Ben Portis (December 9, 1960 – July 20, 2017) was a Canadian artist, curator, and critic working in the fields of

contemporary art Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...

including

sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary Time-based media, time-based Artistic medium, medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in Cross-genr ...

, performance, music, and

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

Biography

Portis had an MFA from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

(1989), and a BFA from

Queen's University, Canada Queen's University at Kingston, commonly known as Queen's University or simply Queen's, is a public research university in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Queen's holds more than of land throughout Ontario and owns Herstmonceux Castle in East Susse ...

(1984). He received his MA from

Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains within the Hudson River Historic District ...

Center for Curatorial Studies (2001) having undertaken his summer internship with the

Bronx Museum of Art The Bronx Museum of the Arts (BxMA), also called the Bronx Museum of Art or simply the Bronx Museum, is an American cultural institution located in Concourse, Bronx, New York. The museum focuses on contemporary and 20th-century works created by ...

. He wrote extensively on

art Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

for publications including Parachute,

Canadian Art Canadian art refers to the visual arts, visual (including painting, photography, and printmaking) as well as plastic arts (such as sculpture) originating from the geographical area of contemporary Canada. Art in Canada is marked by thousands of ...

, and Momus. From 2010 to 2013 he was curator of the

MacLaren Art Centre The MacLaren Art Centre is an art gallery and museum, located in Barrie, Ontario, Canada. It is named in honour of Maurice MacLaren, who bequeathed his Victorian home, Maple Hill, to the Barrie Gallery Project in 1989. The MacLaren Art Centre l ...

in Barrie, Ontario, curating exhibitions of the work of

Denyse Thomasos Denyse Thomasos (October 10, 1964 – July 19, 2012) was a Trinidadian-Canadian painter known for her abstract-style wall murals that conveyed themes of slavery, confinement and the story of African and Asian Diaspora. ''Hybrid Nations'' (2005) i ...

, Gordon Monahan, and others. From 2002 to 2009 Portis was assistant curator of contemporary art at the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; ) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located on Dundas Street, Dundas Street West in the Grange Park (neighbourhood), Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, the museum complex takes up of phys ...

, where he worked on numerous exhibitions including those by

Harun Farocki Harun Farocki (9 January 1944 – 30 July 2014) was a German filmmaker, author, and lecturer in film. Early life and education Farocki was born as Harun El Usman FaroqhiMargalit Fox (3 August 2014)''New York Times''. in Neutitschein, which is n ...

Eddo Stern Eddo Stern (born 1972 in Tel Aviv) is a California-based artist and developer known for creating experimental video games, game art and machinima-based works. Stern was a founding member of the physical-computing based collective and artist-run s ...

, and

Christo and Jeanne-Claude Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009), known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, were artists noted for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations, often large landmarks a ...

. In 2008 he collaborated with the

Images Festival The Images Festival is a yearly event devoted to independent and experimental film, video art, new media and media installation that takes place each spring in Toronto. History The Images festival was founded in 1987, originally conceived a ...

to bring the work of

Charles Atlas Charles Atlas (born Angelo Siciliano; October 30, 1892December 24, 1972) was an American bodybuilder best remembered as the developer of a bodybuilding method and its associated exercise program which spawned a landmark advertising campaign ...

to Toronto. After completing his MA in New York he worked with

Lynne Cooke Lynne Cooke is an Australian-born art scholar. Since August 2014 she has been the Senior Curator, Special Projects in Modern Art, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Early life and education Born in Geelong, Australia, Cooke receive ...

at the Dia Art Center. Before undertaking his MA, Portis founded the annual No Music Festival at the artist-run

Forest City Gallery Canadian artist-run centres (ARC or ARCs) are galleries and art spaces developed by artists in Canada since the 1960s. The artist-run centre is the common term of use for artist-initiated and managed organizations in Canada. Most centres follow the ...

(co-founded by

Greg Curnoe Greg Curnoe (19 November 1936 – 14 November 1992) was a Canadian painter known for his role in the Canadian art movement labeled London Regionalism, which, beginning in the 1960s, made London, Ontario, an important centre for artistic produ ...

) in

London, Ontario London is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city had a population of 422,324 according to the 2021 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the Thames River (Ontario), Thames River and N ...

. The No Music Festival featured the work of Curnoe's group, the

Nihilist Spasm Band The Nihilist Spasm Band (NSB) is a Canadian noise band formed in 1965 in London, Ontario. The term " spasm band" refers to a band that uses homemade instruments. Most of the NSB's instruments are modifications of other instruments, or wholly ...

, and released CD box sets of recordings. He died in a road accident in 2017.

Selected curated exhibitions

* "Kent Monkman: The Triumph of Mischief", at the

Glenbow Museum The Glenbow Museum is an art and history local museum, regional museum in the city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The museum focuses on Western Canada, Western Canadian history and culture, including Indigenous perspectives. The Glenbow was establ ...

, February 13 to April 25, 2010 * "Kristan Horton: A Haptic Portrait of Groping Imaginations", at the

, February 28 - May 26, 2013 * "Matt Bahen: Gravity's Faith", at MacLaren Art Centre, June 8 - September 1, 2013 * "Urban Jewels: Denyse Thomasos' Big Canvases", 1993 – 1999, at MacLaren Art Centre, September 12 - November 3, 2013 * "Baleful" at Pari Nadimi Gallery, February 4 - April 2, 2016 Baleful Exhibition announcement, February 4, 2016
/ref>

References

External links

Contributor's page, Momus
Canadian art curators 1960 births 2017 deaths Road incident deaths in Canada {{Canada-artist-stub