PDX Art " Ueber Modern"

After War
Ueber Modern

Domesticated violence bubbles like the foam in temperated Jacuzzis in the "Street of Dream" homes with the owners becoming accustomed to it like the slight pain caused by stress inflamed joints.

CWFS or Chronic War Fatigue Syndrome is numbed down at Happy Hours with Appletinis, Vodka chasers and all you can eat shrimp tales.

Sensationalism is the unsentimental 24/7 broadcast, a visual bombardment.
Nuclear proliferation sounds like a new kind of business account in the global economy.

The new era of Art has to be defined through the lens of the last wars even if
we can't find a new "Guernica" of Picasso fame.
Even the absence of images suggest that war can be endured only through the denial of it.
Images of Abu Grabe lament torture but not enough of war itself.
Internationally the Art world has been more prone to philosophical comments than action.

A renewed art fervor is emerging being subconsciously shaped by the atrocities committed by Western Nations with the approval of their governments.

The sleep of "Sleeping Beauty" has become a nightmare to the democratic part of the world.
A president who has power over the military like a king is not the head of a Democracy by the leader of a feudal dictatorship.
While the artists have wallowed in self pity the world has shifted into evolution gear.
With or without you is the motto.

Our tomorrow has become an already planned enterprise not much different than fashion trends which are predigested by a handful of the ordained.

Niclolas Bourriaud is putting his stamp on the next generation of "Artventurers"
and presents his version of the future of Art by highlighting names like Seth Price, Rachel Harrison, Peter Coffin,Franz Ackermann and others with a dialectic based on a head in the maze equestrian arena concept.
Or who stole my clueless cheese scenario, a hunt for lost ideas which could save the world from itself.
The artist as the treasure and Indiana Jones in one on the quest to out live his own short comings.
The search for ideas is on, ideas that commute from place to place following itineraries, logistics and dead ends to their logical conclusion which is that Art is still searching like the perpetual student to find its place amongst the giants of religion, science who proof their value every day by being irreverent.

The art prophets call it the new spirit of art and with this happy label the empty handedness of previous Art soul searching has come full circle.

The path is the way, the goal, the result and the holy grail.
So what's new?

Yes, the old is the new New again!

YBA syndrome and shock & awe Art is over, over its claim on us.

The idea that the world and art can be explained is so year 2008.

Now is the slogan, now is the credit crunch and Art is stepping up with themes like "Hedge the fund" as a time based art installation in semi public space.

Art is going to interfere into ordinary life.

Just imagine your kitchen the next gallery space slash exhibition container.

"Now Space" competes with "Re-Revival Space" for a morphogenic audience.

Welcome to "the Haze" with uncertainty as guideline and big brother/collector as Art historian.

The past is a descending continent not worth visiting anymore. No need to board a cruise into nostalgia; no more flash backs and retro fittings.

Post-modernism is so post, so past modern and we are so "Ueber" it.

All cultures are equal again as time has collapsed onto itself.

It is the end of the one world power and the rise of the All world society.
It is the beginning of the Ueber World, the next frontier in social political humanitarian inter action.
Its not no child left behind but no human left out.
And the Left Behind books are declared rubbish just like many other ideological fantasy constructs who have been based on misguided concepts to rationalize the past.

The past has been faulty and we have never learned from our mistakes anyway.
It is eminent that we stop this pointless cycle.

So the visioning is becoming strictly forward with set parameters to reach the goal that Art has carved out for us.

I am not a curator of the world but a visionary philosopher. That's why I claim new territory.
Concepts like mission accomplished are thrown of the deck because accomplishment is not the mission.
Life is the mission because we can't escape it but we can shape it.

We can pre-shape what the future is going to hold and art will bring the contents to the supper table.
All conventions have to become equal like in inclusive instead of exclusive boys and girls clubs.

Post modernism was exclusive Ueber Modernity is the "All that comprehends and offers the tools for expressing it".

