Welcome to Affair at the Jupiter Hotel 2007.
When we started this art fair four years ago, we hoped to achieve a few distinct goals. We wanted to empower the art ecology of Portland, increasing the connections between local artists, dealers, curators, and collectors and their contemporaries around teh United States, Canada, and beyond. We wanted to create an intimate gathering of arts professionals and enthusiasts who were ready to do business on several levels and at different speeds. In stark contrast to the overwhelming pressures of playing at the mega-fairs of Basel, New York, and Miami, we wanted to allow dealers and not-for-profit centers to take their programs on the road without having to kill themselves to do it. We wanted collectors to be treated with care, encouraged to learn how to trust their eyes, ears, and hearts. We wanted artists to get out of their studios and see their practces in a larger context. We hoped that our friends and colleagues in the region would show up and take advantage of our efforts. Did they ever!

Since 2004, we have enjoyed robust attendance, smooth collaborations and unique sponsorships, and diverse participants coming from farther distances. We have stuck to our original concept for the fair--alternative, conversational, curatorial, critical. We have purposely kept the scale modest each year. 40 rooms. This keeps the event doable without the typical exhaustion and maddening spectacle that defines much of the scene in recent years. Some galleries have been with us from the start, creating a strong familial aspect and continuity over time. New ones join in, enlivening the offerings and contributing unpredictable spirit and energy. The combination of the two is a heady mix of established and emerging presenters who make sales in the hundreds and thousands happen, empowering artists and enriching private or corporate collections. This year, we have timed the fair to coincide with PICA's TBA Festival, cross-pollinating lovers of art, performance, dance, and music. Many of the world's most provocative makers and thinkers will be here, finding eachother and new audiences during the day and night, and in the wee hours of the morning.

In past years, our opening night party was a benefit for worthwhile arts organizations in Portland. We raised funds for new acquisitions made by the Portland Art Museum, and helped to sponsor Portland State University's Visiting Artist Lecture Series. This year, we will be raising money to establish a program called SHADE, which will empower short term immersive urban residencies. Artists and curators wishing to do projects or research in Portland, Atlanta, New York, Houston, Los Angeles, and Montreal, will receive financial support for travel and lodging, and they will be connected to host institutions in those cities. Recipients of funding for 2008 will be selected by the organizers of the Affair at the Jupiter Hotel and an informal group of advisors.

We are also very happy to announce the publication of a book called DOING BUSINESS, a compilation of private documents and correspondences made public. We asked current and past attendees of the Affair at the Jupiter Hotel to search their archives for lively emails, faxes, photos, transcripts, and receipts that would reveal some of the strategies and satisfactions of dealing with contemporary art. Their contributions make the book informative, idiosyncratic, collegial and contentious.

We have an amazingly sympathetic partnership with the owners and staff at the Jupiter Hotel, various city agencies, art patrons, businesses and schools. Thanks go to all of them for helping to make a generous and generative event. Our own team of associates and volunteers are awesome and inspiring and they know how much we respect and appreciate them.

Stuart Horodner & Laurel Gitlen