See You Again
2015
Caucus-vote museum acquisition project
Presented at the Portland Art Museum in Portland, OR
Collaboration with Erin Charpentier, Roz Crews, Emily Fitzgerald, Harrell Fletcher, Derek Hamm, Renee Sills, and Arianna Warner
Can the act of selecting, purchasing, and donating a work to a museum’s permanent collection become an artwork in and of itself?
The Art and Social Practice MFA program at Portland State University was invited to present a project for Shine-A-Light, the Portland Art Museum's ongoing socially-engaged programming. We presented See You Again, a dinner and cocktail hour hosted in the PAM's ballroom where members of the public voted for the first non-object artwork to be proposed to PAM's permanent collection.
Can museums use democratic decision making to aquire new artworks?
Utilizing the form of short but passionate political speeches, we presented to the public six specific artworks from six international socially-engaged artists. Artists considered were Ariana Jacob, Paul Ramirez Jonas, Ben Kinmont, Carmen Papalia, Pedro Reyes, and Stephanie Syjuco. After a stirring debate, the public used caucus-style (running to a banner representing their favorite artwork) voting to select and champion their favorite work of art.
At the end of the evening, Stephanie Syjuco's notMoMA was chosen by the audience to be proposed for permanent collection to the
Portland Art Museum. We purchased the artwork and offered it as a donation to Portland Art Museum, who accepted it for aquisition. The work, and the story of how the work was aquired, now lives in PAM’s permanent collection. The work was activated by the museum in 2018.
Graphic credit: Derek Hamm
After the work was purchased by the PSU Art and Social Practice MFA Program,the work was donated, in the form of written instructions, to the museum later that year.
