ps

Through a summer of job transitions, art festivals, and over-extending ourselves with Slow Food, this blog has been pretty quiet. To get back into a rhythm, it's probably a good idea to look back, but, since I'm not overly ambitious, I won't be looking back very far.

Earlier this week, I walked over with a few of my co-workers to visit a pop-up publishing house. Publication Studio, the brainchild of Matthew Stadler and Patricia No, has squatted in the Ace Hotel Cleaners, where they are cranking out small-run novels and books. So far, they've published a catalog for a local gallery show, two short debut novels, and an annotated urban planning reader. When my work descended on the studio en masse, we bought them out of their day's printing of Lawerence Rinder's thinly-veiled fiction about his time as a curator at the Whitney. I guess working at an arts organization has made us predictable

It's true that I love a good book project, but I also love a good machine. To publish their on-demand books, the PS team has a high-speed duplex printer, a paper trimmer, and - to seal the deal - a perfect binder. I could watch this dreamy little video all day:

Publication Studio Makes A Book from Mike Merrill on Vimeo.

So far, I've been really impressed by what PS has released, and they already have exciting projects lined up through fall. In late October, they'll be participating in the 2009 Amsterdam Biennale, a decentralized art fair with satellite pavilions operating around the world. Portland's contingent will print a collection of single-run artist books, including some by two of my friends and co-workers. I'll certainly try to attend kick-off party on the 24th, with on-the-spot collaborative writing and early-morning gin. It's good to know that some (more creative) parts of the publishing industry still have a reason to celebrate.

new york bound

Christoph Niemann contributes to an illustrated blog in the New York Times called "Abstract City." Earlier this year, the rooted through his kids' legos to construct his quintessential New York experience. These were two of my favorites:



With that, we're off to New York for a week for a hardscrabble week of five meals a day and little else. When we return, you can expect stories of Russian Jews, cookbook stores, upstate farm cuisine, and more doughnuts.

unplanned city

This clip is a few years old, but I've always gotten a kick out of it:



It's goofy, but it's also such a simple conceit for an ad - just use the damn shoes, right? No celebrity needed. And yet, I think what really makes the ad so cool is that it is totally unexpected to see this guy vaulting himself over and across the urban spaces that are designed to move people in very different and proscribed routes. Cities dictate model for their own "ideal" usage, while individuals will invariably personalize and flaunt those impositions.

In Portland, as much as we pride ourselves on a DIY ethos, we also tend to *heart* our progressive city government. This means we often end up relying on a top-down sort of urban development. I think it's a good thing that our city can build lasting, meaningful infrastructure, but it also spares us (for better or for worse) the birthing pains of coming up with creative solutions on our own. I'm thrilled by every new bike lane the city stripes, even if they're handed out like candy, but sometimes the trade-off of this fast-track urban development means cluster-f**ks like the Rose Quarter re-development.

So what happens in other cities where citizens have to go it alone to create a livable environment? The Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal is holding an exhibit through this weekend called Actions: What you can do with the city, and I just came across their awesome Tools for Actions site, which shares all 99 projects from the show. The centre (er?) gathered both proposals and completed designs from around the world, all of which co-opt existing city structures to create the building blocks for new urban interactions.


Rather than treating existing city plans as obstacles, the groups featured in Actions employ them as unintended stages for talking about community and sustenance. The exhibit offers so many cool, new ideas based on everyday actions like mapping, walking, recycling, and biking, that you could easily spend hours reading the briefs and then tracking down more info on the firms and artists involved. I know I can be pretty food-focused, so it's no surprise that projects like urban foraging, plastic bag gardens, and a city-wide picnic caught my attention. Spend some time looking at all of the actions, some of which might inspire you to change your city on your own. A little guerrilla gardening, anyone?


I wish I was in Montreal to see this stuff live. And I wish Portland had museums that could actually draw these sorts of exhibits. Maybe that's a potential "action" itself.

you might think twice before eating that vegetable

Blueberry Danish, 2006

While googling DIY scratch-and-sniff (it's a long story), I came across a series of completely enthralling photos by Kathryn Parker Almanas. Among the hospital photos and the pictures from her trip to the Museo di Storia della Scienza in Florence (I've been, and it's awesome), she's done a lot of work staging medical dissections and "studies" of everyday foods.

Anatomia di Pane VIII, 2008

Even though I'm a fairly squeamish person, I am totally enamored of taxidermy. Whether it is a hunter's trophy or a natural history diorama, it is all about theatrics. For every codified taxonomy of species, there is a kitten tea party; it's equal parts science and fiction, and I love it. I even just enjoy the basic aesthetic of taxidermy, with it's wooden plaques, glass display cases and pseudo-scientific instruments.

Breakfast I, 2006

So while I covet all of the beakers and trays in Almanas' photos, what I really latch onto about the images are her compositions. She does a fantastic job of quoting 17th century Dutch still lives, with their low, slanting light and that same entwined artifice of sterility and decay. Or that famous Rembrandt painting of the anatomy lesson. The photos are partially reserved and objective in the prim manner of early medical science, but there's also a real fetish made of out of the repulsive and gratuitous. The way she lingers over the graphic details gives her photos a violent, forensic quality, like the evidence of a hastily cleaned-up attack. Her site has a few truly grotesque pictures of berry-stained bread dough, or dark fruits in a stainless steel sink, but this one really got me when I first saw it:

Swiss Chard, 2006

When I noticed the red-juice stains on the asceptic trays, my stomach did a turn. They look so animal.
And they're just vegetables.

time off (hardly)

That's right: P & A are hitting the road for a weekend of food-addled wanderlust. Is this a photo of how we pack for a trip? No, it's just one shot of the overwhelming mess that is our recent move. You heard that correctly - we just finished a rapid-fire move across town and we are already leaving the place. Why? Because we're crazy. Crazy for food.

