Interviews by Brainard Carey

Kristan Kennedy is a Portland-based artist, curator, and educator.  She is the Artistic Director, Curator of Visual Art for the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA). For more than a decade, Kennedy has focused on commissioning new work by international emerging artists in the form of large-scale, site-specific installations and solo projects that exist at the borders of genres. Kennedy teaches in the Visual Studies MFA program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) Contemporary Art.

Kennedy is represented by Fourteen30 Contemporary, Portland, Oregon. While the artist identifies as a painter, she also questions the history, process and medium that she is complicit in perpetuating.

Curator and critic Stephanie Snyder says of Kennedy’s paintings in Artforum, “their intense dialectic of beauty and repulsion mirrors the artist’s philosophical struggles—we sense that both artist and artwork have gone through the wringer—together—to achieve a hard-won grace”.

Recent exhibitions include Flat Fix, Halsey McKay Gallery, NY; Eyes, Ditch Projects, OR; Sunday, Crisp-Ellert Museum, FL; Kristan Kennedy Meets a Clock, Soloway, NY; Sleeper, Fourteen30 Contemporary, OR; OO, Misako & Rosen, Tokyo; Tomorrow, Tomorrow, CANADA and Other Colors, Fourteen30 Contemporary.

The Snake, featuring DB Amorin, Judy Cooke, Jessica Diamond, Marcus Fischer, keyon gaskin, Daniel Godinez Nivón, and Kameelah Janan Rasheed Curated by Kristan Kennedy, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) 2018

Kristan Kennedy W.L.L.B.L.N.D.N.E.S., 2017. Ink, dye, and bleach on linen. Collection of the Portland Art Museum

Before joining Creative Capital as President and Executive Director, Christine Kuan was CEO/Director of Sotheby’s Institute of Art-New York. With twenty years of experience in both nonprofit and commercial sectors of the art world, Kuan has expertise in art education, museums, and digital strategy across cultural institutions and the art market. She was formerly Chief Curator and Director of Strategic Partnerships at Artsy, where she oversaw the organization’s museum and institutional partnerships, digital collection strategy, open access policy, educational initiatives, and auctions. Prior to Artsy, Kuan was Chief Curatorial Officer and Vice President of External Affairs at Artstor, a nonprofit image library founded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Editor-in-Chief of Oxford Art Online/Grove Art Online at Oxford University Press, where she significantly expanded access to scholarly information on women artists and artists of color. Kuan has also worked at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and has taught at the University of Iowa, Peking University, Rutgers University, and Stanford University’s pilot program of Arts Leadership.

Kuan holds an MFA in Creative Writing Poetry from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a BA in Art History and English Literature from Rutgers University. Kuan serves on the History of Collecting Advisory Committee at the Frick Collection in New York and the Steering Committee of The Brooklyn Rail.

The Jumpsuit Project by Sherrill Roland. Photo credit: Christian Carter Ross. Roland wears an orange prison jumpsuit and stands in front of the Capitol Building in Washington DC.

Descent (Flying) by Alice Sheppard and Laurel Lawson of the ensemble Kinetic Light. Photo credit: Jay Newman/ MANCC. Sheppard and Lawson perform in wheelchairs on stage. Sheppard is on her back with Lawson balancing on her raised legs and wheels. On her belly, Lawson lifts her own wheels and arms towards the air.

Joshua Sanchez’s debut feature film 'Four' won the Best Performance Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival, the Best Feature Film Award at the Urbanworld Film Festival, and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.

He was awarded the Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts and the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Screenwriting.

He’s a member of the Writers Guild of America, East and teaches screenwriting at SSHH… in New York City. He’s contributed to The Guardian, The Creative Independent, and Lambda Literary.

Four from Wolfe Video on Vimeo.

#23, Edmund from Joshua Sanchez on Vimeo.

Dr. Kristine Stiles is Distinguished Professor of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. She holds an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from Dartington College of Arts/University of Plymouth, England. She specializes in art-ists' writings, global contemporary and experimental art, and trauma studies.

