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The New Scene on NW Broadway
Friday Links Posted by Jeff Jahn on May 23, 2008 at 14:05 Infinitus Opening reception • 6-9pm • May 10 Posted by Megan Driscoll on May 08, 2008 at 13:53
Newspace is asking for entries for their 2008 Juried Exhibition. The theme this year is inspired by Bresson's famous description of his photography capturing "the decisive moment." They're looking for entries that explore fleeting environmental moments that "change our perspective slightly... [as] we become witnesses to the gestures of time." Artist and curator TJ Norris is running the exhibition. Selected entries will be shown in a group exhibition, and the winner will have a solo exhibition and receive a $500 award. Entries from anywhere in the world, made within the last two years, will be accepted. The deadline is May 2nd, and there is an entry fee. See their website for more details on how to enter. Posted by Megan Driscoll on March 17, 2008 at 12:10
Curatorial dislikes? Favorite part of the curatorial role? Years in Portland (in your current role)? Is it different curating in Portland? What are you reading? What are you listening to? What gets your attention? What are you looking forward to most in 2008? What did the Portland art scene do well in 2007? A special nod to the PICA/TBA Festival which had a stronger inclusion of visual arts programming, not to mention a pretty tight fest overall. Favorite shows of 2007? What is your best advice for an aspiring curator? If you had to choose, what 3 pieces of art would you pick?
...hese days Portland is full of chimerical multiheaded catalysts like Ruth Ann Brown, Patrick Rock, Christopher Rauschenberg, Jesse Hayward, Laurel Gitlen, Jenene Nagy, Paul Middendorf, TJ Norris, MK Guth, Matt McCormick, Matt Stadler and Myself... etc. and the city is simply the better for it. In fact its those who blurr the distinctions between curator, critic, artist, gallerist, historian and philanthropist who force those who are paid to be just one thing to step up and be more relevant by not just focusing on persona or money. Because multiple hat wearers can't hide behind standardized careeer derived platitudes, we have to be extra conscious of every detail and walk very fine but truly sophisticated lines. That is what PORT is here for, to give sophisticated critical response to sophisticated efforts... Posted by Jeff Jahn on October 24, 2007 at 16:53
Back in June PORT brought you the scoop by announcing the New American Art Union's series of stipend shows, where each artist gets $7,000 for producing a show that transforms the gallery space and $1,000 for materials. Now called Couture, the plan was an unheard of act of bravura, laying a direct challenge to The Portland art Museum's Contemporary Northwest Art Awards (which should announce its 3-5 finalists in November). It also allowed a commercial gallery to behave more like a non commercial space. The Oregonian (probably not wanting to be so scooped again) has the list and promises a full article tomorrow. The recipients are: Rose McCormick (whose current show at NAAU is a bit of breakthrough, her Wolf in the Henhouse is superb) (click link for more) Posted by Jeff Jahn on October 09, 2007 at 11:56
Off the Plane and Into Space: By exploring the rich area of cross fertilization between painting and sculpture, the show THE HOOK UP at New American Art Union provides real insight into new ways that art can get off the wall and interact with the viewers in real space. Though these ideas are not new they are becoming increasingly relevant. You could plot a pretty clean line of development from Malevich and the Russian Constructivists through Picasso's flat metal sculptures to Ellsworth Kelly's ability to make art that interacts with the space of the room. Historically, these artists have questioned the viability and relevance to contemporary culture of using the rectangle of the picture frame as a picture window into some place else, which in the past has probably been painting's greatest strength.... ....It is important to realize that each piece in the show looks different because it shapes space differently. Sometimes a piece might change the space of the wall while another one might work with the space inside of us. TJ Norris's Placebo Complex is a beautiful digital print of drug capsules that are arranged in a way that suggests a variety of natural features from rivers to the veins in which drugs might actually do their work. You can really see TJ's hand inside the print because you can see the way that each pill was placed, lit and colored. TJ's brought a more three-dimensional quality to the piece by placing the word "complex" in clear extruded plastic that is filled with clear pills. This assemblage is tilted off the bottom of the print, bringing it more into the space of the viewer. His piece is perhaps more about an inner space, rather than an outer space....
