1st Year Candidacy Review Schedule

Meyer Boardroom, URBN 710
10am-2pm on Friday, May 29th and Friday, June 5th
Presentations should be 20 minutes w/ 10 minutes for discussion

Friday, May 29th

Helen 10:00 – 10:30
Jason 10:30 – 11:00
Ralph 11:00 – 11:30
LUNCH 11:30 – 12:30
Zach 12:30 – 1:00
Lori 1:00 – 1:30
Hannah 1:30 – 2:00


Friday, June 5th

Motoya 10:00 – 10:30
Ryan and Anna 10:30 – 11:00
Ariana 11:00 – 11:30
LUNCH 11:30 – 12:30
Miles 12:30 – 1:00
Michelle 1:00 – 1:30
Connie 1:30 – 2:00

Frances Stark (and Arlo) Come to PMMNLS

MFA Dates & Deadlines

Year 2:
March 12 - GO-12 forms with MFA Adviser signature due in Art Dept Office
March 13 - Social Practice MFA Graduate Project Proposals due
March 13 - Draft one-pager pdfs for Disjecta Catalog
March 30 - Disjecta Meeting 5-6 pm
April 3 - Final one-pager pdf for Disjecta Catalog
April 3 - GO-12 forms with Dept. Chair signature to Office of Grad Studies
April 3 - Appl for Degree form due in Office of Grad Studies (for Spring grad)

MFA Graduate Project/Exhibition Schedule & Disjecta Exhbition/Catalog/PR Schedule: see Patrick Rock’s Gallery Schedule

Year 1:
April 10 - Laurels Tuition Remission Award deadline

May 29th & June 5th - Candidacy Reviews 

PNCA/PSU Critique Exchange

It worked! The first session of the critique exchanges between two Portland MFA Programs was excellent! Ruth, Zach and Mindy came over from PNCA and Ralph, Laurel and I all got to talk with everybody about current work and concerns, etc. I'm really looking forward to more of these!

We want Julie Ault to move to Portland for good

My words will have to stand in for the pictures I didn't take while Julie Ault was here. 
(Even though there was plenty opportunity)

Ryan and I ended up spending a bit of time with Julie everyday this week; besides seeing her lecture and having studio visits, we took her for a walk in the gorge, to our favorite deli, and to a glassblowing class that she had signed up for out on 82nd St. Her lecture on Monday was extremely rich with reflection on her work with Group Material in the 80's and 90's. Reading from original GM documents, she illuminated the working methods and the changes within the group over its 17 year life-span.  At the end she talked a bit about her recent installation work and her current publication and curating projects. Its amazing to see such a long career from its roots. The influence of Group Material's methods and aesthetics is clear, not only in Julie's solo work, but also in the work of so many other artists and curators working today. She also shared a bit with us about her current PhD work and the endeavor of trying to archive and historicize the work of Group Material.

Oh, and she gave Ryan and I some great book recommendations.

At one point during our studio visit she picked up our copy of Felix Gonzalez Torres, the monograph which she edited/created saying, "Oh its nice to see a copy so dirty. That's great." (It had been water damaged in the fire.)  She balances this kind of optimism with a really critical mind, I like that. 

New Applicant Reviews Feb. 15 and Feb. 22; Interviews

MFA Faculty and current students will review the portfolios and materials of applicants for 2009-11 on Sunday, February 15 in AB 200, beginning at 9 a.m. We will continue through the day until we arrive at a short list.

During the next week Social Practice and Studio Practice students are asked to organize and conduct interviews (in-person for locals, phone for out-of-state) with the short-listed applicants. (Pat has a list of the questions the Studio Practice students devised last year; Harrell or one of the second-year Social Practice students may have the ones they used. Current students may want to draft new questions.)

On Sunday, February 22, 10 a.m., we will meet at Shattuck Annex to discuss the interviews and compile our final acceptance list and wait list.

Though the process may not take as long as it did last year, it can be a long day. Let's plan on bringing something for a potluck brunch.

Please contact Pat if you have any questions.

