Please join September Session Houseguest Resident Libby Werbel for an Artist Talk at Likewise Bar (3564 SE Hawthorne Blvd) prior to her activation of Pioneer Courthouse Square. Webel will discuss her work as a Houseguest artist and give audiences a look inside her site specific installation of Portland Museum of Modern Art (PMOMA). This September activation of Pioneer Courthouse Square is co-presented by Houseguest and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art as part of the Time-Based Art Festival. 

Werbel will install Portland Museum of Modern Art (PMOMA), a weekend-long, build-it-ourselves outdoor modern art museum. The installation will be on display Saturday & Sunday September 10th & 11th, 11:00am–7:00pm with a performance series on Saturday and Sunday starting at 1:00pm. 

Through PMOMA, Werbel orchestrates an exhibition in the heart of the city, inviting an impressive roster of visual and performance artists to engage with the space. PMOMA is an investigative project focused on the lack of major contemporary and modern art institutions within a growing metropolis. Werbel aims to draw a direct link between Portland’s lack of a contemporary art museum and the impressive output of the creative community. Does Portland’s quickly shifting economic demands endanger the cultural equity essential to maintaining the quality of any major city? Is it possible to have a museum without an established infrastructure to support it? What does a museum look like when fashioned through our ideal ethical processes? Werbel hopes to inspire dialogue around the notions of the ‘museum’ itself and larger institutional modalities for exhibition. Throughout the weekend of September 10–11, PMOMA partners with Houseguest and PICA to investigate these ideas in Pioneer Courthouse Square.

About Libby Werbel:

Libby Werbel is an artist, curator, and social organizer living and working in Portland, OR. In 2012, she founded the Portland Museum of Modern Art project to create and instigate art and dialogue serving both artists and audiences. With an emphasis on accessibility and engagement, Werbel makes site-based works using community as her medium. Her investigation in space-making has included alternative exhibitions models in Barcelona, San Francisco, New York City, Joshua Tree and Santa Fe. Werbel has received public and critical acclaim for her DIY organization methods and creative mobility within the PMOMA project.

About Houseguest: 

Houseguest is a new residency program hosted at Pioneer Courthouse Square (PCS), Portland, Oregon’s largest and most accessible public plaza. It’s an experiment in site-specificity, collaboration, and participatory public art. In 2016, Houseguest will host four artist residencies to engage the space, the public, and relevant Portland issues through participatory practices. Houseguest is made possible through the generous support of Oregon Community Foundation, The Miller Family Foundation, and Pioneer Courthouse Square, Inc.