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Neurobics presents AGELASTES WALKS INTO A BAR: In defense of comedy in high culture

Place is very pleased to present a contemplation salon called Neurobics. Each salon hosta a speaker from the Oregon community presenting on a topic of their choosing in hopes of generating contemplative interest and critical inquiry for unique and otherwise ignored or obscure topics. Contemplation sessions last an hour to an hour and a half in length followed by a Q&A.

AGELASTES WALKS INTO A BAR: In defense of comedy in high culture

Wednesday May 23rd

Doors open at 630 

Contemplation begins at 7pm. 

Levitas — the comic, the ludic, the ridiculous — has a precarious place in “high” or “serious” culture. Plato, in condemning laughter as a threat to the Republic, runs in a dominant intellectual mainstream with staying power. Even in these autophagous, metameta times, laughter gets no respect (unless perhaps it adopts the purposeful swagger of derision). What’s up with that? Is it me, folks, or is there an inherent thermodynamics of power in which levitas as the court jester of entropy is ever to be marginalized by the custodians of the Important?


About the presenter:

Portland polyartist Leo Daedalus is a performer, filmmaker, visual/conceptual artist, musician, comedian, and purveyor of Dada-Fluxus mayhem. As of April 2012 Daedalus is the host and producer of The Late Now, the thinking mammal’s live, periodic cabaret-variety-talk show for the avant set. The Late Now is a platform for the salutary and ludic cognitive dissonance Daedalus cultivates in all his work with a consistent aim: disarm and spark inquiry. Non-invasive brain surgery.

In March, Daedalus participated in Liminal Performance Group Presents Gertrude Stein, co-producing a video with his wife, Anna Daedalus, and performing in Virgil Thomson’s setting of Stein’s “Capital Capitals.” In January, the Daedali exhibited “The Labyrinth of Tantalus,” a book/installation for closed gallery, at 23 Sandy Gallery. Leo Daedalus’s multimedia installation “Low Mass” will premiere as part of EFF Portland this May. The Late Now will resume with a Bloomsday “episode” June 16, an experimental poetry episode August 13 as part of David Abel’s public Director Park reading series, and a John Cage Centenary episode at PNCA in October.

A longtime Northwesterner living in Portland since 2005, Daedalus was raised bilingual in Switzerland by artists and scientists. He speaks seven languages, some rustier than others, and has vague plans to do a standup comedy routine in Arabic in Cairo next year, though he doesn’t yet speak the language..



05.20.12 ♥ 0
Grand Detour presents EFFPortland: FISSURE VENTS

Opens Saturday May 19th 5-8pm

Grand Detour presents EFFPortland: FISSURE VENTS

Grand Detour’s EFFPortland transforms our Black  gallery into a showcase of stunning and ambitious video work. FISSURE VENTS features three installations that deconstruct, reconstruct, and send up familiar and found footage, creating hallucinatory and immersive environments of light and sound as provocative as they are seductive.

San Francisco based experimental filmmaker Kerry Laitala’s Glitter Gulch “paradoxically plays with the horrors and beauty of consumer culture” in a three-channel, three-dimensional cityscape of haptic chromadepth- that’s right, put your special glasses on- with an accompanying “whimsical melody of desire” composed by Bay Area sound superstars Freddy McGuire.

Also hailing from the Golden State (though originally from Motor City), Brent Coughenour uses a non-repeating algorithm to control hundreds of clips from an instantly recognizable television drama. These clips are reorganized across four large-scale projections into “a constantly shifting, eternally-elongated cacophony of ecstasy and agony”. Imagery and sound are never static and always densely layered.

Finally, local polyartist and culturemaker Leo Daedalus will premiere Low Mass in Screen, the back screening room of Place. Daedalus describes Low Mass as “an alchemical proposition…a transformative, disorienting experience”. Starting with commercial music videos and pop songs, temporal and aural distortion turn the manufactured into the meditated, shifting the power and manipulation of this media to unexpected ends.

05.17.12 ♥ 4
Anne Adams looks back at Rhoda London's last show this past fall

Rhoda London’s Place show and … this last fall was her last while she was living. Anne Adams reflects on her installation concerning death before she passed due to pancreatic cancer. 

04.25.12 ♥ 0
Artist Talk: Daniel J Glendening & Jason Starin

Artist Talk for the collaborative project “New Function” by Daniel J Glendening & Jason Starin.

04.24.12 ♥ 0
Within the Ephemeron

Opening Saturday April 21st 5 - 8pm

Within the Ephemeron
J. Brown

The states of the body, the world within the mind, and the cosmos of the immaterial are the three planes we exist in simultaneously. It is this place which J.Brown is interested in illuminating in his new installation Within the Ephemeron with using text, fabric, light, and plastic he attempts to expose the mechanisms of the digital which are just beyond the scope of our collective perception.

