Dark Times
Chris Duncan's site-specific installation incorporates incredibly dense paintings that reference the Big Bang, a "string burst" of light rays, and a quasi-molecular sculpture based on a traditional African art form. Motel, NW Couch between 5th & 6th, through Sept 30

Katrina's Aftermath
Dan Burkholder, a pioneer of digital photography, weighs in with his photographs of post-Katrina New Orleans. Burkholder employs a novel digital technique that uses multiple exposures of the same scene to render images without shadows and to enhance colors to a painterly effect. The decision to show off new artistic bells and whistles, and to "pretty up" and add layers of artifice to images of the worst natural disaster to hit this country, less than a year after the fact, however, seems ridiculously misguided. Photographic Image, 240 SW 1st, 224-3543, through Sept 30

The Inside Game
The Inside Game offers a peek into the private stashes of some of Portland's art dealers and collectors, and sports some very good work by artists like Lari Pittman, William Kentridge, Harrell Fletcher, Russell Crotty, and more. It's hard to guess what the curator wanted to show or say with the exhibition, as the only thing I left the gallery contemplating was how nice it would be to have that kind of disposable income. Portland Art Center, 32 NW 5th, 236-3322, through Oct 1

Pierre Huyghe
Hot shit French artist Pierre Huyghe is the latest in PAM's ongoing exhibitions of contemporary art. This is Not a Time for Dreaming is a video work about Le Corbusier and Harvard, and about collapsing history and make-believe, which I can't imagine anyone really cares about. But then again, great artists are adept at making audiences care about things that they were previously uninterested in. We'll see if Huyghe is one of them. Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park, 226-2811, Sept 23-Jan 1

Terry Evans Lecture
In conjunction with the exhibition Artists and Specimens: Documenting Contemporary Experience, Midwest photographer extraordinaire Terry Evans will talk about her lifework photographing the American prairies. Artists and Specimens continues through Oct 22. Lewis & Clark's James Miller Center for the Humanities, Room 105, 0615 SW Palatine Hill Road, 768-7687, Thurs Sept 21, 5 pm, free