- Blue Sky Gallery
- Sara Terry and Mariam X’s “Mariam, In My Life,” on view at Blue Sky Gallery
Another month, another First Thursday art walk. Tonight’s West Side openings are, as always, many. Over at MOD, Marjorie has a nice list of events that fall somewhere between art and fashion, but I’ve got a few additional exhibits I’d like to tell you about.
PRESENTspace is hosting A Somewhat Secret Place: Disability and Art, an exhibit which makes itself accessible to people living with disabilities. Grass Hut is putting on their third annual Balls Out exhibit, a massive group show featuring all the artists you’ve come to expect from the most colorful closet-sized gallery in Portland. Wieden+Kennedy has invited all the current students and alumni of its W+K 12 program (Scrappers included) to display work in their lobby, side by side. The newish Tracey Gallery brought in local silkscreen artist Andrew Luke Sloan for a show called DEMIGODS. Chambers@916 is hosting Joe Bartholomew’s Girih Extended, and Blue Sky has three concurrent shows from David Oresick, Greta Pratt, and a collaboration between Sara Terry and Mariam X.
On past the jump for more details (and tons of preview images).
- A Somewhat Secret Place
There’s been a lot of web murmur about A Somewhat Secret Place: Disability and Art, a PRESENTspace exhibition organized by social practice artist Catherine J. H. Miller. The show strives to give people with disabilities greater access to art. Through both sign language interpreters and “descriptors for the visually impaired,” audience members with disabilities will experience the works on display. Additionally, artists with disabilities will show their work next to able-bodied contributors, adding another aspect of access. For more info, hop on over to the exhibition’s website. 939 NW Glisan St, 6 pm.
- Grass Hut
- On view in Balls Out
Grass Hut is hosting their third annual Balls Out exhibition, described as “an onslaught of new artworks by a league of art shredders that cannot be matched.” Contributors include Tripper Dungan, Tim Biskup, Theo Ellsworth, and many more. 20 NW 5th Ave. #101, 6 pm.
- W+K
Wieden+Kennedy’s W+K 12— self-described as “an experiment disguised as a school disguised as an agency”— put together a big group show in the W+K lobby, bringing together both current students and alum from its seven-year run. This’ll be a good opportunity to get to know the visual stylings that’re developed in Portland’s most exclusive advertising program. 224 NW 13th Ave, 6-10 pm.
- Andrew Luke Sloan
Tracey Gallery opened up its exhibition space to silkscreen artist Andrew Luke Sloan. Sloan is Tender Loving Empire‘s “Minister of Creative Content,” thought he also directs music videos and other film projects (he made a great video for Nurses— check it out). NW 6th and Everett (in the Everett Station Lofts).
Chambers@916 is hosting Joe Bartholomew’s Girih Extended, which, according to the press release, derives its visual language from “girih tiles, a medieval Islamic patterning system.” Included are “digital prints, works in glass, digitally incised Paperstone, and a book and didactic video.” 916 NW Flanders, 6-8:30 pm.
- David Oresick/Blue Sky Gallery
Blue Sky is hosting three concurrent shows. David Oresick’s Soldiers in Their Youth “is a series of montages assembled from videos found on the Internet that were created by American soldiers and civilians reacting to the war in Iraq.”
- Greta Pratt/Blue Sky Gallery
Greta Pratt’s The Wavers is a photo series documenting the day laborers who dress up as the Statue of Liberty in order to advertise tax services.
- Sara Terry and Mariam X/Blue Sky Gallery
Lastly, Sara Terry and Mariam X’s In My Life is series of photos and captions designed “out of Mariam’s struggle with forgiving herself for the atrocities she committed as a younger person” in Sierra Leone, where she was “abducted by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) at the age of eleven” and “forced to commit random executions or risk losing her own life.” 122 NW 8th Ave, 6-9 pm.