Jessica Todd Harper: The Home Stage

Denise Bookwalter: The Knitter's Hand and the Telegrapher's Fist

The Print Center Begins its 100th Anniversary with a $100,000 Award From The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Day Job: Steven Ahlgren, Justin Audet, Larry Fink, Chelsea Griffith, Bill McCullough and Benjamin Pierce

Stella Ebner: Let's Go! G-O! Go!

Allison Bianco: The Baby Powder Trick

Durham Press

Ephemeral Sprawl II

Matt Neff: Second Sight

Terry Adkins and the Common Press: 7th Ward

Book Launch: The Picture that Remains

Demetrius Oliver: Canicular

Well Hung: The Print Center Annual Auction

Katie Grinnan: Three Headed Lady

Ephemeral Sprawl

Taryn McMahon: Shade Beneath Trees of My Own Planting

Lydia Panas: After Sargent

Soledad Salamé: Looking Back… Looking Forward…

Fiat Lux: Stefan Abrams, Micah Danges, James Johnson, Anna Neighbor and Brent Wahl

Forth Estate: Recent Editions

Henry Horenstein & Shannon Thomas Perich in Conversation as part of the Printed Image Lecture Series

Jennifer Greenburg: Revising History

Talia Greene: Cross Pollination

Anne Massoni: Holding

100 Years in 2015: The Print Center Pays Tribute to Cultural Leadership A Special Evening Honoring Feather Houstoun and Gary Steuer

Color Motion: Edna Andrade Prints

Katie Baldwin: There are Two Stories Here

The Print Center Announces New Board Members: Jeffrey Cooper & Thomas Moore

The Print Center Receives Grant from Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative $118,700 Towards Demetrius Oliver Exhibition

The Print Center Receives $50,000 Gift from H.F. (Gerry) Lenfest Towards New Fund

Robert Asman: Silver Mine – A Retrospective

100 Years in 2015: The Print Center Honors Educational Excellence

To Scale

The Print Center Exhibits at the 20011 Editions|Artists' Book Fair

The Print Center’s Artists-In-Schools Program
NO/VACANCY Exhibition at Little Berlin Gallery

85th Annual International Competition: Printmaking

The Print Center Gallery Store Launches Online Store

The Print Center Patron Party with Philadelphia Artist William Earle Williams

Sweet Meat: Jesse Burke & Nils Ericson

William Earle Williams: Party Pictures

The Print Center Receives $100,000 Gift from Julie Jensen Bryan and Robert Bryan

The Print Center Announces New Board Members: Barbara Beck, Jeanne Pond, Michael Shannon and Diane Zilka

The Print Center Announces $25,000 Gift to Establish New Fund by Board Member Joslyn G. Ewart

Stalking the Wild Asparagus: Keliy Anderson-Staley, Adrain Chesser and Timothy White Eagle, Lucas Foglia, Taj Forer and Justine Kurland

Daniel Traub: Lots

The Print Center Receives $80,000 Award from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Makeready 1: Isaac Tin Wei Lin: One of Us

Dear Tree Hugger: Andrew Kozlowski

Pulling from History: Letterpress

The 84th Annual International Competition: Photography

Tracings / Transfers / Copies / Forgeries: Bill Walton

Philagrafika 2010: The Graphic Unconscious

Between the Sheets: The Print Center Annual Auction

Streets of Philadelphia: Photography 1970-1985

There’s No Place Like Here: Nadine Rovner

83rd Annual International Competition: Printmaking

Movement I, Movement II and a Sculpture: Andrew Jeffrey Wright

Disorder: Susan White

Pulling from History: The Old Masters

Domesticated: Amy Stein

The Preponderance of Evidence: Shelley Thorstensen

SHOP: Art, Commerce and the Printed Image

EXPOSED: The Print Center Annual Auction

Nakazora: space between sky and earth: Massao Yamamoto

Foreclosed 82nd Annual International Competition: Photography

The Triumph of Democracy: Inside the Studio: Benjamin Edwards

The Road Not Taken: Orit Hofshi

Etchings & Drypoints 2005-2008: Bill Scott

The Philadelphia Etchings: Janet Towbin

Moon Studies and Star Scratches: Sharon Harper

Dakar Portraits: Vera Viditz-Ward

That's Women's Work: Laura Wagner

Time after Time: Community Pinhole Projects

81st International Competition: Printmaking

Abu Ghraib Detainee Interview Project: Daniel Heyman

Books: Photographic Sequences: Ditta Baron Hoeber

Dream: James Stogdill

Prints by New Jersey Artists: 15 Years of the Brodsky Center

New work: Barbara Duval

Ann Hamilton Photographs in Historic Philadelphia’s Sites

Vera Lutter’s Camera Obscura at 30th Street Station

TAKEN WITH TIME, a Camera Obscura Project in Philadelphia

Diamonds are Forever: Edna Andrade

The Guides: Justyna Badach

Short Stories: A Narrative in Mezzotint by Art Werger

Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative Grant Award

Sun Pictures and Other Broken Images: Richard Torchia

The Print Center’s 90th Anniversary Exhibition

On My Own: Recent Philadelphia Graduates

Abelardo Morell, Internationally Known Photographer

Recent Prints: Elizabeth Osborne

79th Annual International Competition: Printmaking

90th Anniversary: Nurturing the New Exhibition and Gala

Camouflage: Carl Fudge

New Work: Keith Johnson

The Suburban Landscape: Phil Marquez

The Print Center Receives $50,000 Gift from
H.F. (Gerry) Lenfest Towards New Fund

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center is pleased to announce the receipt of a 1-to-1 challenge grant in the amount of $50,000 from H.F. (Gerry) Lenfest towards its Stability and Opportunity Fund. Launched in 2011, the fund was established with a gift of $25,000 from Founder and President of Entrust Financial, LLC, Joslyn G. Ewart. This fund will insure financial health and long-term fiscal stability for The Print Center by providing a solid cash reserve base as well as the means to take advantage of important artistic and organizational opportunities. The Stability and Opportunity Fund is an open fund, allowing other donors to add contributions of their own, thereby increasing the working capital available to The Print Center.

In October 2011, Gerry Lenfest offered a $50,000 challenge to The Print Center’s current and past Board of Governors to be matched by December 31, 2011. The challenge energized The Print Center’s current and past Board, who quickly rose to the occasion and matched every dollar within only a few weeks. Through these generous gifts, The Print Center has now reached its goal of a fully supported, $100,000 Stability and Opportunity Fund.

Board President Hester Stinnett said, “Support such as this is major and timely. As we look towards our 100th Anniversary in 2015, this fund will provide a strong and stable financial underpinning upon which The Print Center will build a healthy and vibrant future. It heralds a future of financial stability which will allow The Print Center’s leadership to envision more ambitious programs and achievements.” Executive Director Elizabeth Spungen said, “she is inspired by the enthusiastic response offered by The Print Center’s core supporters, with gifts given by 100 percent of the Board of Governors at a level that exceeded the challenge. This exceptional support will allow The Print Center to offer a future full of excellent and compelling exhibitions and programs celebrating the printed image.”

Robert Asman: Silver Mine – A Retrospective
December 16, 2011 – March 31, 2012
Friday, December 16: Reception 5:30-7:30pm

PHILADELPHIA: Robert Asman: Silver Mine is a retrospective exhibition of an exceptional photographic career characterized by idiosyncratic experimentation with the bounds of black and white photography. Robert Asman is one of the most important photographers of his generation. For most of the last thirty-five years Asman (Asheville, NC) has been devoted to investigating and stretching the conceptual and technical boundaries of silver prints, through extended, and related, explorations of the human figure and the urban landscape. His masterful manipulation of chemistry and paper negatives has resulted in a seemingly boundless and wondrous body of work. Asman approaches art making as a transformative process, in which he mines the physical properties of his materials to create a work on paper which are seemingly the result of alchemical change. Process and image are completely merged, and result in images ranging from the sublimely beautiful to the fetishized or the startlingly violent, though often conveying an ironic humor. The Print Center is pleased to present this exhibition at a critical moment for examining process driven work, as the integration of digital technologies into art making are causing artists to revisit traditional photographic processes.

