PNCA Celebrates March First Thursday in New Campus Flagship
February 11, 2015
MEDIA RELEASE
For Immediate Release
February 10, 2015
Contact:
Lisa Radon, Communications Specialist
lradon@pnca.edu 971-255-5528
Becca Biggs, Director of Communications
bbiggs@pnca.edu 971-255-5511
PNCA Celebrates March First Thursday in New Campus Flagship
Portland, OR—February 10, 2015—Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) welcomes all of Portland to its first First Thursday, March 5, 2015 from 6-9pm, in its new campus flagship, the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art and Design. PNCA will be filled with art, and the College will welcome the public in to see the historic federal building with its dramatic renovation designed by Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture.
PNCA's street address is 511 NW Broadway, but its new front entrance is on Portland's North Park Blocks, so the evening's celebration will spill out the front door and into the night with a selection of food carts on hand. Inside, there will be refreshments, and most importantly, visitors will be able to visit all of PNCA's exhibition spaces.
PNCA's new 511 Gallery presents Gathering Autonomy: Justseeds Artists' Cooperative, the first retrospective of the work of this print cooperative of 30 artists focused on work with a radical social, environmental, and political stance. There will be an exhibition of work by PNCA students, alumni, and faculty who participated in the 2014 Wendover Residency at Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) in Utah. And there will be exhibitions of student art in the main floor Project Spaces, the Graduate Gallery, and New Commons as well as video installations by students and faculty throughout the building. At PNCA's Museum of Contemporary Craft, visitors will be able to view an exhibition of more than 200 works of Italian glass, Living With Glass: The Ed Cauduro and Dane Nelson Collections. Also on view is Extra Credit: Students Mine the Collection, an exhibition curated by PNCA students during a two-week winter intensive workshop.
Gathering Autonomy: Justseeds Artists' Cooperative
Justseeds Artists' Cooperative is based in Pittsburgh, where its store and studio are located, but its network of artists is distributed across the country, and the primary global interface with the public is its website and online shop, justseeds.org. The exhibition, Gathering Autonomy, will feature prints from all 30 Justseeds members from all over North America and will show a succession of print portfolios from the Cooperative that will be rotated throughout the exhibition.
Justseeds Artists' Cooperative is a decentralized network of 30 artists committed to making print and design work that reflects a radical social, environmental, and political stance. With members working from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, Justseeds operates both as a unified collaboration of similarly minded printmakers and as a loose collection of creative individuals with unique viewpoints and working methods. We believe in the transformative power of personal expression in concert with collective action. To this end, we produce collective portfolios, contribute graphics to grassroots struggles for justice, work collaboratively both in- and outside the co-op, build large sculptural installations in galleries, and wheatpaste on the streets - all while offering each other daily support as allies and friends.
As part of the exhibition, the Creative Exhibition Lab will be embedded in the gallery, applying the Justseeds model locally to create graphics for activist groups including Portland Voz which works on immigrants' rights. Founded by PNCA alumni Danny Mackin and Carmen Dennison, Creative Activism Lab was launched with seed money from the PNCA's Innovation Awards. Mackin and Denison will lead workshops with students and operate a proof press in the gallery.
PNCA CLUI Wendover Residency
Last summer, PNCA's Feldman Gallery + Project Space and the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) collaborated to send five graduate students to CLUI's Wendover Residence Program for three weeks, June 22 - July 13. Two faculty members accompany the students on the residency. While in residence students conducted work that examines, engages, or reflects the land uses of the surrounding area. First Thursday will see the opening of an exhibition of work by participants in this residency in the Resilience Lab of the Dorothy Lemelson Innovation Studio.
Candace Jahn
MFA in Visual Studies candidate Candace Jahn will have the inaugural exhibition in the Graduate Gallery, just off the New Commons. Her photographic works explore the attempt to archive memory through deconstructing personal narratives.
Living With Glass: The Ed Cauduro and Dane Nelson Collections
Living with Glass delves into the life and mind of the collector, exploring the impulse tocollect, and the delights of living amongst objects so fastidiously sought and acquired. For well over five centuries, glass from the island of Murano, Italy has been desired by collectors of all persuasions, from leading scholars to day-trip tourists. The extraordinary skill of Murano's glassmakers is indisputable. Veritable magicians, they transform cold material into explosions of light and color, encapsulated through the centuries in vases, sculptures, chandeliers, and tableware.
This exhibition draws from the private collections of Ed Cauduro and Dane Nelson, friends and fellow collectors, who shared a particular affection for Italian glass. Beginning with early-20th century pieces acquired by Cauduro's Italian-born mother, Living with Glass features over 200 objects drawn from the red-hot furnaces of Murano, including works created by the most highly-regarded workshops on the island: Venini, Vetreria Aureliano Toso, Seguso Vetri d'Arte, Fratelli Toso, Barovier & Toso, and others.
ABOUT THE 511 GALLERY
The 511 Gallery is PNCA's premier exhibition space for national and international art. Located on the ground floor off the main historic corridor of the new Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art and Design, the 511 Gallery is the primary interface between students and the greater art world.
As a teaching gallery, the 511 Gallery is devoted to enhancing and supporting PNCA's curriculum, as well as providing an opportunity for students to learn gallery management in a hands-on setting. Students are able to work and converse one-on-one with each visiting artist and, through several work-study positions, help realize each show. Students participate in all aspects of the show, from details of curation to logistics of installation. PNCA provides a crucial element of experimentation to the art scene in Portland's Pearl District, a neighborhood known for housing Portland's leading galleries.
ABOUT MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY CRAFT
Founded in 1937, Museum of Contemporary Craft (MoCC) in partnership with Pacific Northwest College of Art is a vibrant center for investigation and dialogue that helps expand the definition and exploration of craft. Through dynamic exhibitions and provocative public programming, supported by the Museum's collection and archives, the Museum advances the conversation on the role of craft and design in contemporary culture while at the same time honoring the history of the studio craft movement.
ABOUT PNCA
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. Since 2008, PNCA has doubled both the student body and full-time faculty, quadrupled its endowment, and added innovative undergraduate and graduate programs. PNCA recently moved into the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art and Design, flagship of its new campus on Portland's North Park Blocks. PNCA's new home is 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, visit pnca.edu.