Nora Robertson

Tom Marioni, Café Society, Breens Café-Museum of Conceptual Art, San Francisco, 1979 (from left, Howard Fried, Mary Hellman, her dog, David Ireland, others unknown); photographer unknown; Courtesy Tom Marioni; © Tom Marioni

New arts space YU Contemporary is sure starting out with a bang. I’ve heard reams about the impact of the Portland Center for the Visual Arts on the 70′s art scene in Portland. YU’s opening exhibit is a retrospective of the PCVA’s collection and features a new installation by San Francisco-based artist Tom Marioni.

Marioni has been a seminal figure in Conceptual Art since the 1960s, encompassing sculpture, drawing, experimental music, and performance. Marioni first presented The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art in 1970 at the Oakland Museum, CA., and continued the action as a weekly event in various incarnations held at the Museum of Conceptual Art, SF—Marioni’s art space for conceptual installation and performance pieces. Since 1973, he has held weekly gatherings of friends each Wednesday night at the bar in his own studio. According to the artist, this piece “comes out of my art school days of drinking beer with my friends. For more than 30 years I have been hosting a salon and artists’ club in my studio and galleries as an interactive installation that is site- specific, audience- participation, social sculpture”.

Tom Marioni, Café Society, 2009, Marioni studio, San Francisco; photographer unknown; Courtesy Tom Marioni; ©Tom Marioni

On Saturday, July 30 from 4-7pm, YU Contemporary will present Tom Marioni’s The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art as the closing event for its first Preview Project and on the final day of its inaugural exhibition Selections from the PCVA Archive (on view 12-7pm). YU becomes the latest institution to present this work, following presentations by Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo (CAAC), Seville, and UCLA’s Hammer Museum. The event marks the artist’s return to Portland nearly thirty-five years after having performed a piece titled Yellow Is The Color Of Intellect at the Portland Center for the Visual Arts (PCVA) in 1977.

Tom Marioni, The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art, 2011, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; photograph by Joshua White; Courtesy Tom Marioni; © Joshua White

Like in other museum presentations of The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art, Marioni will be in attendance and the empty beer bottles from private gatherings held at YU on three previous evenings will be displayed as part of the artist’s installation for the closing event. Marioni’s installation will include a bar, refrigerator, table and chairs, and the video, Golden Rectangle Beer. Accompanied by jazz music, the piece will be installed in YU’s garage, in what will be the future location of YU’s café following the repurposing of the Yale Union Laundry building.

Tickets are limited and available for advance purchase only at http://www.yucontemporary.org. Admission price is a sliding scale donation to YU at $5 and up. Guests must be 21 and older – valid ID must be presented at the door. Beer generously provided by Pacifico and Trumer Pils will be served by local artists bartending for the evening.