Tag Archives: gentrification

I didn't get pissed on, but I sure got pissed off.

Sam Korman‘s most recent curatorial endeavor involves a bunch of sickwad artists, a crab fishing boat, and a required drive through the Hell-on-Earth dockworker community that is Linnton, OR.  This place stunk the unholy stink of Union Labor, which seeped into my pickup truck and nearly asphyxiated me with the boney, God-hating hands of Karl Marx himself.  Luckily, I’d brought along a scratch-off lottery ticket and a sixer of Budweiser, both of which warded off the Nancypants Communist aura of this stretch of Highway 30 quite nicely.  I made it a point to slug down all six Buds before arriving at the show.  And as I suckled down the last drop of each, I heaved it mightily from my truck window and shattered it through dark storefront windows no doubt acting as concealing fronts for various Anarcho-Gay political organizations.  Make no mistake, dear reader, Linnton is the face of liberal darkness.  It makes the Weather Underground look like Guantanamo Fucking Baywatch.  

Before I take Korman’s candy ass to task though, I’ll give the boy some points for staging an art exhibition outside of the Pearl Necklace District (or his garage).  I’d heard about this exhibition through the grapevine and I have to admit that I was curious.  Tanner Dobson is all a-fucking-bout Deadliest Catch, so the opportunity to spend some time on a real crab fishing vessel sounded tight as Catholic pussy. However, upon arrival to the exhibition I am sad to report, it became quickly apparent that this was another bunch of Bobos who’d somehow scored access to something that they didn’t possess the faculties to actually comprehend.  I thought maybe they’d possibly hang a few nice paintings of sea animals around the boat to really up the fishing vibe, but instead they turned the entire deck into a goddamned white cube that looked exactly like every other art gallery I’ve ever visited.

Which prompts me to wonder, why the fuck did you make us drive all the fucking way out here, you fucking dick farmers?

Who the fuck are these two people?

Perhaps I’m being a little unfair here.  This is not entirely Korman’s doing. Apparently, the boat itself is part of a collective called Labrador/12128.  It consists of four artists, who are (in genderohierarchical order):

Kyle John Thompson

Lewis George Feuer

Caitlin Ducey 

Zoe (they didn’t provide a last name for Zoe, and when I clicked on her name the link took me to a subpage of the United States Navy’s website that talked about why sailors like to have cats aboard their ships.  This struck me as an attempt at irony that was supposed to indicate that sailors were gay, which is fucking bullshit and so I’m not going to give her the dignity of even addressing the fact that she did this – from now on.)

There isn’t really a whole lot of information on their home page that illuminates how exactly these Trustafarians managed to get their grimy little mitts on the boat, but a little bird told me that one of their relatives used to actually use it but that it had been docked for years.  Apparently, between benders tripping on pot and getting tattooed, this flannel-clad young man slipped his relative a roofie and somehow walked away with a giant fucking crab boat for a studio.  How exactly Korman got into the mix is unclear, but I think I remember something about him smooshing butts with one of the chicks involved at some point.  Let me know if this is inaccurate – I hate one-sided, slanted journalism.

This came up when I Googled "Marina Way, Portland" and I have no idea if this is in Oregon or Maine.

Anywhooooo, upon turning off of Highway 30 onto Marina Way, my truck rumbled over gravel and I whipped into a small parking lot filled with Subarus sporting “Life is Good” and “Endless This War” stickers.  What?  Dog is your co-pilot?  Go fuck yourself.  I hopped out of the truck, and as the dust from my wicked skid-parking job cleared, I saw the leviathan ship known as the Labrador. Through a rickety fence gate I sauntered and proceeded down a questionable wooden ramp towards the docks below.  This wooden pathway wound through several unoccupied boats of various calibers, ultimately ending at a metal staircase that allowed ascension to the deck of the Labrador herself. Several of the exhibition attendees shot me icy glances as they realized that people besides vegan denimphiles actually exist in this city.  I ignored their glances and maneuvered through the smell of American Spirit cigarettes and bicycle grease towards Mr. Korman.

Korman has indicated to me on several occasions that this is his favorite photo of himself and that it should always be used for promotional purposes.

 We exchanged pleasantries (he’d invited me a couple of months back to participate in a Derek Franklin tribute show for which I provided a sporting roast of the little modernist hobbit).  While the two of us don’t see eye-to-eye politically, socially, artistically or religiously, there exists a strange camaraderie between us that is difficult to explain.  Part of what I do like about Korman is that he puts quite a bit of effort into the accompanying documents for his exhibitions. The “catalogues,” for lack of an actually applicable term, are sincere and thoughtful – probably more so than the art contained in the actual shows.  

The group that he’d put together for this show was refreshingly undiverse.  Every artist participating was a male, and it’s my understanding that only one was gay and I think one might be like half-Hispanic or something.  For this, I’ll give Korman a thumbs-up.  I’m so sick of going to exhibitions where there has to be one black artist, one lesbian, one Asian and one guy with Cerebral Palsy. Curators:  This is Portland, not San Franfuckingfrisco.  Gawd.