We are not a bunch of subcultures anymore but not yet the Ueber culture yet.

We are stuck in me first, little ego drive having to learn to move into the all brain drive to maneuver the terrain of the future.















to be continued...

PDX Art presents Zach Johnsen's and Back Space

info at
www.backspace.bz

PDX Art: interview with Dan Gilsdorf

the brilliant Art of Dan Gilsdorf
at www.Disjecta.org
more info at www.dangilsdorf.com





















Interiotrope: is this a title you came up with or does it exist already?

Interiotrope is a word that I made up; a google search will probably turn up very little. I came up with the title using some standard conventions (as I understand them) of scientific taxonomy, so Interiotrope is a sort of pseudo-scientific designation for the type of project I was hoping to start at the beginning of the process. The suffix “trope” refers to something--- typically an organism---that exhibits a physical response to outside stimuli; a heliotropic plant turns toward the sun for example whereas a thigmatrope responds to the touch of a solid object. Generally the response is to turn toward or away from the stimulus (tropos is greek for to turn) so I considered Interiotrope to be something that turns toward an interior in an exploratory way. There is also the association with zoetropes, thaumatropes, and other such visual effects mechanisms that rely on persistence of vision. Lastly, in a very loose way I was thinking of tropes themselves in the linguistic sense, which is when a word, phrase, or idea is used in a way inconsistent with its conventional meaning as in metaphor, metonymy, or synecdoche; these kinds of things are all types of tropes.

Which realms does it refer too?

If you mean physical realms, I’d say interiors, specifically the interiors of spaces and how we define their boundaries. Also the realms that are usually unseen that support physical structure: the insides of walls, the framing, the locations of structural elements. I was hoping to include these into the normal perceived space of an interior and so add a few cubic feet to the space without physically expanding it; just increase a viewer’s awareness and consideration of the space by the volume of the spaces in the walls.

I just wrote a little ditty on titles for PDX art
and wondered if you had considered anything other than Interiotrope. If yes, would you share them and also give a reason why you didn't take them?

Truth be told, I came upon the title of the show pretty early on in the process, before any of the actual work had begun. I didn’t have any alternates. The naming of things is important to me but I find that I can’t force it. Sometimes a title will emerge in the course of making a work, sometimes the title happens when I am still in the sketchbook stages, or sometimes I just end up using whatever I have been using to reference the work in my own notes and conversations. In rare cases the title has hit me first, then I have to come up with a physical work to fit. Often I fail to come up with anything at all and the work goes up untitled, which is okay with me.

Lots of art work seems to engage with gallery space lately.
What is the attraction and is there a message behind it?

I think that it is related to the experiments of the post-modernists, who really questioned the gallery space, especially in terms of legitimacy. Galleries, as we all now recognize, are not spaces free of context, nor free of prejudice so there’s a lot there to deal with. I don’t really think any artwork today that finds itself in a gallery can exist there without somehow engaging “gallery space”; the politics of it are such that there is no escape. Certainly the architecture of the space and especially the “gallery-ness” of it has a tremendous impact, so it is only fair that the artwork should assert itself. The post-modernist discourse on galleries has had this lasting impact on contemporary art--- the genie is out of the bottle as they say.


What is wrong with the traditional architecture of an exhibition space , and in your case the Disjecta building? How did it inform your choice or type of installation?

I don’t think there is anything wrong with traditional gallery architecture per se; there are a lot of different things going on out there. But all of them bear content that they add or subtract from the work and they need to be considered as integral for the time that the work exists in the space. A work of art has a life, it is an entity with a certain degree of agency; that is to say it can cause things to happen. They may be perceptual things, subtle things that happen only for a single viewer, but these things will happen differently according to the characteristics of the space. I see this as absolute-- for the period of time that a work of art is in a particular space, it truly consists of the synthesis of itself and the space.