Bio

J. Brown is an artist, curator, critic and theorist. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, he received his BFA in Interdisciplinary Fine Art and Critical Theory from Indiana University, PA. His work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally in group and solo shows. In 2009, he moved to Portland, OR and became the assistant director for Half/Dozen gallery. Additional curatorial projects include 409 (Portland, OR), Tribute Gallery (Portland, OR) and Miller Gallery (Pittsburgh, PA). Currently he is writing about the role of image and objects within a post capitalistic society, as well as, hyper-reality and the digital boom. His artwork focuses on image/text relationships through the use of installation and multimedia projects.

04.20.12 ♥ 2
MIMESIS: Fantasy and Friends

Opening Saturday April 21st 5 - 8pm

MIMESIS: Fantasy and Friends
Wayne Bund

MIMESIS: Fantasy and Friends a process-oriented exhibition of 20 photographs that documents gay/queer people in their 20s and 30s living in Portland, Oregon. This exhibition will pair  two photographs of each subject: a simple portrait of the subject in their bedroom, and a second portrait of the person in a constructed “fantasy set.” This project will culminate in a two month exhibition that will complete with lectures,  and a book release.
This project has received funding from Regional Arts and Culture Council.

Bio

Wayne Bund is an interdisciplinary artist whose work resides within the act of performance. He uses photographs, videos, installation, and performance to explore notions of persona and authenticity. Wayne uses mythology as the central context of his pieces, dissecting and appropriating stories from the collective unconscious to re-imagine historical narratives and comment on contemporary culture.
He holds an MFA in Visual Studies from Pacific Northwest College of Art and an MS in Teaching from Pace University. He is a 1999 Ford Family Scholar and is an adjunct Assistant Professor at PNCA.  Bund has performed at the Ludlow Festival in the U.K. and in Portland with PICA’s TBA:09 and TBA:11 festivals.


04.20.12 ♥ 0
Gertrude Press on Julie Perini's Big Film


Julie Jansen of Gertrude Press takes a look at Julie Perini’s Big Film. Excerpt from article below:

“Big Film is the title of the work on view, shown in conjunction with Julie’s video Collaboration with the Earth. The process used to create Collaboration with the Earth is particularly interesting to me. Julie is experimenting with the material properties of celluloid film. In this case, the film is appropriated footage from a General Electric advertisement. During the summer of 2011 she cut the film into two-second strips and buried them in the ground. Over the course of twenty days, Julie unearthed one strip of film at a time, then she reassembled the footage. Gradually both sounds and images deteriorate as a result of the amount of time the film spent underground. In a statement about her work, Julie explains that she “makes public…privet encounters with her collaborators: dirt, worms, water, and other earthly forces”.

The film itself depicts a middle-aged woman nervously walking down a dimly lit street. There is a slightly ominous tone to the film as the woman glances several times over her shoulder and her pace quickens. As viewers, we are trained to expect the unknown person or thing lurking in the shadows, the catalyst that incites her fear, to emerge; we predict disaster. Towards the end of the film, there is a close-up of the woman’s face as she gazes up toward a streetlight and breaks into a relieved smile. Then the words “General Electric” along with the G.E. logo flash across the screen, layered on top of an image of a house. This reminds us of the appropriated nature of the footage.”

04.20.12 ♥ 0
Artist Talk: (maria)petra fortes-schramm audio

Listen to (marí­a)petra fortes-schramm’s artist talk, discussing her project A Thousand Dicks. 

A Thousand Dicks is an extension of a six-month exploration of my phallic fascination. The process of working with, and making, phallic-based imagery allows me to consider my relation to, and my perceived glamour of, the phallus as a lesbian/Queer/dyke, non-white, female-bodied person. 

maria-petra.com


03.30.12 ♥ 0
Piti a Piti screening 3/23 (tonight) 6pm

Piti a Piti chronicles a fundamental moment in the lives of two young Haitians named Thaylord and Georgeton.  After surviving the 2010 earthquake, they found the opportunity to study abroad in the United States. Their areas of study, Electrical Engineering and law, are examples of how education will empower Haitians to help themselves. These young men share a dream to bring development aid efforts forward to help their nation. It is their inspirational, focused interests and strong will to learn that brought them to the US. It is what they will take away from this experience that will make a difference in their home country.

It is a critical moment in the history of the Haitian people. There has been a lot of attention on the country since the earthquake. Since the initial flood of aid in 2010, many organizations have shifted their resources elsewhere, and funding has begun to dry up for those that remain. There is a sense of uncertainty, and many Haitians wonder what will happen next.

More than a personal narrative, Piti a Piti chronicles how the development and distribution of foreign aid functions in a country like Haiti. In addition to interviewing the two protagonists, we toured tent cities and spoke with aid workers. From this, the catch-22 of foreign aid becomes apparent: disaster relief only solves half the problem and by giving out free aid, dependence is created. Piti a Piti shows that education is the key to breaking this cycle by using the positive example of Thaylord, Georgeton, and multiple NGOs who are dedicated to offering Haitian people the education to shape their own destiny.

