Urban Honking

Thursday, March 31

7:00pm 27 Installations @ YU

Panel Discussion:

“27 INSTALLATIONS”
Featuring Mary Beebe, Mel Katz, Tad Savinar, Paul Sutinen
Moderated by Lisa Radon

Thursday, March 31 – 7pm

YU is proud to host a discussion of the Portland Center for the Visual Arts (PCVA) and its role in fostering and nurturing a vibrant contemporary art scene in Portland for nearly two decades (1972-1987). Panelists will discuss the city of Portland’s role in the success of the PCVA and consider some of the archival documents to be featured in the YU exhibition Selections from the PCVA Archive , on view May 6 through summer, 2011. The panel will include Mary Beebe, PCVA director from 1972 to 1981, PCVA founding artist Mel Katz, Portland artists Tad Savinar and Paul Sutinen, and will be moderated by Lisa Radon, a Portland artist, writer, and editor who has done extensive research on the PCVA. The book “27 Installations,” published by the Oregon Art Institute, 1989, and out of print, is being re-printed and made available for purchase by the Dill Pickle Club and Publication Studios, with whom YU co-presents this evening.

PRESENTERS:
MARY BEEBE was Director of PCVA from 1972-1981. Since 1981, Beebe has been the Director of the Stuart Collection—a contemporary outdoor sculpture collection on the UCSD campus with works by Bruce Nauman, Kiki Smith, Robert Irwin, Jenny Holzer, and more. Beebe serves on numerous boards including the Board of Directors of Art Matters, Inc., New York, and the Art Board for the UCSF Mission Bay campus. She is currently working on a major work by Do Ho Suh for the Stuart Collection.
MEL KATZ was one of the three artists who founded PCVA and served on the Board for many years. Katz’s artistic production includes painting and sculpture, and he has completed several public art projects in Portland. Katz was Professor of Fine Art at Portland State University, before retiring to focus on his own practice in 1998. He is represented by the Laura Russo Gallery.

TAD SAVINAR was an exhibiting artist and Board Member of PCVA. As an artist, he has worked across media, served on numerous design teams, and has written five original stage plays. Savinar is included in the collections of the Portland Art Museum, Smithsonian Institute National Archives, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He is represented by PDX Contemporary Art.
PAUL SUTINEN was an exhibiting artist and Board Member of PCVA. He co-founded the Nine Gallery and The Art Gym at Marylhurst University where he is currently Co-Chair and Director of Art Programs in the Department of Art and Interior Design. Sutinen was the Willamette Week Art Critic from 1974 to1983.
LISA RADON has written essays, reviews and profiles that have been published in Drain, Oregon Humanities, Portland Monthly, Surface Design Journal, SHIFT, FLAUNT, Hyperallergic, art ltd., and elsewhere. She is founding editor of Ultra where she has been writing about design, art, dance, and performance in Portland since 2005. She is currently working on a book about PCVA.
Sliding scale: free – $10

The panel discussion “27 Installations” begins YU’s first series of projects that will include the exhibition Selections from the PCVA Archive, the opening of the YU library, and the launch of Veneer Magazine 08/18 on May 6.
Selections from the PCVA Archive will be the first-ever exhibition of archival documentation of key works by artists such as Trisha Brown, Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, Agnes Martin, Ed Ruscha, Sol LeWitt, and Daniel Buren, that were presented by the PCVA during its nearly two decades at the center of contemporary art in Portland. The exhibition will showcase artist ephemera such as sketches and letters, installation images, and press coverage, generously lent by the Portland Art Museum’s Crumpacker Family Library, which has housed the archive since 1988. In conjunction with the exhibition, film screenings including Richard Serra’s Railroad Turnbridge, 1976, music events, and public programs are happening this spring.

800 SE 10TH AVE
PORTLAND OREGON 97214
(503) 236-7996
www.yucontemporary.org