This is graphic work by Josh Kenyon and Colby Nichols operating under Jolby opening at Albina Press on Albina tonight. At Albina Press 4637 North Albina 6PM-8 Free



Graduates Kathy Bradshaw, Amanda Brennan, Heather Bromer, Jody Dunphy, Sheri Earnhart, Larissa Hammond, Killeen Hanson, Andrew Lonnquist, Swapna Ketcham, Karl Ramentol, Amber Roelfs, William Rueck and Jacob Tietze of the joint PNCA and OCAC MFA in art oriented craft and design open their thesis work this evening. At 902 SW Morrison 6PM-9 Free

May 18-20 Open Engagement

Open Engagement is Portland's international conference on social practice art. The conference is organized around politics, economies, education and representation. Not sure where the discussion of quality comes in. You can scan the schedule at the website and participate. It's free. And recommended. www.openengagement.info At PSU. All day to late. Free!

May 18-21 The Art of the Walk

The art of the walk is not unknown to art. We are not talking about silly walks, we are talking about serious walks. Canadian artist Janet Cardiff has made site specific audio walks. And Portland artist and curator Tori Abernathy has created Atmospheres. Atmospheres is an augmented reality audio experience for walkers. They will experience sounds captured in the inner Southeast industrial area and replayed in layers triggered by the location of the walker as they move. The samples, gathered over 2 years, are selected for the walker by the piece using GPS technology.

Those two years of experiences in a metaphysical way can be thought to reside in the place, whether captured or not, in a personal way. It is the same with each place and with each person. That it is mediated by space technology is another poetic layer. Interestingly the work runs along with many current explorations of experiencing data such as the Vibrant Data Project.

To participate in Atmosphere, visit the website http://www.doodle.com/n43t9b9d4phqp7ks and make a reservation for one or more of the five available experience mediating devices. Then arrive for your time and head out for a half hour or more on your walk.

The initiation point is at Recess Gallery recesspdx.blogspot.com at Oregon Brassworks Building, 1127 SE 10th Map noon-5PM Free

May 17 CHAD

Anyone who claims to not hate Powerpoint is lying. Some people really hate it, like Edward Tufte, all but blaming it for the fall of Western civilization. In his essay, The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint, and in seminars, he faults the design of the software with some serious mishaps, such as the loss of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia. It is not far fetched to argue the use of Powerpoint in the military and government provides prima facie support to Tufte's case.

In a coda, I just learned that engineer Roger Boisjoly passed in January. Boisjoly was the engineer who discovered the design problem that resulted in the total loss of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986. Boisjoly tried to stop the launch, presenting his arguments in a fated Powerpoint the night before, but was overruled by Morton Thiokol and NASA management. It has been theorized that NASA was anxious to launch the first teacher into space in time for president Reagan's state of the union speech scheduled later that same day. As a whistleblower, post the loss, he was subject to intense pressures, resulting a nervous breakdown. But he was awarded the Prize for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and dedicated the rest of his career to teaching engineering ethics.

Artist David Byrne has explored Powerpoint in art. There have been several Portland performance art projects using Powerpoint. The latest is a series CHAD, organized by artist, inventor and writer, Mykle Hansen.

His CHAD series is likely to be humorous bordering on ridiculous. Presenters include palindrome champion Mark Saltveit, on the science of non-science Justin Hanes, global inspirationist Lance Banks, pro-lifist Carrie Twoterm, and a channeler of the great Carl Sagan.

CHAD may be had www.thisischad.com at the Jack London Bar 529 SW 4th Ave in the basement of the Rialto Poolroom 8PM $5-10

May 16 Dreaming Mermaids

The Little Mermaid is a Hans Christian Andersen fairytale. Mala Morska Vila is a Czech New Wave film interpretation with live actors from 1976. This beautiful surrealist version will be scored by Goodnight Billygoat, Wooden Indian Burial Ground and Blood Beach "with their twinkling orchestral pop", "their spacious and trippy rock landscapes" and "theremin-heavy psychedelia", respectively. It is part of the always a treat Fin de Cinema series of classic subtitled films with live soundtracks by Portland bands. At Holocene www.holocene.org 1001 SE Morrison. 8:30PM $5

