PNCA’s Feldman Gallery Presents An Exhibition That Might Exist
January 03, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 3, 2014
Contact:
Lisa Radon, Communications Specialist
lradon@pnca.edu 971-255-5528
Becca Biggs, Director of Communications
bbiggs@pnca.edu 971-255-5511
PNCA’s Feldman Gallery Presents An Exhibition That Might Exist
Solo exhibition of work by Bay Area artist, writer, and critic Bean Gilsdorf
EXHIBITION | Bean Gilsdorf: An Exhibition That Might Exist
Philip Feldman Gallery – PNCA 1241 NW Johnson, Portland
January 21 – February 28, 2014
Opening reception, Thursday, January 23, 2014 6-8 pm
Artist Talk | Bean Gilsdorf
Swigert Commons, PNCA Main Campus
Wednesday, February 12, 2014 6:30 pm
Portland, OR, January 3, 2014 — The Philip Feldman Gallery + Project Space at Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) presents a solo exhibition of work by Bean Gilsdorf entitled, An Exhibition That Might Exist from January 21 through February 28, 2014. The exhibition is free and open to the public, with an opening reception on Thursday, January 23, from 6-8 p.m.
Gilsdorf makes works including sculpture, performance, and writing. The conceptual point of departure for this exhibition is Gilsdorf’s experience as an art critic. Each day of the exhibition Gilsdorf will place a three-page review for an imagined exhibition—a different imagined exhibition each day—in a vitrine on the front of a two-sided reading desk. The previous day’s review will be moved to the back of the table. The spent reviews will accumulate over the course of the exhibition, and on the final day of the show, the main review will assess the exhibition of the title—which is to say, it will review itself.
By presenting these speculative productions as a fait accompli, Gilsdorf examines the potency and vulnerability of assessing objects that exist in the ideational stage, as well as the role of the viewer as a co-author of the work. She addresses subjects such as subjectivity, viewership, criticism as historiography, and the threshold at which text becomes object. Gilsdorf’s recent projects, including the Bean Gilsdorf Living History Museum, resist the security of a single, finite reality, and instead suggest parallel, alternative propositions that alter the way we perceive the past and present. An Exhibition That Might Exist offers an opportunity to consider art criticism and artmaking as a unified field of inquiry.
An Exhibition That Might Exist is curated by Mack McFarland. McFarland has served as curator for the Philip Feldman Gallery + Project Space at the Pacific Northwest College of Art since 2006, and has organized or curated over 30 exhibitions, with a focus on artists whose practices involve social or politically engaged themes, including Joe Sacco, Sue Coe, Sandow Birk, and Regina Silveira.
About the Feldman Gallery + Project Space
PNCA’s Feldman Gallery + Project Space is the centerpiece of a total of eight galleries on the main PNCA campus and in satellite locations. Dedicated to bringing national and international contemporary artists to Portland, PNCA’s Feldman Gallery features six exhibitions of national/international artists annually and is free to the public seven days a week. The Feldman Gallery is also an educational resource for local schools and organizations; school groups visit the gallery throughout the year to view new exhibitions.
About Pacific Northwest College of Art
As Oregon’s flagship college of art and design since 1909, Pacific Northwest College of Art has helped shape Oregon’s visual arts landscape for more than a century. PNCA students study with award-winning faculty in small classes. In the last seven years, PNCA has doubled both the student body and full-time faculty, quadrupled its endowment, and added innovative undergraduate and graduate programs. PNCA is now embarking on its boldest venture yet by establishing the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art and Design as an anchor for the College’s vision of a new campus home on Portland’s North Park Blocks. Focusing on the transformative power of creativity, the capital campaign, Creativity Works Here, was launched in June 2012 with a lead gift from The Harold & Arlene Schnitzer CARE Foundation of $5 million. PNCA’s new home will be a bustling hub for creativity and entrepreneurship, reflecting the influential role of art and design in our 21st century economy – both in Portland and beyond. For more information: pnca.edu.