Variable West is delighted to announce that we received a $1,500 grant from Critical Conversations to fund seven reviews and interviews about Oregon-based artists and exhibitions. Read the supported writing below:
- How to say friendship: Maren Hassinger and Senga Nengudi at Cooley Gallery by Ella Ray, May 21, 2024
- The Weight of lightness: Jenene Nagy at Helzer Gallery by Karl Burkheimer, July 4, 2024
- Hidden bodies, hoards of feeling: Math Bass at lumber room by Kaya Noteboom, July 10, 2024
- Biennial as an Act of Love: the seventh Oregon Artists’ Biennial by Sarah Diver, September 12, 2024
- More than a portrait: Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe interviewed by Karla Mendez, October 24, 2024
- What cannot be destroyed: JJJJJerome Ellis interviewed by Kaya Noteboom, October 30, 2024
- Performative space: MK Guth Interviewed by Danica Sachs, December 1, 2024
Writers interested in pitching a review should reference our Call for Pitches page for the best way to submit.
With our annual operating budget, we can afford to publish one exhibition review per month about programming in California, Oregon, and Washington. Thanks to this grant, we will be able to publish an additional seven reviews about Oregon programming in 2024.
Critical Conversations is a collaboration between the University of Oregon Center for Art Research (CFAR) and The Ford Family Foundation Visual Arts Program.
The Ford Family Foundation’s Visual Arts Program honors the Foundation’s late co-founder Hallie Ford and her lifelong interest in the arts by helping Oregon’s most promising established visual artists actively pursue their work. One element of the program is Critical Conversations, a collaboration between the Foundation and the University of Oregon Department of Art’s Center for Art Research (CFAR), in partnership with Pacific Northwest College of Art at Willamette University, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Portland State University, and the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery at Reed College.
Critical Conversations provides a space for artists and cultural producers that is rooted in exchange and inquiry. Organizing partners facilitate a year-round calendar of studio visits for Oregon artists by prominent visiting curators and arts writers, who also offer public lectures and other forms of engagement to our community. Recognizing the nexus between artists and those who reflect upon and present their work, Critical Conversations also sponsors a series of convenings, commissioned writing, and an annual publication that specifically engage Oregon’s curators and arts writers around currents in society and the field.