...Sure, there were lots of fine ideas but only TJ Norris' comment about the sad state of critical writing in Portland came close to the huge issue: excellence and higher expectations.... Posted by Jeff Jahn on June 13, 2007 at 17:41
Talking With Ghosts
invisible.other at NAAU TJ Norris, a local artist and curator, has put together a subtle but stimulating group show at the New American Art Union. The title of the show is invisible.other, and it seems like the work deals with the transient way that people inhabit spaces. The gallery is full things that suggest absence as much as presence. Sometimes there are artifacts like windows and light bulbs; at other times there are maps or drawings of a landscape but presented in a way that suggests an absent human presence. Invisible.other is a fitting title for the show because most of the work details with a residual human presence in the people and things that we encounter and leave behind. Walking through the show we are presented with ideas that slip away as soon as they come into focus, like passing by a person on a crowded street. German media artist Thomas Koner's video piece Periphiques reminds me of ghosts, except these are not ghosts in a haunted mansion but the people we pass on the street everyday and never notice. The 3- channel installation consist of video monitors of three different distances that we might encounter people (shot in Ethiopia, Serbia, and Argentina). In the close up of people walking on a crowded sidewalk the faces blur into one another, stripped of any individual identity. In the other monitors they might be nothing more than one of many shapes moving from one place to another. Because the videos are so impersonal, we never really get to know anything about the people in any of them, and it creates a dark, detached mood that I think is a central element of the video. The faces and bodies all become interchangeable, blending from one person into the next. It makes you realize just how transient we are in the spaces that we inhabit. When we walk through crowded streets, maybe all we are is just another blur in someone else's peripheral vision. We are reminded that we are often completely ephemeral, like ghosts except in the traces we leave behind. Laura Vanderburgh's suite of mythical landscape drawings that begin the show are great. Who knew water tables could be so beautiful? Parts of the drawings were a little unexpected. I often thought I was looking at pretty straight forward geological forms but then it would transform so that I really felt like I was looking at the surface of a person's skin. Maybe the drawings are a meditation on the topography of the human body or perhaps a whole new meaning for Mother Earth. I was surprised with Melia Donovan's (a PORT writer) drawing Frostie Freeze. If you come at the drawing from an angle it disappears and becomes visible again only if you look at it head on. The drawing is made up of hundreds of little holes in the wall that describe a Frostie Freeze drive in. The holes give the drawing a wonderful flatness that is undermined by the one point perspective of the image. It makes you wonder if the holes that she puts into wall create the drawing or if the holes are somehow assembled in our minds to create a coherent image. Because the holes are actually three dimensional, the drawing has the ability to track you as you move through the space by slowly becoming visible and then invisible, turning on and then off. One part of Idaho artist Ted Apel's Potential Difference, is a picture frame with pictures of two inventors (one being Thomas Edison) and including descriptions of their inventions in two languages. Next to the frame is the other part of the piece in the practical application of their inventions demonstrated in four light bulbs. Two of the bulbs conduct electricity to produce visible light and two bulbs produce sounds. It is a beautiful installation because in a very simple way we are taught that the bulbs are producing these effects by vibrating in different frequencies. These frequencies might be in the spectrum of visible light or they could be in a range that we can only experience with our ears. The piece draws an interesting connection between visual and audio art. It suggests the possibility of the two being potentially very similar but just in different frequencies. The whole piece takes on the quality of something you might find in a science museum. Ty Ennis' drawing I disappear into you, is of strange landscape with a pair of empty shoes in the foreground. It is very beautiful to look at but not necessarily a place you want to go for a Sunday stroll. I think the shoes in the foreground sort of reinforce that idea if you go in, you don't come out. I was hoping for more from Washington D.C. based artist Richard Chartier's three small paintings on panel Reference 1,2,3. It was hard to get around the Cy Twombly/ Robert Ryman aesthetic and to find out what he was trying to do. The drawings are mostly white acrylic over small (colored?) pencil shapes along the border. It was a little disappointing because Richard is a good artist but in these paintings he doesn't contribute any new ideas to what artists are already working on in Portland. Most of the work in the show is worthwhile but a few of the pieces don't add anything and so the result sometimes gets a little a crowded. It is almost like too many people (ghosts?) talking all at once. If you want to get outside of yourself or if you want to look at the things around you in a new way be sure to check out invisible.other at the New American Art Union, which will be up until the end of April.
