THE GREAT DEBATE ABOUT ART

July 22 – August 29, 2015
Reception: First Thursday, August 6, 6:00 to 8:00pm

THE WORK

The Great Debate About Art by Roy Harris, who was an Oxford University linguist, attempts to provide a response to the "historical residue of empty questions that contemporary society can no longer answer" after the modernist implosion of Art as a cohesive category. For this exhibition, curated in collaboration with envoy enterprises in New York, participating artists were asked to respond to and translate into visual form the wealth of ideas contained in the book. Daily Serving writes, "The exhibition’s premise is largely approached with humor, optimism, and the overwhelming sense that 'art'—whatever that may be—is not dead."

THE ARTISTS

Ben Buswell (b. 1974 in Dallas, Oregon) lives and works in Portland, Oregon. Buswell received his MFA from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and BFA from Oregon State University. Buswell is the recipient of several awards, including a Hallie Ford Fellowship (2015) and grants from the Regional Arts and Culture Council and The Oregon Arts Commission, Ford Family Foundation. Notable solo exhibitions were held at The Art Gym at Marylhurst University, Upfor in Portland, CoCA Seattle, and TILT Gallery and Project Space, Portland. Group exhibitions include Portland2012: A Biennial of Contemporary Art at Disjecta Contemporary Art Center and the 2006 Oregon Biennial at the Portland Art Museum.

Srijon Chowdhury (b. 1987 in Bangladesh) lives and works in Los Angeles, California and Portland, Oregon. Chowdhury received his MFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2013. Solo exhibitions of his evocative, often large-scale, oil paintings have appeared in Los Angeles at Klowden Mann and at The Gallery in Dhaka, Bangladesh as well as in group shows at the Torrance Art Museum, California; Launch Gallery and Helen Bolsky Gallery in Los Angeles; and in Miami at Fredric Snitzer Gallery.

Max Cleary (b. 1991 in Honolulu, HI) holds a BFA in Photomedia (2014) from the University of Washington in Seattle, where he was awarded a Louis and Katherine Marsh Scholarship in Art. Exhibitions of his work have been held throughout Seattle, notably at e4c (4Culture), Jacob Lawrence Gallery and Closet Gallery at Cornish College of the Arts. Cleary’s work has also appeared at Project Gallery in Toronto, ON and Big Umbrella Studios in San Francisco. He lives and works in Seattle, Washington.

Anne Doran (b. 1957 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Doran has shown her artwork in New York at Invisible-Exports, envoy enterprises, 303 Gallery and the New Museum of Contemporary Art; and in Europe at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Doran's works shown courtesy of Invisible-Exports, New York.

Zack Dougherty (b. 1989 in Mountain View, CA) is known for his imaginative GIF animations under the digital alias Hateplow. His new media work has exhibited at the Tate Gallery, London; Eyebeam, New York; sUgAR Gallery, Fayetteville, AR; in Neon Nomads at Hyde Park South, Sydney, Australia and through NO AD, a New York-based app that replaces advertisements with artworks. Dougherty studied astrophotography at Sierra College, CA. He lives and works in Portland, Oregon.

Erika Keck (b. 1976, Albuquerque, New Mexico) lives and works in Brooklyn. She studied at the University of New Mexico. Her work has exhibited extensively in galleries and cultural institutions in New York, as well as Albuquerque, New Mexico an Chicago, Illinois. Press articles about Keck's work appear in Art in America, critic Diane Pernet's blog, Paper Monument, The L Magazine and Whitehot Magazine. She is represented by envoy enterprises, New York.

Rodrigo Valenzuela (b. 1982, Santiago, Chile) completed an art history degree in Chile and worked in construction while making art over his first decade in the United States. He completed an MFA at University of Washington (2012) and is a Core Fellow at the Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houson. Recent solo exhibitions include the Frye Art Museum, Seattle; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Santiago; Upfor Gallery, Portland, OR and Bryan Ohno Gallery, Seattle. Valenzuela has participated in residencies at Skowhegan, Kala, Bemis Center and Center for Photography at Woodstock, among others; and has won several awards, including an Artist Trust’s Arts Innovator Award and the Texas Contemporary Award.

PRESS

Review: The Great Debate About Art - Noise & Color PDX
The Great Debate at Upfor - Daily Serving