Robert Asman was born in Washington, DC. He received a BA from Catholic University, Washington, D.C. in 1973 and an MFA from the renowned photography program at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY in 1975. After a brief return to Washington, Asman lived for thirty years in Philadelphia were he taught photography at Moore College of Art & Design, Drexel University, University of the Arts and University of Pennsylvania, in addition to working as a fine art photographer and a running a commercial black and white printing lab. His career has been marked by several honors, including a Pew Fellowship in the Arts and a Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His work has been exhibited internationally in many solo and group exhibitions including at the ICA, Philadelphia; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; West Chester University, West Chester, PA; Galerie Paviot, Paris; National Museum of Art, Bucharest, Romania; Robert Klein Gallery, Boston, MA; Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Wilmington, DE; Paul Cava Gallery, Philadelphia; and The Print Center. Asman’s work is found in numerous permanent collections, including Arcadia University, Glenside, PA; Haverford College, Haverford, PA; Free Library of Philadelphia; George Eastman House, Rochester, NY; Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C. and The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA.

The exhibition is curated by Elizabeth Spungen, the Executive Director of The Print Center. In her five year tenure at The Print Center, Spungen has also curated exhibitions of the work of Doug and Mike Starn (2007) and Masao Yamamoto (2008).

The exhibition will take place December 16, 2011 – March 31, 2012 and will be complemented by a series of special events, including a gallery talk by the artist at 5:30pm on December 16. In spring 2012, Asman will deliver a lecture on his career and a panel discussion on the relevance of sexually imagery in contemporary photography will be convened. In conjunction with the exhibition, The Print Center is preparing a monograph on Asman, featuring an introduction by the curator, an essay placing the work in historical context by Nancy Brokaw, an essay critically assessing the content of the work by Ryan Widger, poetic text by Brian Teare and annotations to the images by Asman, to be published in summer 2012.

Do Your Bidding: The Print Center Annual Auction
Saturday, December 3, 2011 from 6:00-8:00pm

Auction Preview and Online Bidding: www.printcenter.org

Exclusive Champagne Preview & Raffle: Saturday, December 3 at 5:00pm

Wonderful Opportunities to Support a Great Organization, Buy Exceptional Art and Attend a Fabulous Party!

PHILADELPHIA: Do Your Bidding: The Print Center Annual Auction will be held on Saturday, December 3, 2011 from 6:00-8:00pm with an Exclusive Champagne Preview & Raffle beginning at 5:00pm. The Print Center, one of Philadelphia’s oldest and most prestigious nonprofit cultural institutions, aims to raise $35,000 to support its outstanding visual art and educational program. Board of Governors President, Hester Stinnett said, “This will surely be our biggest and best auction in years. It’s going to be a great party, and we want not only to attract members of the art community, but individuals interested in visiting us for the first time.” This is a wonderful opportunity to support a valuable organization, buy original artwork and holiday gifts and enjoy a fabulous party!

The auction includes work by many renowned artists including Edna Andrade, Polly Apfelbaum, Andrea M. Baldeck, Thomas Brummett, Jesse Burke, Nils Ericson, Susan Fenton, David Graham, Henry Horenstein, Jane Irish, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Martha Madigan, Sarah McEneaney, Stuart Netsky, Stuart Shils, Bill Walton and many more. Goods and services up for bid will include tickets, gift certificates and products including a fabulous South African Safari.

Experience the exclusive Champagne Preview & Raffle at 5:00pm and get the first look at auction items. Guests can close bidding by selecting ‘Buy It Now’. Two special raffles will be held for an original, double-sided Art Spiegelman lithograph, Lead Pipe Sunday, published by The Print Center and Corridor Press and a $300 gift card from Garces Restaurant Group which can be used at any of Iron Chef José Garces' world class restaurants!
Preview tickets are $100 which include 1 raffle ticket; $25 each additional ticket or 6 for $200.

Proceeds from The Print Center Auction fund group and solo exhibitions featuring local, regional and international artists and all of The Print Center’s other exciting programs. Tickets are $25 by December 2, $35 on December 3. The event will feature delicious hors d’oeuvres and libations. The exclusive Champagne Preview begins at 5:00pm and tickets are $100. Preview and bid online at www.printcenter.org starting November 18. For more information or tickets, please call Ashley Peel Pinkham, Assistant Director, at 215.735.6090 x2. 

100 Years in 2015: The Print Center Honors Educational Excellence
A Special Evening Honoring Sean Buffington & Allan Edmunds
Tuesday, October 25, 6:00pm Cocktails; 7:00pm Dinner

PHILADELPHIA: This will be the second of five annual events, entitled The Print Center Honors, counting down to The Print Center’s 100th Anniversary in 2015. These celebrations honor our first 100 years and look forward to the future. This year we recognize Educational Excellence by honoring Sean Buffington and Allan Edmunds. The event will be held on Tuesday, October 25. We are pleased to have this opportunity to honor both of their outstanding contributions.

Sean Buffington has been the President and CEO of the University of the Arts since 2007. From its beginnings in 1876 as the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, UArts has played a major role in supporting arts education in Philadelphia. Under Buffington’s tenure UArts has solidified its role as one of the most dynamic academic institutions in the city. Buffington has actively fostered partnerships with other Philadelphia institutions, including The Print Center which has had a close relationship with the UArts’ Printmaking, Photography, Graphic Arts and Book Arts Departments since the 1930s. Many faculty and alumni have been Print Center exhibitors, Board members, lecturers and workshop leaders and dedicated volunteers. Deep connections existed between renowned early faculty members such as Benton Spruance and Jerome Kaplan and such ties continue today. We celebrate the collaborative relationship The Print Center and UArts have enjoyed through almost a century of connection.

Allan Edmunds is the Founder and President of the renowned Brandywine Workshop. Since its inception in 1972, Brandywine has become an international center for printmaking and a resource for art educators. In 2012, the 40th Anniversary of Brandywine will be celebrated with an exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. For more than twenty-eight years Edmunds has taught at Brandywine, as well as at the high school and college level, and has served as a visiting artist nationally and internationally. Through its education programs, the workshop promotes printmaking as a fine art and a medium that encourages collaborative learning. Born out of Edmunds’ early years as an instructor for Prints in Progress, The Print Center's education program which brought together practicing artists and children through printmaking, Brandywine connects practicing artists, educators and local youth to create an environment for learning and mentoring that embraces cultural diversity and the production of high quality, limited edition prints. The Print Center continues that tradition today through our Artists-in-Schools Program. We are pleased to honor Edmunds’ lifelong commitment to printmaking and education.

The Print Center commissioned photographer John Joyce to create a special image to be presented to the honorees. Catering is provided by Feast Your Eyes Gourmet Catering. Tickets for the event are $250 per person. This fundraising event will take place at The Print Center, 1614 Latimer Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103 with cocktails being served at 6:00pm and dinner immediately following at 7:00pm. For more information, please call Ashley Peel Pinkham at 215.735.6090 x2 or apeelpinkham@printcenter.org.

To Scale

Jenn Figg, Talia Greene, Kay Healy, Gary Kachadourian, Nichola Kinch,
Joseph Lupo, Taylor McKimens, Roy McMakin, Caitlin Perkins, Shelley Spector

September 8 – November 19, 2011
Thursday, September 8: Reception 5:30-7:30pm

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces To Scale, a group exhibition of contemporary prints and photographs created in a one-to-one ratio with reality. Not a traditional exhibition of neatly framed images, the galleries will be filled with works ranging from exuberant, large installations to very tiny works wheatpasted directly onto the walls. With To Scale, The Print Center continues its investigation of the significance of the printed image for contemporary artists, this time through an examination of how artists look at scale, reproduction and tricks of the eye. The artists in the exhibition work across a number of different forms and styles; several of the artists are based in Philadelphia.