New American Art Union Posted by Arcy Douglass on April 18, 2007 at 23:38
First Thursday March 2007
Art Institute of Portland Gallery (1122 NW Davis Street) Yet another group show, this one exploring the formal naure of softness might be worth checking out. The presence of Rachel Denny, Stephen Slappe, Cynthia Mosser, Scott Wayne Indiana, Jennifer Anable, Damon Thompson and TJ Norris (AKA the artists who seem to show constantly) is a good sign, will the show be different though? Comment: The Art Institute show is the best of the group efforts. (J. Jahn) Posted by Jeff Jahn on March 01, 2007 at 11:08
Globetrotting Portland Artists in 2007Also after a 2006 with shows in Iceland etc. Conkle is rumored to have a presence in New York sometime this year and many other Oregonians are in similar negotiations so don't act surprised when it happens. Brittany Powell has already been picked up by Modern Culture (a nice NY gallery who are also avid PORT readers). Other artists like Damali Ayo, TJ Norris, Liz Haley, Eugenia Pardue, Craig Payne, Laura Fritz, Hilary Pfeifer or Patrick Rock (who lives across the street from me) have been more active elsewhere than at home too (the list is large). Chandra Bocci's last solo show was last year in San Francisco though it wasn't one of her all-out efforts (the road is made of yellow mustard packets). Posted by Jeff Jahn on February 22, 2007 at 16:18
Port's Curatorial Roundup 2007Curators are the people you need to know in the art world and Portland is full of them. To begin 2007 we thought we'd poll a few of them and learn a little more about how they see their roles. Now prepare yourselves, this is one long article. Also, as expected the term curator was incredibly loaded. Some reserve the term only for nonprofit work, others admitted to acting in a curatorial role without actually claiming to be curators. For some being a curator seemed to be like breathing. To be sure there are as many types of curators as there are curatorial roles. From old pro's to rookies, these 13 are only a sampling of the curatorial voices in town: TJ Norris, independent curator How did you get into curating?: It was about half my life ago. While I was VP of student government at MassArt, Boston. Operating the student gallery spaces was part of my assigned responsibility. I was charged with programming, maintenance, etc. Simultaneously I worked for Harvard Art Museums as a security guard, which was a great opportunity to be up-close and personal with some of the greatest masterpieces in art history. I have many memories of works of the Der Blaue Reiter, the famed aging Rothkos in the basement, my close encounter with a work of Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, celebrity visits by Vincent Price, Cher and evenAl from "Happy Days". Seems like another life ago, but the duty to safeguard priceless works of art made a Max Beckmann fan out of me. Then when I lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia I was gallery assistant at the Anna Leonowens Gallery. That all led to a job as assistant curator for the Artists Foundation in Boston alongside Jerry Beck who is now the director of The Revolving Museum. Working alongside Boston's most prestigious longtime gallerist, Barbara Krakow, I organized an exhibition of children's artwork to be shown at the U.S. White House as part of its 200th Anniversary. In 1993 I had the great opportunity to assistant teach at Tufts University's Curatorial Program. The master's level course engaged ten students who designed an exhibition from concept to completion, including the development of a printed catalogue. This led me to various freelance gigs, mostly at academic museums (SUNY/Binghamton Art Museum, Mt. Ida College) and other non-profit galleries. The latter 90s had my focus in the studio once again, laying my curatorial scope down. That was until I landed on Oregon soil where I opened my own space, Soundvision. The gallery project lasted a short thirteen months, but gave me the opportunity to fuse media in experimental ways. It also gave me the lay of the land, so to speak, here in the Pacific Northwest. You have been at it for how many years and approximately how many shows?: Since about 1987 or so. Hundreds of sketches and concepts though maybe only a dozen or so exhibitions have seen th light of day. 2007 sees a few projects underway at New American Art Union and at the Newspace Center for Photography, as well as my collaborative curatorial role in a brand-new film festival sometime in the Fall. How do you define the role of curator?: A risk taking, opinionated connossieur. Someone who attempts to deal in the delicacy of conceptual tonality. A curator defends and definesissues of taste, style and substance. We often have some clue about art history and general culture. Curatorial dislikes?:Anything that smacks of fad, replicating something torn from last month's pages of Art Forum. I'm not a big fan of shows that cram too much into a space, much prefer a big white room that may host something quite intimate. Oh, yes, I am bored by the regularity of shows that have too many rainbows, or caricatures with big doe eyes. Favorite part of the curatorial role?: My role is to comb through things until I can see my clear part. Favorite parts of the role are writing about the collective work, researching artists, studio visits. I love the exchanges that occur in the creative process. Comparing and contrasting every last element that make the final edit. Some have referred to me as anal, others as a perfectionist. My