Catalogue for Shine a Light: A Night at the Museum.

Cover image: Ariana Jacob
Editors: Jen Delos Reyes & Lisa Ciccarello

Design/Layout: Matt Livengood
Edition of 1500

Download PDF here.

SHINE A LIGHT:
A NIGHT AT THE
MUSEUM
Jen Delos Reyes

Almost all borders are imagined. The line we have drawn between art and life is no exception. When the Portland Art Museum’s Education Department invited the PSU MFA Art and Social Practice concentration to work on an event that would have us creating projects and interventions in relation to their collection for one night at the museum, they stated that one of their reasons for inviting us was that they believed that the art we make has the ability to blur the boundary between the real world and the unreal experience people often have in museums. They prompted us to let people see that they could live with art—that the museum is alive. This collaboration is without a doubt an attempt to show audiences not accustomed to frequenting the museum that it is, in fact, a space they could comfortably occupy. As a group of individuals negotiating those borders, the artists involved in this project were, for the most part, outsiders. For many the involvement in this project marked the first time they had crossed the threshold of the Portland Art Museum, and even those who had attended the museum prior had noted that they had never felt as though they belonged there, even as artists. As our group went on our first walkthrough of the space to generate ideas, casual proposals were made that utilized the standard tropes and functioning of large institutions. After some more time spent in the museum idiosyncratic elements of the space became visible. We began to see things we never noticed before, from a sullen portrait of preteen boy to the radiantly colored auras of the sculptures in the courtyard. Soon we came up with ideas to fill almost every corner of the museum with music, story telling, games and art making. Even the museum’s plans for the evening’s entertainment and beverages became projects addressed by our group.

From our first visit to the museum I had a vision of myself walking through the museum’s contemporary art wing with a bucket of glitter with a small hole in its bottom. As I walked though the space I would leave behind me a sparkling trail. I saw this trace then being dispersed over the course of the night by all who came into contact with it, spreading tiny glittery pieces that would move throughout the entire museum and remain in the space long after the night was over, and also be transported back into the cars, homes and workplaces of the visitors. In a subtle and unassuming way these small traces of glitter would serve as a reminder of that night. For months into our collaboration with the Portland Art Museum I did not share this project idea with anyone. I did not see it as a fully considered piece yet at the same time I could not stop thinking about it. It seemed to me to be a cross between Francis Alÿs’ SOMETIMES DOING SOMETHING POETIC CAN BECOME POLITICAL AND SOMETIMES DOING SOMETHING POLITICAL CAN BECOME POETIC (2007) and Liam Gillick’s Dispersed Discussion Structure (2006). In Alÿs’ project, he carried a dripping can of green paint along the armistice boundary that Moshe Dayan marked on a map with green pencil after Israel’s War of Independence ended in 1948. The piece thereby made present a border that is very real but not physically visible. In Dispersed Discussion Structure Gillick painted a mixture of whiskey and glitter on to the floor of the Sculpture Center prior the opening of the show Grey Flags. He intended that throughout the course of the exhibition his work would be spread throughout the space, pushed forward by the viewers. It became clear to me that the connections to these projects about boundaries and the active role of an audience parallel many of the works created by the Art and Social Practice concentration for the Portland Art Museum.

One of the barriers that keep many people out of the museum is their admission fee. Many within our group felt that this was hindering new audience participation. Zach Springer has enlisted the aide of the Print Factory, a Kansas City based group that offers free print making workshops in public settings using home made portable printing presses, to address this issue. For one hour at the beginning of the evening they will offer a chance for fifty passers-by to print counterfeit tickets to the museum that will be accepted as valid admission for that night only.

While this action offers individuals free entrance to the museum, Jason Zimmerman’s project, Portland Silver, offers the opportunity for everyday items to enter the museum’s collection for one night. Working with the museums internationally acclaimed English silver collection, Zimmerman is providing a service where he silver-plates a small personal object given to him by visitors. These items, which could range from a piece of chewing gum to a crumpled note from a visitors pocket, will then be displayed alongside the silver collection.

In Constance Hockaday’s two part project A History and Pigment audience members can learn about a selection of paintings in the museum that have been created using pigments derived from natural and everyday sources as their base, as well as the pigments wider historical implications. There will be a guided tour that will visit the paintings Hockaday has selected, and the tour will culminate in a workshop where the audience will be able to make their own pigments and paints.

As Hockaday makes visible the use of natural and common-place materials in the museums painting collection, Harrell Fletcher and Varinthorn Christopher’s works each make a place for common and everyday life moments to be featured in the museum. In Museum Visitor Cell Phone Photograph’s a photo-printing station will be set up in the museum’s photography gallery. At the station Fletcher asks visitors if they would show him the photos that they have on their cell phones. A selection of these pictures will then be enlarged, framed and hung alongside the photographs in the permanent collection for the duration of the night’s events. For Groove Nation Break Dance, Varinthorn Christopher makes a space for a dance troupe to bring a routine that one would normally only encounter performed on the street into the museum. Both of these projects provide access to the Portland Art Museum not normally granted to these individuals and groups, while simultaneously elevating and placing value on the subjects the artists are highlighting.

In Hannah Jickling’s project, Score-O the idea of the museum as an unknown terrain is addressed in her collaboration with the Columbia River Orienteering Club. This project was conceived because in Jickling’s experience, even with the floor map provided by the museum and after repeated visits, she found the space confusing and difficult to negotiate. In conjunction with the museum staff and the group of orienteers, a topographical map of the museum was created. This map is offered to museum visitors as an alternative to assist them in finding their way around the museum. During the night, workshops will be offered on orienteering, a sport where participants attempt to navigate unfamiliar locations.