There have always been artists creating work in a one to one scale with the real, perhaps best known is the 19th century American trompe-l’oeil artist John F. Peto, whose painted still-lifes were intended to fool the viewer into believing the were looking at the actual object instead of a painting. For some of the artists in To Scale, similar careful attention is given to making an image that could, at least initially, be confused with the original object depicted. Many of the artists have also reproduced pedestrian items that are either mass produced or common to everyday usage, further obscuring and examining the lines between the real object and the way it has been reproduced. For all of the artists, the use of accurate scale brings into question the connections between the work, what it depicts and how it relates to the larger world.

Artists in the exhibition include Joseph Lupo (Morgantown, WV), Caitlin Perkins (Philadelphia, PA) and Shelley Spector (Philadelphia, PA), who create labor-intensive reproductions of everyday items. Jenn Figg (Baltimore, MD) and Nichola Kinch (Philadelphia, PA) extract elements from photographs to create large-scale installations. Talia Greene (Philadelphia, PA) will create one of her site-specific installations for the space of hundred of printed ants crawling across the gallery walls. Gary Kachadourian (Baltimore, MD) and Kay Healy, (Philadelphia, PA) both insert their printed depictions of structures and domestic objects into gallery settings and in site-specific outdoor installations. Roy McMakin’s (Seattle, WA) and Taylor McKimens’ (New York, NY) works both depict household plants, covering the territory between scientific examination to whimsical construction.

To Scale will be on view at The Print Center from September 8 – November 19, 2011. The reception for the artists is Thursday, September 8 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk by the artists at 5:30pm.

The Print Center Exhibits at the 20011 Editions|Artists' Book Fair
NOVEMBER 3-6, 2011

One of the many things that Art does well is to encourage us to look at our world in new ways. Each year, we at the Editions|Artists Book Fair take the opportunity to consider the way we look at and experience Art within the
setting of E|AB. We begin by making the Fair FREE to the public providing the opportunity for the larger public to discover and learn about the medium of editions and artists books. We offer an inexpensive edition by a well
known artist to emphasize the genesis of editioned work as an art for the people. Over the years we have hosted countless conversations, happenings, boxing parties and marching bands to inspire and provoke. This year we
have invited sixty contemporary international publishers and artists’ book dealers to New York to share new projects, old projects seen in new ways and to consider new forms of distribution and education made possible by
the internet.

The fourteenth, biggest and best ever Editions|Artists’ Book Fair will take place November 3rd-6th, at the former Dia building at 548 West 22nd Street in the heart of the Chelsea gallery district. As the longest running Fair of its kind,
Editions|Artists’ Books is honored to continue its tradition of championing the unique medium of the artists’ edition. Alongside established international publishers, the Fair will feature promising up-and-comers, offering visitors a
cross-section of the contemporary publishing community with a breadth and scope unparalleled by any other fair. Join us for the opening night preview and champagne reception Thursday November 3rd from 6 to 9 pm for an
exclusive first look at the Fair’s many exciting offerings. Opening night attendees will have an advance opportunity to purchase the highly anticipated E|AB commissioned print, which subsidizes free general admission during the
run of the fair and may only be purchased on site. This year, we have the great pleasure of announcing that FRED TOMASELLI has created an exciting new screenprint, “Bloom”, which will be available in a limited edition
of 200 for $200.00 each. Tickets to the event may be purchased at the door.
Founded in 1998 by Susan Inglett of I.C. Editions and Brooke Alexander Editions, the Editions|Artists’ Book Fair has grown in size and stature to become the premier showcase for contemporary publishers and dealers, presenting the latest and greatest in prints, multiples and artists’ books.
Participants in formation include Anartist, NYC; Anchor Graphics at Columbia College, Chicago; Annual, Paris; artKitchen, Amsterdam; Baron/Boisanté and Om from India, NYC; Benefit Print Project, NYC; Bengtsson Fine Art,
Landskrona, Sweden; Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, NYC; Booklyn Artist Alliance, Brooklyn; Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions, New Brunswick; Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn; Burnet Editions, NYC;
Carroll and Sons, Boston; Center Street Studio, Millton Village, Mass; Charles Lane Press NYC; Bernard Chauveau Editeur, Suresnes; Cirrus Gallery & Cirrus Editions Ltd., LA; Clay Street Press, Cincinnati; Johan Deumens Gallery,
Haarlem; mfc-michèle didier, Brussels; Dieu Donné , NYC; Esopus, NYC; Exit Art, NYC; Forth Estate, Brooklyn; Freight and Volume, NYC; Graphic Matter, Gent; Highpoint Editions, Minneapolis; I.C. Editions, NYC; Jungle Press
Editions, Brooklyn; David Krut Projects, NYC/Cape Town/Johannesburg; Lapis Press, Culver City; Lincoln Center/List Art Program, NYC; Lower East Side Printshop, NYC; Luiscius Antiquarian Booksellers, s’-hertogenbosch; LN Edition,
Paris; John McWhinnie at Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, NYC; Neiman Center for Print Studies at Columbia University, NYC; Oehme Graphics, Steamboat Springs; Parkett, Zurich/NYC; Philagrafika, Philadelphia; Primary Information,
NYC; The Print Center, Philadelphia; Purgatory Pie Press, NYC; Red Trillium Press, Florence; Galerie Alex Daniels - Reflex, Amsterdam; 6 Decades Books, Brooklyn; Schroeder Romero & Shredder, NYC; Silas Finch Foundation, NYC;
Solo Impression, NYC; Carl Solway, Cincinnati; Specific Object / David Platzker, NYC; Cade Tompkins Editions·Projects, Providence; 20th Century Art Archives, Cambridge, UK; Twenty-First Century Editions, South Dennis, Maine; Western Exhibitions, Chicago; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; White Wings Press, Chicago; World House Editions, Middlebury; and Zucker Art Books, NYC.

EDITIONS|ARTISTSʼ BOOK FAIR | 548 West 22nd Street between 10th and 11th Avenues

Opening Night Party | Thursday, November 3rd from 6 - 9 PM. Tickets are $25.00 and can be purchased at the door.

Fair Hours | Friday and Saturday 11 AM - 7 PM
Sunday 11 AM - 4 PM. Admission FREE
Press Information | info@eabfair.com 212.647.9111
Website | www.eabfair.com

E|AB ’11 FAIR HIGHLIGHTS
BARBARA GALLUCCI at CARROLL AND SONS
This year’s artist-designed lounge comes straight from Barbara Gallucci’s recent installation, Utopiary Terrace at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. The Topia Chairs draw their inspiration from manicured topiaries, melding playfulness and functionality in an homage to the elegance of both nature and design. Gallucci received her MFA from Yale University; her work has been exhibited internationally with shows at Derek Eller Gallery, NYC; Carroll and Sons, Boston; Frac Le Quartier, France; and Site Santa Fe, New Mexico,

LUC TUYMANS at GRAPHIC MATTER
It is with great pleasure that we announce GRAPHIC MATTER’s participation in Editions|Artists’ Books ’11. Graphic Matter is a recently founded publishing company presenting an exciting new program of artists’ editions, including works by esteemed Belgian painter Luc Tuymans, Dutch photographer Hellen Van Meene, and painter Raoul De Keyser, among others. Graphic Matter emerged from Peter Ruyffelaere’s art book imprint, Ludion, and represents a new vanguard of recent publishing endeavors.

PETER SAUL at CARL SOLWAY
Carl Solway has curated a comprehensive survey of editions from artist Peter Saul, whose provocative paintings famously meld Pop Art with surrealist tendencies. Saul’s grotesque figurations are tempered by his trademark wit and sense of humor. Saul’s work has been exhibited at David Nolan Gallery, NYC; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Jewish Museum, NYC; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and The Whitney Museum of Contemporary Art, NYC.