rule of thumb is sort of map-based - to maximize your potential you must filter your recipe of ideas down to specific points of interest. Years in Portland (in your current role)?: I've been here nearly six years now. Is it different curating in Portland?: Hmmm, not really. The sophistication of the viewer and expectations of quality seem similar to much larger cities. There is a good range of those coming from an academic or traditional slant - and still a few risk takers here. Though Portland could use a few more of us to tweak and broaden our perspectives and experiences. What gets your attention?: Work that deals in layers, double meaning, entendre. Simplified, minimal work that creates an atmospheric ambience. Technology that is invisible, ambiguous. And of course, work that transcends its medium. What are you reading?: Honestly, I read a lot of blogs. It's completely facinating, personal opinion, and the way people communicate about their cultural life. What are you listening to (music)?: "Midnight Moonies" by Nurse with Wound (Steven Stapleton even signed my copy); old faithful discs by Wire; Windy & Carl's a/v collaboration with Christy Romanick called "Akimatsuri"; "Revep" which is the latest collaboration between Raster Noton's Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto; and Isan's "Plans Drawn in Pencil" What are you looking forward to most in 2007?: Learning Final Cut Pro and completing my "Tribryd" installation cycle. Favorite shows in 2006?: Linda Hutchins at Pulliam Deffenbaugh; Ellen George at PDX Contemporary Art; Ty Ennis at New American Art Union What did the Portland art scene do well in 2006? Where does it need work?: Some of the city's top galleries physically rebuilt themselves into really fine new architectural spaces. Younger art centers and galleries are starting to emerge. New galleries like Quality Pictures and Small A Projects show great promise for bringing outsiders in and shaking the provincial tree. The overall scene is still somewhat imbalanced due to the fact that there aren't enough spaces representing top notch regional talent in artists like Abi Spring, David Eckard, Troy Briggs, Joe Thurston, Pat Boas and others. All too often gallerists spend too much time talent scouting young and emerging potential that can be a bit too green to cut it over time. My inclination is that in the coming few years that will change. Portland must also harness and respect local mid-career artists more gracefully, or lose a wealth of skill and history. New avenues for cultivating collectors must be robustly developed. Art criticism hereabouts has taken several shots in the arm from the emergence of art blogs (Port, Visual Codec, Art Dish, Urban Honking) and the like. Newspapers like The Portland Mercury, Willamette Week, and recently the Oregonian have adopted their own blogs which, in many ways bring cultural news to the people in a slightly more casual format. Often these web sources are easy access and can offer the reader an instant opportunity to respond. Personally, I would love to read a much broader range of academic-based critical writing. Though we are light years ahead of where we were even a few years back. What is your best advice for an artist?: Turn your work upside down. Break it down, simplify the process for yourself, step back from your work, be open to critical reviews from your peers and rework good ideas. Don't be afraid to try something completely new. Spill some ink. If you had to choose, what 3 pieces of art would you pick?: Just three! Is this just for fantasy? If they were works of any time period I would have to select a work by Albrecht Dürer, Marcel Duchamp and El Greco. In Portland you would be hard pressed not to look past Stephen Slappe, Pat Boas, Ryan Jeffrey, Dan Gilsdorf, Arcy Douglass and Laura Vandenburgh. Who are your heros?: All-time heros include Susan Sontag, Trevor Fairbrother, Derek Jarman, Billie Holiday and Andy Warhol. Local art house heros would include (but not be limited to) Terri Hopkins, Christopher Rauschenberg and Marjorie Hirsch. Posted by Jeff Jahn on January 03, 2007 at 23:23
Processing it allHere is some more Miami to process, including Tyler Green's initial take, sounds like the superflat paradigm to me. PORT's coverage of Miami art fairs looked like this. Portland boasts 10-20 artists every curator looking for new artists should consider: Sean Healy, Storm Tharp, Ellen George, Matthew Picton, Jacqueline Ehlis, Chandra Bocci, Bruce Conkle, James Lavadour, Vanessa Renwick, Laura Fritz (yeah my GF but others say this), Michael Knutson, Matt McCormick, Michael Brophy, Tom Cramer, David Eckard, Brenden Clenaghen, Red 76 and Patrick Rock are just the tip of the iceberg. People like Jesse Hayward, Brad Adkins, Carson Ellis, PORT's own Katherine Bovee & Philippe Blanc, TJ Norris, Marne Lucas and Daniel Peterson are all up and comers who might excite national audiences too (I can go on and on with more, Jesse Rose Vala, Paul Green, Daniel Fagereng, Joe Macca, Sincerely John Head etc.). On Point.Flux.Broadcast the lovely Natasha Snellman blogged Miami as well. ...and as congratulations to Jerry Saltz, may he win the damn Pulitzer some time soon, has any art critic in recent memory deserved it more? Posted by Jeff Jahn on December 12, 2006 at 11:43 | Comments (0) First Friday October 2006 12X16 Gallery is showing new work by TJ Norris. The only image I saw had the cut-out shape of a cartoon bunny orbiting black space around an industrial-looking, circular moon. The show is called Objects + Images.
