Only a few weeks remain to visit the Museum of Contemporary Craft (MoCC) before it closes on April 23. Not surprisingly, it feels like a funeral in there, with the monochrome solemnity of the current Rowland Ricketts show, and the Gallery Store’s contents packed up, as museum staff return items to the artists.
When I moved to Oregon in 2007, MoCC was one of my first stops when I visited Portland, one of my first lively encounters with the art and culture of the city. Visiting the museum this month felt like the end of an era.
On February 3, Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) announced that MoCC would be closing its doors this year, and its portion of the DeSoto Building sold. The museum’s programming and collection will be partly incorporated into PNCA’s new Center for Contemporary Art and Culture, run by Mack McFarland, director of PNCA’s exhibitions program. Some of the work will be shown at the new center, some as part of PNCA’s Object Study Lab, and some will be kept in storage. The collection will be stored by Fine Art Services (other institutions will have the opportunity to borrow from it). The first exhibition involving the collection will open May 5.