This year, TBA closed out its ten-day run with a show by Laurie Anderson, a returning TBA artist who’s just about as big as it gets in the contemporary art scene. I’m not sure why PICA decided to close the fest with their big event, rather than opening with it as they’ve done in years […]
TBA
Posted inTBA
Closing out TBA:12 with Laurie Anderson’s Dirtday!
This year, TBA closed out its ten-day run with a show by Laurie Anderson, a returning TBA artist who’s just about as big as it gets in the contemporary art scene. I’m not sure why PICA decided to close the fest with their big event, rather than opening with it as they’ve done in years […]
Posted inTBA
Claudia Meza’s Listening to Space: Sonic City PDX
Claudia Meza Yesterday afternoon I stopped by for the live presentation of Claudia Meza’s Listening to Space: Sonic City PDX, billed as a QR code walking tour consisting of “thirty local musicians, composers, and sound artists’… favorite local sonic spaces.” East of the river under the Morrison Bridge, performances of experimental compositions spanned the sublime […]
Posted inTBA
End Things: Claudia Meza’s “Water”
Brian Echon Claudia Meza Friday afternoon I stopped by the White Box (21 NW 1st Ave) for Claudia Meza‘s TBA:12 End Things installation, “Water”— a sound piece composed of field recordings of the titular liquid. In a semicircle around the gallery, roughly 30 Califone tape recorders hang from the ceiling like a giant, abstract chandelier. […]
Posted inTBA
The Yes and No of Blacklight Food
PICA Not pictured: Lemon. (It doesn’t glow). Brooklyn-based artist Thu Tran and sound artist Matt Fitzpatrick took the stage last night with food demos and slideshow lectures, imparting Tran’s findings after months of studying different food under a blacklight. The night turned out much like you would expect: a few giggles shared over some Frankenstein […]
Posted inTBA
Adaptation vs. Translation in Chelfitsch’s Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and the Farewell Speech
PICA In our TBA blog comments a few days ago, I picked on Mexican company Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol a bit for their sloppy use of supertitles. That show was translated directly from its original language, where Japanese performance troupe Cheltfisch’s Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and the Farewell Speech felt adapted. Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, […]
Posted inTBA
An Instructive Evening at the Works
Pat Moran First of all: Poor Alexis Blair Penney. His show last night was a classic Works misfire, and it really wasn’t his fault. Penney is an Oakland-based drag performer probably best known for the song “Lonely Sea.” The songs he played last night were melodramatic and urgent, and he had real presence, as he […]
Posted inTBA
Go See Gob Squad’s Kitchen
PICA There are two performances left of Gob Squad’s Kitchen (You’ve Never Had it So Good). Go see it. Hilarious, technically ambitious, surprising, thoughtful—this show is wonderful. To explain it is to make it sound a lot more pretentious than it actually is, but: It’s a contemporary reenactment of a handful of Andy Warhol’s movies, […]
Posted inTBA
Go See Gob Squad’s Kitchen
PICA There are two performances left of Gob Squad’s Kitchen (You’ve Never Had it So Good). Go see it. Hilarious, technically ambitious, surprising, thoughtful—this show is wonderful. To explain it is to make it sound a lot more pretentious than it actually is, but: It’s a contemporary reenactment of a handful of Andy Warhol’s movies, […]
Posted inTBA
“But Still We Danced”: Faustin Linyekula’s Le Cargo
To see a perfect example of how simplicity will always trump spectacle, do yourself a favor and go watch Faustin Linyekula’s Le Cargo. The piece is honest, at times breath taking, and completely void of unnecessary bells and whistles. There is no set, save a handful of floor lights placed to scatter shadows against the […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Review: Sam Green and Yo La Tengo’s The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller
Kate Holly Sam Green and Yo La Tengo Just gonna put it out there: I pretty much want to live in The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller, the live documentary written and performed by filmmaker Sam Green and scored by Yo La Tengo (originally commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to […]
Posted inTBA
TBA Mid-Fest Check In
Pat Moran Last night’s Parenthetical Girls show at the Works. Well, you missed last night’s wonderful The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller, a “live documentary” that saw filmmaker Sam Green narrating an introduction to Bucky’s life and work, with a soundtrack provided by Yo La Tengo. (You shouldn’t have missed it. We told you. […]