C92 Reviews
Portland
Marie Sester: L’Architecture du Paradis, 2000;
photo Rizzo Studio;
courtesy Portland Institute for Contemporary Arts
While looking around the art world in the American Northwest something always seemed to be missing. I had been to museums, galleries, alternative spaces and art walks in Seattle, Tacoma and Portland. So what was missing? It was only when I went to the Portland Institute for Contemporary Arts (PICA) that I realized what it was. This was the first major international venue aimed at contemporary art practice that I had been to.
Talking to artists, curators, and critics it became clear that the ‘art wars’ of the late 80s and early 90s had taken their toll. These wars started when government and their officials became upset by certain artworks, like Mapplethorpe’s homoerotic output and Andrea Serrano’s infamous Piss Christ.
To some extent the wars continue to this day in New York with political reaction to the Sensation show and the Hans Haacke participation in the 2000 Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art. But really the major turning point happened on June 25, 1998 when the Supreme Court ruled the government can deny cash grants to artists because their work is considered indecent. Effectively the government would now curate through their control of funding. PICA is the only organization to emerge post war in the Northwest.
The driving force behind PICA is Kristy Edmunds who is both Executive Director and Curator although an Associate Curator is currently being sought. She left the safe but unexciting world of museum art with their traveling shows or ‘treasure troving’ as its called in America. She set up PICA in 1995 to present the work of national and international artists, while at the same time promoting the excellence and achievements of regional artists. Initially PICA found venues in old warehouses and alternative spaces across the city of Portland. It soon became obvious that nomadic life could not go on forever and it was becoming increasingly difficult to source warehouse space for specific projects. PICA needed a home.
A home came in the form of collaboration between PICA, the advertising agency Wieden & Kennedy, and the architect Brad Cloepfil. Dan Wieden needed new headquarters. He found them in an abandoned warehouse in the heart of Portland’s Pearl District, an old industrial section of town. PICA was asked to be the ‘cornerstone’ of the agency’s new headquarters. Brad Cloepfil’s award-winning renovation has produced an open-loft-like space where the activities of PICA can flourish alongside the commercial activities of the advertising agency. The Pearl District of Portland is similar to Dublin’s Temple Bar. All the new development in the area means that artists can no longer afford to live there or have studio space there. Already some artists and galleries are moving to Alberta Street. The previously nomadic PICA, however, does have 8,000 square feet of elegant new space. Over 2,200 square feet of this is devoted to the main gallery, which has been carefully designed to accommodate the needs of contemporary art practice. It has a 16-foot-high ceiling, sliding walls and removable wall structures. This means that the size and shape of the gallery can be changed to accommodate different shows. The sliding walls also control the amount of natural light entering the gallery as well as determining access points.
PICA has a ten-year lease on their new space. The lease gives them three years rent-free accommodation and then incremented rent payments at a reduced rate. The value of the lease acquisition is one million dollars. In fact, PICA’s Board of Trustees embarked on a campaign last June to raise $4 million. They are now 76% of the way to reaching that goal. Not bad for an organization that is less than five years old. This funding will be used for capital improvements, investment funds and program expansion. As well as developing the exhibition program they will also develop artist residencies, the education programs and continue the performance series with the commissioning of new works.
PICA opened in its new space on March 1, 2000 with a show called Fictional Cities, with works by French artists Marie Sester and Alain Bublex. It is in fact two totally separate shows by two artists who both use the physical structures of a city to investigate the mental structure that inhabits those cities.
The gallery had been divided into two exhibition spaces. In the first space Alain Bublex has installed the fictional city of Glooscap. Bublex has been working on the project for over five years and will continue working on it for the foreseeable future. Glooscap is an average-size city located in Southeast Canada. The exhibition documents its existence and history. Interestingly given the curator’s background the installation has a museum-like feel to it. There are glass tables, which could easily contain flintheads or fragments of pottery; instead they document the history and development of the city. High up on the walls are typical frescoes that would have been seen in public buildings early in the last century. These reflect the value systems of an emerging city at that time in history.
Walking around the space one certainly begins to forget that the city is fictional. ‘Reality’ was reinforced by the artist’s using fragments of Portland’s geography and history into the work. We are all used to getting our information second-hand so in the end Glooscap became as real as any other early-twentieth-century city. Bublex has always been interested in the relationship between real and imagined space. In this installation he has successfully blurred the division between the two. I look forward to coming in contact with Glooscap at another time in another place and seeing how time and location have changed it.
Moving into the second space I was surrounded by four white walls. Hanging from the ceiling was a specially constructed rig, which allowed a sophisticated series of video projections. Marie Sester’s L’Architecture du Paradis looks beyond the physical space of a city as defined by its buildings to a deeper, more spiritual space that might be perceived by a society. Architecture here is a reflection of cultural values and ideologies. Sester has taken five cities and has presented each as a symbol with various values, cultures, laws and beliefs. "Babylon represents a fusion with Nature; Jerusalem, a quest for an absolute God and a desire for greatness; Atlantis, Plato’s superiority of Reason and Freedom; and New York City, Modernity." Only Paradise can be seen as ‘fiction’. It is the city currently under construction–an attempt to create a better world, while seeking to attain personal happiness which is an ultimate representation of western ideology.
This show is intelligent in the way it brings to its audience various philosophies and mythologies. It is also a superbly elegant installation. Sester has honed the art of projection, allowing space and time between projections, gently moving the observer from one wall to the next. Images ‘morph’ smoothly into x-rays taken from detecting devices. We are all used to seeing x-rays of our luggage in airports but to see the Colliseum ‘morphing’ into an articulated lorry brought many cultures and perceptions together.
These two installations in PICA show just what can be achieved in the post-war years. Sponsorship from commerce, development companies, foundations, commercial art, and trusts have enabled the establishment of an exciting venue. Perhaps one day in the future government will have the confidence and maturity to support contemporary art practice. But what would happen to ‘treasure-troving’ shows and their conservative venues if funding was instead used to support the creation of contemporary art? A respectful burial in a permanent museum perhaps.
Brian Kennedy is an artist and a CIRCA Contributing Editor.