In the case of Disjecta, there is no denying that it is a beautiful space. Spaces like that have a legitimizing effect on the work as art, which is something that all gallerists hope their space can accomplish. I think it is perfect for what I wanted to accomplish. As a non-commercial endeavor, Disjecta is freed from the constraints of the market to a certain extent, which is something that Portland desperately needs but has difficulty supporting. It’s also in a great location; a part of the city that is rich in many ways that benefit the artwork inside-- cultural energies that are well utilized in other cities, but neglected in Portland.


Is this a symbolic rebellion against the boundaries of the gallery walls or any other boundaries or limitations?

I don’t really intend for Interiotrope to be a rebellion, especially against boundaries. I think of it as more of an excavation; an exploration of hidden spaces and structures. I see boundaries as positive in some ways, boundaries are where interesting things happen, where mixing occurs and divergent tendencies and assumptions meet and have to deal with each other.

Space capitalized seems to be in the foreground of your artistic exploration.
What have you found so far and how do the new spaces like virtual space change our way of perception?

The nature of virtuality as I see it, and the new technologies that harness it, is that they have really turned ‘Space’ inside out--- expanded it many many times over without making it any bigger. Certainly they have dislodged Space from Time! I go back and forth on the notion of the legitimacy of virtual space. Sometimes it seems like we have created a vast collection of true fourth dimensions (I don’t think each navigable cyber-space constitutes its OWN dimension, but taken as a whole I think cyber-space certainly can operate like a parallel dimension). Other times I just feel like we have only created a more efficient iteration of basic tele-communication, one that offers more user options but is really just a top-down manner of advertising and teen-style social networking. Lately, however the more I think about and use the technologies of the virtual I really can’t deny their power and the profound changes they have made to many people’s lives. The dislocation of content from space and time was something I was very suspicious of at first, but I’m coming around!

What is your opinion on where our body ends and another substance begins and are there points that overlap?

I guess I still see the body as an absolute with clear boundaries, but I imagine that is about to change. My grandmother has two prosthetic hip joints, she doesn’t think about them in order to walk. They are now as unconscious to her as my natural hips are to me so in a way they have become integral to her conception of self. That, to me, is a blurred boundary. You’re familiar with the phenomenon of ghost limbs in amputees. When we begin to talk about the boundaries of substance concerning the body, we are getting into some very murky territories of psychology.

The centerpiece is a chandelier and is a classic beautiful piece, but also
confusing as it is lowered to the ground. What's the symbolism behind it?

At a certain point during the formulation of this whole project, I realized that I was leaving out some pretty important spaces in my excavation of interiors, namely virtual and negative space. The chandelier hangs low over a pan of ink which acts like a mirror and reflects the lights---they appear to exist below the concrete floor in a way. This was one way I thought I could breach the floor visually without renting a jackhammer. The crystals that hang off the bottom of the chandelier dip into the ink and the chandelier turns very slowly so in this way the fixture breaches and slightly disturbs the boundary between space and reflection.

Anything I could say about symbolism would be the result of after-the-fact analysis on my part--looking at and thinking about the finished work. As such, it is not that much different than the analysis of a viewer. In terms of symbolic content, many of these works remain very mysterious to me.

Are their metaphysical aspects in your installation?

I tend to think of all images as metaphysical in a certain way, not in terms of spirituality, but as in “beyond or transformed physicality”-- representations of the physical world. The people who viewed one of the first motion pictures, which featured an oncoming train, were frightened and scrambled to get out of the way. It seems a little ridiculous to us now, but at the time I’m sure that it was nothing short of a metaphysical experience. So in that sense; yes, maybe the whole show is about metaphysics, or at least meta-space. I am trying to engage the perceptions of space and cause the hidden inner structures of architectural interiors to re-emerge in the conscious awareness of the viewer.

What other work have you done and where have you shown previously?