RIKRIT TIRAVANIJA at LEROY NEIMAN CENTER
The LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies is pleased to present Rikrit Tiravanija’s first two-dimensional print, an ambitious and multi-faceted set of three 27+ foot scrolls. The result of over three years of labor and 40
student helpers, untitled 2008-2011 (the map of the land of feeling) documents the past two decades of Tiravanija’s life. Full reproductions of Tiravanija’s passport and artist notebooks are overlayed with silkscreen,
chine collé, giclés and hand work. The work unfurls like a topographical timeline which transforms disparate elements such as images of maps, recipes and contemporary art references into a comprehensive and
intimate survey of Tiravanija’s life. Tiravanija has been exhibited internationally at venues including the Guggenheim Museum, NYC; Venice Biennale, 2009; MoMA, NYC; The New Museum, NYC; Reykavik Art
Museum, Iceland, Kunstverein in Hambrg, Germany and P.S.1, Long Island City. He is represented by Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, NYC.

FRED TOMASELLI
Fred Tomaselli utilizes elements from both painting and collage to create intricate and delicately layered compositions. Known for embedding pills, medicinal herbs and plants in his collage/painting hybrids, Tomaselli
consistently creates decadent, visceral works which mine the depths of the psyche and cosmos, exploring their intersections with the natural and political world. Tomaselli’s exclusive, E|AB-commissioned print is available in a Limited Edition of 200. Tomaselli’s work has been exhibited internationally at such
venues as White Cube, London; the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana; and The Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC. He is represented by James Cohan Gallery, NYC.

The Print Center’s Artists-In-Schools Program
NO/VACANCY Exhibition at Little Berlin Gallery

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center’s award winning Artists-in-Schools Program (AISP) will present an exhibition of student work from the 2010-2011 school year at Little Berlin gallery at 2430 Coral St, Philadelphia, PA 19125. The exhibition entitled NO/VACANCY will feature work by Philadelphia high school students made in collaboration with teaching-artists at Kensington Culinary Arts, Martin Luther King, Parkway School for Social Justice and South Philadelphia High Schools. Artists-in-Schools Program Coordinator Constantina Zavitsanos with teaching-artists Alana Bograd, Cari Freno, Liana Moskowitz and Julie Rosen directed the projects.

NO/VACANCY investigates questions of environment, architecture and portraiture in Philadelphia neighborhoods affected by economic crisis, school privatization and other changes in the built environment of the city. The phrase ‘no/vacancy’, associated with the transient residential spaces of motels, here invokes formal and political questions about the production and use of space within both art and urban neighborhoods. Each of the teaching-artists and their students interpreted these questions differently, but all of the student work engages directly with contemporary art they viewed on field trips to The Print Center and the Fabric Workshop and Museum.

NO/VACANCY spotlights student artwork in an experimental venue, and aims to bring together art audiences and community members in an accessible art space. Little Berlin, across the street from one of our partner schools Kensington Culinary Arts High School, is an artist-run collective and gallery space founded in 2007. Their focus is on curatorial projects and exhibitions, and also host music events and performances. For more info on Little Berlin, go to http://littleberlin.org. NO/VACANCY will be on view 5:00-9:00pm on Thursday, June 30 for one night only.

AFFILIATED PUBLIC EVENT:
INSIDE OUT: A Global Art Project
Internationally-known artist JR collaborates with The Print Center’s Artists-in-Schools Program and Kensington Culinary Arts High School
Mid-July 2011
The Viking Mill, 2026 Hagert St, Philadelphia, PA 19125

As part of the NO/VACANCY project, teaching artist Alana Bograd, classroom teacher Robin Lane and their students at Kensington Culinary Arts High School have partnered with French artist JR, recipient of a 2011 TED prize, on his large-scale participatory global public art project INSIDE OUT. The project transforms messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic work. This July, students will wheatpaste their photographs on the exterior walls of The Viking Mill, across the street from their school. For more information on INSIDE OUT, go to http://www.insideoutproject.net/.

ABOUT THE PRINT CENTER’S ARTISTS-IN-SCHOOLS PROGRAM
The Artists-in-Schools Program (AISP) is The Print Center’s award winning education program which brings hands-on learning and self-exploration to Philadelphia’s public schools. Since 2002 The Print Center has worked with over 2,000 students in twenty schools. In 2003 AISP was recognized by the National Art Education Association as a national model for contemporary public arts education due to the positive impact on the students it serves, and teachers attending our workshops are eligible for Act 48 continuing education credit.

AISP encourages inner-city students to look beyond the restrictions of their neighborhoods to expand their horizons, develop an understanding of and appreciation for the visual arts, and express themselves creatively. Through AISP students create print and photo-based projects which are exhibited each year on banners in the ticket office at Lincoln Financial Field, as well as in their schools, in Board of Education offices, in local legislator’s offices, at community art centers and at The Print Center.

The Print Center’s Artists-in-Schools Program is made possible with the support of the Lincoln Financial Foundation, The Allen Hilles Fund, Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation, Douty Foundation, Eagles Youth Partnership, Elsie Lee Garthwaite Memorial Foundation, Henrietta Tower Wurts Memorial, Philadelphia Cultural Fund Youth Enrichment Program, Rosenlund Family Foundation, Seybert Foundation, Sheila Fortune Foundation, Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation and Union Benevolent Association.

85th Annual International Competition: Printmaking
June 4 – July 30, 2011

Jurors: Emi Eu, Director, Singapore Tyler Print Institute, Singapore &
Sarah Suzuki, Associate Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books, Museum of Modern Art, New York

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center’s 85th Annual International Competition: Printmaking features 41 works by 25 of the finest contemporary artists working in printmaking today. The competition was juried by Emi Eu, Director, Singapore Tyler Print Institute, Singapore and Sarah Suzuki, Associate Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books, Museum of Modern Art, New York. On Saturday, June 4, co-juror Sarah Suzuki will give a gallery talk discussing the works included in the exhibition with an award ceremony immediately following. The Print Center’s Annual International Competition is one of the most prestigious and oldest juried exhibitions in the United States. Alternating yearly between printmaking and photography, it provides a unique opportunity for local, national and international artists to compete in a forum which emphasizes individual talent and expressiveness rather than a specific exhibition topic. Eu and Suzuki reviewed over 1,400 images submitted by 350 artists.

“We are pleased to work with Emi Eu and Sarah Suzuki as the jurors for this year’s competition. They bring an incredible range of knowledge of contemporary printmaking and both have worked extensively with artists from around the world, often taking on projects that are technically complex, ambitiously scaled and which push the boundaries of printmaking,“ said Executive Director Elizabeth Spungen. Emi Eu is currently organizing an exhibition of the work of Jimmy Ong and has recently organized exhibitions of the work of Trenton Doyle Hancock, Chua Ek Kay and Tabaimo. Sarah Suzuki has organized numerous exhibitions including Focus: Elizabeth Murray (2005), Wunderkammer: A Century of Curiosities (2008), ‘Ideas Not Theories’: Artists and The Club, 1942-1962 (2010) and Mind & Matter: Alternative Abstractions, 1940 to Now (2010).

This year’s Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchase Award prize, selected by John Ittmann, Curator of Prints, Philadelphia Museum of Art was awarded to Victoria Burge (Philadelphia, PA). The Graphic Chemical and Ink Company Purchase Award for a hand-pulled print was given to Tonia Bonnell (Denver, CO). The Print Center’s Honorary Council Award of Excellence ($100) was awarded to Jiha Moon (Atlanta, GA) and the Jacqueline L. Zemel Prize ($500) to Kakyoung Lee (Brooklyn, NY). The Renaissance Graphic Arts Award ($100) was given to Matt Phillips (Brooklyn, NY) and the Silicon - Fine Art Prints Award ($250) went to Rick Wright (Philadelphia, PA). The Print Center’s Gallery Store Manager, Eli VandenBerg, awarded a 2 year contract to Anthony Lazorko (Mesilla, NM) and The Print Center’s Jensen Bryan Curator, John Caperton, awarded a prestigious solo exhibition to Katie Baldwin (Philadelphia, PA).

