Lace Your Dunks and See Some Art

Brad Simon (Shroomboy)
Office, 2204 N.E. Alberta St.
Opening May 25

Office continues their (successful) love affair with the online Wurst Gallery by bringing Wurst alumni Brad Simon this month. Simon’s illustrations live in a world where genetic mutations live just like we do – they boat, love ice cream and have a penchant for feeling half lidded. His clean cartoony shtick is as much Charles Burns’ perfect line work as it is ’60s anti-establishment freak-out comics. And with a palette where the limes, pinks and pastels feel right at home with tentacles, buckteeth and neckless beauties, Simon’s work is always very entertaining. His show at Office promises new work, zines and illustrations, and if we’re lucky a little gocco work. Simon’s work was some of the strongest at the I Heart Gocco show last year and he really knows how to take advantage of the strange, endangered little print machine.

Photography by Yoni Kifle
Reading Frenzy, 921 S.W. Oak St.

This show ends Sunday so get there now, before you shoot another picture. Yoni Kifle is the type of photographer that you can learn from. Kifle’s photos, in their execution even more than subject matter, reveal an enthusiastic love that in talent extends well beyond those happenstance snapshooters who’ve made such a stir in the last couple years (see Ryan McGinley – or don’t, for that matter). Where many MFA-style photographers are capturing “youth” using high-end digital cameras requiring no manipulation or forethought, Kifle uses cheap, difficult cameras – the almighty Polaroid. And where those MFA jerks capture “youth” with all the spontaneity of an American Apparel ad, Kifle’s talent with the ‘roid gives authentic and beautiful peeks. Plus, he’s really good.

Also –

On the Reading Frenzy front Thursday, May 25, at 7 p.m., Humiliation Nation, a benefit for the almighty Portland Zine Symposium next month, will feature many well-known zinesters reading from their very first, and undoubtedly not best, first issues. Like the Mortified theater show, where writers and actors read from their earliest love letters and diaries, this promises to cause shivers of awkwardness for all involved. A special bonus is the addition of Frank Portman, Dr. Frank of the Mr. T Experience, one of the most heartbreakingly great bands of my high school breakups. Portman will be reading from his novel, King Dork. The title says so much.

Felice Koenig, Alliteration
New American Art Union, 922 S.E. Ankeny St.

On the subject of shows you should see before Sunday, Felice Koenig’s Alliteration is one not to miss. Her violently saturated paintings are meant to attempt to recreate the effect of literary alliterations through repeating colors and movements. The results are taut and vigorous movements, overwhelmingly busy and full without any awkward muddling. While I generally abhor concept painting, Koenig’s concept is so straightforward and universal and her work stands so well without it, that the term MFA never once crossed my mind. Which is great.