May 15 Mr Weiwei is Never Sorry

It is no secret we have a sense of humor, particularly in how we formulate our headlines. Many artists have a sense of humor too and some are serious about it. One is Ai Weiwei, Chinese contemporary artist. Mr Weiwei was reported an easy going partier and prankster in his NY days between 1981 and 1993. In that period, he was influenced by the experimental NY art scene, AIDS activism, and watched the events of 1989 unfold at home from afar. Returning to China in after, he collaborated in producing and presenting controversial experimental art in Beijing. He continued his father's interest in Chinese antiques, supporting himself as an antique dealer. repurposing antiques in the service of conceptual art was a theme of his early work. And he was in the right place at the right time to ride the Chinese art boom in China, as well as internationally. He used that platform more wisely than many superstar contemporary artists, to take on from within, flaws in a culture and a country. If you are familiar with contemporary Chinese culture, it is by no means monolithic. But young and educated Chinese play the edge of rebellion, or at least question state controls, as an element of their identity, or as pure human response. It's common to present that publicly and certainly privately using the long established custom of euphemism in the Chinese language. So "jumping the wall" is commonly found in Weibao posts, meaning the writer is presenting information found by evading the Chinese Great Firewall, which blocks Internet content deemed controversial to the government. Individuals standing out is also a potentially dangerous transgression in Chinese culture. And the large security bureaucracy is bound to move inexactly in its sworn mission to minimize disruptions, especially in the years around the leadership transition. That would be now.

In the past, artists' and art school professors' commentary on society was ignored. Their audience was educated and small. The did not operate in the press and they were not visible internationally. Ai Weiwei broke the mold. His work was political, but only in a way that art insiders could understand. But he became very well known and wealthy as a result of museum shows in the West. The press followed, and Mr Weiwei was swept up in the cultural security apparatus. This, in turn, inflamed the Western press and the art world. An artist being mentioned by name by Secretary Clinton is unusual, to say the least. Not only can water float a boat, it can sink it also. The fact that Ai Weiwei's Western supporters are influential is a danger. And the fact that Mr Weiwei's revolution has been televised by his blog and Twitter is a new postmodern condition.

The film explores a series of projects Mr Weiwei has made around the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, in which an estimated 70,000 Chinese died. The artist focused on gathering and publicizing the names of more than 5,000 school children who were killed. Each was an only child. It is the heaviest burden for their families, and something that can not be fully understood in the West. The numbers and names of the individuals lost has never been released by the central government. China's building boom has resulted in much shoddy construction, dubbed tofu dregs construction, including schools destroyed by the earthquake. Although the event did open the society to public compassion and relief efforts unseen previous, the door of responsibility and transparency has not been similarly moved. The social practice art project has resulted in an ongoing battle with the provincial government, who built the schools, and their building contractor patrons. It may be the artist's most dangerous project. The film covers the work and a subsequent exhibition in Munich. Mr Weiwei has a piece from the project in the current Art HK show, soon to be Art Basel-Hong Kong. The work consists of 123 framed letters received from government agencies by Mr Weiwei in his request for information about the collapse of school buildings in the earthquake. On the back of the wall on which they are hung, are the names artist and his collaborators have gathered of 5,196 students who perished.

Mr Weiwei is unique in having a very large body of followers, supporters and volunteers surrounding his art projects in China. The war between Mr Weiwei and the state has escalated with Mr Weiwei's Shanghai studio workshop being bulldozed and the artist imprisoned for almost 3 months in 2011, both covered toward the end of the film. Though not its intent, the film represents the next escalation.

If you have been following the journey of Mr Weiwei, or are curious, you have a special opportunity this evening. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is a new documentary about the artist, his work, and his influence in the art world. It shows tonight at the Portland Art Museum. The director, Alison Klayman, spent several years with Mr Weiwei filming, and provides an intimate portrait of the man. The production values and editing are top notch. The film returns August 3 to the Living Room Theaters. You can obtain a free ticket at this web link. At the Whitsell Auditorium of the Portland Art Museum 1219 SW Park. 7PM Free