portiamunson

“Big Skirt,” found figurines, string, rope, lamp. 40 x 26 × 23 ins. 2024

“Pink Moon” -found female figurines, string, rope and thread, 18 x 18 x 7 inches, 2024 A wall sculpture made up of bound female figurines.
@ppowgallery Art Basel booth F16

In her article for @hyperallergic discussing this year’s @artbasel Miami Beach, @valentina.diliscia writes “Monumentality is the guiding principle of the Meridians section at Art Basel Miami Beach, and on opening day, December 4, onlookers stood in strangely quiet reverence around @portiamunson’s ‘Bound Angel’ (2021) — an installation that I can confirm is not only big but also good.”   Munson tells Miliska, “‘I was thinking about the kinds of messages that are given to us through these seemingly innocent objects that are pervasive throughout the culture, but almost hidden in plain sight,’” Continuing, “’They’re actually somewhat instructional, in a negative way, about who you’re supposed to be as a woman — beautiful angels, young, white, saintly, but also sexy,’ she added. It’s an especially resonant message at a political moment when “we are stepping backward in time” with regard to women’s rights.”   Read the full review at hyperallergic.com and don’t miss #PortiaMunson’s #BoundAngel on view at #ArtBaselMiamiBeach #Meridians, Booth M4, through this Sunday, December 8. @ppowgallery

“Crescent”

Repost from @ppowgallery • “From a vast accumulation of found and readymade consumer products, Portia Munson has created elaborate sculptures and installations for more than three decades that explore the thinly veiled messages and codes embedded in mass-produced objects,” writes @katemothes for @colossal in anticipation of #PortiaMunson’s presentation of #BoundAngel at @artbasel Miami Beach Meridians.   In a statement on the large-scale installation, Munson states “‘Bound Angel’ reviles the insatiable, consumerist, sexist, and repressive value systems which degrade society. By bringing these objects together, this piece harnesses their collective power, transforming their original function to pacify, sexualize, and infantilize women into one of retaliation, confrontation, and strength.”   Read the full article at thisiscolossal.com, and find us at #ArtBaselMiamiBeach #Meridians, Booth M4, December 4 through 8.   📷: Portia Munson, “Serving Tray #6” (2022), found figurines, string, rope, and serving tray, 29 x 17 1/2 x 18 inches. Photo by JSP Art Photography.

@freedaelectra dancing in “The Garden” which is part of “Still, Life! Mourning, Meaning, Mending” @21clex Kentucky Curated by @alicegraystites • With appreciation for the big picture vision of @steveredglasses The exhibition will be on view in Lexington KY for about a year. @21chotels “The Garden,” 1996-2019 Mixed media room-size installation Created over twenty-plus years, “The Garden elucidates connections between hostility to feminism and the continued destruction of our environment. A claustrophobic den of beautiful refuse, the installation amplifies capitalism’s vision of bourgeois femininity, where the act of acquiring to meet societal standards fuels the momentum of hyper-consumption and climate crisis. The Garden proposes that disrespect for the environment runs parallel to disregard for women, inviting viewers to meditate on the irony of manufacturing a regressive notion of beauty while simultaneously annihilating our natural world.” Portia Munson’s site-specific installation, The Garden, envelopes the viewer in a kaleidoscope of floral dresses, furnishings, stuffed animals, fake flowers, and other objects of artifice. Baskets filled with flowers, dressing tables laid with the accoutrements of femininity, a repurposed church announcement sign full of bunnies, a decorated KY Derby hat, and lamps fashioned from dolls, are among the thousands of details, and suggest an atmosphere both fanciful and funerary. This is a woman’s bedroom, envisioned as a fantastical memorial to excess, a shrine-like site at once mournful, celebratory, and disquieting.” 📸 @leslieawade Music @la_femme__musique #vagues

Repost from @ppowgallery • We are pleased to announce @portiamunson’s upcoming presentation of “Bound Angel” for the Meridians sector of @artbasel Miami Beach 2024.    “Her ‘Bound Angel’ series was born out of work Munson created in Portland for her ‘Flood’ installations (at Oregon Contempory),” writes Colony Little for #ArtBasel. “While searching for objects, she noticed numerous discarded porcelain angels rendered into lamps and other household decor. ‘To me they had a very suffocating, instructional aspect to them,’ she says, referring to the virtues of chastity and morality encoded within the items designed to narrowly define beauty and acceptance. ‘They were Caucasian, young, “pretty”... there was something about them that seemed sinister, as if they represented the ideal.’ Munson was particularly drawn to the electrical cords winding around the base of the lamps and mimicked that sense of constriction in a series of tabletop installations that combined figurines with objects bound together with string and rope.”    Continuing, “It features a large table covered with a tablecloth made from wedding gowns and topped with the trussed torso of a mannequin surrounded by a series of smaller bound assemblages that symbolize the relationship between the female psyche and its external influences. ‘She’s filled with all of this information, and these constraints that we start accumulating in our unconscious,’ the artist says of the work. Within this tableau are items intentionally bound together to mimic polarized, outmoded, and damaging perceptions of femininity, the most legible being the Madonna-Whore complex. The presence of these objects also implicates the viewer, tying them to the subconscious coding they continue to receive – and reinforce through the items they choose to hold close.”    Read the full article at artbasel.com and keep an eye out for #PPOW’s presentation at #ABMB #Meridians next month.

