“We’re not stodgy old wankers over here”
a conversation with Howard Oransky and Camille Gage of Form + Content
“From the very beginning, we wanted to make a statement that this was not going to be another standard artist-run gallery,” says Howard Oransky, one of Form + Content’s twelve founding members, when Camille Gage, he, and I sit down to talk about the past, present, and future of the gallery. Rather than band together to create a venue solely for exhibiting their own work, the artists who make up the Form + Content collective aim to carve out a space for artistic freedom, where ideas rather than egos reign. By inviting Doryun Chong, then curator of Visual Arts at the Walker Art Center, to curate their first ever show—Trace Elements, in 2007—the artists effectively were ceding control to someone outside their collective. An unlikely move for artist-run galleries, Gage and Oransky assure me.
But Form + Content has also made a point of collaborating with more grassroots arts organizations. Earlier this summer, Gage participated in the Open Fair, a fundraiser for Art of This. “It was a brilliant idea: They brought together all the more grass-rootsy, artist-run galleries and collectives, to meet, socialize, whatever… I even did a modest edible installation for the event – creating 50+ bags of popcorn that were hand printed (using a kids printing set) with the words POP ART,” Gage explains. “We wanted them to know that we’re not a bunch of stodgy old wankers over here.”
From the start, Form + Content’s members were mostly experienced, mid-career artists. Getting yet another solo exhibition, with the concomitant additional line on a resume, was beside the point for them. Instead, the point, as the mission statement articulates, is to “nurture diverse artistic practice and thoughtful dialogue.”
So far, these dialogues have engaged widely diverse audiences and communities: From Native Americans (MNdn 150: Beyond Statehood) and the GLBT community (Modes of Disclosure and Love Never Dies), to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the housing crisis (Dialogue on the Wall and Unbundling the Housing Crisis), and the ecologically concerned (Lost Menagerie, The Galapagos Cactus Wars, or, upcoming, Amazon Visions, Vanishing Acts). The themes covered by this incomplete list of past shows are perfectly aligned with Form + Content’s mission statement, which, Gage and Oransky emphasize, is still at the core of the gallery’s identity: “We value art as a catalyst for critical thinking. We value integrity and the artistic process. We aspire to link personal expression to broader social contexts.”
But while a lot—certainly not all—the work on view has engaged head on with social and cultural causes, maintaining artistic quality and professional standards has been as important. “We all appreciate a well-put-together, professional exhibition,” says Oransky.
Regardless of the risks individual artists are willing to take, the collective has never interfered with anyone’s use of the space. “When Camille or any other member gets the space for a month,” explains Oransky, “I have absolute trust that she will do something that is of high quality artistically and will be presented professionally.” Both he and Gage emphasize the importance of having that kind of trust in each other—a prerequisite for the liberty to show “everything and anything,” as Oransky puts it.
This level of individual control is fundamental to the collective’s understanding of artistic freedom. It prompted the original twelve members to incorporate as a multi-member limited liability company, with each artist serving on the board of directors. Unlike a non-profit organization, their technically for-profit company cannot apply for grants, but Gage and Oransky are quick to explain the benefits of the model embraced by Form + Content: Since the artist members double as the board’s directors, they have control to pursue their vision without having to be accountable to anyone outside their group. Of course, none of the artists expects to get rich any time soon: “As a company, Form + Content is a financial failure, but it is an artistic success,” Oransky concludes.
The story of the gallery begins in 2006 when Camille Gage and Robyn Stoller Awend left the collective of Rosalux. “That collective was too large—but had to be for financial reasons,” Gage explains. The two began toying with the idea of a different sort of collaborative endeavor. Oransky came on board in the spring of 2006, and the collective grew, by phone tree approach, until all twelve founding members had, in fact, found each other. Remarkably, nine of the original members remain in the summer of 2010, after 3 ½ years of Form + Content.
Finding a space suitable and affordable for the group’s goals and standards was a challenge. “We did not want to be a pop-up gallery,” says Gage, “but wanted to have a space to establish a permanent presence. We literally walked the streets,” she remembers, before the collective found their current space: A windowless, former storage room. After much fixing-up, the gallery opened in March of 2007.
Since then, the collective has been exploring the artistic freedoms granted by the gallery. Each artist, on an 18-month exhibition calendar, has a month-long slot to do whatever he or she pleases. For Gage, this is exciting: “I get to decide who I want to play with,” she says, while also relishing the liberty to show work that is as political as she wants it to be. “I see art as a social agent. A commercial gallery would not show some of the work I can show at Form + Content.”
For Oransky, the best indicator that Form + Content’s philosophy is working can be found in the archives of past shows. Most collective members, after an initial solo show, have invited other artists to join them, because, he reiterates, it is the ideas that take center stage, not individual artists. “To me, doing that, inviting others, is more powerful than the mission statement,” he says. “Actions do speak louder than words.”
But not only those invited to show alongside collective members have benefited from the spirit of this particular project. Working and exhibiting alongside other artists have had unexpected benefits for the members: Neither Gage nor Oransky expected the spurt of artistic growth that has resulted from their involvement in Form + Content. “I am not sure yet that there is such a thing as healthy competition,” Oransky says, “but we push each other to go farther.” Gage agrees. “We spur each other on. It is really inspiring and energizing to see all this great work being done.”
The practice of inviting others to curate shows has become customary: Two to three shows in each 18-month calendar cycle are curated by non-members, typically curators associated with the Walker, the Weisman Art Museum, or the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA). For instance, in December 2010, Form + Content will show an exhibition of sketches selected by Christopher Atkins, the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program’s coordinator at the MIA. Next spring, Gage is organizing Wee Cabaret, Form + Content’s first foray into hosting a series of performance artists.
Initially, Form + Content’s twelve founding artists were united by their desire for creating a space unencumbered by careerist or competitive considerations, a space for networking and building community. Three and a half years and a few new members later, they still are.
Images:
Group photo by John Marshall, 2010.
1) Camille Gage, Untitled. Redacted Series.
2) Jil Evans, Dutch Opera II. oil on canvas.
3) Lynda Monick-Isenberg, Service Heart.
4) Robyn Stoller, Orientation. letterpress.
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