First Friday Reception: October 6, from 6 to 9p • Through October 29, 2006. Posted By Nicky Kriara On October 04, 2006 At 23:47 A resurgence in the Everett Station LoftsWith so many artists and a lot of new spaces popping up in unexpected locales there is a wild-westness and an equally pervasive camaraderie to the Portland art scene. Over the years the Everett Station Lofts have been the most important breeding ground and networking zone in the scene. Current "names artists" like Brendan Clenaghen, Joe Macca, Jacqueline Ehlis, James Boulton, Brad Adkins, Laura Fritz, TJ Norris and Red 76 all have a history with the Lofts. Even newer to the spotlight names like Paul Fujita and Scott Wayne Indiana were recently ensconced there. Posted By Jeff Jahn On September 20, 2006 At 12:08 Ok it was a modified form of "art in a park" and on paper it sounded like a potentially terrible event, but it wasn't. Sure, some of the work was iffy but some was pretty good to excellent (Michael Keenan, Carolyn Zick, Ellen George, Harvest Henderson, Jacqueline Ehlis, Justin Oswald, TJ Norris+Abi Spring and a few others all had particularly strong works). Many had a lot of interesting references to Robert Smithson's work, utilizing a reflective/dislocating surface (Ehlis, TJ+Abi) and Harvest made a circle akin to the spiral jetty made of salad (with a name like "Harvest" it's unavoidable I guess). The fact that a couple of what I think were falcons (of the gyr variety? in Portland?) were hanging out in the park only made it cooler. Posted By Jeff Jahn On August 06, 2006 At 20:58 inCloverTomorrow is the one day open-air art show inClover curated by Portland artist Scott Wayne Indiana. Indiana selected inClover's roster of artists for the thoughtful spatial engagement of their work; featured media include installation, illustration, painting and photography. Artists involved were encouraged to investigate and engage the exhibit's outdoor environs within the brevity of the show's run - one day only - while responding to the theme of the show's summery title, inClover, which means "Living a carefree life of ease, comfort or prosperity." The roster of artists is impressive, including notables such as Jacqueline Ehlis, Brenda Mallory, and TJ Norris who is working on a collaborative piece with Abi Spring. Posted By Jenene Nagy On August 04, 2006 At 19:21 Scott Wayne Indiana's Liz Taylor Piece at Grey I AreaI would like to defend Scott Wayne Indiana's "The Liz Taylor Piece" which appears in the last week of the concise and expertly curated (by TJ Norris) Grey I Area show at the Guestroom Gallery. Almost universally panned, this particular piece of SWI's presents some interesting aesthetic problems which I would like to explore. Isn't there something special about art that is universally despised? Often it seems like despicable art is that which discards accepted tropes of "the authentic" in favor of convoluted recursions of the acknowledged "inauthentic." Particularly despised are artists who acknowledge their own falsity and use it as an access point, a creative mode. The impulse to make art is basically a romantic one. It is founded on a romanticized view of individualism: that the individual is capable of a unique communication that culture at large could never produce or even approximate. The art object is a special product of the individual mind, retaining the aura of its creator, distinguished from say, an aluminum can. And yet there are so many working in this romantic endeavor who push against or dismantle their own basic position. One thinks immediately of Andy Warhol, who despite the phantasmagoric glitz now associated with his name, was essentially involved in the creative apprehension of total nihilism. His own words were always taken at face value, and seldom re-read, and this is understandable because his statements were rarely complex. When he said he loved Coke, and wished to make art that was more like Coke, no one understood the tension in that statement. Warhol expressed despair. The great romantic project of fine art had failed. It had become impossible and irrelevant to communicate the unique truths of individual experience. Authenticity within U.S.A. commercial capitalism was impossible, the romance of the individual had been completely supplanted by products as engines of identity. Coke disbursed the same elements of personality to everyone all over the world simultaneously. The existence of Coke had relieved humanity of the great burden of making art, because, for Warhol, it had homogenized identity; it had dismantled metaphysics into infinitely repeated red and white cylinders full of effervescent ambrosia. Warhol longed to be free from the burden of consciousness, of the romantic ideas of self-creation of individual identity. Like a pop culture Hamlet, he longed for rest from the difficult labors of identity and creativity, and the world was left to wonder what dreams surged restlessly beneath his endless repetitions. There are a number of artists who, like Warhol, tend to dismantle their own basic position. I think particularly of the poisoned, obnoxious paintings of Kenny Scharf, or the sick, rococo boredom of Jeff Koons. But what strikes me about Scharf, Koons, Warhol, and SWI is that their admission of the loss of authenticity, though convoluted, is essentially an authentic statement. It is the visual / aesthetic equivalent of someone telling you: "I am a liar, and I don't intend to change. I will never tell you the truth, although I am telling you the truth now." In a way this is a more "truthful" position than those who act within the centuries-old established authenticity tropes of visual art without ever examining them. By example, I like to form this argument in a simple series of questions: What is a landscape painting? Does it tell the truth? Or is it simply a regularized aesthetic