Press:

"Don't miss"...."incredible" Willamette Week "Impressive" Seattle Post Intelligencer "The exhibition Fresh Trouble could be the missing link between the Affair at the Jupiter art fair and the Jubitz Center for Modern and Contemporary Art." Portland Tribune "Fresh trouble, shows' em how it is done" Ultra PDX "...a strong showcase of bright talent." The Oregonian "...Granted, there are works in his group show, Fresh Trouble, from New York, Boston, Milwaukee and even China, but the majority of artists with works displayed at this 10,000-square-foot warehouse show are Oregonians, and they prove Jahn's thesis that, per capita, P-town can hold its own against all contenders on the West Coast. Highlights: Chandra Bocci's hilarious forest fashioned from magazine clippings of celebrity hairdos, and Bruce Conkle's Reynolds Wrap mobiles of frying pans and giant squid. Patrick Rock's Simulacra/Hermaphrodite takes grand prize, however. The title becomes easier to understand once you've seen this gigantic hotdog-shaped installation, removed your shoes, peeled apart the plump labial doors, and entered the dark, jiggly environment, which you just might remember from way back when... Three cheers for Fresh Trouble, AFFAIR and PAM for delivering perhaps the most exhilarating week in the history of Portland's art scene. " -Richard Speer, WWeek Oct 5th, 2005 Artstar Radio Interview with Eva Lake, October 10th, 2005

Curator's Statement: Fresh Trouble is a wide-ranging visual art exhibition exploring the current moment where artists act as a kind of a redefining vanguard in the cities where they live (often far from New York now that the art world has fragmented). Although international in scope Fresh Trouble showcases some of the local artists most responsible for reimagining Portland as an almost frantically busy art city. Many are more lauded outside of Oregon and constitute a serious block of the city's talent. The exhibition is timely since a Portland milestone concurrs with the opening of the Portland Art Museum's new Center for Modern and Contemporary Art along with the affair art fair. Fresh Trouble brings edge to a city that needs to make further strides now that it has come so far so fast. These are some of the artists most responsible for this dramatic change. In Fresh Trouble themes of cities, destruction, ironic utopias, exquisite joie de vivre, nature, dislocation/remote locations, paranoia, baby boomer youth fetish, cheap Mexican labor, delight and design as a way to change ones world are in abundance. Also, the exploration of natural/manmade disaster as well as a somewhat European acknowledgement that very little is actually new (only its context is different) is in effect. Like most large biennal-style group shows Fresh Trouble asks some basic questions... in this case about freshness (why do we value it so?) and trouble, which the multifaceted artists each expound upon, ultimately complicating the discussion rather than making it more tidy... such is life, this isn't TV and Fresh Trouble is zeitgeist sampler. This international exhibition highlights artist who bravely seek to change or redefine the world they live in, even if it is similar to the effects of butterfly wings kicking up storms farther away. Some are ironists who point out the lack of change; some are visionaries who make objects that lift one above the everyday and effect change one viewer at a time. Most engage both strategies. -jeff jahn

Ellen George Broadcast (detail) 2005               Jeff Jahn mainpage contact         Brown & Essenhigh by Zach Kircher

Thanks:

Justin Oswald, Duane Bietz, Matthew Bietz, Jordan Tull, all the galleries, all the artists and everyone who came and enjoyed the show... the documentary film is being completed.   in memory of Linda Farris