She has authored over 100 articles, and her books include Concerning Consequences: Studies in Art, Destruction, and Trauma (2016), Correspondence Course: An Epistolary History of Carolee Schneemann and Her Cir-cle (2010), Theories & Documents of Contemporary Art (1996, 2012). Her essay “Uncorrupted Joy: International Art Actions,” is a monograph-length essay for the exhibition Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object 1949–1979. She has curated several exhibitions at Duke, including Rauschenberg: Collecting & Connecting (2014–2015) and States of Mind: Dan & Lia Perjovschi (2007).

Rachel Adams is the Chief Curator and Director of Programs at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. Past curatorial appointments include Senior Curator at UB Art Galleries, Curator-in-Residence at Disjecta Contemporary Art Center and Associate Curator at Arthouse at the Jones Center (now The Contemporary Austin). Adams holds an MA in Exhibition and Museum Studies from SFAI and a BFA from SAIC.

Her areas of research are varied but include a focus on the crossover between contemporary art and architecture, performance and video and new media practices.

Select exhibitions include All Together, Amongst Many: Reflections on Empathy, Paul Mpagi Sepuya: Drop Scene, Claudia Wieser: Generations (co-curated), Alison O’Daniel: Heavy Air, Jillian Mayer: TIMESHARE, The Language of Objects, Wanderlust: Actions, Traces, Journeys 1967-2017 and Introducing Tony Conrad: A Retrospective (co-curated). Forthcoming projects include exhibitions with Maya Dunietz and the 2023 group exhibition Presence in the Pause.

Installation view: All Together, Amongst Many: Reflections on Empathy at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, 2021

Installation view: Alison O'Daniel: Heavy Air at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, 2019

Blankets Project  2018-2019, Eight felt blankets, screen print, metal hinges. 180cm x 220cm eachThis is the project about migration and borders, belonging and alienation, statelessness and trauma. As part of The Sea is the Limit project I made a series of eight printed felt blankets that reflect on the experience of being a migrant. The blankets are conceived as an interactive installation, where the participants are invited to wear the blankets in the exhibition space as an act of sharing and empathy. Picture: Anthony Chappel-Ross

Varvara Keidan Shavrova is a visual artist, curator, educator and researcher. Born in the USSR, she lives and works between London, Dublin and Berlin. She studied at the Moscow State University of Printing Arts, received her MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London, and has been awarded Arts & Humanities Research Council Studentship by London Arts & Humanities Partnership, to conduct her practice-based PhD at the Royal College of Art in London.

She has exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Gallery of Photography Ireland, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Espacio Cultural El Tanque, Tenerife.Shavrova curated international visual arts projects, including The Sea is the Limit at York Art Gallery (2018) and Virginia Commonwealth University, Qatar (2019), and co-curated Beijing Map Games: Dynamics of Change , an international art and architecture exhibition in Beijing (China), Birmingham (UK) and Terni (Italy). 

She is the recipient of the National Lottery Arts Council of England Project Awards (2019-2020 and 2020-2021), the Arts Council Ireland Visual Arts Bursary Award (2021), and the Prince’s Trust Individual Artist’s Award, among others. Her work is included in a number of public and private collections worldwide, including at the Department of the Foreign Affairs and Trade of Ireland, at the Office of Public Works art collection in Dublin, at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation collection in County Mayo, and at the Museum of the History of St.Petersburg in Russia. Shavrova is represented by Patrick Heide Contemporary Art, London.

Inna’s Dream. 2019 Hand tufted Axminster wool carpet objects, digital embroidery on velvet, acrylic and emulsion on wall. 7 m x 5.5 m x 4 m. In 1930 my great uncle, Vadim Borisovitch Shavrov, a well-known Soviet engineer and author, designed and built the first Soviet amphibious plane Sh-2 in his apartment in Petrograd. Between 1934 and 1964 the Sh-2 flying boat was used by the agricultural, medical and military sectors, as well as in exploration of the Arctic. In my recent installation Inna’s Dream, I reinterpret the Sh-2 by rendering it in carpet and textiles. This demilitarized and domesticized version of a deflated military machine echoes the collapsed Soviet dreamworld, while the materials I use comment on women’s labour.