Contributing parties to the visual work included Chase Biado (the young-gun who makes time-based work), Jeffry Mitchell (the old-gun who makes inoffensive ceramics), Carl Klimt (the token MFA student), Justin Swinburne (never heard of you), Alex Felton (the bleach guy) and Philip Iosca (the guy who likes guys).  The announcements for the show also advertised a performance by Matthew Green at 8pm.

I drilled Korman for a bit, asking him when exactly Matthew Green intended to perform and disappoint me.  ”I’m not sure,” Korman replied.  ”He told me that he wouldn’t be here, but that something would be happening at 8.”  

“You mean that nothing would be happening at 8?” I asked.

“Probably.  He hasn’t returned any of my phone calls or texts for over a week.”

Green’s previous performances have very often been intentionally anti-climactic, asking the viewer to examine his own expectations when experiencing art.  These performances ask us if we are viewing art with the hope of being entertained or experiencing some kind of grand pay-off.  He did one last year where he turned off all of the lights in ROCKSBOX Fine Art and then led the audience from outside through the labyrinthian underground gallery.  It was literally pitch black and people were herding like blind cows through the cement corridors.  We all gathered, packed like sardines in a crushed tin box, in the central space of the gallery.  Whispers and giggles swirled around the room and then it all fell to a silent hush as a Bic lighter ignited by Green danced flickering in front of us.  Then he turned on the light.

There isn’t another part.  That’s what he did.

It sounded to me like there wasn’t going to be any discernible happening courtesy of Green aboard the Labrador.  And I’m guessing that was his intention.  But guess what, Matthew Green – A BABY COULD DO THAT!!!

Let’s get to the artists who make things.  Chase Biado contributed a really fucking weird video that looked like he does a lot of drugs.  Actually, Chase Biado just simply looks like he does a lot of drugs.  Did you ever watch the scrambled porn channel as a baby, jerking your neck this way and that trying to locate one neon-green-tinted areola to bust a nut all over?  It was very similar to that, but with a grinding, abstract industrial soundtrack that I think he taped of two robots buttfucking.  This was one of those video pieces that doesn’t have any recognizable imagery or sounds that is supposed to make you feel dumb.  I wanted to punch it in the tummy.  Chase Biado is definitely one young Portland artist to watch (around your fucking wallet).  

You know how a lot of people hate contemporary art?  This is why:

Some guy actually picked this up and put it on the table with the beers.

Philip Iosca pissed into a Squirt bottle and then put it on the floor.  Do you get it? The show is called WATERSPORTS, the soda is called “Squirt” and the bottle is full of peeeeeeeeeeeee!  This type of sickwad grossfest nonsense is why the National Endowment for the Arts disappeared.  At least Iosca didn’t put Jesus Christ inside of it.

In order to prove himself to be an “interdisciplinary” artist, Iosca also contributed this Satanic travesty to the exhibition:

This is why you can't get married.

Last week, I told you a little bit about an abstract painting show currently up at Pacific Northwest College of Art that featured some work by Alex Felton and some guy named Cain & Abel or something.  These are pieces of black fabric (soooo metal) with bleach splattered on them.  I don’t exactly understand how the collaborative process in these pieces actually works – did you each take a turn splattering bleach on them?  And if so, fucking why?  Now you have to split the sales money, you hosers.  They’d exhibited these pieces before up at DISJECTA in the Vestibule, so I was pleased to see Felton contribute something a little different for this show.  In fact, I think Felton’s piece easily stole the show.

FUCK YES, FELTON. FUCK YES.

Jeffry Mitchell made some ceramic things and hung them on the wall.  There was a print also of a candy ribbon.  I’m not sure what else I can honestly say about his pieces.  One of them was green and one was white, I think.  And there was a bowl and then like an elephant and I think the print was framed.  But not matted. Yeah, it was just hanging in the frame – no matte.  As for Justin Swinburne, he made a big black picture that was framed, too.  I heard somebody remark, “That’s his thing.”  

Hippies everywhere are bawling their crusty eyes out.

Finally, Carl Klimt’s quiet piece in the corner was refreshingly unchallenging.  I liked it because it was made of sawdust, which is crazy because you don’t usually think of sawdust as being able to make a shape.  I mean, it’s usually just in a pile and so it’s really weird to see it not that way.  Klimt made a huge sawdust cube at the PNCA MFA in Visual Studies exhibition Stray Fires a couple of months back, but it was behind a barrier made of huge plastic sheets which prevented me from getting too close to it.  Because the floor on the Labrador was made out of plywood, every time that I walked by this recent piece by Klimt, some of the sawdust shook off and it cracked a bit from the vibrations.  Local designer Rob Halverson and I spent some time jumping up and down on the floor near it and giggling as it fell apart.  If interactive art was more like this, people might give a fucking shit for once.

What this exhibition ultimately means for the artists who participated or for Korman is up for debate.  Actually, it’s not.  I’m just kidding.  It doesn’t mean anything ultimately or even microscopically.  The turnout was good, but I’m guessing that’s because you have to go to your friends’ show so that they come to yours.  An easy way to solve this problem and provide everybody more time to go bowling or to read would be if everybody just stopped having exhibitions.  But then I’d be out of a job.  So don’t do that.  But do stop having so fucking many. It’s getting out of hand, Portland.