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An
Informed Audience Through the symbolic fabric of local art and life in a millennial mood of exile and vulnerability, I prepared my self for this year's judging the annual Mayor's Art Show as well as this year's version of the Salon des Refusés. Both exhibits are serious endeavors, important to many local artists whose selected artworks are showcased in the Hult Center's Jacobs Gallery; or those not accepted exhibited in an alternative site, the Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts, in the tradition of the French Salon des Refusés. This year's Salon exhibits more than 200 artworks representing all forms of media, from Steve LaRiccia's manipulated miniature-color photo to Annette Gurdjian's inkjet print, Two Women Kissing, which brings to mind surreal and romantic notions of art. The Salon lovingly debaches us with anarchy and perfect disorder where art interprets life and life interprets art. The Mayor's Jacobs Gallery showcases 60 works in a manner that seduces us with the rhetoric of its presentation. InTransition Zones: Leaving to Arrive (oil and wax), Kathleen Caprario presents a minimal geometric and biomorphic painting that seduces us with mystery and spirituality. While The Duel (spray paint, shotgun blast and black-and-white photos of a U.S. $10 bill), Tommy Waggener explores the contentious nature of politics past and present. How important are these shows to artists living in Lane County? It seems to me that most artists in this community are less concerned about fame or making it into the latest version of Janson's History of Art than they are living here in relative comfort. So what if the city has only a few commercial galleries, no significant art market and a small group of critical reviewers (Sylvie Pederson and Bob Keefer) to help create a dialogue and build an informed audience? If an artist is lucky, his or her work will be accepted in the annual Mayor's Show, and if rejected, shown in the Salon. And if an artist is really lucky, he/she will be invited to have a solo or group showing at Maude Kerns, Jacobs Gallery, DIVA, LCC Art Department Gallery, UO Adell McMillan Gallery, or the UO Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. If an artist is really, really lucky, his or her next exhibit might be reviewed or previewed in Eugene Weekly, The Register-Guard, Lane Arts or Art Quarterly. There has to be more, a dialogue which creates an informed audience that is buying art for more than a decorative element to enhance a blank wall. We need a community that views art as an investment fostering further growth and an understanding of contemporary visual art. In many ways Eugene has come a long way in the past 10 years, with a First Friday Gallery Walk and the opening of the Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts. What we still need, desperately, is a stronger sense of our own artistic history as a city. We need a sense that art made in Lane County can emerge from the sphere of private lives (whether those of artist, collector, or their friends) and take on a meaningfully public, historical dimension. What this means is a commitment to the ongoing preservation and re-examination of art exhibitions, particularly those in the non-profit sector, to mount analytical and critical historical exhibits. Finally, we must encourage the publication of exhibition catalogs, books and articles that document and examine the work presented. An excellent start toward the preservation of local art history would be informative catalogs of both the Mayor's Show and the Salon des Refusés. Eugene artist Mike E. Walsh was one of three jurors for the 2005 Mayor's Art Show. His work will be exhibited at DIVA Nov. 5-Dec. 30 and at Maude Kerns next March. |
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