PLASTICULTURE: The Rise of Sustainable Practices with Polymers • SVA CHELSEA GALLERY Starrett-Lehigh Building, 601 West 26th Street, 15th floor, New York, NY 10001 • OPENING RECEPTION: Wednesday, Oct 30. 6:00 – 8:00 pm October 26 – December 7, 2024 • Thrilled to have two works included in this exhibition “Blue Vanity” and “today will be AWSOME” • SVA Gallery presents “Plasticulture: The Rise of Sustainable Practices with Polymers,” an exhibition of works by 15 artists from Project Vortex, an artist collective innovating with plastic debris, and curated by founding artist Aurora Robson. By combining artistic expression with scientific exploration, “Plasticulture” aspires to encourage individuals and communities to embrace more sustainable practices and play a part in fostering a healthier planet. Operating at the intersection of art and science, the 45 works in “Plasticulture” inspire a rethinking and reinvention of plastic debris. Exhibiting artists include Leticia Bajuyo, Tom Deininger, Ellen Driscoll, Alejandro Durán, Natalya Khorover, Niki Lederer, Pam Longobardi, Kristyna and Marek Milde, Portia Munson, Bryan Northup, Studio KCA, Ian Trask, Tyrome Tripoli, and Benjamin Von Wong. As members of the Project Vortex Collective, their work supports and contributes to efforts to reduce the influx of plastic waste in the environment. Comprised of artists, designers, and architects around the globe who are actively intercepting the plastic waste stream as part of our independent practices, the collective is a constantly expanding network. Please RSVP here for the opening reception on Wednesday, October 30, 6-8 pm.

10 Art Shows to See in Upstate New York This November ……the fetish-meets-fun of a doll exhibition….. Dolls have a sentimental (and strange) place in modern and contemporary art, with artists from Hans Bellmer to Cindy Sherman toying with them in their work. Curated by @eva_melas , Portia Munson, and @carriskoczek , The Doll Show at Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild is an all-out celebration of dolls, from whimsical and stylish to quirky and questionable. Featuring artworks by 44 artists working in a wide range of media, from papier mâché and cardboard to painting and photography, the exhibition is both endearing and eerie. The happier of these works include Lia Zulalian-Moynihan’s ceramic “The Bride” (2002-22), who stands confidently upright with a compassionate vision of Jesus on the front of her flowered corset, and @kathyruttenberg ceramic “Intuition” (2005), who smiles sweetly in a blue dress and boots while carrying a mouse in a cage atop a fallen branch. Other visions are less candied in appearance, such as @emilyblairquinn oil-on-canvas “Biting Back” (2022), which features a melting doll head, and @corinnebotz photograph “Dark Bathroom” (2004), which features a clothed doll thrown carelessly into a sink while water pours into her face. “The Dollhouse, Alabama (1972)” by Ellenora Cage, in which two older gals dressed in blue and pink nightgowns smoke cigarettes in a country-style cabin laden with dolls, is a slightly depressing yet captivating vision of how the toy endures as personal playthings, no matter our age. The Doll Show also includes a dedicated wall of hundreds of dolls from the curators’ private collections — a vision of fetish meets fun. Thank you @taliesinthomas and @hyperallergic

Memories of two mind blowing place visited while in Italy October 2019 @civitellaranieri lead by @danaprescott2018 first @lascarzuola one persons surrealist mini city and Bomarzo @parco.dei.mostri the sacred wood /park of Monsters!!

Thank you Fountainhead! • Repost from @ppowgallery • Congratulations to @portiamunson for being selected for a 2025 @fountainheadarts Residency. This residency was awarded to 21 contemporary artists working across media and around the world. This year’s applications were selected by a panel of curators and program alum working across the nation, which included @jjjcccdiaz, the Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art at the Seattle Art Museum; @naimajoy, Vice President of Education and Public Programs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; @joaquinseguranet, a visual artist, Fountainhead alum and founding member of SOMA Arts; and @giardeniera, a senior curator of contemporary art at the Norton Museum of Art. @artbasel recently announced #PortiaMunson’s inclusion in the upcoming edition of #ArtBaselMiamiBeach’s Meridians, the fair’s trademark sector for monumental works.

“The Doll Show” opens Sunday 3-5 at Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild 34 Tinker Street, Woodstock NY October 13th - November 24th The Doll Show explores the dual nature of dolls - both eerie and endearing. The exhibition draws inspiration from a broad range of doll representations, including beloved figures like Raggedy Ann and Andy, Chatty Cathy and Barbie, as well as culturally significant ones such as folk art dolls, Mexican paper mache figures, Haitian voodoo dolls, and dolls in traditional costumes representing different cultures. Dolls can embody fairy tales, personal memories, and cultural narratives…… Included in The Doll Show, are dolls from the personal collections of the curators, arranged together on a large wall. The Doll Show features the work of 44 artists. Including; #VivianBaumann, @corinnebotz #KatherineBurger #DinaBursztyn, @russellbusch #EllenoraCage, @susancarr88 #RaniCarson, #JuliaChase @evdayartist #GretaFernDonahue, #MonaFrance, #EsmeGrail, #KaraGrail, #YonadavGreenberg @s.greuel.ny @freedaelectra #MarciaHillis, #ScottKeidong, @tinekindermann #mariaLevitsky, #AlexandraLimpert, @robynlove_art @bonnielucasartist @maevethemccool #JoAnneMcFarland, #PortiaMunson, #LeeMusselman, #SylviaNetzer, @bradleybumblebee @tiguerly22 Jean-GuerlyPetion, @emilyblairquinn #BetseyRegan, @GeovaRodrigues, @KathyRuttenberg, @LourdesSanchez, @CarriSkoczek @lauriesteelink @MelissaStern, #LoriTaschler @GinnaTriplett @regituzzo @beckunderwood & Lia Zulalian-Moynihan. Curated by @eva_melas @carriskoczek & @portiamunson