Marie Sivak has been awarded Career Opportunity Grants from the Oregon Arts Commission and The Ford Family Foundation in support of her upcoming solo exhibition “Video Miniatures” next September 2012 at A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn, New York. The show will include a series of sculptures which combine carved stone with embedded video and will be on view during the Dumbo Arts Festival. The $6500 grant will support exhibition expenses and the publication of a catalog with an essay by Charlotta Kotik, Curator Emerita of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

Marie Sivak is one of 24 artists and artist teams to be selected for Portland2012: A Biennial of Contemporary Art opening February 26th through May 26th 2012 

PORTLAND, Ore. – Thursday, Dec. 22, 2011 - Disjecta Interdisciplinary Art Center is pleased to announce the twenty-four artists and artist teams selected by curator Prudence F. Roberts for Portland2012: A Biennial of Contemporary Art.

A major survey of work by visual artists who are defining and advancing the contemporary arts landscape, Portland2012 will include exhibitions, events and performances in multiple Portland locations February 26 through May 26, 2012. Venues include Disjecta, PDX Across the Hall, The Art Gym at Marylhurst University, Portland Community College Rock Creek and The White Box at The University of Oregon in Portland.

Says Roberts, “It has been an equal challenge and pleasure to select the artists for Portland2012 because of the rigor of artistic practice I found coalescing around Portland as well the University of Oregon in Eugene. Many of the artists I visited are working with a deep awareness of art history, even though they are questioning the canon, as it were. I am fascinated by how much work questions the act of perception and the veracity of image, sound, or text. Another theme that emerged for me is that of history and narrative, both personal and political: several pieces in Portland2012 draw upon material from extended and ongoing scholarly research.”

Prudence Roberts is an instructor of art history at Portland Community College. She has curated, consulted and contributed essays for exhibitions at the Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, The Art Gym at Marylhurst University and The Portland Art Museum, where she served as curator of American Art from 1987 to 2000.

Portland2012 is supported by The Ford Family Foundation, Oregon Arts Commission, The Regional Arts and Culture Council, The Oregon Cultural Trust, Milepost 5, Plazm Design, TriMet, Willamette Week, and partner sponsors The Art Gym at Marylhurst University, PDX Across the Hall, Portland Community College Rock Creek and University of Oregon’s White Box.