This is my second solo show in Portland, the first being at Gallery 500 in 2005. Other solo exhibitions have been in Los Angeles and Roseburg, Oregon. My wife, Bean Gilsdorf, and I have shown collaborative work in Portland, LA, and Austin, Texas. There’s a list of group shows and what not; it’s all on my CV on the website.

Since about 2004 my work has dealt a lot with mechanism. I tend to conceive of ideas as motions, or simple sequences of things which occur repetitively in time. In 2006 I started to incorporate video and computer control to achieve what before I had to do mechanically. I have therefore had the chance to exhibit work in some film and video festivals and the like but still, sometimes simple mechanics is the best way to go.


What's up next for you?

Stephen Slappe, Mack McFarland, Mike Bray, and I have an exhibition of video installation work at the Marylhurst Art Gym in April.

PDX Art: "Make Art not WAR"

out of the shadow of pain
steps out the light once again
from the fog of lonely tears
arises a desire to live without fears
just yesterday everything seemed under control
today we count the dead with high toll
the dream is replaced by a rude awaken
the ground we stand on is spiritually shaken
our minds harbor pictures of blood and revenge
but the heart cries out for forgiveness not vengeance
reality hit the roof of civilisation
the world has to act as one nation
War will only compromise the fragile balance
Earth is not a toy to destroy by chance
there is no evil in earths name
only misguided people who play a devilish game
who ever kills others in the name of a God
is lost in the insanity of radical thought
we are responsible for the lack of love
in the hearts, on Earth and heaven above
we left the damaged behind on the way
along the streets of yesterday
we climb the ladder up to the cooperate sky
to forget the deprived of food and love as they die
a hopeful tomorrow can only arrive
if everyone gets a seat on the bus, on this drive
its time to remember that we are in the same boat
that we have to carry every ones load
only today can we make sure that the roads of the mind
are save to travel for all of mankind

to be continued

PDX Art features William Le Pore

William Le Pore is the chair of the art department at Portland State University, He creates paintings that address current societal issues by use of combinations of remarkably precise realistic and stylistic renderings.
His latest show
at www.buttersgallery.com
is titled " The Cartography of War"
It deals with several primary concerns: War, a concept globally and historically pervasive.
Cartography, a construct used as a means of knowing, in this case the geography of war.
If William would have a page on face book I would become a fan.

PDX Art: " The Ghost in the machine"

Take me out of the mind game, stitch me a dream, make me a map of the heartless and draw me a line in the green.
Who put the ghost in the machine. Who ate the soul of the art activist.
Rob Conal and Shep Fairy posting their chunk onto the pre-apocalyptic urban centers like modern day prophets of doom. Strutting with cut outs to stencil their discontent on historical valuable walls.
Pubic space has become the battle ground for street cred to burnish an image that could seem to clean for a revolutionary.
I remember the millions of dollars that have been made selling Che Guevara bill caps.

It seems an new breed of mercenaries found gold in the old design trick box.
Banksy is raking in millions of green backs on the shoulders of the disenfranchised.

OUTRAGE has become an art form screened on low environmental impact t-shirts while offering teaching courses in proper etiquette of resistance.

ANTI slogans are still a drug, a big stimulator in these circles as if pretending that when you pee on some ones lawn it becomes yours.

But this is not true neither are the rants and tags but its showing that in truth we are like powerless wimps with no better ideas then to desecrate something defenseless.
It is as if we are to lazy to create true change from the inside out and to get an education to have real influence on a system that is going retrograde.

T-shirt moguls don't make a leader with skills. Sure it makes them money by selling hollowed out aphorism plagiarist from true artists of their craft.

The other day I read about a well know street artist who offered to do a life drawing session at a mall . When I showed up to interview him he was so embarrassed and begged me not to post any pictures of him because he didn't want anyone to know that he was sponsored.
I have his signed T-shirt to proof it and to proof that I am a sucker too.
No matter what's created it will be used in the next I-Pod commercial or embrased by BMW, Nike, Absolute Vodka or even in a presidential campaign like Obamas.