Julia Purcell will be present for a screening of Piti a Piti. 

03.22.12 ♥ 1
24 Karat Pretense

Store (next door to Place)


24 KARAT PRETENSE
PNCA Video Installation Student Exhibition
March 15 – 17, 2012 (opening reception 3/17 6-9)

24 KARAT PRETENSE examines notions of the façade. Themes of appearance, concealment, deception, and identity are explored by twelve artists:

Kris Clouse, Kaija Cornett, Demian Dine’Yazhi’, Zack Dixon, Insa Benita Evans, Andre C. Filipek, Anthony Hudson, Adam Johnson, Brenna Lavin, Izidora Leber, Lee, K. Valenci

This group exhibition is the result of work produced by Linda Kliewer’s Video Installation class at PNCA, facilitated by Gia Goodrich.

03.12.12 ♥ 1

AS-IS

Michael Reinsch

Excerpt from “10 Minutes”

Next performance - March 17th 6 -9pm @ Place

Written on his invoice/thank you card:

“Poem made on the spot from customer complaints to taco bell and a blog about fast food. You will receive documentation in the form of a video of the poem.”

03.11.12 ♥ 1
Georganne Watters “The Weighing of Souls”


The Weighing of Souls                
Georganne Watters

When Geoganne Watters begins working on a print it is often after much time of having visual images of it come to her as she  lives and sleeps.  The image may be of color and figure only.  This vision stays with her over time. She has come to trust these visions as they have guided her work.  She has a proclivity to delve into controversial subjects which lend a raw, hard-edged quality to her work.  The work explores a broad range of topics - the women’s suffrage movement, the pain and isolation of immigration, the joy and burden of motherhood, grief and transformation.

Bio

Georganne Watters is an internationally acclaimed print maker, showing her work in Japan and Europe as well as here in the Northwest. Her one-of-a-kind prints are unique not only in actual size, but also because of their powerful, provocative, and larger than life graphic appeal. 

Georganne grew up in Kobe, Japan from 1962 until 1974 and lived and worked in Tokyo and Osaka between 1979 and 1985. It was here that she began to study the arts with a Master of the traditional Japanese painting and printmaking methods. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Art from Marylhurst University and a Master’s of Fine Art in Printmaking from San Francisco Art Institute. She has taught Visual Arts at the University level for 12 years and is currently teaching Printmaking and Art History at Mt. Hood Community College in Oregon. www.georgannewatters.com

03.10.12 ♥ 0
Phillip Bone & BT Livermore’s installation “High School Football Memories”



High School Football Memories
Phillip Bone & BT Livermore
Opens March 17th 6 - 9pm

An installation of prints and Mad Libs reflecting the convergence of two separate upbringings and how it has affected their conception of manliness.

Bios

BT Livermore was born in Minnesota, and like all Minnesotans is covered head to toe with a downy layer of fur with which to keep warm during the winter. Six years ago, he decided to trade in six months of snow for six months of rain and is now living in beautiful Portland, Oregon. He studied illustration at Pacific Northwest College of Art, graduating with a BFA in 2010. His work has been described as “a modern take on a drug-crazed, 1930s brain” and “vaudeville awesome.” Cartoonish people and creatures abound in BT’s prints, paintings, and illustrations, as well as a preponderance of vintage-inspired, hand-lettered typography. He also co-runs a moustache wax company, Man’s Face Stuff. www.bigtimeillustration.com

Phillip Bone was born in 1989 and grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii.
In 2011, he received a BFA in Printmaking from the Pacific Northwest College of Art. He
now lives and “works” in Portland Oregon.  www.phillipbone.com

03.10.12 ♥ 2
Heather Zinger presents “Crying, Feeding, Touching”



Crying, Feeding, Touching
Heather Zinger
Screening at 7pm 3/17

This project explores the gestures of crying, feeding and touching in the realm of men by combining video of men interacting with their everyday world while sharing a private historical story.

Bio
Armed with a BFA in Intermedia from The Pacific Northwest College of Art and a BA in French literature and Language from the University of Illinois, Heather Zinger takes a creative documentarian approach to her subject matter. Inspired by cultural perspectives and science, Heather explores contemporary social issues using humor and absurdity in photography, performance and video.  www.heatherzinger.com

03.10.12 ♥ 0
Oregon ArtsWatch Review by Lisa Radon of Michael Reinsch's performative installationAS-IS

AS IS: Michael Reinsch at PLACE: Art by the minute/art by the dollar


“Reinsch has found a devastatingly smart way to think about the nature of performance, object, and value but more importantly, the nature of consumption and exchange. At the same time, there was an interesting tension between a certain slapdashedness necessitated by a one-minute artwork and absolute, if time-limited commitment on the part of the artist. Apparently Reinsch cut his gums when chewing at the styrofoam ball…as if to say I Am Giving It My All For You…I’m giving you blood.”

03.10.12 ♥ 1