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Portland, Maine -- On Saturday, September 11 from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., the Portland Museum of Art’s front patio will be the launch site for artist Andrea Zittel’s new project the Group Formerly Known as Smockshop (GFKAS), as part of SPACE Gallery’s outdoor art and music Block Party on Congress Street. Sponsored by the Quimby Colony, GFKAS members will be creating and selling products made out of rectangular-shaped fabrics on the Museum’s front patio. GFKAS is an artistic enterprise that generates income for artists whose work is either non-commercial, or not yet self sustaining and includes artists from Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Berlin, Ghana, and South Portland. The Museum will be open extended hours until 9 p.m.

Andrea Zittel’s work is internationally recognized, exploring all aspects of day-to-day living. Clothing, food, and furniture all become the sites of investigation in an ongoing endeavor to better understand human nature and the social construction of needs. The GFKAS project succeeds smockshop, a similar endeavor in which artists produced more than 300 simple garments, as reinterpretations of Zittel’s designs.

GFKAS products begin with a simple rectangular product or “panel” in which each artist then interprets according to their own skills, interests, and special talents. These rectangular designs, which include garments, accessories, household items, and printed projects, all have the capacity to contract and expand, morphing from single surfaces to fully functional objects.

The GFKAS project launch in Portland is made possible by the collaboration of SPACE gallery, Portland Museum of Art, and the Quimby Colony, a new nonprofit urban artist residency program. The Quimby Colony is sponsoring the GFKAS artists and will be hosting them at their artist residency building on Congress Street.

Artist Andrea Zittel trained at San Diego State University and Rhode Island School of Design. Recent solo exhibitions include Galleria Massimo De Carlo, Milan, Italy; Sadie Coles HQ, London, England; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, New York; and Schaulager, Basel.

For more information on GFKAS, visit www.formerlyknownas.smockshop.org and on the SPACE Gallery Block Party, visit www.spacegallery.com.