The wolfs have many masks I say and not all of them are the mask of a sheep.

What ironic irony what fallacy as if hope becomes the new dope without the work.

Giants don't hand stickers out to change the world or put a mickey mouse hat on Kissinger and think they can fool somebody.
Kissinger is still wheelding power like in his best days and Conal made money of it and both are happy.
They think they can keep us fooled but even Bush learned fool me once my fault fool me twice and you'll be the fool your self.
All this anti war , anti this rhetoric is just a cop-out and says nothing with many words and as many images.

Manipulation is the name of the game and the goal is good old fame.

Anti is still anti, is still against, is still passive or overtly aggressive.
It is aggression with a saints mask.

There is only one non-violent approach which also includes aspects of language, images, behavior,thoughts and so on.
Read up on MLK or Gandhi and you'll know what I am talking about.

Images like a boy holding a machine gun with the logo of PEACE behind it are watering down peace and what it stands for. This image with its incorporated sarcasm misses the mark.

Two guns with flowers growing out of the barrels are confusing true issues with clever graphic design ideas and still glorify it by their beautification of weapons.

A street poster with an US president with no lips saying read my apoca-lips is clever but without decisive political engagement becomes a piece of worthless decoration.
It also propagates hatred in a coverted way missing the point that we are all flawed. It is easy to encourage and provoke negative emotions towards others and make hatred a legal option.

The obsessive use of sculls in later day art desecrates the dead by turning it into kitsch and robs us of valuable insides into the heritage and wisdom's of our ancestors.

The degrees of separation are huge and we don't need an exaggeration movement that makes artist rich through merchandising. Every piece we make is still gulping up resources to be produced and it costs a lot to make a little rubber designer toy/gimmick/crap.
What I am saying is that it pollutes and it takes gallons of water to manufacture that shit which ends up on some shelf in a designer loft because they too want to show they have street cred just a different degree like platinum.

Think globally is not just a cute term but takes some actual thinking not performance art.
So when art dares to speak out it has to be more than just whining or commenting.

Is art able to produce actual ideas, solutions and results?

It's always easy to point out the flaws after the fact but it's time now to be a step ahead.

Art needs strategic engagement not just presentation and display skills.

Encouragement needs to be forceful and active not just like a dream sequence of a peaceful life together in harmony.

Otherwise the Obama vision will end up just like the others, on the cutting floor of the Heaven & Hell Studios at Spielberg's Dreamworks and don't expect a sequel or a DVD release with extra footage.

It's time for us to get real, stop dragging our asses and stop tagging our cities.
It's not the slogan on the t-shirt that makes the man its his actions and reactions.

PDX Art presents Andrea Schwartz-Feit at Butters Gallery

more info at www.buttersgallery.com

PDX Art features Daniel Wallace at Anka gallery

contact at www.pdxartscene.com

PDX Art: "Twist or size & names matter"

" In the garden of innocent behavior", " The dawn of luxury", "Correlation & Isomorphisms", "Exercise in mindfulness" are just a couple of examples how times have changes since works of Art were named after what they were depicting.
Sure there was Mona Lisa as a stand in or synonym for someone known still the depiction was of a woman.
It was kind of revolutionary to name a piece of art "Untitled" and gave it a number for identification.
I don't know who dared to do so but since than we have moved the other direction and came up with elaborate word puzzles describing what we try to describe.

"Fractured Silence" keeps company with names for abstracts like "Napoleon".
"Line Drive " is a suit of lithographs. A white washed canvas with a smear is called "White Washed" literally.
Personally I have written long poems to accompany my dioramas but they almost always overshadowed the Art in their deep meaning.

Of course you can find simpler examples like "High and Wide" or "Talking the Line". They seem clear in context but as titles for flower or geometric paintings they confuse us and throw us an intellectual curve ball.

