Portland Art Center

PAC was founded as a non-profit organization in September 2002, originally under the name, "Portland Center for the Advancement of Culture" (PCAC). The organization created alternative exhibition experiences for the burgeoning Portland arts community featuring large-scale, temporary exhibits housed in donated warehouse spaces. In short, the organization mounted several successful and critically acclaimed exhibitions. In October 2004, PAC leased gallery and office space in inner southeast Portland, with a second grant from the Morgan Foundation. We opened our gallery space on Southeast Belmont in March 2005 and launched several successful exhibits soon after, including a collaborative exhibit and performance project with the local theater company, Liminal. That project, "The Resurrectory", garnered critical claim and substantial public attention for both PAC and Liminal. In late 2005, PAC was invited to be the anchor tenant (at below-market rent) in a large building complex in the heart of Portland's Oldtown/Chinatown. This new facility provides 6,500 square-feet of gallery and project space for cutting edge, contemporary art. It is the city's largest exhibition space, second only to the Portland Art Museum. By remodeling the space in June 2006, PAC was able to expand its visual arts programming to include the Main Gallery, Light & Sound Gallery and the Open Space Community Gallery. The Visual Arts Program's mission is to provide flexible exhibition space, which maximizes artist creativity and facilitates discourse. It's a unique environment where local and national, emerging and established curators and artists are shown side- by -side. The Main Gallery exhibits contemporary art focusing on, but not limited to, installation and site-specific work. The exhibition programming includes the work of individual artists as well as guest curators. The Light & Sound Gallery is a space dedicated entirely to the exhibition of video and sound-art installations. Our intention is to create a space that introduces innovative new media to the public. The Open Space Community Gallery provides a home for a wide variety of exhibits and is available for temporary lease by academic institutions, arts organizations and individual artists. The curatorial committee and the artists' work together to provide public Artist Talks and performances that are in relation to the exhibition. Our exhibitions are a reflection of the contemporary art and curatorial discourse occurring regionally and worldwide.