| The Present Tense |

JOSEPH RAVENS       TPT:  How has being an artists influenced your curatorial work and being a curator influenced your artwork?   JR: As an artists who has participated in many festivals and exhibitions, I’ve seen a lot of work. I’ve seen it from the inside.  So I’m familiar with many styles and aesthetics [...]

Last weekend, artists from Chicago traveled to Boston to make work at Massachusetts College of Art and Design’s Pozen Center for ROUGH TRADE II; a Boston Chicago artist exchange.  This collaboration between The Present Tense and Defibrillator Gallery was a great success.  We are already talking about doing another exchange between the 2 cities next [...]

Last weekend, 6 artists from Boston traveled to Chicago to make work at Defibrillator Gallery as part of ROUGH TRADE II; a Boston Chicago artist exchange.  Here is video documentation of the pieces that they created.  In the coming months, The Present Tense will be posting extended interviews with each artist, giving them the opportunity [...]

  The Present Tense is gearing up for ROUGH TRADE II that begins in just 1 week.  ROUGH TRADE II is an exchange between live artists working in Boston and Chicago.  The Present Tense has selected 6 artists to represent Boston in a public event to be held at Defibrillator Gallery on September 7th and [...]

Summer in New England is slowly disappearing and The Present Tense wants to soak up the sun while we can!  We will be taking a vacation from posting until September 1st. In honor of our recent Call for work for our Bicycle series, we are leaving you Joseph Ravens’ “Is my Liver Showing?” created for ROUGH TRADE in 2007/2008.  The [...]

3-4 times per year the planet, Mercury, slows down and appears to stop and move backwards. Mercury has been in this state of retrograde since September 7th. Because Mercury rules communication, it is said that retrograde causes all matters of interaction to go bananas until the planet is back on track (September 29th). Some people [...]