Portia Munson

Munson received a BFA from Cooper Union School of Art in 1983 and earned an MFA from Mason Gross School of Art at Rutgers University in 1990. She also studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine in 1987.[2]

Munson first achieved notoriety with her work “Pink Project: Table” in the "Bad Girls" show at the New Museum, New York, in 1994. That piece, consisting of thousands of pink plastic found objects spread out on a table, also appeared in Munson's 1994 solo show at Yoshii Gallery in New York, along with sculptures comprising accumulations of pink objects encased in glass vitrines. Critic Amanda Boetzkes writes: "A key aspect of Munson’s practice is the reorganization of these objects according to new taxonomies, sometimes classifying according to size, shape, and shade, while at other times she resorts to haphazard gathering, mounding, and containing."[3] She goes on to explain that "Pink Project" "summarizes a hyperbolic femininity produced and mediated through the dissemination of products: girls’ dolls, baby pacifiers, hair accessories, mirrors, fake nails, cleaning products, and so on." Writing in the New York Times, Holland Cotter said, “Both assemblages generate a number of ideas, from how a culture infantilizes women and then markets that notion of femininity, to the way practically everyone shapes a sense of self through the accumulation of disposable things.”[4] “Pink Project: Table” was shown again in 2016 at the Frieze Art Fair, London.[5]

Pink Project Table (Detail)

Boetzkes further characterizes "Pink Projects" and another work, "Green Piece", as considering "the cultural significance of commodities through their accumulation and redistribution." She goes on to explain that in her view, Munson's work "can be taken as a protracted meditation on the materiality of plastic, as objects cycle from absurd commodity to meaningless thing to excessive substance." In "Green Piece," Boetzkes explains that "green politics is made explicit, as green is shown in the proliferation of objects needed to tend suburban lawns – fly swatters, lawn furniture, garden hoses, yard tools, AstroTurf, bug spray – alongside plastic cucumbers and artificial plants."[3]

Portia Munson's work has been the subject of over twenty solo exhibitions at P·P·O·W, New York, NY; White Columns, New York, NY; MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA; Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA; and Olana State Historic Site, Hudson, NY, among others. Munson’s work has also included in numerous international group exhibitions including, Still, Life! Mourning, Meaning, Mending, 21c Louisville, Louisville, KY; Cross Pollination: Heade, Cole, Church, and our Contemporary Moment, Olana State Historic Site, Hudson, NY; Dime-Store Alchemy, curated by Jonathan Rider, FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY; Beyond Boundaries: Feminine Forms, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Objectophilia; Biennial of the Americas, Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, CO; and Bad Girls, curated by Marcia Tucker, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY, among others.[6] In summer 2022, Munson presented three solo exhibitions, Bound Angel, P·P·O·W, New York, NY; Portia Munson: Flood, Art Omi, Ghent, NY; and Memento Mori, Pamela Salisbury Gallery, Hudson, NY. In 2023, her work will be included in Rituals of Devotion at the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, CA. Portia Munson: The Pink Bedroom is on view at the Museum of Sex, New York, NY, from January 27 - July 26, 2023.

Munson is the recipient of several notable fellowship / residencies, including ones at The MacDowell Colony in 1992, 1993, 1998, and 2020, Cill Rialaig in 2021, Civitella Ranieri in 2019, and Yaddo in 1999. [2] Munson was awarded a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2019. She has also been a visiting artist / lecturer at a number of prestigious institutions, including Yale School of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, The New Museum for Contemporary Art, Parsons School of Design, CAL Arts, and Massachusetts College of Art, among others.[2]

Munson’s public works include “Pink Projects” with the Art Production Fund, Rockefeller Center, New York, NY (2019);[7] “Art in the Terminal,” the Albany International Airport, Albany, NY;[8] MTA Arts for Transit, Bryant Park MTA Station, New York, NY. Munson was commissioned in 2012 by the Arts and Design program of New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority to create a permanent laminated glass display for the Fort Hamilton Parkway station, on the elevated portion of the West End (D train) line. Munson's artwork “Gardens of Fort Hamilton Parkway Station” consists of symmetrical arrangements of flowers, florets, petals and weeds from her own garden.[9]

Her work is in the collections of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; 21C International Contemporary Art Museum, Louisville, Ky., and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo.[10]

• 2023 “Portia Munson: The Pink Bedroom,” Museum of Sex, New York, NY
• 2022 “Bound Angel,” P·P·O·W, New York, NY
• 2022 “Memento Mori,” Pamela Salisbury Gallery, Hudson, NY
• 2022 “Portia Munson: Flood,” The Newmark Gallery at Art Omi, Ghent, NY
• 2021 “Memento Mori Mandalas,” Olana State Historic Site, Hudson, New York
• 2019 “Pink Projects,” Art Production Fund, Rockefeller Center, New York, New York
• 2018 “Her World/Her Room”, Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, California
• 2018 “Flood,” Disjecta, Portland, Oregon
• 2017 “The Garden,” PPOW Gallery, New York
• 2015 “Dear Mother Nature,” Mills Gallery, Central College, Pella, Iowa
• 2015 “Botanicals Below Bryant Park,” MTA Bryant Park Station, New York
• 2013 “Reflecting Pool,” PPOW Gallery, New York
• 2011 “Color Forms,” Mass MoCa, North Adams, Mass.
• 2010 “Portia Munson,” Liebowitz Gallery, Bard College at Simon's Rock, Great Barrington, Mass.
• 2007 “Green,” PPOW Gallery, New York
• 2005 “Flower Mandalas,” PPOW Gallery, New York
• 2001 “Green Piece: Lawn,” School House Center, Silas-Kenyon Gallery, Provincetown, Mass.
• 1996 “The Garden,” Yoshii Gallery, New York
• 1994 “Portia Munson,” Yoshii Gallery, New York
• 1994 “Bad Girls,” New Museum, New York[2]

• Official website