Momentum: Art Doesn’t Stand Still

Momentum: Art Doesn’t Stand Still is an annual exhibition that features Oklahoma artists 30 years and younger, working in all media including 2-D and 3-D art, film, installations, performance and more. Held each year in Oklahoma City in March and Tulsa in October, the exhibition has continually presented a diversified look at emerging artistic talent in Oklahoma. Visit the event page for more information about the Momentum event.

Entries for Momentum OKC 2012 are now closed.

Timeline
February 17: Juried survey show applicants notified
March 9-10: Momentum event

Curator
Alison Hearst is Assistant Curator at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. She completed her Bachelors in Art History from the University of North Texas and a Masters in Art History from Texas Christian University.

She is a co-founder of an experimental art collaborative “Subtext Projects.” Hearst and her partner created an exhibition, publication and film series designed to promote discussion about the issues and practices of contemporary art. She has published reviews in Art Critical, Art Lies, Glasstire, and …might be good. Also, she has received scholarships and grants to study in New York and London.

Emerging Curator
Candace Coker is an artist and works as Project Coordinator at City Arts Center in Oklahoma City. Coker was selected as the Momentum Emerging Curator.

Spotlight Artists
Marcus Kesler (Edmond), Margaret Kinkeade (Norman), Samantha Lamb (Hobart).
Details about Spotlight projects will be posted here.

Frequently Asked Questions about Momentum Selection Process:

Q: What do curators do?
 A: There is always more artwork than there is space. So, we recruit opinionated, arts-educated people to select what they consider the best work. No committee members or OVAC staff are involved in the decision making so that the curators can look at the artwork without influence. Of course, this process is based on subjective judgments about the quality of artwork. The decisions must be subjective because it's based on personal opinions about what makes good work. The curators always spend time with the work – looking at it and trying to understand it. Even artwork that one person loves might not resonate with another person.

Q: Who are the curators?
 A: We always have different guest curators in order to get different perspectives. The volunteer committee tries to recruit people who are artists or active curators.

Q: What tips do you have to increase my chances of being selected?
 A: Some things that help curators pick art could include: outstanding images of your artwork and good presentation (Does anything distract from your work such as distracting backgrounds, poor lighting, an over-sized signature or unfinished edges?).

Less tangible reasons why curators select artwork include things like: expressing a clear vision, comprehensible design elements, careful consideration of materials for concept, scale appropriate to idea, and original concepts or experimentation.

Get tips for creating stronger submissions in this post on the OVAC blog.

Q: Can I get specific comments on my work?
 A: Because the curators have such limited time, we are not able to give detailed comments to artists who enter. We do encourage you to get feedback anywhere you can. Galleries, friends, other artists are great places to get feedback about your work and to see if you are communicating your ideas and concepts effectively.

Q: How did Momentum begin?
 A: The Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition is a statewide non-profit organization that was created just to support artists. As one way to help and reward young artists, OVAC started Momentum in 2002 in Oklahoma City and in 2004 in Tulsa . A committee of volunteers helps to plan the event. The committee is made up of young artists and professionals who give their time to make the event happen. If you are interested in being involved in planning Momentum, you can email your interest to Julia at director@ovac-ok.org. Momentum does cost money to put together and funds come from financial sponsors, ticket sales, percentages of art sales and grant money raised by OVAC.

Q: Why does this exhibition have an age limit of 30 years old?
 A: This exhibition was created specifically to promote and bring together young artists. The Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition has programs that support artists at many different stages of their careers-- from funding to exhibits. It is important to us that our programs help artists as they are getting started, restarted, or continuing already successful careers. We also consider it important that our programs do not duplicate things other organizations are doing. Thus, we do not put together exhibitions unless they fill a completely different need.

Momentum is intended to help young artists in a way they were not supported before this exhibition. Knowing that we needed to clearly communicate who the event was trying to reach, we defined an age limit—less than 30 years old (later changed to 30 and under). By setting a specific age, we avoided confusion of what explains a "young" artist for this event.

We have other programs that provide visibility and funding for artists of all ages, emerging and established, throughout the year. If you aren't eligible for Momentum, please look at our other exhibitions such as Art 365, funding sources: grants and fellowships, and other programs for promoting artists: Art Focus Oklahoma, the Virtual Gallery, and Art Studio Tour. Information about submitting to any of these exhibitions can be found using the links to the left.

Questions
For questions, contact the OVAC office at 405-879-2400 or office@ovac-ok.org.