PNCA 2011 Faculty Biennial Exhibition

Release date: 10/31/11

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 26, 2011

Contact:

Lisa Radon | Communications Specialist
Pacific Northwest College of Art
lradon@pnce.edu 971 255 5528

Becca Biggs | Director of Communications
Pacific Northwest College of Art
bbiggs@pnca.edu 503 821 8892

PNCA 2011 Faculty Biennial Exhibition

Exhibition | 2011 Faculty Biennial
October 17, 2011 – November 27, 2011

First Thursday Reception
Thursday, November 3, 2011, 6 pm–8 pm

PACIFIC NORTHWEST COLLEGE OF ART, Swigert Commons
1241 NW Johnson Street, Portland, OR 97209

October 26, 2011 – PORTLAND, OR – The artists, designers and scholars who make up the faculty at Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) are among the nation’s most innovative thinkers and practitioners. The 2011 Faculty Biennial celebrates and showcases the rigor, invention and excellence of their creative explorations in a salon-style exhibition that highlights both the diversity and the shared nature of the PNCA faculty.

This year’s Faculty Biennial includes multiple pieces of work from fifty-nine PNCA faculty members. The salon-style organization of the exhibition takes advantage of the soaring ceilings of Swigert Commons at PNCA and is rooted in the rich tradition of the 19th century salons: the tightly hung arrangement of artwork places each piece in context. Like the early Paris Salons, the 2011 Faculty Biennial aims to foster serious conversation and critique about art and about the significance of choosing a life and career devoted to its creation.

“An art school is many things,” said Tom Manley in his introduction to the 2009 Faculty Biennial catalog. “It is a place for study and exploration, problem seeing and solving, contemplation and aesthetic action, careful observation and cultivation of craft; above all, it is a place where individual imagination and invention enliven the creative life of the greater community. For over 100 years, PNCA has been such a place largely because of the strength of its faculty.”

The quality of the artists and intellectuals who comprise the PNCA faculty today are a measure of the vibrancy and reach of the creative community they form with current and past students. It is their charge – and the College’s – to prepare the next generation of artists and designers for a life of sustained creative practice.

“It was an honor and a joy for us to have the task of pulling together the creations of our peers,” said Mack McFarland, a member of the 2011 Faculty Biennial Committee. “The excellence and diversity of this biennial further distinguishes PNCA as an institution bursting at the seams with the most gifted faculty and practicing artists in Portland. It’s an exciting exhibition, with a range of work in a plethora of approaches and media, completely discursive in form.”

The College’s faculty studio artists are featured in galleries, museums, exhibitions and leading collections such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Biennial, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and have won such fellowships and awards as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Princess Grace Foundation, recognition at Sundance Film Festival and medals from the Society of Illustrators. The design faculty is comprised of experienced professionals who bring knowledge and contemporary thinking from the cutting-edge business world. The faculty also includes a community of practicing scholars and writers whose publications and research actively shape the current understanding of art and design.

The exhibition will also be accompanied by a pamphlet and essay by artists and alums Anna Gray and Ryan Wilson Paulson ’08.

About Pacific Northwest College of Art
Since its founding in 1909, Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) has become a leader in innovative educational programs that connect students to a global perspective in the visual arts and design. In addition to its nine Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees, PNCA offers graduate education with an MFA in Visual Studies, a Low-Residency MFA in Visual Studies, an MA in Critical Theory and Creative Research, and an MFA in Collaborative Design, as well as an MFA in Applied Craft and Design developed in collaboration with the Oregon College of Art and Craft.

PNCA is actively involved in Portland’s cultural life through exhibitions and a vibrant public program of lectures and internationally recognized visiting artists, designers and creative thinkers. With the support of PNCA+FIVE (Ford Institute for Visual Education), the College has a partnership with the nationally acclaimed Museum of Contemporary Craft. For more information, visit www.pnca.edu.