Have titles become more important then the art it self?
We are used through news channels to misleading slogans and somewhat intrigued by it.
Fair and balanced or pink and blue refer to historical if not archetypal associations but in Art they shape shift and get politicized by becoming patriotic or sexist.

A poppy field becomes a philosophical "Field of distraction".
its beauty camouflages the devastation drugs made from poppies cause to society and the wars that are fought over its control.

The old saying "Nothing is as it seems" becomes "Nothing stays as it is".

Monochromatic describes heads cast in bronze in moaning either from pain or lust.

It is as if the observer is invited to give meaning to the observed. in this way we become participating voyeurs. A new category develops like passive aggressive voyeurism for lack of a better word.
We are left with "Terms of Confusion" just like Confucius had in mind.

We are becoming "Floaters and lost object's" in the cultural seascape.

"The topography (of) our understanding" had rested on has shifted like quick sand and swallowed " The predictability of Solidity" in its " Sinkhole Mentality".

Our minds are shrink wrapped and vacuum sealed off from "The reality of the Senses"
and pushed into a canyon of " Beyond the Knowable".

Language has faltered its legs ripped off by word-mine-fields.

We are scanning through our environment like a checker in a super market but do we know what we are checking out by observation.

Surly every monkey can do this so do we.
Lets pretend hot is cold and soft is wet.
Does it make it so? Of course not! My mistakes are going to be your mistakes if you repeat them.

A light airy appearance means nothing and a curved mirror doesn't give you the real picture.

Art is not truth. Art is a hypothetical "What if".
What if I lay the piece on the floor instead of hanging it on the wall.
What if I rename the Mona Lisa and name it "In the shadow of my sadness" instead.
Her smile becomes less intriguing and more tragic.

"A Monster named Pink" becomes humorous without any true rational thinking happening.

What if we title a landscape " Lazy afternoon" or "Car crash" than watch how preconceived notions inform and manipulate us emotionally.

Manipulation happens to the best of us. We indulge in it by manipulating ourselves most of the time.
But who is that thing in us that does it.
Sean Healy's past show title at E. Leach could fit "Life in black and white" but could have been named "Shadows don't dance at high noon".

There is a force and than it isn't. The twin opposites challenging each other and in the middle is the security blanket we carry with us from early childhood. From before the split into one or the other alternating dependent on societies demands.

take me out of the mind game
stitch me a dream
make me a map of the heartless
pull me a line in the green



to be continued....

PDX Art: Art & Politics Retrospective 2008

Thanks to all the artists who try to create awereness
and make us realize that there is more to art then its decorative or its commercial
value


Apocalypse tomorrow

The burnout factor of the prophecies has Humankind worried.
Our dependency, not on drugs or alcohol but on technology is causing our brains
to spin out of control. The planet earth is shifting from one pole to another.
Global warming is freezing our judgment.
Ocean reefs are transmuting to brittle matter and the fish is dying
before it gets caught.
A draught of hope yields only despair.
Middle East hatred in the name of a fanatic god,
Threatens to cut our oil-thirsty throats.
Corrupt governments spearheaded by global companiesv grab for total control.

Over greedy computer nerds consumers feed on genetic engineered food
which mutates in the soils of America.
Exploding tumors in our bodies set off the time-released dramas while
Acid rain is burning our vision.
Trees the witness of time, Trees the source of breath are cut down into
Easily assembled home furniture.
Welcome to the table of "Apocalypse Yesterday",
Have aliens over for dinner and open a few cans of preprocessed whatever.
Hide away in the bunkers of the lonely heart.
May the rest of the world starve with global permission.
Flush PEACE down the toilet of ignorance and wipe your butt with the constitution
of a fake democracy.

Sorry,we are not going to shop ourselves out of this one.
This hairy fairy tale has no happy ending.
By the way don't fall asleep behind the wheel of discontend or hyper bolic admiration and make sure that Obama makes your vote count.































The political year in pictures




its been a dick of a year