The Palace of the Soviets and King Kong. 2020 Digital knitting, hand stitching and embroidery, wool and synthetic thread. 122cm x 255 cm In these recent works that created during the lockdown, I am questioning the symbols of global power and authority by juxtaposing iconic images from movie stills and archival documents associated with the Communist and the Capitalist empirical architecture, the Palace of the Soviets and the Empire State Building. I employ methodologies of knitting, stitching and embroidery, to physically interlink the historically opponent political narratives that appear uncannily similar.

Erik Beehn is an artist and educator working out of Las Vegas. Beehn received his MFA from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago (’15) and is currently adjunct faculty at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

Beehn’s work employs painting, photography, printmaking and installation to investigate an arc of mark making techniques throughout the 20th century, and the evolution of observational painting into abstraction. Beehn is the founder and director of Test Site Projects, a fine art publishing house located in Las Vegas.

He was interviewed a year earlier on this program, which you can listen to here.

Plum Burst, 2021 28" x 22" Acrylic, Ink, Solvents and Oil Pastel on photo paper

Deep Space, 2021 28" x 22" Acrylic, Ink and Solvents on Photo Paper

Two-time Emmy Award winner Patricia Lee Stotter composes and writes for film, theatre and television. From SESAME STREET to HBO/PBS documentary films, from independent features to plays and musicals, Stotter is all about the right voice at the right time.

Her engagement in veteran issues shows in the films she has both produced and composed music for (and which have been screened on the Hill). Awards: Emmy Awards (two wins, five nominations); American Cine Eagle; Apple Award; Shining Service World Wide Award; Silver Star Award from the Volunteers of America.

The book mentioned in the interview is Apeirogon: A Novel.

Bishakh is an Indian-American trans femme visual artist and author. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, We're Still Here (The first all-trans comics anthology), Beyond, vol. 2, The Strumpet, The Boston Review, Black Warrior Review, VICE, The Brooklyn Rail, Buzzfeed, Ink Brick, The Huffington Post, The Graphic Canon vol. 3 and Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream. She received the Xeric grant in 2003 for her comics collection Angel. 

Her graphic novel Apsara Engine (The Feminist Press) is the winner of a 2021 L.A. Times Book Prize for Best Graphic Novel and a 2021 Lambda Literary Award winner for Best LGBTQ Comics. Her graphic memoir Spellbound (Street Noise Books) was also a 2021 Lambda Literary Award finalist.  

 

Bishakh has illustrated two books about architecture: The Prefab Bathroom: An Architectural History, (McFarland Press) and Cocktails and Conversations: Dialogues on Architectural Design (AIA New York). 

Bishakh’s artwork was featured in solo shows at ArtLexis Gallery and at Jaya Yoga Center and in group shows at The Society of Illustrators in New York, the Bannister Gallery at Rhode Island College, Issyra Gallery, the Grady Alexis Gallery, De Cacaofabriek in the Netherlands and most recently at Art Omi in Ghent, NY.  You can see her work at www.bishakh.com. 

Exceprt from "Swandive" from the graphic novel Apsara Engine

Excerpt from "Apsara Engine" from the graphic Novel Apsara Engine.

Traci Brimhall is the author of four poetry collections: Come the Slumberless from the Land of Nod (Copper Canyon); Saudade (Copper Canyon); Our Lady of the Ruins (W.W. Norton), winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize; and Rookery (Southern Illinois University Press), winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award.

Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Believer, The New Republic, Orion, New York Times Magazine, and Best American Poetry.  She’s received fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing and the National Endowment for the Arts.  She’s the Director of Creative Writing at Kansas State University and lives in Manhattan, KS.