SHINE A LIGHT 2011 at
Portland Art Museum
Friday, October 14, 2011
10 a.m.–midnight
For the third year, Shine a Light at the Portland Art Museum invites the public to play and experiment in and with the museum. This collaboration between the Museum’s Education Department and Portland State University invites artists in the University’s Art and Social Practice MFA Program to craft programs, performances, events, and interventions, all with the goal of expanding and querying the ways people use the art museum, and ideally nudging us all to rethink what can happen in it. It plays with different hypothetical questions: What if we invite student artists to be researchers into the Museum experience, now and in the future—what it is and what it might be? What if we ask the public to join us in that experiment—to become researchers too? Or, what if we turn our back-of-the-house questions and issues—how we engage people in the museum and with our collection—into an opportunity for student artists. The Museum thus becomes for one day a playground for new ideas, in which what is curated is not a set of objects but the museum experience itself.
Past Shine a Light events have drawn capacity crowds to the Museum including many first-time visitors. In 2010, 3,000 visitors attended Shine a Light.
This year Shine a Light expands into the daytime hours, beginning at 10 a.m. with a light schedule of projects, tours, and installations. Daytime visitors are welcome to return for the nighttime events that kick off in full force at 6 p.m. with music, food carts, and artists’ projects all over the campus continuing until midnight. Some of these projects include haircuts in styles found in works in the collection, dance in unexpected places, recipes by top chefs for works of art, visitor-generated Museum postcards, beer/art conversations, tattoos based on the art and architecture of the Museum, and square dancing. The full line-up of projects can be found at
Shine a Light offers an exciting opportunity to reinvigorate your relationship with art by engaging with the Museum and museumgoers in ways unexpected and to join the community at large in celebrating what art means to us all. This multi-dimensional evening is sure to capture the dynamic interests of all Portlanders alike.
About Shine a Light
When: Friday, October 14, 2011, 10 a.m.–midnight
Admission: 15 USD or free with Museum admission, free for Members
Where: Inside and outside the Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park
Artists
Crystal Baxley, Nolan Calisch, Sky Cunningham, Ally Drozd, Dillon De Give, Ariana Jacob, Avalon Kalin, Laurel Kurtz, Josh Mong, Adam Moser, Carmen Papalia, Jillian Punska, Jen Delos Reyes, Sandy Sampson, Molly Sherman, Krystal South, Jason Sturgill, Christopher Varinthorn, and Lexa Walsh.
About Art and Social Practices at Portland State University
The MFA in Art and Social Practice at Portland State University is a program that encourages students to develop and utilize their artistic skills to engage in society. Social practice might appear to be more like sociology, anthropology, social work, journalism, or environmentalism than art, yet it retains the intention of creating significance and appreciation for audiences in a similar way to more conventional art. Students learn about a variety of working artists and non-artists who have engaged in civic activity and apply their knowledge and abilities to initiate, develop, and complete projects with the public—individuals, groups, and institutions. More information available at psusocialpractice.org.
About the Portland Art Museum
The seventh oldest museum in the United States and the oldest in the Northwest, the Portland Art Museum is internationally recognized for its permanent collection and ambitious special exhibitions drawn from the Museum’s holdings and the world’s finest public and private collections. The Museum’s collection of 42,000 objects, displayed in 112,000 square feet of galleries, reflects the history of art from ancient times to today. The collection is distinguished for its holdings of arts of the native peoples of North America, English silver, and the graphic arts. An active collecting institution dedicated to preserving great art for the enrichment of future generations, the Museum devotes 90 percent of its galleries to its permanent collection. The Museum’s campus of landmark buildings, a cornerstone of Portland’s cultural district, includes the Jubitz Center for Modern and Contemporary Art, the Gilkey Center for Graphic Arts, the Schnitzer Center for Northwest Art, the Northwest Film Center, and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Center for Native American Art. With a membership of more than 22,000 households and serving more than 350,000 visitors annually, the Museum is a premier venue for education in the visual arts. For information on exhibitions and programs, call 503-226-2811 or visit www.portlandartmuseum.org.
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