system developed over several centuries? Is Bob Ross inauthentic because he abstracted a rule system that was free from natural observation? Or is that method (in fact) more authentic because it acknowledges the rule system in the abstract, as it is, free from any romantic metaphysical entanglements concerning the sublime experience of the individual in nature? Bob Ross represents the liberation of art from Romantic individualism, a possibility that Ross saw as spiritually democratizing and uplifting. He frequently denounced the intellectual / bohemian elitism romantic individualism seemed to imply: "You don't have to be special to do art. Anyone can do it. It's easy, just follow the rules." In Ross's happy little world, no one had to bear the burden of individual consciousness. There was no tension or dissonance. Art was simply an activity, and everyone who engaged in this activity by following along at home produced exactly the same thing. Where landscape painters had formerly sought to communicate the grandeur of their isolation, the sublime encounter of nature and identity, Ross nullified the sublime. Every cabin was the same cabin. Every wave was the same wave. Every mountain was the same mountain. They were simply components to be constructed into different arrays. Where romantic landscape painters sought to communicate their experience of power beyond the comprehension of their small identities, in Ross's landscapes there was nothing more powerful than the artist. Strangely, the omnipotence of the artist was totally banal, utterly without consequence. "You don't have to be special to do art." Ross's pupils were simultaneously infinitely powerful and totally without power. In Ross's program, the mystery and tension of art-making became totally subdued. Art became totally innocuous, the paintings so comfortable as to be less interesting than the raccoons Ross brought onto the program. Strangely, it wasn't that Ross had simplified the complicated techniques of rendering that made art harmless. Ross's system was actually incredibly complex and difficult to master. The crux of the matter was that Ross had solved the moral problems of art. Ross lifted the burden of romantic individualism. He eased the headache of the creative genius. Art no longer had the crushing responsibility of communicating truth. Art had no responsibility, except a recursive duty to the structure of its own system. Ross's landscape painting was a simple recursion that existed for itself and discarded all of the larger questions: the happy little world equals the happy little world. SWI's "Liz Taylor Piece" deals directly with the moral tension in making art that Ross had not only expunged but allowed to be upstaged by a raccoon. SWI begins with Liz Taylor's "My Love Affair with Jewelry," a massive coffee-table hardcover articulating its subject in equal parts glossy photos and text blurbs. This piece is clearly despicable, for reasons immediately obvious. There is no "artistic craft" evident at all, it merely seems to be a vandalized object, each page ruined with clear duct tape or white out, or the center of photographs simply torn out or scribbled over. The object has a presence of stupid brutality, it seems the work of a hostile, neurotic and incoherent teen-ager lashing out against the hypocrisy, injustice and frivolity of the American aristocracy, as embodied by Liz Taylor. The book chronicles Liz's blithe and capricious acquisition of gaudy diamond after gaudy diamond, and coyly celebrates her inimitable and uncontrollably raging avarice. SWI's statement follows: When I came across this book of Liz Taylor's jewelry, I was happy because I could tell that it needed to be fixed, and that I knew how to fix it. What you have before you is the fixed book. In this new fixed form, I believe the book more accurately depicts what is represented in the original, untouched version. SWI's final object suspends strange, contradictory tensions without easy resolution. Is this object even a product of creativity? The stronger argument is that it is the product of negative impulse: vandalism. And as vandalism it is not that severe. Why not simply burn the book and record the event? Wouldn't that be purer vandalism? Instead the vandalism is modulated by artistic interaction: the photographs seem to be defaced compositionally, the tape and white-out carefully considered. The actions are recklessly executed, but carefully considered. In my view, this is not an art object. It is SWI's way of addressing the problem of authenticity in art, and negotiating his own unease with creating precious, unique objects similar to the gaudy jewelry pictured in the book. Where Bob Ross simply nullified the serious burden of art as individual expression, SWI thrashes against it, fights it, lashes out. The same problem, for SWI, is not as easily reconciled. Where is authenticity in art? Is SWI's vandalism an authentic act, or merely theatrical posturing? Does the "Liz Taylor Piece" communicate some convoluted truth (Like: "I feel incapable of real communication" ) or is it simply visual static, the spastic aesthetic fibrillations of despair? I see SWI's enigmatic piece as reverse Warhol, an immediate observation of the slickness, reproducibility, and predatory avarice of transacted / leveled / modulated identity (like Warhol's relationship to Coke) attacked through the simple tactile process of tearing, cutting, and sticking. In defense of this work it is perhaps better to think of the object as the artifact of a performance rather than as a sculpture. The performance "The Liz Taylor Piece" represents is the simple act of touching this book, of using your hands to tear its pages. SWI simply set up a limited system of aesthetic interaction with this object and allowed a free interchange to take place, really, a highly complex negotiation