Christopher Rauschenberg
Artist Statement:
“Agency
The murals of Rivera, Siqueiros and Orozco sieze the initiative to powerfully visually retell Mexican history through a Marxist lens. Taking our friends to Mexico City last year, I was excited to show them those murals. When we got there I was thrilled to see that the muralizing spirit had expanded onto the security gates of almost all the shops in the Zocalo area. Going to Guatemala this year, I enthusiastically photographed ambitious murals by Guatemalan artists that commanded the visual environment. Closer to home, I include a photograph of local artist Ebenezer Galluzzo’s hand painted jacket that asserts ‘I would look upon myself more as god does.’”
Artist Bio:
“Christopher Rauschenberg was born in New York in 1951, has practiced photographic art since 1957, and has a B.A. in photography from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.
He has had 127 solo shows in eight countries on three continents. His work has also been featured in group shows in six more countries. Available monographs of his work include three books, twenty print-on-demand books and a deck of cards.
His work is held in the collections of 13 major museums.
In 1995, he organized a group of a dozen artists who joined him in a nine year long systematic photographic exploration and documentation of the city of Portland. (PortlandGridProject.com) His second group of a dozen artists completed a second nine year re-exploration and round four is now in progress.
In 1997 and 1998, he took three trips to Paris and rephotographed 500 of the images made of that city by Eugene Atget between 1890 and 1927. (LensCulture interview)
He is a co-founder and Board Chairman of Blue Sky Gallery where, over the last 48 years, he has co-curated and co-produced over a thousand exhibitions. He is a co-founder and past president of Photolucida. He is the founder of the Portland Grid Project. He is a co-founder and current member of the co-op Nine Gallery. He was the 2003 Bonnie Bronson Fellow.”