Or Gallery
Encyclopedia
The Or Gallery is a non-profit artist run centre
based in Vancouver
, Canada
. The gallery is run by a paid Director/Curator and a voluntary Board of Directors. The Director/Curator of the Or is an appointed working artist who is hired for a limited time. Each Director changes the focus of the programming creating exhibitions, publications and events that examine a diverse range of artists and ideas. These appointments along with guest curators permit the gallery to place an emphasis on the discursive structures of the environments that art is created in. Regardless of the Director/Curator the Or Gallery maintains a commitment to contemporary art that is challenging and experimental. The gallery supports and exhibits artists whose work is critically, issue, and/or conceptually based.
The Or Gallery was established in 1983 by Vancouver artist Laiwan in a storefront space on Franklin Street in East Vancouver. The gallery space has changed a few times with the most recent move in 2008 to the Or's current location on Hamilton Street in Downtown Vancouver.
Since 1983 the Or Gallery has provided exhibition space for close to 300 artists in including Francis Alÿs
, Phil Collins
, Martin Creed
, Dan Graham
, Rodney Graham
, Germaine Koh
, Barbara Kruger
, Jeff Wall
and Lawrence Weiner
. Since its establishment the Or Gallery has tried to exhibit works that address issues in the community from Phillppe Raphanel's 1991 exhibit, Lip Synch, whose abstract paintings call into question the foundations of landscape painting in British Columbia to a 2009 group exhibition, The Wild So Close, which examines sites of leisure and recreation in light of the upcoming Vancouver Olympics. The exhibition included work from Tacita Dean
, Leslie Grant and Al Bersch, Jason Hendrickson, David Horvitz
, and Donald Lawrence.
In February 2008, the Or Gallery was featured in the Artists' Choice: Top 100 Galleries-list in Flash Art Magazine
, as one of only two Canadian galleries listed.
Artist run centre
An Artist Run Centre is an art institution that lacks many of the traits of a commercial gallery space.By methods and ideologies made popular in the late 1970s, artist run culture came to prominence in response for the need of an alternative to conventional gallery spaces.Generally working within...
based in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. The gallery is run by a paid Director/Curator and a voluntary Board of Directors. The Director/Curator of the Or is an appointed working artist who is hired for a limited time. Each Director changes the focus of the programming creating exhibitions, publications and events that examine a diverse range of artists and ideas. These appointments along with guest curators permit the gallery to place an emphasis on the discursive structures of the environments that art is created in. Regardless of the Director/Curator the Or Gallery maintains a commitment to contemporary art that is challenging and experimental. The gallery supports and exhibits artists whose work is critically, issue, and/or conceptually based.
The Or Gallery was established in 1983 by Vancouver artist Laiwan in a storefront space on Franklin Street in East Vancouver. The gallery space has changed a few times with the most recent move in 2008 to the Or's current location on Hamilton Street in Downtown Vancouver.
Since 1983 the Or Gallery has provided exhibition space for close to 300 artists in including Francis Alÿs
Francis Alÿs
Francis Alÿs is a Belgian artist. His work emerges in the interdisciplinary space of art, architecture, and social practice. After leaving behind his formal training as an architect and relocated to Mexico City, he has created a diverse body of artwork that explores urbanity, spatial justice, and...
, Phil Collins
Phil Collins (artist)
-Life and work:Phil Collins was born in Runcorn, England and now lives in Berlin He studied Drama and English at the University of Manchester, graduating in 1994. During his time there he worked as a cloak-room boy and pint-puller at the Hacienda nightclub on Whitworth Street...
, Martin Creed
Martin Creed
Martin Creed is an artist and musician. He won the Turner Prize in 2001 for Work No. 227: the lights going on and off, which was an empty room in which the lights went on and off.-Life and work :...
, Dan Graham
Dan Graham
Dan Graham , is a conceptual artist now working out of New York City. He is an influential figure in the field of contemporary art, both a practitioner of conceptual art and an art critic and theorist. His art career began in 1964 when he moved to New York and opened the John Daniels Gallery....
, Rodney Graham
Rodney Graham
Rodney Graham is an artist and musician born in Abbotsford, British Columbia. He is most often associated with the Vancouver School...
, Germaine Koh
Germaine Koh
Germaine Koh is a Malaysian-born internationally active Canadian artist. At the age of two she emigrated to Canada.She is a conceptual artist working out of Vancouver, B.C., self-described as having "no fixed address" whose art encompasses the use of everyday objects and familiar concepts into...
, Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger is an American conceptual artist. Much of her work consists of black-and-white photographs overlaid with declarative captions—in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique or Helvetica Ultra Condensed...
, Jeff Wall
Jeff Wall
Jeffrey "Jeff" Wall, OC, RSA is a Canadian artist best known for his large-scale back-lit cibachrome photographs and art-historical writing. Wall has been a key figure in Vancouver's art scene since the early-1970s...
and Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner was a central figure in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s His work often takes the form of typographic texts.- Life and career :...
. Since its establishment the Or Gallery has tried to exhibit works that address issues in the community from Phillppe Raphanel's 1991 exhibit, Lip Synch, whose abstract paintings call into question the foundations of landscape painting in British Columbia to a 2009 group exhibition, The Wild So Close, which examines sites of leisure and recreation in light of the upcoming Vancouver Olympics. The exhibition included work from Tacita Dean
Tacita Dean
Tacita Dean is an English visual artist who works primarily in film. She is one of the Young British Artists, and was a nominee for the Turner Prize in 1998.-Life and work:...
, Leslie Grant and Al Bersch, Jason Hendrickson, David Horvitz
David Horvitz
David Horvitz is a Brooklyn-based watercolor painter, photographer and performance artist, known for his often bizarre and absurdist DIY instructional projects, including work on Wikipedia. He was born in Los Angeles, California in 1980, and educated at Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts...
, and Donald Lawrence.
In February 2008, the Or Gallery was featured in the Artists' Choice: Top 100 Galleries-list in Flash Art Magazine
Flash Art Magazine
Flash Art is a bimonthly magazine focusing on contemporary art. It was founded in Rome in 1967 by Italian publisher and art critic Giancarlo Politi. The magazine has been based in Milan, Italy since 1971...
, as one of only two Canadian galleries listed.