Wednesday, March 30, 2011

March 31 Yu Who Re Print

This is a unique mash up.

The Dill Pickle Club, arts activists and historians, have produced a reprint monograph chronicling select exhibitions once upon a time of Portland's Portland Center for Visual Art - PCVA. The book was printed by Publication Studio. And they are presenting their book at Yu, a space which would become the new PCVA. Finally Lisa Radon, who is working on a book about PCVA moderates a discussion by Mary Beebe, Mel Katz, Tad Savinar and Paul Sutinen who were founders, board members or staff of old PCVA.

PCVA operated in Portland from 1972-1988 and hosted hundreds of installations and performances, many more than those chronicled in the book. Apparently it was a heady time, in which New York art movements got a purchase nationally, and internationally. Part of that would be support by the government in the form of grants including the National Endowment for the Arts. Pressures from social conservatives caused funding of free wheeling artists and projects to be derailed in favor of grants to state arts commissions. Today funding is on the down cycle again. Meanwhile PCVA was considered "too legit" to receive NEA "alternative space" grants. Other failure modes for PCVA were galleries blocking their artists' participation in Portland because there would be no sales.

Interestingly, the rise of PICA, from 1995, was based on not taking public funds. PICA had roots in the Portland Art Museum, which established a more conservative art direction about the same time, leading to PICA's break away.

Yu, with a vast multifunctional space, is looking to create anew an international art center, rekindling the PCVA energy of the time, and more.

At Yu www.yucontemporary.org dillpickleclub.com/events www.publicationstudio.biz 7PM $0-10