Top Things to Do in Portland This Week: Aug 12–18
Local R&B star Blossom performing at the Lot at Zidell Yards, which will host a three-day music festival this weekend.
Image: Norman Eder
We're in the thick—the dog days, even—of a summer that has gone by way too quickly. With another heat wave ripping through town, plus a new mask mandate that goes into effect on Friday, staying cool and healthy are the twin names of the game. Maybe try to beat the heat with some cool movie theaters or galleries this weekend, and when the temps taper off, hop on the bike to the tune of some Missy Elliott.
As always during extreme temps, be sure to check event websites and social feeds to ensure things haven't been cancelled or postponed. See you there.
Comedy
Kevin Nealon
8 p.m. Thurs, 7:30 p.m. Fri–Sat, 4:30 & 10 p.m. Sat, Aug 12–14, $33–41
The longtime SNL cast member, who also made memorable turns in Weeds, Happy Gilmore, and that insane Nick at Nite show about a stop-motion dentist, will hit Helium this weekend for four shows. Watch him hike with Lily Tomlin below. Not feeling the whole "being indoors with others" situation at the moment? No problem—Helium will kick off its outdoor "Lot Laughs" series in its parking lot on Sunday.
Film
Ema
Various times through Aug 19, Cinema 21, $8–11
Pablo Larraín's long-delayed psychosexual freakout, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2019 and screened for a single day on Mubi last spring (when we caught it) has finally received a theatrical release, and we could not be more excited. This movie has everything: flamethrowers, reggaeton, sex-revenge plots, Gael García Bernal. It's like Marriage Story meets Basic Instinct by way of a Rosalía music video. This isn't technically an event—it's part of Cinema 21's regular programming—but we would be remiss if we did not draw your attention to one of the best films of the year.
Oregon Documentary Film Fest
2:30–6 p.m. Sun, Aug 15, Clinton Street Theater, $25
The Clinton will screen 25 short docs and TV episodes, representing work from 20 different states and countries, at this film festival on Sunday. Two more festivals from the same organizers will hit the theater later this month: the Portland Comedy Film Festival and Oregon Short Film Festival.
Music
Polka Dot Downtown
Noon daily (plus additional times, see here) through August, Pioneer Courthouse Square, FREE
Portland artist Bill Will has unleashed a set of more than 100 colorful 12-foot vinyl dots throughout downtown, setting a wide variety of stages for local musicians and artists. The dots, created last summer, were designed to provide a safe entertainment space for Portlanders to enjoy local music during the pandemic.
Summer Music Festival
Sat–Sun, Aug 14–15, The Lot at Zidell Yards, $60–75 per person
Special Events
Pedalpalooza!
Theater
The Oldest Profession
Visual Art
Archives for Black Lives
Noon–5 p.m. Thu–Sun by appointment, Holding Contemporary, FREE
Don't Shoot PDX, which held an exhibition at Holding Contemporary last summer, has returned to the space this month to showcase pieces from its archives detailing the lives and historical treatment of Black people in Portland. On Sunday, the gallery will direct visitors toward a live stream from LA's Autry Museum about the importance of archives.
A Feast of Light and Shadows
4–8 p.m. Wed–Thu, 2–6 p.m. Fri–Sun, June 30–Aug 29, Yale Union, FREE
Marianne Nicolson, a First Nations artist born in British Columbia, has transformed Southeast Portland’s Yale Union building into a meditation on the Potlatch, a celebratory Indigenous ritual banned by the Canadian government for nearly 70 years. Her exhibition comes alive in the light, featuring colored etchings on the space’s enormous windows, plus basins, photographs, and more. Read her exhibition pamphlet here for a more in-depth look at the methods and meanings of Nicolson’s exhibition.
A Letter from Souls of the Dead
Noon–6 p.m. Thu–Fri, noon–4 p.m. Sat–Sun, July 10–Sept 4, PICA, FREE
The first solo exhibition by musician and visual artist Aki Onda, A Letter from Souls of the Dead marries sound, photography, found objects, and prints to elicit séance and other forms of interspiritual communication.
Out West
Noon–5 p.m. Wed–Sat through Aug 28, Blue Sky Gallery, FREE
Acclaimed late photographer Ingeborg Gerdes, a German immigrant who set up shop in San Francisco in the late ’60s, spent the bulk of her career chronicling the American West in vivid, idiosyncratic detail. This retrospective at the the Pearl District's Blue Sky Gallery seeks to capture the qualities that make her work tick.