We're setting off on a pseudo-vacation for Labor Day weekend to attend Slow Food Nation. For the past couple of months, we've been managing the blog for the Portland chapter of Slow Food USA, so we will be traveling to San Francisco to listen to speakers on sustainable foodways and to taste as much as we possibly can (all strictly on assignment, of course). We'll be visiting the Victory Gardens, sampling street foods, exploring the market vendors, and participating in guided tastings of the best American artisanal foods. Plus, when we're not at the festival, we'll be eating in San Francisco.

And, immediately after we return, we'll launch ourselves headlong into the Time-Based Art festival. P will be blogging their events for the third year at Urbanhonking.com. The shows at TBA are always challenging, always exciting, and always surprising. This year, there will be more free performances and visual arts than ever before and the line-up for the late night program (THE WORKS) looks awesome.

We're still pouring over the program and making our plans, but as of now, here's who we're stoked about:
Reggie Watts (who'll blow your mind)
Antony and the Johnsons
Jerome Bel explaining contemporary French performance art to traditional Thai dancer Pichet Klunchun
Zidane
Fritz Haeg

So it may be a little quiet around here for a few weeks, but you can always follow along on the Slow Food PDX blog or the PICA TBA blog. Maybe once it is all over, we might actually have the time to see friends again. Or, you know, finish moving in.

and sometimes there's just pie.

Two of our best friends are getting ready to leave Portland to move to New York, which has set me thinking a lot about our city over the last few days. Maybe this is dorky to admit (not that we're exactly charting new territories of cool with this blog), but I am a huge Portland booster. I follow a slew of local arts-and-culture blogs, I excitedly track the future plans for our city, and sometimes I get goosebumps when I read the editor's intros to local dining guides or the Willamette Week Finder. Together with A, I keep a running list of recommendations for out-of-town visitors - so many that we probably turn most guests off of Portland permanently.

I understand that Portland is no utopia. We can be insular, myopic, overly self-congratulatory, quick-to-settle, and insecure. We still don't have decent public transit on most of the Eastside, a lot of our neighborhoods seem hell-bent on making themselves into themed malls, and there appears to be no end in sight to the bland condo development. In spite of these failings (and more), there is a lot of energy in this town that gets channeled into some really exciting projects; projects that make it feel alright to stay in Portland, even when I sometimes long for a change.

Time for a little PDX boosterism.

MTV News came to Portland recently and they didn't eff-up the coverage! They even picked decent bands to interview. Experimentation, collaboration, positive vibes. Watching this kind of stuff just makes me swell up with pride. If you don't already have plans - check out the PDX Pop Now! festival next weekend.

As for other festivals, PICA just recently posted their Time-Based Art 2008 Festival preview video. I've mentioned TBA before, so I'll keep this short: it is one of the best parts of my year. I've gone into every year excited about a few events, skeptical of a lot more. Each time, I'm blown away by how engaging and entertaining the whole festival is. Sure, there was that terrifying Japanese noise music last year, but riding my bike between events and late-night happenings, I just end up feeling totally in love with the city. Somewhere in the video around Mark Russel saying, "Portland is the only place where this happens in the US...," I still start to choke up.

So while the PDX future is brimming with music and arts, what about A and my real love? Last year, the New York Times proclaimed that Portland was in a "golden age of dining," so doesn't it follow that food would be the best indicator of Portland's zeitgeist? Artist Tricia Martin is in the process of reviewing submissions for her Pietopia contest, using baked goods as a cultural barometer. This isn't about cliched Portland aphorisms - this is chance for highly personal readings of the city. According to Martin's original call, participants are to submit pie recipes that reflect their current perspective on life, describing how the technique, ingredients, or style of the pie represents their experience. Taken together, these pies will portray how people are living in Portland. [Note: It is taking all of my self-restraint to avoid bad pie-centric puns.]

Unfortunately, the submission date came and went, but I'm looking forward to the unveiling of the pies on August 20. I think this project has so much potential - it doesn't just get people thinking about Portland, it begins to unpack the myriad things that food can represent and communicate. If the Portland food-scene is to grow, it certainly needs more intelligent and creative approaches to the culture surrounding eating.

I feel like there are good things happening in Portland and, for the time being, I like it here.

Then again, I suppose New York has some pretty decent music, arts, and food, too.

radio silence.

For the next two weeks, things may be a little quiet around here. Don't worry, we're still around and still thinking about the wedding (somewhere in the back of our minds). It is just that early-September brings a cavalcade of arts and performance to the city in a two-week binge of double-booked evenings, frantic racing between venues and a lot of late nights with artsy Portlanders wired on caffeine and contemporary art. Between the 6th and the 16th, the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art hosts the Time-Based Art Festival (TBA), a convergence of dance, theatre, music, visual arts, and some truly bizarre experiences that lurk on the fringes of all of them. During the second weekend of TBA (the 14th-16th - like I said, double-booking), my gallery will be participating in the AFFAIR at the Jupiter Hotel, which lets a few dozen galleries loose on the rooms of a 60s motor lodge-cum-hipster mecca. And in between installing works in the hotel room and staffing the fair, we'll still be sneaking in to the last of the TBA performances.

Throughout all of this, if you happen to miss my lovely writing, I'll be blogging the TBA festival over at the PICA blog. So if you are one of those people for whom contemporary arts criticism is interchangeable with rants about our wedding, have a read.

Why, you ask, would anyone dedicate two straight weeks to a hectic schedule of festival attendance in the month before their wedding?
Because we are gluttons for punishment.
And for performance art.

And the two often go hand in hand.