Gallery Hours: Wednesday–Saturday, noon–6pm and by appointment
This exhibition presents the behind the scenes experience of the making of Marvels. -- concurrently on view at the Portland Art Museum. We are proud to highlight the students, teachers, artists, and administrators who have brought the Marvels. exhibition to life. As you walk through our space we hope you gain a deeper understanding of, and respect for the makers behind the art. We invite you to participate in creating your own reproduction of a piece from the curated MoMA selections, and to put it on display. Get inspiration for your recreation from the techniques used by the students as seen in their process ephemera and photos. While creating your piece consider how you might engage with art beyond its role as a commodity and participate in democratized making.
OPENING RECEPTION | Saturday, May 12, 2—7pm
Join us for an afternoon of celebrating youth artists, makers and musicians!
2:30pm: New Moon
We are a young local group of musicians that mix rock, indie, and punk all in one! We have an EP that recently came out! https://newmoonpdx.bandcamp.com/releases
3pm: Pinecones
The Pinecones are an alternative rock band based in Portland, Oregon. Making shoe-gazey music for folks of all shapes and sizes since 2017.
4pm: Eggboy & Davis
Queer indie folk-pop duo Eggboy & Davis! Get ready to feel introspective and gay!
ABOUT MARVELS. AT PORTLAND ART MUSEUM
ON VIEW
May 11 – July 8, 2018
NotMoMA by Stephanie Syjuco and Portland area youth artists
Marvels. presents Stephanie Syjuco’s notMoMA, a work of social practice art engaging local high school students. With this work, conceptual artist Syjuco investigates how museum collections are accessed and how museums shape notions of value and originality. NotMoMA asks students to remake artworks from the Museum of Modern Art (New York) collection by studying them on MoMA’s website. Their task is to reproduce the work to the best of their ability with the resources available to them. With notMoMA, Syjuco questions: What happens when young art students are tasked with refabricating famous artworks—works they have never seen in person? Do the aura of famous artworks still exist when remade by others?
To begin the project, guest artistic director Libby Werbel asked curators from three independent art spaces in Portland—Melanie Flood Projects, Una Gallery, and c3:initiative—to select works using MoMA’s website that they would like to see on view at the Portland Art Museum. From this selection students from Jefferson High School, Gresham High School, and Reynolds High School chose pieces to study and recreate.
Dozens of students have fabricated artworks for the installation in the Jubitz Center for Modern and Contemporary Art at Portland Art Museum. The fully handmade show aims to bridge gaps in the students’ understandings of “high art” by inviting them to access the works via their own do-it-yourself vision. Whether considered copies, translations, or even mis-translations, all resulting works are unique expressions in their own right.
NotMoMA is the first social practice work to enter the permanent collection of the Portland Art Museum. The work was acquired through a collaboration between the museum’s Education department and Portland State University’s Art and Social Practice MFA program. It was selected during a public event in 2015 where several works of socially engaged art were presented, debated, and voted upon by attendees. The Art and Social Practice faculty and students have been active with the Museum for several years, including in the multi-year Shine a Light series.
Marvels. is a truly community-created Modern Art Museum exhibition, with support and collaboration from: Teachers and students of Jefferson High School, Gresham High School, and Reynolds High School; Melanie Flood of Melanie Flood Projects; Mercedes Orozco of Una Gallery; Shir Ly Grisanti of c3:initiative; Emily Fitzgerald and Erica Thomas of Works Progress Agency; Portland State University’s Art and Social Practice MFA program; and Stephanie Syjuco.