The 85th Annual International Competition: Printmaking will be on view at The Print Center from June 4– July 30, 2011. The opening reception is Saturday, June 4 from 3:00-5:00pm, with a gallery talk by co-juror Sarah Suzuki at 3:30pm and an awards ceremony immediately following. The exhibition will travel to Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts & Sciences, Loveladies, NJ from September 9 – November 1, 2011.

The Print Center Gallery Store Launches Online Store

PHILADELPHIA (February 10, 2011): The Print Center is launching its new online Gallery Store at www.printcenter.org. The Print Center Gallery Store has long been an outstanding source for original artwork in Philadelphia; now it will reach far beyond its Latimer Street location to reach an international clientele. Representing over 70 international artists, The Print Center Gallery Store offers the most extensive selection of contemporary prints, photographs and printed objects in Philadelphia. “It is very exciting to be able to bring our wonderful selection of original artworks to an international audience through this new website. Expanding the reach of the Gallery Store is a terrific opportunity for the artists we represent and for our patrons,” said Executive Director Elizabeth Spungen.
 
The Print Center Gallery Store website is the perfect source for original, contemporary prints and photographs. Visitors to the site will find an extensive selection of one-of-a-kind treasures and affordable, original works of art. The online store will showcase a continually updated inventory, with new items highlighted on the ‘What’s New’ site page. In addition to prints and photographs, The Print Center Gallery Store also features handmade books, T-shirts, zines and artist-made objects, many of which are not available anywhere else. The online Gallery Store is searchable by artist and technique, and features a Philadelphia section and a section of affordable artwork priced under $150. Art consultants, architects and interior designers can use the Gallery Store’s personal consulting services to find artwork for corporate collections and design spaces. The website makes virtual consulting possible, allowing users to create collections dedicated to specific clients’ needs.

Gallery Store Manager Eli VandenBerg said, “The Print Center Gallery Store is unlike any other place in Philadelphia. Part retail store and part gallery, we showcase the finest that the printed image has to offer. It is a place where anyone can become an art collector.” VandenBerg selects artwork for the store from the very best local, national and international artists. To view a full list of artists represented visit www.printcenter.org.

In addition to presenting a great variety of quality artwork to our patrons, the Gallery Store provides artists with commercial exposure and supports them through personal development and commission opportunities. The Print Center can also accept donations and membership subscriptions through the new site.

The Print Center Patron Party with
Philadelphia Artist William Earle Williams
Tuesday, May 10, 2011, 6:00pm

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces our 2011 Patron Party: an exclusive evening with renowned Philadelphia photographer William Earle Williams at the exceptional Rittenhouse Square home of Eileen Kennedy and Robert Heim on Tuesday, May 10. This fundraising event will begin at The Print Center, 1614 Latimer Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103 at 6:00pm with a private champagne tour of Party Pictures, Williams' solo exhibition that features photographs made in the 1970s and 1980s documenting a wide variety of parties, from drag balls to society galas. The exhibition presents empathetic and entertaining photographs, which perfectly capture the events in every detail from fashion to gesture.  The tour will be led by the artist and John Caperton, The Print Center's Jensen Bryan Curator. An elegant dinner will follow at 7:00pm at the spectacular home of Eileen Kennedy and Robert Heim.

William Earle Williams was born in Vicksburg, MS and raised in Warren, OH. He received his BFA in History from Hamilton College, Clinton, NY and his MFA in Photography from Yale University, New Haven, CT. Williams has taught photography at Haverford College since 1978, where he is the Audrey A. and John L. Dusseau Professor in the Humanities. He is also the curator of the College’s celebrated photography collection. Williams is the recipient of two prestigious awards, The Pew and Guggenheim Fellowships. A monograph on his recent work, Uncovering the Path to Freedom: Photographs of the Underground Railroad, was published in 2008 by Hamilton College. His work has been included in numerous exhibitions internationally, including recent exhibitions at the Eastman House, Rochester, NY; the New York Public Library, New York, NY; and the Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, Durham, NC. His work is held by a number of public collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; and the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY.

Since 1999, The Print Center’s Patron Party has honored numerous internationally recognized artists such as Edna Andrade, Dotty Attie, John Coplans, Lesley Dill, Susan Fenton, Janet Fish, Carl Fudge, Leon Golub, Red Grooms, Kerry James Marshall, Virgil Marti, Sarah McEneaney, Bill Scott, Nancy Spero, Jerry Uelsmann and Bill Walton. We are pleased to include William Earle Williams to this distinguished company.

Guests who join us at the Benefactor level or above will receive a special gift created especially for this event by Williams. Tickets for the event range from $100 - $1,000. Party Pictures is on view through Friday, May 20. For more information, please call Ashley Peel Pinkham at 215.735.6090 x2 or apeelpinkham@printcenter.org.

Sweet Meat: Jesse Burke & Nils Ericson
March 17 – May 20, 2011
Thursday, March 17: Reception 5:30-7:30pm

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces Sweet Meat, a two-person exhibition of photographs by artists Jesse Burke and Nils Ericson. Long-time friends, Burke and Ericson have created individual bodies of work that are closely intertwined. By placing these two artists' works side by side, this exhibition provides an in-depth exploration of their distinctive depictions of contemporary masculinity and athleticism.

Though their work shares various sensibilities, the exhibited photographs were selected to exemplify the distinct interests of these two artists. While both artists have created bodies of work that are varied in subject and mood, each has also made an extensive investigation of the male figure, from heroic ideals of masculinity to honest depictions revealing the vulnerabilities of aging men. For this exhibition, the artists have collaboratively designed an installation that combines their work in clusters that populate the walls of two of The Print Center’s gallery spaces.

Both Burke and Ericson jump between multiple modes of working, each making landscapes, still-lives and portraits. Many of Burke’s photographs show figures emerging from inky blackness, drawing our attention to specific details: a Baroquely patterned hooded sweatshirt, a shot-gunned beer, a man’s emaciated chest. In Ericson’s photographs, there is a taut edginess, where athleticism is paired ambiguously with violence and death. Burke and Ericson have often used each other as models and they both appear in several of the exhibition’s works.

Burke and Ericson both received their MFAs from the Rhode Island School of Design. Burke is represented by CLAMPART, New York, and his work is included in The Truth is Not in the Mirror, a group exhibition on view at the Haggerty Museum, Milwaukee, WI. A solo exhibition of his work is on view at the Perth Center for Photography, Perth, Australia. Ericson's work was included recent exhibitions at Daniel Cooney Fine Art, New York and Flanders Gallery, Raleigh, NC.

Sweet Meat: Jesse Burke & Nils Ericson will be on view at The Print Center from March 17 – May 21, 2011. The reception for the artist is Thursday, March 17 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk by the artists at 5:30pm.

William Earle Williams: Party Pictures
March 17 – May 20, 2011
Thursday, March 17: Reception 5:30-7:30pm

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces Party Pictures, an exhibition of photographs made between 1977-1984 by renowned Philadelphia artist William Earle Williams. At that time Williams documented a wide variety of parties in Philadelphia, from drag balls to society galas. This exhibition presents these empathetic and entertaining photographs, which perfectly capture the events in every detail from fashion to gesture.

Collectively Williams’ Party Pictures become a fascinating record of the social life of Philadelphia in that era. Masked figures mingle with familiar faces including media magnate Walter Annenberg and the infamous drag queen Harlow. Shot in dark settings and using a flash, details of his subjects emerge: an expensive watch, an ill-fitting rented tuxedo jacket, a wrinkled arm. At the same time, these photos capture the fleeting moments of the events as they unfold, with partygoers broadcasting their elation, boredom, exhaustion and awkwardness. While there is great voyeuristic pleasure in looking at these photographs, Williams’ satirical humor is matched by his compassion for his subjects, which comes through clearly.

