PNCA’s Feldman Gallery Announces Exhibition Series
December 01, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 29, 2011
Contact:
Lisa Radon, Communications Specialist
Pacific Northwest College of Art
lradon@pnca.edu, 971 255 5528
Becca Biggs, Director of Communications
Pacific Northwest College of Art
bbiggs@pnca.edu, 971 255 5511
Pacific Northwest College of Art’s Feldman Gallery Announces Exhibition Series
Supported by $40,000 Grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
PORTLAND, OR – November 29, 2011 – Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) welcomes internationally-recognized artists and curators to Portland for its 2012-13 exhibition series which has been supported by a $40,000 grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. This is the College’s first grant from this prestigious national foundation. With exhibitions from New York’s Drawing Center, Chicago’s Threewalls, the Critical Art Ensemble, and a group show in honor of the 100th birthday of John Cage, the series includes painting, drawing, object, and installation topped off with thought-provoking public programs.
This challenging exhibition series—on view in PNCA’s Feldman Gallery and other Project Spaces from February 2012 through May 2013—embodies the discursive nature of artistic practice, and provides clear, compelling examples of the various strategies employed in the conception and production of work. Each exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog with scholarly essays and other information about the artist and work.
Xylor Jane and B. Wurtz (curator Arnold Kemp; Jan 17 – Mar 24, 2012)
Xylor Jane and B. Wurtz is a two-person show highlighting recent work of two important artists who consistently surprise with the simplicity of their means and processes. B. Wurtz (b. 1948) makes sculptural assemblages from string, socks, buttons, household implements and plastic bags. Xylor Jane (b. 1963) draws on basic mathematical algorithms to make intricate painted patterns. Dealing almost exclusively with the complexity and specificity of color and material, Xylor Jane’s and B. Wurtz’ artworks are rigorously executed translations of environment and experience. This exhibition is curated by MFA in Visual Studies Chair, artist and curator, Arnold J. Kemp.
Day Job (curator Nina Katchadourian; on view spring 2012)
Drawing Center curator Nina Katchadourian looks at the ways in which the information, skills, ideas, working conditions, or materials encountered in the work world can become a source of influence. Day Job addresses the ways in which contemporary artists support themselves in an economic climate that often demands particularly diverse and flexible solutions to staying afloat.
Thomas Zummer (curator Mack McFarland; June 7, 2012 –July 28, 2012)
This is an exhibition of work by visiting faculty for PNCA’s new Low-Residency MFA in Visual Studies: artist, scholar, and writer Thomas Zummer. Zummer is known for his precise and delicate images, often coupled with wildly conceptual schemes that address a broad range of topics—philosophical, political, technical, social, and aesthetic. Using diverse media including drawing, painting, sculptural, textual, or digital, Zummer makes work that is ironic, erudite, and at times hilarious.
Happy Birthday: A Celebration of Chance and Silence (curated by Mack McFarland; September 6, 2012 – November 18, 2012)
Through the work of five artists spanning several generations, Happy Birthday explores the ways in which influential artist and composer John Cage’s teachings and ideas live on with a particular focus on embracing chance and silence as a method in working process. On the occasion of what would have been his 100th birthday on September 5, 2012, the exhibition will include work by Alison Knowles, a Fluxus artist and Cage pupil from the late 50s; Paul Kos, whose The Sound of Ice Melting illustrates the Cage notion of close listening to the music of the world; two works by mail artist and founder of the New York Correspondence School, Ray Johnson; and Walead Beshty, whose FedEx Kraft Boxes, in which tempered glass cubes are fit into standard FedEx boxes with no packing materials–the resulting cracks and chips become the marks on the otherwise minimal cube, echoing the chance operations systems of Cage’s music. The exhibit will be on view during Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s TBA Festival.
Threewalls (Curators Mack McFarland and Shannon Stratton; December 7, 2012 –Feb. 17, 2013)
Feldman Gallery curator Mack McFarland co-curates an exchange exhibition with Shannon Stratton, curator and director of Threewalls, a non-profit art organization dedicated to increasing Chicago’s cultural capital by cultivating contemporary art practice and discourse. Portland artists show in Chicago while Chicago artists show in Portland.
A Monument to Income Inequality (Critical Art Ensemble; March 7, 2013 –, May 26, 2013)
Renowned arts collective Critical Art Ensemble, (CAE) teams up with NYU economist Edward Wolff (a specialist in wealth distribution) and mathematician David Sommer (Control Data Corporation, retired), to produce a proportional scale diagram of relative wealth based on population quintiles. The monument will begin with a banner illustrates the relative wealth of each quintile of the bottom 80% with a scale of 1 inch = $500. This section would be approximately 50 feet high, with the bottom 20% represented by a 2-foot-deep hole in the ground (this group’s average wealth being negative, i.e., they have only debt). The top 20% owns such an astonishing percentage of the total wealth, it cannot be represented on the same banner, but rather will be represented nearly 450 feet in the air (visitors may be able to visit this height through a sky elevator). Scale models, complete with related date and documentation of the monument unveiling will be presented in the gallery. To punctuate this project, CAE and PNCA will build a three-day symposium dedicated to the practice of art and research within the arts. The exhibit and symposium will come together in a publication edited by theorist Brian Holmes.
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; several school groups visit the gallery throughout the year to view new exhibitions.
About Pacific Northwest College of Art
Since its founding in 1909, Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) has become a leader in innovative educational programs that connect students to a global perspective in the visual arts and design. In addition to its nine Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees, PNCA offers graduate education with an MFA in Visual Studies, a Low-Residency MFA in Visual Studies, an MA in Critical Theory and Creative Research, and an MFA in Collaborative Design, as well as an MFA in Applied Craft and Design developed in collaboration with the Oregon College of Art and Craft.
PNCA is actively involved in Portland’s cultural life through exhibitions and a vibrant public program of lectures and internationally recognized visiting artists, designers and creative thinkers. With the support of PNCA+FIVE (Ford Institute for Visual Education), the College has a partnership with the nationally acclaimed Museum of Contemporary Craft. For more information, visit www.pnca.edu.