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The Portland Institute for Contemporary Art announced today that it will be leaving its Eliot neighborhood space at 15 NE Hancock St. at the end of October.
Founded in 1995, PICA is best known for its annual Time-Based Art Festival, which since 2003 has been the center of Portland’s more experimental performance art scene. But the organization hosts and collaborates on exhibitions and performances year-round, many of which it helps commission and fund. PICA’s current and final show in the Hancock space is Trisha Baga’s immersive, 3D video installation MORE, which runs through Oct. 24 (“‘Shot on iPhone,’” WW, Sept. 23).
PICA leaders made clear in a call with WW Monday that the move is not a bad omen.
“We’re not pausing anything,” said marketing and communications director Leslie Vigeant, adding that the nonprofit is on track to announce awardees of a $145,000 regranting campaign in December. PICA is also co-producing several projects with Boom Arts this winter, including the documentary theater piece La Vie Secrète des Vieux (“The Secret Life of Old People”), opening at Portland Center Stage in February.
Regarding the move, Vigeant says the organization is in negotiations to take over a new, slightly larger space (the current PICA HQ is about 16,000 square feet). A formal announcement of the new space is expected in the coming weeks. On the current timeline, it’s scheduled to open in the spring with a yet to be announced “major exhibition.”
Monday’s announcement thanked Allie Furlotti, local arts philanthropist and founder of the arts organization and gallery ILY2 (as in, “I Love You Too”), for making the current location possible for the past decade. Furlotti was formerly a PICA board member. Her Calligram Properties LLC owns the Hancock Street building.
PICA says its 10-year lease, a sweetheart deal that required some occupancy expenses, was up and that Furlotti is in the process of selling the building. Talks of the move began in May.
This summer, Furlotti’s gallery space in the Pearl, ILY2, pivoted to become the headquarters of the group’s youth programming, I♥️Youth2. ILY2’s New York gallery is still running.
“To be able to operate without paying regular rent or a mortgage for 10 years was a huge opportunity” says Betsey Brock, PICA’s development director and acting executive director. There is no similar benefactor in place for the next location. Brock calls it a “regular grown-up lease with rent and terms that have nothing to do with donations or a board member,” though she is quick to add that the move is not cause for any downsizing or staffing changes.
Longtime PICA followers will know that the organization has scrappy roots and has called many different locations home over the past few decades.
“PICA has a long, long history of moving,” Vigeant says.
“We’ve been in many buildings in many neighborhoods in the past 32 years,” Brock added.
The list of past PICA offices and galleries includes The Redd on Salmon Street, Washington High School, Bora Architecture, Wieden+Kennedy, the building that is now the Slabtown New Seasons, and “definitely more than that,” Vigeant and Brock say.
