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:
You are the space between: Joe Park at Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland, OR by Michelle Dunn Marsh
The body as a place: Recent Grads at Blackfish Gallery in Portland, OR by Nick Cheney
Photography plus time equals something else: Sara J. Winston at Blue Sky Gallery by Sarah Diver
A living narrative: Silicon Forest at Oregon State University’s PRAx by Erin Jimerson
Conjuring ancestors in clay: Emily Counts interviewed by Luiza Lukova
An echo chamber called Earth: Laura Camila Medina interviewed by Lauren Klotzman
Finding signals in the noise: Waste Scenes at Oregon Contemporary in Portland by Sarah Diver
With our annual operating budget, we can afford to publish about one exhibition review per month on programming in California, Oregon, and Washington. Thanks to this grant, we will be able to publish an additional seven reviews about Oregon programming in 2025.
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.