The unknown aspects of the museum are made more accessible by the contributions of Cyrus Smith, a former Portland Art Museum insider, who worked there for several years as a preparator. In a collaboration with Avalon Kalin, Smith taps into the museum security system to videotape a series of performances titled Stranger Moments, in which experiences that museum staff and visitors have had there are scripted and then re-enacted by a roving theater group comprised of museum staff, volunteers and amateur actors. These captured scenes are then piped into the museum auditorium through a live video feed and projected onto a big screen. The audience gains access simultaneously to the view captured by the security system as well as more personal views and experiences of the museum as acted out by the roving theater.

Further exploring personal experiences based in the museum, Katy Asher and Helen Reed collaborate with Doris Ennis, a key figure at the Portland Art Museum. Doris has been a volunteer at the Portland Art Museum for over 35 years. During most of her time at the museum she worked in the vaults, cataloging all of the works of art in the museum’s collection. Drawing on Doris’ extensive knowledge of the Portland Art Museum’s collection, Asher and Reed created a special tour of the museum which focuses on Doris’ favorite pieces, highlights and stories.

As Smith, Kalin, Reed and Asher’s projects give insight into the lives behind the scenes at Portland Art Museum, Helen Reed’s other contribution, Portrait of Erskine Wood, also examines a life housed within the museum. While walking through the Pacific Northwest collection she came across a portrait, an oil painting of a serious and melancholic looking preteen. The young boy in the painting is Erskine Wood, the son of author Charles Erskine Scott Wood. Reed, taken by his image, began to research the details of Erskine’s life, and created a project involving both his likeness and his personal history. At a children’s face painting area several artists will paint the faces of children so they look like Erskine Wood, completing the transformation by dressing the children in grey dickies to approximate the sweater worn by Erskine in the portrait. Once the participating children have been made up, they will be led on a group tour of the Pacific Northwest collection. This special “Erskine only” tour will lend an in-depth understanding of his life, as he was the son of a famous author, raised in a world of artists and writers, and also spent parts of his formative years living with Chief Joseph, a close friend of his father and a leader of the Nez Perce tribe.

While Reed focuses her attention on the Pacific Northwest collection, Sandy Sampson explores the museum’s collection of pieces created through the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Using a documentary about the works made through the WPA initiative as told by some of the people involved with the project and audience reactions to the works, and in conjunction with a board game she is creating based on Apples to Apples (a game about creating parallels and comparisons), Sampson draws attention to the similarities between the current economic climate and that of the depression, focusing on how a new social relationship to the production of art was created at that time.

In Ariana Jacob’s contribution, music has been brought into the galleries in an unexpected way. Jacob has commissioned musicians, including Mirah, Joe Preston of Thrones, and Khaela Maricich of The Blow, to write songs for artworks in the museums collection in order to explore what she describes as “musical conversations between humans and artworks.” Those songs are then serenaded to the selected pieces throughout the course of the evening.

In a collaboration between Laurel Kurtz, Avalon Kalin, local dowsers Mike Downey and Tom Lauerman, and vocalist Ashley Williams titled Auras and Music of Sculpture, a new light is literally shed on some of the works in the museum’s sculpture garden. Utilizing Downey and Lauerman’s experience they will dowse the sculptures in the courtyard to determine the colors of their auras and, in some cases, the musical tone the sculpture emanates. Once a sculpture’s aura has been identified, theatrical lighting and colored gels will be used to make visible the energy surrounding these sculptures that we might not otherwise see, and WIlliams will sing the corresponding musical tone of the sculptures. Throughout the night Downey and Lauerman will also be leading workshops on how to dowse works of art, sharing their skills and lending a new way of looking at art with the participants.

In Eric Steen’s collaboration with local breweries Laurelwood, Lompoc, and Lucky Lab, he is also able to offer another way for audiences to experience art—through drinking beer. Steen invited local brewmasters to tour the museum with him and select a work of art from the collection to respond to in the form of the creation of a new beer based on their interpretation of the work. These beers will then be served at the museum during the event, as well as in the pubs of the microbreweries along with information about the art that inspired them.

The projects created for Shine a Light: A Night at the Museum blur the boundaries between art and life and provide new access points for audiences: offering spaces for everyday moments to become part of the museum; applying unexpected disciplines to supply alternate ways of viewing art; bringing to the surface the lives and experiences of the people involved in the Portland Art Museum, whether it be the life of a boy in a painting or the personal curatorial selections of longtime museum volunteer. These projects offer new ways to experience the museum’s collection. My own project—a way of highlighting the works created for this event and to leave a trace of our presence there by compiling this catalogue—is similar to my original idea of trailing glitter throughout the Portland Art Museum. This publication will travel beyond its walls, making its way home with visitors. I hope that this publication and event—like the glitter that I envisioned spreading throughout the museum and into the lives of the audience—will similarly leave small traces in the institution and lives of the viewers that will serve as reminders that it is possible to see established institutions in a new light.

1 http://chelseaartgalleries.com/David+Zwirner/Francis+Al_FFs+2007.html

2 The portrait of Erskine held in the museum’s collection was painted by a friend of C.E.S as a gift.

3 The title of this essay—and subsequently the title of the event— is a reference to a song title and lyrics from the Canadian band Wolf Parade’s “Shine a Light,” not a reference to 1972 Rolling Stones song of the same name.