Rotating Exhibitions
KSMoCA hosts rotating exhibitions every academic year with work by nationally and internationally recognized contemporary artists. Each artist leads a workshop intensive with MLK Jr Students, where they make collaborative work through a process inspired by the artist’s practice. The artist’s original work, and the students’ resulting work is then exhibited in the main hallway of the school.
To view works in our permanent collection, click here.
Exhibition archive is organized by academic year.
2022-2023
Wendy Ewald with Dr. MLK Jr. School students and teachers
May 2023 - September 2023
For over 40 years, Wendy Ewald has worked on photography projects around the world with children, families, women, and teachers. At Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School she collaborated on three projects with students, teachers, and Portland State University students: Reading Pictures, Retratos y Sueños (Portraits and Dreams), a project inspired by her work with Maya, Ladino, and Tzotzil children living in Chiapas, Mexico, and The Best Part of Me. View Exhibition >>
2021-2022
Lucia Monge: Space Potato Academy
September 2021 - May 2022
On March 2020, Xin Liu and Lucia Monge launched 150 Peruvian potato seeds into space where they spent one month at the International Space Station. One year later, Lucia and a group of students from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School started training potatoes for a second journey, a speculative trip to the distant planet of Haumea. View Exhibition >>
2019-2020
Hank Willis Thomas: Freedom Ride
DECEMBER 5, 2019 - March 5, 2020
Hank Willis Thomas: Freedom Ride is an exhibition of works by Hank Willis Thomas, For Freedoms, and students at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School. The exhibition features two bodies of work— political advocacy button slogans and the For Freedoms Digital Quilt. View Exhibition >>
Addoley Dzegede: millefiori
MARCH 12, 2020 - September 2020
Addoley Dzegede: millefiori is an exhibition of works made by the artist and an exploration of patterns from glass beads used in the Atlantic Slave Trade. The exhibition includes works made in collaboration with Ms. Dekker’s 5th Grade students at Dr. MLK Jr. School. View Exhibition >>
Lauren Prado: COP OR DROP?
DECEMBER 5, 2019 - March 5, 2020
Lauren Prado’s exhibition, COP OR DROP?, is curated by members of the Student Curatorial Committee. The show includes larger than life needlepoint illustrations of shoes, made out of materials that are accessible to all. The illustrations speak to the role of products as idealized symbols of status, and the everyday persistence marketing in our technology-dependent lives. View Exhibition >>
The Imagine: a photography exhibition by MOE
MARCH 12, 2020 - September 2020
MOE’s exhibition, The Imagine, is curated by members of the Student Curatorial Committee. The exhibition includes a photography collage installation of photos the artist took in and around Dr. MLK Jr. School. View Exhibition >>
2018-2019
Wendy Red Star and Beatrice Red Star Fletcher — Apsáalooke: Children of the Large-Beaked Bird
Apsáalooke artist Wendy Red Star and her 11-year-old daughter Beatrice Red Star Fletcher collaborated with 1st and 4th grade class to present visual translations of their native language using sculptures, drawings and paintings. In this constructed world, Apsáalooke words are multidimensional, literal translations of animals, objects and concepts that illustrate an indigenous world view. View Exhibition >>
Arnold J. Kemp: Workshop
Workshop is an exhibition of new original works by Arnold J. Kemp. His exhibition at KSMoCA includes large masks made from aluminum foil and scanned drawing works by students in Ms. Moscy’s 3rd Grade who, following Kemp's lead, have been incorporating elements of chance and concentrated periods of observation to challenge notions about art. View Exhibition >>
mónica Mayer: Abrazos/Hugs/拥抱
Abrazos/Hugs/拥抱 is an exhibition of work by Mexican feminist artist and activist Mónica Mayer. Her exhibition at KSMoCA includes images and ephemera from two participatory artworks she has exhibited around the globe: El Tendedero/The Clothesline Project and Abrazos/Hugs. The exhibition includes artwork made by students in Ms. Jones’ 5th grade class, who participated in a hug-reinvention workshop with the artist. View Exhibition >>
2018-2019 Exhibitions curated by the KSMoCA Student Curatorial Committee in the MLK Jr Gallery
Jodie Cavalier: Belief
Belief is an exhibition of works by Jodie Cavalier in collaboration with the KSMoCA Student Curatorial Committee, Ana, Diana, Isaiah, Rocky, and Roz Crews. The works are part of a larger project on using traditional Mexican healing rituals as a form of storytelling and passing oral histories. The works in the this exhibition focus on the broom or brush as a medium to aid in removing fears, aliments, and negative energy from a person by lightly brushing the surface of their body. View Exhibition >>
Melanie Stevens: Grahpic INtervnetions
Graphic Interventions is a collection of excerpts of pages from the comics and stories of Melanie Stevens. Stevens uses sequential art to investigate narrative as a site of reflection or reinforcement of societal power structures and over determined norms, specifically the manner in which stories (both real and fictional) supposedly centering people of the African diaspora have a long history of appropriation and erasure. View Exhibition >>
FROM THE ARCHIVE
From The Archive is the inaugural exhibition of the MLK Jr. Gallery is a collection of various drawings, paintings, and collages found in the KSMoCA archives. View Exhibition >>
2017-2018
Byron Kim: Sunday Paintings