For the last fifteen years, Williams has almost exclusively photographed the landscape, in a body of work documenting locations significant to African American history, especially the Underground Railroad. This critically acclaimed series has been exhibited nationally. His early work is less well known, and some of the photographs in this exhibition are being shown for the first time.
 
William Earle Williams was born in Vicksburg, MS and raised in Warren, OH. He received his BFA in History from Hamilton College, Clinton, NY and his MFA in Photography from Yale University, New Haven, CT. Williams has taught photography at Haverford College since 1978, where he is the Audrey A. and John L. Dusseau Professor in the Humanities. He is also the curator of the College’s celebrated photography collection. Williams is the recipient of two prestigious awards, The Pew and Guggenheim Fellowships. A monograph on his recent work, Uncovering the Path to Freedom: Photographs of the Underground Railroad, was published in 2008 by Hamilton College. His work has been included in numerous exhibitions internationally, including recent exhibitions at the Eastman House, Rochester, NY; the New York Public Library, New York, NY; and the Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, Durham, NC. His work is held by a number of public collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; and the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY.

Party Pictures: William Earle Williams will be on view at The Print Center from March 17 – May 21, 2011. The reception for the artist is Thursday, March 17 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk by the artist at 5:30pm.

The Print Center Announces $25,000 Gift to Establish New Fund by Board Member Joslyn G. Ewart

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center is pleased to announce the establishment of the Stability and Opportunity Fund with a gift of $25,000 from Founder and President of Entrust Financial, LLC, Joslyn G. Ewart. This fund will insure financial health and long-term fiscal stability for The Print Center by providing a solid cash reserve base as well as the means to take advantage of important artistic and organizational opportunities. The stable financial position this affords will allow The Print Center to create ambitious plans and goals for the future. Additionally, this support is significant in its establishment of a model of financial leadership from within our Board of Governors. Ms. Ewart has said, "Investing is about believing in tomorrow. Entrust's investment in The Print Center affirms their strength as a leader in the Arts and anticipates the growth of their cultural footprint - locally, nationally and beyond."

The Stability and Opportunity Fund will be an open fund, allowing other donors to add to the initial gift with contributions of their own, thereby increasing the working capital available to The Print Center. With the impetus provided by this exceptional gift, The Print Center has established a goal to raise $100,000 to fully support the Fund  Donors wishing to participate In the unique opportunity to build this important resource should contact Executive Director Elizabeth Spungen. 

Board President Hester Stinnett said, “A gift such as this from Joslyn and Entrust is major and timely. It is symbolic of a future where financial health is the norm and The Print Center’s leadership can therefore envision more ambitious programs and achievements. This gift encourages me as a Board member to imagine the potential accomplishments of The Print Center through the celebration of our 100th Anniversary in 2015 and beyond.” Executive Director Elizabeth Spungen believes that, ”this gift is perfectly timed to allow us to maximize the accomplishments of the past several years including the receipt of national recognition for our programs and the upgrade of all aspects of our organizational infrastructure. This is a wonderful gift that not only helps the Print Center at this moment in time but allows us to dream of a very bright future based on financial stability.”

Joslyn G. Ewart, MEd, CFP®, CDFA™ is Founder and President of Entrust Financial, LLC. Her firm specializes in comprehensive financial consulting for successful individuals and families in the Delaware Valley. She joined The Print Center’s Board of Governors in 2007 and currently serves as treasurer. Her commitment to the arts is a life-long and The Print Center is proud to have her as a Governor.

The Print Center Announces New Board Members: Barbara Beck, Jeanne Pond, Michael Shannon and Diane Zilka

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center is pleased to announce four new appointees to our Board of Governors in 2010: Barbara Beck, Jeanne C. Pond, Michael Shannon and Diane Zilka. Each brings extensive expertise, knowledge and vibrant energy to our organization.

Barbara Beck is Co-Founder of Sage Communications Partners LLP, a boutique communications firm for local, regional and national nonprofits and foundations. Ms. Beck previously held positions as a Public Affairs Officer at The Pew Charitable Trusts where she was an expert in media relations and served as Director of News and Public Affairs at the University of Pennsylvania handling strategic marketing and communications. She was an editor at a news-based radio station in Los Angeles and an editor and reporter for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and Philadelphia Daily News.

Jeanne Pond’s distinguished career includes having served as the Executive Director of the International Sculpture Center in Washington, D.C. and Abington Art Center in Jenkintown, PA. For the past decade she has worked as an arts management consultant for many cultural organizations in Philadelphia including the Nonprofit Finance Fund, Japanese House and Tyler School of Art and is currently the Art Collections Consultant for Temple University. Before Ms. Pond came to Philadelphia she was Museum Educator and Studio School Director at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts.

Michael Shannon is the founder of Michael Shannon Designs, through which he has been creating remarkable interior spaces in the Philadelphia area for more than 20 years. Mr. Shannon’s work has been featured in numerous publications including the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Magazine and in the book Spectacular Homes of Philadelphia. Mr. Shannon is a contemporary art collector and routinely includes original art in his designs. He has been involved with The Print Center for nearly decade as a dedicated committee member and volunteer.

Diane Zilka is senior counsel at Grant & Eisenhofer in Wilmington, DE where she prosecutes securities fraud and corporate governance cases on behalf of U.S. and international clients. She has concentrated her career in securities, corporate and complex commercial litigation. Ms. Zilka is a co-author with Stuart Grant of The Role of Foreign Investors in Federal Securities Class Actions and The Current Role of Foreign Investors in Federal Securities Class Actions. Before joining Grant & Eisenhofer, she was a partner in a New York City law firm and a member of its investor protection practice group. Ms. Zilka has volunteered for several nonprofits including Literacy Volunteers Serving Adults and Big Brothers Big Sisters, and is on the Board of Panetiere Partners. She serves as a New Castle County Co-Chair for the annual Combined Campaign for Justice which provides critical funding for Delaware’s legal services agencies.

The Print Center is pleased to welcome these exceptional individuals to our organization, and we anticipate that through our work together The Print Center will experience great success.

The Print Center Receives $100,000 Gift from
Julie Jensen Bryan and Robert Bryan

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center is pleased to launch its 100th Anniversary Celebration with a leadership gift of $100,000 from dedicated supporters Julie Jensen Bryan and her husband, architect Robert Bryan. This gift will fund the Jensen Bryan Curatorial Chair, held by John Caperton, in recognition of the significant impact the curatorial position, first established with Julie’s support in 2000, has had on The Print Center’s ability to produce outstanding programs, and will enhance the organization’s capacity for greater endeavors. Executive Director, Elizabeth Spungen said, “With this generous funding we will bring a new level of excellence in programming to our audience, presenting the central role the printed image has in contemporary discourse and reflecting the increased sophistication and relevance The Print Center has set as its standard.”

Julie Jensen Bryan is active in many cultural and charitable undertakings, and has been closely involved with The Print Center since the early 1970’s, as its mission coincides with her abiding interests in both printmaking and photography. She is an accomplished photographer, well-known for her spare and elegant architectural images; her photos have been shown internationally, and she is noted for her iconic portraits of Maggie Kuhn, the founder of the Gray Panthers. Jensen Bryan began her career as a medical researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, where photography was used as an analytic tool, and developed her artistic skills at the Photography Place and Maine Photography Workshops with Arnold Newman and Mary Ellen Mark and at the Philadelphia Museum of Art with Martha Zelt. In 1976 she dedicated herself to photography and studied in New York with Lisette Model and worked at Aperture. In the 1980’s she joined The Print Center’s Board of Governors, as her first Board position, and has remained a dedicated member and active supporter of the organization ever since. In addition to The Print Center, Jensen Bryan has been a dedicated supporter of The Photo Review, and is on the Women’s Board at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she has been involved with their major event, USArtists: American Fine Art Show, since its inception in 1992. Both she and her husband Robert are Associates of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and are Friends of their Alfred Stieglitz Center, and Robert serves on the Associates Board. As the Publicity Chair for the Community Clothes Charity (CCC) Jensen Bryan volunteers a great deal of time to its annual designer clothing sale held in Strafford, PA which benefits a different nonprofit each year.

