Posts Tagged ‘ Research Club ’

The first installment of the Synthesis Series will debut this First Friday, December 3rd, 2010 from 6 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. at Research Club ( 4315 SE Division St., Portland, OR 97206). In an attempt to eschew the didactic constraints of contemporary art as practiced today, The Synthesis Series functions under a new curatorial and production-based paradigm. Twelve artists, selected for their divergent backgrounds and capacity for collaboration, have been randomly paired into groups of two. Each group has had a month to work on a project, loosely based on the ‘Thesis’ theme. Their responses have manifested in video, installation, and performance-based works exploring partnership, small-talk, unfamiliarity, and curiosity in interpersonal exchange.

For the second installment of the series, ‘Antithesis,’ the groups will shift. One partner will continue working on the project with a new collaborator from another group. The new pairing will synthesize their interests to form the second installment of the continued project to be displayed at an alternate venue. For the final exhibition at RECESS the groups will have shifted again displaying the works of the final phase, “Synthesis.” In the end there will have been six projects with three exhibitions, each building on the one before.

This process will enable the audience to witness the evolution, over a three month span, of new works. The future of the Series is undefined; the impact of the audience’s reception will influence the next phase. The curator(s) exist as one of the collaborative groups. By the end, the original organizer(s) will relinquish decision-making power.

In contrast to the didacticism that has historically run rampant in art practice, this formula seeks to produce a substantial dialogue between artist, curator, and art audience. RECESS invites you to participate in an ongoing, cross-collaborative series of exhibitions that will inject a dialectical approach straight into the veins of the contemporary arts – from the level of production up to the display.

Hannah Piper Burns
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Allison Halter

Michael Reinsch
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Dasha Shleyeva

Tori Abernathy
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Jamalieh Haley

Jason King
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Shawn Patrick Higgins

Abraham Ingle
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Gabe Flores

and

Chloe Womack
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Delphine Bedient