ORG Contemporary

ORG Contemporary was an artist-run exhibition space founded by Ian Swanson, Christopher Samuels, and Lindsay Yao at Detroit’s Russell Industrial Center. Active from 2009 through May 2010, the project established an independent site for exhibitions, conversation, and experimentation within the city’s artist-organized culture.

ORG opened with Swanson’s solo exhibition Lacquer and concluded with Daniel Turner and Colin Snapp’s Alpine Meadow. Between them, the program moved between solo and group exhibitions, presenting projects by Vagner Whitehead, David Flaugher, Jeannette Strezinski, Lauren Rice, and Kevin Beasley. ORG was an organizational and exhibition-making project distinct from Debt Collective, extending Swanson’s studio practice through the production of context and the support of other artists’ work.