PSU, Otis, and CCA at SFMoMA

SFMoMa invited Ted Purves (CCA), Susanne Lacey (Otis) and Harrell Fletcher (PSU) to speak on a panel to mark the closing of the exhibition: The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now.
In true Social/Public Practice fashion, they turned it over their students, both to shape and to people the panels. The three panel topics were: Responsiblity, moderated by Ted Purves, Consensus and Decent, moderated by Jen Delos Reyes, and Proffesional and Amateur, moderated by Randal Stott. With a couple of exceptions all students sat on a panel.
Pictured above are Cyrus, from PSU, Paige from Otis, and Brin from CCA participating on the panel Professional and Amateur. Panel participants met up before hand to discuss and frame our panel topics in person, following up on recent email exchanges. There was a great deal of lively conversation and passionate involvement between students before, during and after the panel discussions.

Michael Brophy Lecture!

Thank You Michael for coming to PSU and giving a lecture + more!
In the above photos we see the MFA post lecture talk with Michael sitting in the low chair, then a packed annex of lecture-watchers, and a photo of Bethany Hays reading to us at dinner!

Social Practice Symposium in Victoria, Canada

A group of the Social Practice MFA students will be presenting our program and our work at the Assume Nothing Symposium. We will also be attending the opening of Harrell Fletcher's play The Responsibility Is Shared By All The People Here.

Lucky Dragons Lecture and Visit

We were happy [lucky] to have the art group Lucky Dragons lecture at PSU and visit the MFA program through studio visits and a dinner conversation. Check out the Lucky Dragons website.

Thanks to Lori (and Eric) (and Incoming Anna)

We owe Lori Gilbert a round of applause for her great work as MFA program assistant last term. She ably and creatively filled the considerable shoes of the previous MFA-PA Eric Steen (who was never properly blog-thanked himself for his awesome assistance last spring) and, like Eric, was somehow able to coherently interpret my rambling requests for assistance. Next up is Anna Gray, who, as you know, is already organizing the Vancouver trip and preparing for our new applicant reviews coming up next month (watch for the date).

Welcome Back and Heads Up!

Welcome back after one the of the weirdest breaks ever, weather-wise. To get oriented, we will have an informational meeting for first-year students on Monday, Jan. 5 at noon in AB 135. The talk will be about registration issues and the mid-term reviews scheduled for Jan 9 and 16 (schedule below).

Winter Term Reviews
15 min powerpoint presentation (no websites or blogs!); 15 min discussion
attendance mandatory for all MFA students; location TBA

Friday, January 9
10:00 Helen
10:30 Ryan
11:00 Hannah
11:30-12:30 lunch
12:30 Zach
1:00 Anna
1:30 Lori
2:00 session end

Friday, January 16
10:00 Motoya
10:30 Ariana
11:00 Jason
11:30-12:30 lunch
12:30 Miles
1:00 Connie
1:30 Ralph
2:00 session end

HAMZA WALKER LECTURE AT PSU, Monday Dec 1st

Since 1994, Hamza Walker has served as Director of Education/Associate Curator for The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago - a non-collecting museum devoted to contemporary art. His most recent group exhibitions include

Black Is, Black Ain’t, 2008
Meanwhile in Baghdad…, 2008
All the Pretty Corpses, 2005
The Here and Now, 2005
A Perfect Union…more or less, 2004
New Video, New Europe: A Survey of East European Video, 2004

Monographic exhibitions include

Katerina Seda: It Doesn’t Matter, 2008
Katharina Grosse: Atoms Inside Balloons, 2007
Scott Short: A Survey, 2007
Mai-Thu Perret, 2006
Peter Welz, 2005

He was the recipient of the 1999 Norton Curatorial Grant and the 2005 Walter Hopps Award for curatorial achievement. In addition to serving on numerous panels and juries in Europe and the United States, he has written for numerous catalogues, magazines and journals such as Artforum and Parkett.

Stephanie Smith Lecture at PSU, Monday Nov 17th

Stephanie Smith is Director of Collections and Exhibitions and Curator of Contemporary Art at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art. We had a great Question and Answer session with Smith after the lecture.

Smith’s traveling exhibit, Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art, is currently in the Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art until December 7th. The gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11-4 PM at Lewis and Clark College where parking is free!

Adaption, conceived and organized by Smith, is at the Henry Art Gallery's Stroum Gallery in Seattle, WA, November 22, 2008 – March 22, 2009.

Portland in the desert!
A group of 7 MFA students and 1 professor drove down to Joshua Tree for the High Desert Test Sites. Andrea Zittel is a founder of this project, and through meeting her when she gave a lecture here at the beginning of the term, she invited us to come down, see the art and camp on her land for the weekend! More photos of this trip to come on PSU's art deptartment flickr page