The traveling Flat Files exhibit, from the Brooklyn, NY gallery Pierogi 2000, is now showing at USM’s Gorham Art Gallery. Over 300 artists from around the world are featured. Owner of Pierogi 2000 and artist Joe Amrhein founded the exhibit, which has traveled around the country and through Europe. He started it to make artwork more accessible to a larger audience.
USM Gorham Art Gallery Director Carolyn Eyler decided to bring the Flat Files exhibit to USM because it allows local viewers to appreciate talents from all over the world, she said. While the exhibit originated in Brooklyn, many of the artists featured hail from elsewhere.
Among those artists featured in the files is USM alumna Astrid Bowlby. After curators at Gallery Joe in Philadelphia exhibited Bowlby’s work in their gallery, they encouraged her to show her work to Amrhein, who placed them in the exhibit. Another artist featured in the exhibit is John O’Connor, whose vivid graphite color pencil drawing “Earthquakes and Wars” is on display in Gorham.
Along with the Flat File portfolios on exhibit in the gallery are 20 short films available for viewing. Seventeen larger works of some of the same artists featured in the Flat Files are hung on the gallery walls.
When they were first exhibited in 1994, the Flat Files contained only a modest number of portfolios from 20 artists. Today they include works from more than 700 artists from all around the world, and formats ranging from photography to paintings and mixed media.
People going to the exhibit can expect an interactive experience. Not only are there portfolios of some 300 artists at your fingertips, but guests are also given the opportunity to go through the portfolios themselves. One wall of the gallery has been designated to hanging patron’s favorite works.
“The art is different from what we might find here in Maine,” Eyler said. “This is a great show for educational value. Students have access to many artists and not just what a particular curator chooses for to show students, which is based largely on his or her own tastes,”
The Flat Files will be on exhibit from Oct. 28 through Dec. 6 at the USM Gorham Art Gallery. Hours are Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m.
Erin Violette can be contacted at [email protected]