Blue Tower Arts Foundation

2011 was a slow year for BTA but we’ve got a few things cooking for 2012,  including a new web development project meant to help facilitate scene building. We are starting with some simple testing in order to flush out some ideas and assumptions as to how the site might work best for artists. It NOT going to be another gallery site. Instead, we seek to build a tool that will help visualize the local scene and show it’s growth. Please check out our FB page we’ve set up and contribute to the questions.

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In his article today in the Register Guard, Bob Keefer reviews the recent Opus VII show Form Follows Funk (on view through April 16th). Billed as a “retrospective” of one of Eugene’s design and advertising institutions, David Funk, the show is anything but that. Keefer states:

“Form Follows Funk” was put together by Funk himself. While it bills itself as a retrospective, it might better be called an “autoretrospective,” as it lacks any independent curatorial voice. As such, the whole thing, especially the “Connections” profiles, ends up coming across as a giant valentine to Funk, by Funk.

Keefer stops short of burning any bridges in his criticism, and that is to be expected. No one wants to hold anyone accountable (or raise the bar for that matter) for upper crust Eugene’s feigned interest in art. Keefer stops short of saying it, but the Form Follows Funk show was a vanity show- no question. It showed Funk’s genuine talent and a designer and illustrator and his influence in town should certainly be noted. But to pass this off as a retrospective is ridiculous. As Keefer asserts, they should have had an independent curator at the very least.

No one can fault Opus VII for trying a new business model. It’s tough business in this town and you have to be creative. But it shouldn’t be impossible to have a show with curatorial integrity. That kind of content seems to reveal a belief that art is little more than commodity. Or possibly worse, that critical, independent voices are not welcome in the self-proclaimed “Worlds Greatest City of the Arts and Outdoors“.

I don’t know those involved in the show. This is only the reflection that an event like this leaves.

~ Courtney Stubbert, BTA Board Member

(If anyone wants to discuss this in person I’ll be at our Pub Night, at Meiji’s in Whitaker. This Sunday. 8pm.)

UPDATE: Today on their Facebook page Opus VII posted a correction:

Just a little correction: Our independent curator was Mary Susan Weldon and the exhibit was sponsored by QSL Printing, Imagine Group, OPUS VII and The Duck Store.

I asked for clarification on their use of the term “independent curator” and have yet to get a response. I will post it here if it is offered.

UPDATE 2:

I was given the following response from their Facebook page:

Artists who have worked for Dave over the years were invited to submit their work in support of this career retrospective exhibit. There was no jury or selection process. Mary Susan lead the coordination and designed the exhibit with a community of folks including myself and Dave.

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Come join us this Friday night, Feb. 11th, for the opening reception of Surface and Silence from 5:30 – 8:30pm at the Jacobs Gallery in Eugene, Oregon.  Featuring BTA artists’ Wes Hurd (Founder and President) and Rafael Perea de la Cabada and on view from February 11th to March 26th, this show will feature works on paper and small canvases. Read the artists statement and see work by Wes Hurd that will be featured in the show after the jump. (more…)

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UBU Web has both sides of this 1968 classic on media and culture up for listening on their site. The book was ahead of it’s time, and the sound-collage approach to this recording has a jump on audio sampling culture that we take for granted now.  Also check out the audio of the McLuhan interview on The Dick Cavett Show.

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Work by Sean Äaberg, on view at The Voyeur

Come hear artist Sean Äaberg give a talk on his 10 year retrospective up at The Voyeur in Eugene. The artist will also be fielding questions and critiques of his work – a regular occurrence for all shows at the The Voyeur – so come be a part of the dialogue. Get more info here.

From the statement on the show:

The Voyeur presents a 10 year retrospective of art by Sean Äaberg. Sean Äaberg is a conceptual artist who works mostly in print, creating his own imagery for elaborate and vast cultural projects. This show will feature an over-whelming amount of drawings from the last 10 years, crossing through multiple obsessions, concepts and projects as Sean has worked to force his will on this earth.

See more images of the show and space at this flickr set. The work will be up until January 22nd. Go check it out.

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An age old question and one that is hard to define. No one gets out alive- neither artist, critic, or casual viewer. The power of art is that it constantly demands your attention and insists that its own definition remain flexible throughout history. In the clip above, critic Mat Gleason pulls no punches (as he tends to do) and gives some very blunt answers to the basic (and maybe most important) questions regarding the defining elements of art. He expresses his less than favorable view of Shepard Fairey’s work at the beginning and in doing so makes the point that Fairey’s notion that “anything is art” is a hundred years old. This is a very important thing to remember because we still haven’t shaken off the crust of the post-modern age where it seemed there were no rules and anything goes. Good work must go beyond the surface. It must be transformative to the viewers perceptions and way of thinking. While I tend to agree with most of Gleason’s statements about Fairey, I would have to argue that while he has created a brand and his original ideas behind his work have become diluted and lost under the weight of Fairey’s own self-promotion, he is at least in control of his work. He does what he wants as an artist, works with companies he wants to and as far as I know, is beholden to no one. Content aside, what he has accomplished is very hard to do.

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Friend of BTA artist Marshall Roemen has recently created a site specific work entitled “Oratorio at the End of a Black Rainbow” (A site-specific installation at L.A.X. International Airport, Terminal 1: Ground Floor). The work is on view now through April 6, 2011.

From the artists statement:

Resembling a Rorshach inkblot, the mirrored double-nature of this painting was inspired by the idea of making it for both a specific site (this Terminal 1 Arrivals waiting area) and an imagined site – the end of the fictitious black rainbow. For me, the conceptual idea of a black rainbow conjures up theoretical notions of blemish over beauty. A reversal of the symbol of hope, a black rainbow leads me toward questions about my involvement with the natural landscape, which seems both beautiful and broken in its ever-changing state.

I am interested in the imprint of culture on nature and vice-versa, in the way we shape our natural and built environments for good, or bad. It seems that beauty and ultimately meaning, are lost or found in our own individual visions of the landscape and how we choose to engage in our environment.

For more images and information on the work see the artists website. Below is an excerpt from the LAX website:

Roemen was intrigued by the public and private aspects of the arrivals lobby at LAX and approached his artwork as an experimental visual dialogue with the public. “For me, painting is a private act, yet results in a form of public speaking,” says Roemen. The paintings’ scale occupies the entire wall around the escalator forming the centerpiece across from which visitors sit, waiting for arriving passengers, who may then ponder a while within this space as a focused place of watching, waiting and listening. Read More>>

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If you are in the Eugene, OR area and would like to join other working artists, musicians, writers and other creative professionals come out to one of our monthly pub nights. Check our Events page for updates as to day, time and location. December’s happening is Friday, 17th at 6pm and the Mcmenamins North Bank.

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Friend of BTA and Portland-based composer Mckenzie Stubbert has released his second annual free Christmas EP. The side project entitled “On the Morrow” features covers of holiday favs rewritten and performed by himself and family members. This years release features a cover by The Who, a spoken-word poem backed up by Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies and Christmas (Baby please come home).  It went live yesterday and is a free download so add it to your mix.

Disclosure: These are my people. It’s all about who you know, right?

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