between creative impulse and destructive impulse. So, "The Liz Taylor Piece" exists within the problem of authenticity in art, somewhere in the grey area. It remains wholly unresolved. It is unclear whether it is an authentic expression or merely a limited but impulsive aesthetic game. It is unclear whether it is an art object or just the product of haphazard activity. It does not reveal or express anything about the identity of the artist, but instead uses Liz Taylor's publicly constructed identity as a prop in a half-hearted and reckless game. It dodges the great burden of art as expression of consciousness and instead fibrillates helplessly, short-circuiting. But really, there is something beautiful in this helpless, pathetic, adolescent object. It is the same kind of beauty one witnesses watching a teenager puncture car tires with a pocket knife; it is that they are free from the burden of consciousness, that their actions have no implications, that they don't need to know why, only how. That they will never feel paralyzed. It is the hope that you don't need to be special to make art. Information on the Guestroom site is available at Guestroom Gallery Posted By Isaac Peterson On July 27, 2006 At 0:00 Seeing the Oregonian for what it isLook we give them a tough time occasionally but the Oregonian does provide a startling amount of visual arts coverage like today's review of TJ Norris' Grey|Area show. Yes, it is more descriptive than an intellectual mediation on the specific details of sublimely liminal, less than colorful work, but it does get the main points about the curator and the one artist's work which just doesn't quite cut it. Most newspapers for a city of 2.1 million metro don't come close to this and if you want depth... there is a reason PORT exists. There is a place for generalist publications and a place for insider concerns. Also, DK published his second best bit of writing to date with his expose on the Portland Art Center last week (his best was the retirement piece on PAM's beloved Donald Jenkins). He's tough on PAC but patient, pointing out their inconsistencies while slyly making important points about the inconsistencies of other art organizations as well. I do have concerns about whether programming by committee is a good idea though? Portland has to be tough on its arts organizations because nearly all are still either nascent or only just recently finding their strides. The city is under served but that is exciting (for the time bieng). The O even has Brian Libby of Portland Architecture freelancing. So why all the visual arts coverage? Because Portland's changes in identity and sophistication are some of the most rapid I've seen in any US city and the visual arts are the single best gauge of that shift. Posted By Jeff Jahn On June 05, 2006 At 0:00 First Friday June 2006grey|area • group show So-called theme-less, non-narrative, conceptual and abstract minimalism are part of the blurred-line of focus for this show, which could be really strong. Curated by TJ Norris. The 13 selected West Coast artists include Troy Briggs, Ty Ennis, Scott Wayne Indiana, Laura Fritz and Ellen George. Guestroom Gallery 128 NE Russell • 503.284.8378 Opening Reception Friday, June 2, 6 - 9 p. Runs through June 30, 2006. Posted By Nicky Kriara On June 01, 2006 At 15:17 There is more stuff... always more stuffLast but not least, TJ Norris takes on the the dark art of curating and his upcoming curatorial effort this June at Guestroom Gallery looks real good too. I remember being irked years ago when Randy Gragg told me I was the only independent seriously interested in curation in town. Both annoyed and flattered my counter was instantly, "but what about TJ." There were others too like, Matt Fleck, Muriel Bartol and Michael Oman-Reagan, Jacqueline Ehlis... even the ever mysterious Todd Johnson. Now there is a whole new crop of youngsters like Jenene Nagy, Josh Arseneau, Jesse Hayward and Mark Brandau... not to mention all the new gallerists who necessarily must take on that role. Posted By Jeff Jahn On May 02, 2006 At 19:03 February 1, 2006The Oregonian's art blog penned by TJ Norris, is it art? (scroll down), has a nice interview with budding art impresario Gavin Shettler. Ok, the whole; I'm not a curator but I know some people who think they might be curators and I talk to them and they think I'm a curator... attitude wears a little thin. We don't need more art, so much as more opportunities to display good art in Portland and that does take having an eye (just to figure out who else has an eye). I've harped on the Portland Art Center before but it looks like they are improving their programming through subcontracting out to the Portland Modern publication and deviating from their previous 2 year schedule. This latest PM issue is excellent, where the previous two, although well intentioned were uneven or worse. Lets hope PAC ups their ante like Portland Modern has, and they do seem to be more responsive to valid critiques than some other orgs in town. These wondertwins will combine their powers on First Thursday too through an exhibit at PAC and the nearby Ogle Gallery. Shape of a bucket of water... form of an eagle!