On Tuesday, Aug 15, 2023, at 11.30am Joseph Gallivan interviews curator Christian Viveros-Fauné and artistic director Portland artist Derek Franklin about Converge 45, a city wide arts festival staring August 24. Will art save Portland? The pair talk about the idea of a biennial, the status of political art, how to spot an art genius, and where to see some subtle neon skywriting near the Morrison Bridge.
This interview was recorded on August 10 in the KBOO Studio and engineered by Ray Bodwell.
From the press release:
ABOUT SOCIAL FORMS
Organized by writer and curator Christian Viveros-Fauné, Social Forms centers on the idea of art-as-a-social-form: contemporary and historical artworks that take the measure of their era in order to respond directly to the challenges of their time. Grounded in the current sociopolitical landscape as well as in regional and global histories, this expansive exhibition asks us to consider global power shifts taking place in contemporary society. Art is at the vanguard of this and other changes that propose redefinitions of our societies at every level, but also of experiments that trend toward greater global citizenship and an increasingly participatory culture. Social Forms: Art as Global Citizenship is designed to promote increased citizenship during a period of political polarization and retrenchment of civil liberties—where citizenship is a term used not to denote privileged political status but to propose a more inclusive category of belonging in the world.
The title of the exhibition is drawn from Social Forms: A Short History of Political Art, Viveros-Fauné’s 2018 book that profiles how artists have historically been at the forefront of political and social resistance. “There are several ideas behind the show,” Viveros-Fauné says. “Firstly, we want to reflect the many ways artists are working to understand the present moment. Second, we believe it’s important to place these artists and their works in conversation with examples of art-as-a-social-form from the 1960s onward. Lastly, Converge 45 and its partners want to locate Portland front and center as an imperfect but progressive American city where the era’s principal themes can be uniquely addressed through forward-looking cultural production.”
ABOUT CHRISTIAN VIVEROS-FAUNÉ
Christian Viveros-Fauné (b. 1965, Santiago, Chile) has worked as a gallerist, art fair director, art critic, and curator since 1994. He was awarded Bucknell University’s Ekard Visiting Fellowship in 2023, the University of South Florida’s Kennedy Family Visiting Fellowship in 2018, a Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Grant in 2009 and named Critic in Residence at the Bronx Museum in 2011. He co-founded The Brooklyn Rail in 1999, wrote art criticism for The Village Voice from 2008 to 2016, was the Art and Culture Critic for artnet news from 2016 to 2018. He has lectured widely at institutions such as Yale University, Pratt University and Holland’s Gerrit Rietveld Academie, and curated exhibitions at leading museums in the U.S., Europe and Latin America. He currently serves as Curator-at-Large at the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum. He is also the author of several books. His most recent, Social Forms: A Short History of Political Art, was published by David Zwirner Books in 2018.
https://www.converge45.org/new-page
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_Fndt3LUzE
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Joseph Gallivan has been a reporter since 1990. He has covered music for the London Independent, Technology for the New York Post, and arts and culture for the Portland Tribune, where he is currently a Feature Writer. He is the author of two novels, "Oi, Ref!" and "England All Over" which are available on Amazon.com
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