This extraordinary contribution will support the curatorial growth of The Print Center, as well as serving as a spectacular first gift in honor of our 100th Anniversary which will be celebrated in 2015.  

John Caperton, Curator at The Print Center since 2007, assumed the title of Jensen Bryan Curator in May 2010. Caperton received his AB in Art History at the University of Chicago and was most recently the Exhibitions Coordinator at Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, where he organized exhibitions with artists Virgil Marti, Polly Apfelbaum, Thomas Chimes, Eileen Neff, Stuart Netsky and Clare Rojas. He has also held positions at the Fairmount Park Art Association of Philadelphia and the Anderson Gallery at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, and served as guest curator at Vox Populi and the former Project Room in Philadelphia.

Jensen Bryan has said, ”The Print Center has always been near to my heart. It is a warm and welcoming art space in the center of town that has long supported artists and collectors. Having a dedicated Curator has truly made a difference in the quality of the exhibitions program. No longer a local membership driven organization, the quality and critical recognition of its shows have been elevated to international importance, and in turn brings the best in contemporary photography and printmaking to our community. I am thrilled to offer our support to further the excellence and curatorial vision The Print Center has achieved.”

Stalking the Wild Asparagus:
Keliy Anderson-Staley, Adrain Chesser and Timothy White Eagle,
Lucas Foglia, Taj Forer and Justine Kurland
December 16, 2010 – March 5, 2011

Gallery Talk by the Curator and Artists: 5:30pm; Opening Reception: 5:30-7:30pm

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center presents Stalking the Wild Asparagus, a group exhibition bringing together the work of six photographers who document rural utopian communities in the United States: Keliy Anderson-Staley, Adrain Chesser and Timothy White Eagle, Lucas Foglia, Taj Forer and Justine Kurland. The exhibition, which borrows its inspiration and title from Euell Gibbons’ 1962 bestselling guide to foraging, will feature works documenting groups and families who have constructed alternative societies in rural and wilderness settings, pursuing a diverse array of social, political, religious and spiritual visions.

Organized by The Print Center, the exhibition illustrates the relevance and appeal of utopian communities to contemporary artists. The photographs depict lives that are alternately lushly idyllic and austerely spare. In this exhibition we see homes built by families living off the grid in northern Maine (Keliy Anderson-Staley) and studies of primitive structures by practitioners of the lost skills of hunting and gathering (Taj Forer). Other works include naturists tending gardens (Justine Kurland), families living in the wild (Lucas Foglia) and people harvesting food and collecting water (Adrain Chesser and Timothy White Eagle). Each of the photographers in the exhibition has a personal connection to the communities they are documenting, having either grown up in similar circumstances or through their current participation in such societies. Some of the artists are children of families that embraced back-to-nature practices in the 1960s and so offer a second generation’s perspective. These connections complicate and color the relationship between artists and their subjects, challenging the perception of documentary photography as being purly objective.

Stalking the Wild Asparagus will be on view at The Print Center from December 16, 2010 to March 5, 2011. On Thursday, December 16 there will be gallery talk by the artists and John Caperton, Jensen Bryan Curator, The Print Center at 5:30pm and an opening reception from 5:30-7:30pm. Free and open to the public.

Daniel Traub: Lots
December 16, 2010 – March 5, 2011
Thursday, December 16: Reception 5:30-7:30pm

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces Lots, an exhibition of new work by Philadelphia photographer Daniel Traub. Traub has created an extensive series documenting the people and places of inner city neighborhoods in Philadelphia.

The works in the exhibition document vacant spaces between row homes. In inner city neighborhoods, houses that have fallen into disrepair or have burned are often completely razed, leaving breaks in the urban fabric. For Traub, the walls of adjoining buildings function as frames for the landscapes that have arisen in the interstitial spaces. Some are strewn with trash and debris, while others are lush and verdant. Traub’s record of these spaces captures these details in a calmly objective manner, and while they are beautiful images, they are damning as a barometer of the health of a neighborhood. These works are also a revealing portrait of the artist, the son of Lily Yeh, founder of The Village of Arts and Humanities, which is renowned for its public art and reclamation projects in North Philadelphia. His father is David Traub, an architect, dedicated to the preservation of historic and vernacular buildings throughout Philadelphia.

Traub has also been engaged in long-term projects in China since 1999, exploring the transformation of China’s cities through street portraits and urban scenes, as well as documenting the border regions where urban and rural China meet. Several of these works were included in the Woodmere Triennial of Contemporary Photography, Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia and the Art Institute of Philadelphia in 2009.

Traub’s photographs have also been exhibited in Asia, Europe and the United States, including a solo exhibition at the Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago, and are in public and private collections including the Martin Z. Margulies collection and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His work has appeared in publications including The New York Times Magazine, London Telegraph Magazine, Time Magazine and Wallpaper*.

Daniel Traub: Lots will be on view at The Print Center from December 16, 2010 – March 5, 2011. The reception for the artist is Thursday, December 16 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk by the artist at 5:30pm.

The Print Center Receives $80,000 Award
from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center is pleased to announce the receipt of $80,000 for two years of program support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. With this generous funding we will be bring a new level of excellence in programming to our audience, presenting the central role the printed image has in contemporary discourse and reflecting the increased sophistication and relevance The Print Center has set as its standard. Executive Director, Elizabeth Spungen said, “We see this award as a strong endorsement of our past work and a clear vote of confidence in what is to come.”

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts was established in 1987. In accordance with Andy Warhol's will, its mission is the advancement of the visual arts. The Foundation's objective is to foster innovative artistic expression and the creative process by encouraging and supporting cultural organizations that in turn, directly or indirectly, support artists and their work. The Foundation values organizations like The Print Center who make contributions to artists and audiences and to society as a whole by supporting, exhibiting and interpreting a broad spectrum of contemporary artistic practice.

The Foundation is focused primarily on supporting work of a challenging and often experimental nature, while noting that the interpretation of those terms may vary from place to place and culture to culture. In this regard the Foundation encourages curatorial research leading to new scholarship in the field of contemporary art.

The Foundation is committed to the precept that the arts are essential to an open, enlightened democracy. It therefore seeks to advance an inclusive cultural dialogue by providing resources to organizations that support artists reflecting a diverse society and by affirming that freedom of artistic expression is fundamental to such a society and must be vigorously protected.

Makeready 1: Isaac Tin Wei Lin: One of Us
September 7 – November 20, 2010
Thursday, September 16: Reception 5:30-7:30pm

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces One of Us, a newly commissioned installation by Philadelphia artist Isaac Tin Wei Lin. This inaugurates The Print Center’s Makeready series which will exhibit work commissioned from artists exploring the significance of the printed image in contemporary art. Lin’s installation will fill an entire gallery with two- and three-dimensional printed and painted elements inspired by current events, Islamic calligraphy and cartoons.

One of Us consists of several large-scale sculptural elements, covered in screenprints of repeating patterns. These patterns continue over the walls and floors of the space, creating an optically dazzling installation. The space will be transformed into a veritable cartoon flash mob, with enormous cats shown rushing through the space. This work will be the artist’s most ambitious installation to date and builds on several recent projects, including a room constructed out of cardboard and covered in prints created for the Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia. “Isaac’s paintings are intensely intricate, bordering on psychedelic, in their woven layers of color and varied densities of line. In contrast to the sixties retro work that has become so trendy elsewhere, Isaac’s is psychedelic, not by style, but by effect,” said Lawrence Rinder, Director of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

Isaac Tin Wei Lin was born in 1976 in Wilmington, DE. After receiving a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1998, he returned to Philadelphia and joined Space 1026, a collective of artists based in Chinatown. In 2005 he completed an MFA in Drawing/Painting from California College of the Arts, San Francisco. Also in 2005, he completed a residency at the prestigious Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He is represented by Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, where he had a solo exhibition in January 2010. His work has also been recently shown at Cinders Gallery, Brooklyn; Giant Robot, New York and the Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia.