_ January 16, 2006February, Jenine Nagy, an artist in residence at PNCA is opening the Tilt Gallery and project space in Suite 106 of the Everett Station Lofts, with a focus on difficult and challenging work. While all sorts of impresarios have tried hard to impress with often empty words in 2005, this artist run space threatens to up the ante at the lofts and challenge other players like PAC and NAAU to be more sophisticated (size doesn't matter as much as content and execution does). Since Soundvision closed in 2004 the lofts have been good to iffy but Nagy has the chops and connections to resuscitate this hotbed of 15+ galleries. January 2, 2006Looking to 2006 and looking back at 2005 in Portland art Our readers included Ehlis and Cramer frequently as well. There were votes for Matthew Picton, Jaq Chartier, Pat Boaz, Zach Kircher, Charles Goldman, James Lavadour, Mel Katz, Doug Morris, TJ Norris, Port's own Katherine Bovee & Philippe Blanc, Ellen George, Roy Lichtenstein at PAM , Randy Moe and even Joe Macca's riotous show at NAAU. Most improved artist(s): Katherine Bovee & Philippe Blanc. Their show at the PCC Northview gallery was so nicely executed and sustained. Runner ups: TJ Norris & Brad Adkins (his bottles and tape are good but a bit overexposed, can't wait to see if he gets good enough to pull off a sustained show... his performance art was very hit or miss and he needs to be more careful now). Our readers agreed with my 3 picks giving each an equal # of votes. November 17, 2005TJ Norris' Nucleo at Chambers Gallery Limitations can be beautiful and ideally concepts are a type of limitation that focuses or distills a work of art's elements into more than the sum of its parts or intentions. A good example of this is TJ Norris' latest show at Chambers gallery. Although tiny (in the back room) it packs the punch of a Shaolin Monk. It does so precisely because the concepts, space and execution are so tight & disciplined... it all works. __Nucleo refers to the very interesting circular shapes of these photographs and the focused centrality each image seems to exude because of this feature. Each image seems to be a focused study of a particular bit of a decaying urban environment. Each image is own world, but it's a recycled, very processed version of decay that seems newly minted by the camera's mechanical eye. It seems to be a parable of how the artists's focused attention (through camera, editing and circular forms) creates a mimetic effect upon the viewer. The works don't seem less gritty because of their slick photographic surface... instead they seem more intimate and approachable in a charmed way that smelly urban grit might not normally exude. The visual focus brings appreciation. ____Plato was obsessed with the circle as a kind of ideal form (his idealized account of Atlantis describes the city state as a series of concentric circles). Norris' use of circles and surface certainly idealizes his subject matter but not in some sugary way. The images remain tough and familiar but difficult to locate (because they are both omnipresent and their own worlds). I like this aspect of everywhere and nowhere... it forms a focused connection with the viewer that is generous and unyielding. It seems to say, accept the decay for what it because the end of something must necessarily be the beginning of something else. Very Zen.__The images stand on their own but it is interesting how they are neither enhanced nor damaged by the three musical compositions that are on hand in the gallery. It's a testament to the work's strength that its "centered" vision of decay in western cities can coexist with these soundtrack's tinkling, sometimes shard like sound compositions. I like the fact that one can test the visual against the aural experience and both succeed. That said, I used to be a music critic and (after some inner conflict) the art critic in me tells me that Norris' work is better than the soundscapes. __It's like the photographs are the palace and the soundscapes are visiting courtiers. Still, with all this idealization does this show go beyond court life? Well yes, because it is inherently ascetic. Nucleo succeeds because the daily grind of the real world doesn't allow for the monastic-urban visual experience of being everywhere and nowhere at once that I experienced upon viewing this show. ____Nucleo is a meditation, a small urban Taoist temple to materials and the photographic process. Many of Norris's earlier works were all about cleanliness. Now it seems like Norris has made peace with this clean fetish and figured out a way to have it both ways, immaculate and down and dirty.__This show is a breakthrough for Norris, whose work I've always liked but found a tad sterile. Norris has reincarnated the dirt and grime and brought it back to us in transcended form through his process... and now its all smiling, humble and luminous like some kind of photographic Buddha. This work still has room to develop though, the space could be even more meditative and focused with less and larger work. Instead of 9 works think 3. Also, find a way to have the soundscape be less of a visitor and more of a resident of the temple. ___Through Nov 26th at Chambers Gallery 207 SW Pine #102 Posted by Jeff Jahn on November 17, 2005 at 22:44 November 6, 2005TJ Norris' show at Chambers was closed by the time I got there but its one of the best shows the city has seen in months. A breakthrough for Norris. Posted by Jeff Jahn on November 06, 2005 at 22:34 October 13, 2005TJ Norris opens at Chambers Don't let this mid-month opening slip by you. TJ Norris opens Nucleo tonight at Chambers, the second in a tri-part series of installations entitled tribryd . The artist explains, "It is the centerpiece of the series and as such acts as a balancing point. The work includes photographic imagery (or "evidence"). The images were found in mostly industrial and abandoned areas of cities in the Pacific Northwest, New England and Montreal. These images have gone through many manifestations to end up in a spherical state, representing a sort of zen center, by editing the edges of my own perception (my peripheral vision), and in a way mimicking the camera's lens." Opening recepetion tonight • 5:30 to 8:30p • Through November 26 Chambers • 207 SW Pine St No 102 Posted by Katherine Bovee on October 13, 2005 at 10:25 |
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NEWS
* Photolucida Reviews (7/26-27)
ARTIST INFO
REPRESENTATION |
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