Exhibition Walkthrough
Bryan Barcena on Open House: Gala Porras-Kim

The second iteration of MOCA’s Open House exhibition series is Open House: Gala Porras-Kim. Porras-Kim explores the ways in which museums act as stewards of the art it owns. Her exhibition brings together a diverse set of artworks and ephemeral materials to shed light on the role the museum and its staff of curators, registrars, and conservators play in the life of the works in its permanent collection. To do so, Porras-Kim seeks out artworks that challenge the perception that a museum’s permanent collection consists of immutable objects frozen in time. Using artworks that are ephemeral, transitional, malleable, decaying, or even made to expire, Porras-Kim’s exhibition showcases the ways in which museums play an active role in the conservation, display methods, archiving, interpretation, and even the physical form of the works in its permanent collection.