ANTI-AESTHETIC is a space for programming by Eugene Contemporary Art.
Eugene Contemporary Art was founded in 2011 to provide emerging and established artists with opportunities for their work to be seen by the public. Our mission is to support local artists and their creative practices by facilitating publicly accessible dialogue around contemporary art: its process, production, meaning, and its place within culture.
Eugene Contemporary Art was founded in 2011 to provide emerging and established artists with opportunities for their work to be seen by the public. Our mission is to support local artists and their creative practices by facilitating publicly accessible dialogue around contemporary art: its process, production, meaning, and its place within culture.
Current Programming
︎time/space screening series: THE LAND
November 11–December 8, 2022
The Land connects seven films, all focused in some way on planet Earth, concerned with the land and its relationship to people, history, language, belonging, and the future. These films take viewers on journeys through time and space, across landscapes, even across the galaxy. The intentional use of sound and image is important to all of the films, with considered voice-overs and soundscapes and layered, textured imagery. The films invite viewers to listen to all the stories the land can tell us, to think beyond what’s visible on the surface. Watch films ︎︎︎
Past Programming
︎time/space screening series: HOME MOVIES
October 6–November 10, 2022
The films in Home Movies invite viewers into the private worlds of the artists: domestic spaces, homelands, families, and interior lives. These artists take control of their own representations, often rejecting limited mainstream portrayals of their identities in favor of crafting more nuanced and authentic portraits of who they are and how they experience the world. The full range of human emotion pulses through these films, each artist transforming individual experiences into sensitive works of art.
July 7–Aug 11, 2022
Exuberance: Sound, Color, Light & Movement, the second of four screenings in the time/space series, features twelve films and videos brimming with the abundance and radiance of summer. Some are dizzying, others meditative. Some are unabashedly joyful while others explore complexities of grief. All of the artists handle the tools and materials of sound, color, light, and movement to create powerful sensory offerings.
March 5, 2022
Eugene Contemporary Art is pleased to be kicking off unSOUND — our quarterly new music performance series — by hosting San Francisco's Electric.Kitchen (Mark Lentczner) who is touring the west coast with video artist Bill Waitroski (a.k.a. Dirty Bill) in support of their collaborative project (re)connect.
Also performing that night will be Casual Decay from Portland, and Eugene's own Woke-Ass Messiah. Read more ︎︎︎
Jan 15 – Feb 27, 2022
Month of Sundays is a group exhibition of the ten artists who took part in Tropical Contemporary’s Transformation Residency program between 2020–2021: Carina Borealis, Princess Bouton, Francis Dot, Irene June, Remy Malik, Oliver Myhre, Julia O., Eel Probably, Pace Taylor, and Ty Warren. Read more ︎︎︎
Oct 23 – Dec 19, 2021
Eugene Contemporary Art is proud to present Flower Eaters, an exhibition of work by Dana Buzzee, Mary Evans, and Caroline Lichucki. Across their practices, occult spirituality and art overlap, be it BDSM post-apocalypse fecundity, teen witch dreaming, or cultic technologies. These shared witch-epistemes form the site from which this exhibition emerges in the face of the anthropogenic horrors of climate crisis, dying empires, and so-called “late capitalism” accelerating around us. Read more ︎︎︎
︎ECA $ellz Out!
︎ECA $ellz Out!
October 2, 2021 | 12–6PM
ANTI-AESTHETIC, 245 W 8th Ave
& live-streaming @ twitch.tv/eugcontemporaryart
ECA $ellz Out! is a pop-up shop and live event taking place on October 2, 2021. We will be selling work right off the wall so people can “take it home today,” whether in person or by purchasing online at our website eugenecontemporaryart.com. Local pickup only! Works will go online for preview on September 25.
May 21 – Aug 21, 2021
Architecture of Dreams is a group exhibition that draws on surrealism as a mode of artmaking in response to everyday life. The artwork presents forms that arise from the unconscious to elicit a dream-like state, externalizing internal realms. The seven artists of Architecture of Dreams reflect on spaces they’ve constructed in the dreamworld and in waking reverie. Each artist works in a different visual medium, and the show also includes a writing component—with surrealist artist statements, collage poetry, a zine, and a day of surrealist games hosted by Kesey Farm Project. Read more ︎︎︎
April 3 – May 1, 2021
Garrick Imatani’s project Monologue examines the forces that inform and shape perceptions of non-dominant cultural identities. Through an examination of his own Japanese cultural heritage, Imatani creates objects and iconographies that use direct observation or online engagement to setup an alternative punchline. Read more ︎︎︎
Jan 14 – March 21, 2021
A Critical Conversation is a multidisciplinary project that focuses on the intersections of art, race and privilege as we experience them here at home and in the culture at large. It features a group exhibition, in-gallery printmaking performances, moderated panel discussions and selected poetry. Read more ︎︎︎
Nov 2 – Dec 21, 2020
In partnership with City of Eugene Cultural Services and BRIDGE Exhibitions, Eugene Contemporary Art is pleased to present Reflections Space: OPEN, featuring video work by Gray Space Project members Michael Boonstra, Vicki Amorose, Andy Myers, Leah Wilson, Renee Couture, and Sandee McGee. Read more ︎︎︎
Aug 15 – Oct 30, 2020
Common Ground is a platform for a host of conversations and events alongside an exhibition with works by Eugene Contemporary Art artist members and invited artists on the topic of art and ecology. This is the online space for these entanglements. Read more ︎︎︎