MARVELS. presented Stephanie Syjuco’s notMoMA, an iterative work of social practice art created in collaboration with local high school students. notMoMA asks young artists to remake artworks from New York’s Museum of Modern Art collection. Their task is to study the work on MoMA’s website and reproduce it to the best of their ability with the resources available to them. With notMoMA, Syjuco asks questions about valuation, authorship, access and who is really at the center of the art world. 

What happens when young art students are tasked with refabricating famous artworks—works they have never seen in person? Do the auras of famous artworks still exist when remade by others?

This show aimed to bridge gaps in students’ understandings of “high art” by inviting them to access the works via their own uniquely crafted vision. Whether considered copies, translations, or even mis-translations, the resulting works are unique expressions in their own right. The works selected for this iteration of notMoMA came from the curatorial vision of three independent art spaces in Portland, UNA Gallery, Melanie Flood Projects and c3:initiative. Each received a prompt asking them what artworks they would like to see shown at the Portland Art Museum.

MARVELS. generated a truly community-built Modern Art Museum, with support and collaboration from: the students of Jefferson High School, Gresham High School and Reynolds High School; art educators Amy Hargrave, Katie Sullivan and Hoan Tran, Melanie Flood of Melanie Flood Projects; Mercedes Orozco of UNA Gallery; Shir Ly Grisanti of c3:initiative; Emily Fitzgerald and Erica Thomas of Works Progress Agency; Portland State University’s Art and Social Practice MFA program; artist Stephanie Syjuco.