511 Gallery
Apr 6 – Jun 3 // 2017
Costumes, Reverence, and Forms brings eight artists from two river cities together to show their work alongside each other – both in Portland and Philadelphia. It is the culmination of a year’s worth of curatorial exchange work involving two institutions and six curators – together we reviewed 180 artist’s websites, conducted 22 studio visits, and logged countless hours of communication and thought. This mixer broadened our knowledge of each other’s cities and artists and fostered new relationships and collaborations. However, the exhibition itself serves as a slice rather than a survey, a small fragment of the art scenes held within these two cities.
The eight artists selected for Costumes, Reverence, and Forms are creating work in a disparate manner, and yet, there are significant overlaps in their concerns and content, and in materials and modes. These areas of congruence become more refined and complex when considering smaller combinations of work; they allow us to develop linkages between the conditions of our society and culture. With over 40,000 permutations possible in grouping the works – the words: costumes, reverence, and forms are guiding principles in unlocking some potential meditations held within.
The project was co-organized by Mack McFarland and Ashley Gibson, Director and Assistant Director of the Center for Contemporary Art & Culture at the Pacific Northwest College of Art and a Vox Populi curatorial group consisting of Mark Stockton, Bree Pickering, Chad States, Matt Kalasky, Jay Muhlin, Julia Staples and Suzanne Seesman.