Sunday Paintings is an exhibition of small paintings of the sky that Byron Kim makes every Sunday. On the surface of these paintings, he writes a journal entry, just a few thoughts, a description of the weather or just something about his life or his family and friends. He has been doing this since January 9, 2001, so there are over 800 of these paintings. His exhibition at KSMoCA includes just the recent ones. The show includes work by two students from each grade level (K-8), who made Sunday paintings on a Thursday. View Exhibition >>
Samantha Wall: Inheritance
In Inheritance, artist Samantha Wall worked with images of the women in her family and positioned them as protagonists within a collective narrative. By weaving stories with elements from Korean tradition and Classical myth, the exhibition speaks from the artist’s experiences as a woman of color and immigrant. The show includes work by students in Ms. Jones’ 5th grade class who selected portraits of protagonists in their lives. In a workshop with Samantha Wall, students rendered these portraits through a similar process the artist used in her own work. View Exhibition >>
Ralph Pugay: Excursions
Excursions by Ralph Pugay features playful visual narratives that juxtapose cultural norms to perplexingly surreal and humorous effects. The exhibition includes 12 original works by the artist and a large scroll of Imaginary Islands made by by students in Mr. Caldwell’s 4th grade and Ms. McCarthy’s 3rd/4th grade classes during a workshop with the artist. Students were asked to imagine and illustrate the living beings and scenarios they would like to encounter on an island. Their drawings then rotated around the room for other students to complete. View Exhibition >>
2016-2017
Laylah Ali: Not Self Portraits
Not Self-Portraits is a collaborative exhibition featuring work by Laylah Ali and students from Mrs. McCarthy’s 4th grade and Ms. Johnson's 5th grade classes who participated in a workshop with the artist. Ali’s paintings explore relationships between race, gender, and social status influenced by personal experiences. Prior to the workshop, each student posed for photographic portraits expressing contrasting emotions. In the workshop, each student selected a photograph of a classmate to draw. View Exhibition >>
Chitra Ganesh: On Moonless Nights
On Moonless Nights features artwork by Brooklyn-based artist Chitra Ganesh. Her work is inspired by fairy tales, mythology, iconography, and comic books. The show includes original pieces by Ganesh as a well artwork created by Ms. Johnson's (5th) and Mr. Caldwell's (4th) classes, who participated in a workshop with Ganesh to create drawings of superheroes inspired by people in their everyday lives. View Exhibition >>
Carson Ellis: Intro to Galactic Alienology
Introduction to Galactic Alienology features work by Carson Ellis and her son Hank Meloy. The show is a collaboration between Ellis, PSU students and students at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School with work is inspired by interviews between Ellis and her son Hank. Exhibition includes works portraying Hank’s and MLK Jr. students' imagined alien creatures. View Exhibition >>
2015-2016
Our Civil Rights History, Revisited
Our Civil Rights History, Revisited is an exhibition of re-created historical photographs depicting some of the most pivotal images in the civil rights movement, both locally and nationally. PSU and 5th grade students at King discussed these images and events and restaged them. KSMoCA has the honor of revisiting and displaying these historic works. View Exhibition >>
Let’s Go Inside the Paper to Go Inside the Museum
Let’s Go Inside the Paper to Go Inside the Museum is a collaborative art project. Ms. Ellis’s 3rd grade class at King School in NE Portland, OR and Portland State University (PSU) Art and Social Practice students worked together to explore what a museum is and could be. Working in small groups, the third graders were prompted by the PSU students to imagine and illustrate their own museum ideas. The resulting designs were transformed into posters displayed at KSMoCA and in the surrounding community. Collectively, the students acted as artists and curators, creating work for both the school’s contemporary art museum and a neighborhood public art project. View Exhibition >>
Stephanie Syjuco: Not MoMA
not MoMA is a collaborative art project between Stephanie Syjuco, Ms. Ellis’s 3rd grade class and Ms. Asay’s 6th grade class, and PSU students. PSU and King students explored the online collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and decided to curate artworks for re-creation around the theme Shared Space. Working in small groups the third graders followed Syjuco’s written instructions to decide which works they wanted to make and shared their thoughts on why these works appealed to them. Collectively, the students acted as artists, curators, and docents to present notMoMA. View Exhibition >>
2014-2015
Magnum Photo Agency: Postcards from America
Postcards from America is an ongoing photographic experiment. Since 2011, the Postcards project has traveled to eight locations across the country. Nearly twenty Magnum Photo Agency photographers have been involved with the project. Portland is one of the last stops forPostcards from America and seven photographers have come here to document a wide variety of subjects in the city, including King School, in conjunction with PSU’s Art and Social Practice MFA Program.
KSMoCA’s inaugural exhibition features work selected by students at King School from all of the past Postcards locations and has been overseen by Magnum photographer Alec Soth and various PSU-related volunteers. View Exhibition >>