Richard Deacon Installation at Portland Art Museum

Saturday, 29 December 2007 23:44

Portland, OR – On January 26, the Portland Art Museum will present a new monumental sculpture by internationally celebrated British artist Richard Deacon. This will be the latest installation in the Museum’s ongoing series of international contemporary art exhibitions, supported in part by the Miller Meigs Endowment for the Contemporary Arts. On exhibition January 26 – June 1, 2008.

Dominating the fourth floor gallery space, Dead Leg (2007) stands nine feet high and spans some 28 feet. Constructed from twisted, square strips of oak joined end-to-end with stainless steel, the opposing natures of the materials – organic versus man-made– are united in their strength and re-formed into an abstract and gracefully dynamic structure. Complex and linear, Dead Leg, as a three-dimensional drawing in space; will fold, wind, and stretch across the gallery transforming the environment by its presence. Both playful and serious in spirit, Dead Leg redefines sculpture not as weighty mass, but as silhouette that simultaneously defines volume and explores space as a flowing line. The exhibition will also include an earlier sculpture by Deacon, Nothing is Forbidden.

Since graduating from Chelsea College of Art in 1978, Deacon has enjoyed success and international acclaim as a sculptor. Recipient of the Turner Prize in 1987, Deacon’s work has been featured internationally in exhibitions, including the Carnegie Biennial, Documenta, and The Venice Biennale. In 1997 Deacon was made a “Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres” by the Ministry of Culture in France. Deacon was elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1998 and a year later was honored as a Commander of the British Empire. He lives and works in London, but also divides his time between Paris, where he teaches at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, and Cologne, Germany.

This is the ninth installation in the Miller Meigs contemporary art series organized by Bruce Guenther, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. This series of exhibitions celebrates new ideas, artists, and mediums. Since 2005, the series has featured the works of Sophie Calle, Roxy Paine, Richard Rezac, Pierre Huyghe, Damien Hirst, Kehinde Wiley, Ursula von Rydingsvard, and now Richard Deacon. A Special Lecture with Artist Richard Deacon - February 8, 6 pm

About the Portland Art Museum

The seventh oldest museum in the United States, and the oldest on the West Coast, the Portland Art Museum is internationally recognized for its permanent collection and ambitious special exhibitions drawn from the Museum’s holdings and the world’s finest public and private collections. The Museum’s collection of 42,000 objects, displayed in 112,000 square feet of galleries, reflects the history of art from ancient times to today. With a membership of 23,000 households and serving more than 350,000 visitors annually, the Museum is a premier venue for education in the visual arts. For information on exhibitions and programs, call 503.226.2811 or visit www.portlandartmuseum.org .