Makeready 1: Isaac Tin Wei Lin: One of Us will be on view at The Print Center from September 7 – November 20, 2010. The reception for the artist is Thursday, September 16 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk by the artist at 5:30pm. The Print Center’s Makeready series is made possible by a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Andrew Kozlowski: Dear Tree Hugger…
September 7 – November 20, 2010

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces Dear Tree Hugger…, an exhibition of new prints by Andrew Kozlowski, an artist based in Richmond, VA. He was awarded this solo exhibition from The Print Center’s 83rd Annual International Competition: Printmaking in 2009. The works in the exhibition explore Kozlowski’s interest in the pursuit of an authentic natural experience in a world degraded by environmental encroachments and disasters.

Kozlowski’s larger body of work is characterized by disparate approaches and appearances, and contains extended series on a wide variety of subjects. Often they explore highly specific events, ranging from natural disasters to failed technologies, with darkly humorous depictions of the detritus that is left behind. The artist finds both creative inspiration and frustration in pondering these events, and considers his work to be an attempt “to dissect health problems, environmental disasters, political crises and our continued inability to successfully navigate them.”

Kozlowski currently teaches printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University, The University of Richmond and the Corcoran College of Art & Design in Washington, D.C. As a freelance art critic he has written for Art Papers, Richmond’s Style Weekly and NY Arts Magazine. He received his MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2007 and his BFA in printmaking from Tyler School of Art, Temple University in 2003. His work has been included in numerous shows in Knoxville, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Richmond and he recently completed a residency at the Frans Masereel Center in Belgium.

Andrew Kozlowski: Dear Tree Hugger… will be on view at The Print Center from September 7 – November 20, 2010. The reception for the artist is Thursday, September 16 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk by the artist at 5:30pm.

Pulling from History: Letterpress
September 7 – November 20, 2010

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces Pulling from History: Letterpress, which presents letterpress works made by contemporary artists side-by-side with historic examples providing a context for the approaches utilized. For this exhibition, The Print Center’s Jensen Bryan Curator John Caperton was joined by Co-Curator Matt Neff, a Philadelphia printmaker who also runs the University of Pennsylvania’s Common Press.

For the exhibition, Caperton and Neff asked contemporary artists, curators and collectors to share examples of letterpress works that they found to be inspiring examples of the form; the exhibited works range from a beautifully crafted guide to type fonts to a poster advertising a demolition derby. The works in this exhibition have been lent from several public collections including the Free Library of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania, along with numerous private collections. Artists in the exhibition include Ken Botnick, Johanna Drucker and Carl Pope.

Letterpress is a form of relief printing using cast individual letters and images, which are set together in a form. It was the most common technique for printing text from the time of its invention by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th Century until the 19th Century. Since then, the use of letterpress has diminished in commercial use, but it has recently enjoyed a wide artistic revival, coinciding with the significant current interest in the use of handmade processes in printing. A growing number of organizations and schools are now teaching letterpress, including several in the Philadelphia area, and the medium has become popular with young artists, graphic designers, illustrators, bookmakers, as well as crafters selling their work on Etsy, a social commerce website focused on handmade and vintage items.

Pulling from History: Letterpress will be on view at The Print Center from September 7 – November 20, 2010. The reception is Thursday, September 16 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk by John Caperton and Co-Curator Matt Neff at 5:30pm.

84th Annual International Competition: Photography
May 1 – July 24, 2010
Juror: Ingrid Schaffner, Senior Curator, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center’s 84th Annual International Competition: Photography features 40 prints by 40 of the finest contemporary artists working in photography today. On Saturday, May 1 juror Ingrid Schaffner, Senior Curator, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, will give a gallery talk discussing the works included in the exhibition with an award ceremony immediately following. The Print Center’s Annual International Competition is one of the most prestigious and oldest juried exhibitions in the United States. Alternating yearly between printmaking and photography, it provides a unique opportunity for local, national and international artists to compete in a forum which emphasizes individual talent and expressiveness rather than a specific exhibition topic. Schaffner reviewed over 2,100 images submitted by almost 550 artists.

“We are excited to work with Ingrid Schaffner as the juror for this year’s competition. Photography has been an ongoing subject of exploration for Schaffner throughout her career,” said Executive Director Elizabeth Spungen. She has curated exhibitions that have included a number of renowned photographers, including James Casebere, Eileen Neff and Allan Sekula. Schaffner's investigations express a particular interest in the role that photography plays in the artistic process, from conceptual tool and sketching device to fully realized works of art.

The prestigious Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchase Award was selected by Peter Barberie, the Brodsky Curator of Photographs, Alfred Stieglitz Center, Philadelphia Museum of Art and graciously supported by Julie Jensen Bryan and Robert Bryan. Through that award, The Print Center Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art will be enhanced by a print by Jon Horvath (Waukesha, WI). Emma Wilcox (New York, NY) is the recipient of both the solo exhibition award, selected by The Print Center’s Curator, John Caperton, and the Callan/McNamara Award. The Print Center’s Honorary Council Award of Excellence went to Gillian Pears (Philadelphia, PA). The Olcott Family Award for a digital print was awarded to Amie Potsic (Drexel Hill, PA). The Florence Whistler Fish Award was awarded to Christine Welch (Leola, PA). For the first time we are pleased to offer The Print Center Gallery Store Award, a two-year contract for representation in the Gallery Store to Al Wachlin, Jr. (Philadelphia, PA). The Aperture Award went Carl Marin (Abington, PA); the Museo Fine Arts Award ($350) to Chris Heard (Bel Air, MD); The Photo Review Award to Keliy Anderson-Staley (Astoria, NY); and the Silicon Gallery Fine Art Print Award ($250) to Chelsea Guglielmino (Philadelphia, PA).

The 84th Annual International Competition: Photography will be on view at The Print Center from May 1– July 24, 2010. The opening reception is Saturday, May 1 from 3:00-5:00pm, with a gallery talk by the juror at 3:30pm and an awards ceremony immediately following. The exhibition will travel to Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts & Sciences, Loveladies, NJ, September 11– November 1, 2010.

Tracings / Transfers / Copies / Forgeries: Bill Walton
May 1 – July 24, 2010

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces Tracings / Transfers / Copies / Forgeries, an exhibition of work by Philadelphia artist Bill Walton (1931-2010) whose work has been exhibited internationally. The exhibition brings together a group of works made over the last thirty years by Walton, all of which deal with the conceptual issues and technical processes of printmaking. Walton passed away while planning this exhibition for The Print Center. While we mourn his passing, we are pleased to be able to share Walton’s insightful work with audiences. A Patron Party (details to be announced) will be held in honor of Walton’s last work Broken Wing, which he created specifically for The Print Center.

Walton is best known for his small minimalist sculptures, often mounted to the wall and made up of both constructed and found materials. One writer compared his works, with their clear links to minimalist art of the 1960s, to “hard won, deeply imbued physical haikus.” Tracings / Transfers / Copies / Forgeries focuses on the influence that printmaking had on a number sculptural works. Walton’s father was a commercial lithographer and Walton himself was trained as printmaker and worked for Eugene Feldman at Falcon Press in the early 1970s. Walton had a distinguished career as a teacher of printmaking at Moore College of Art & Design and Drexel University. Early in his career Walton exhibited printed works, including a solo exhibition at The Print Center in 1975. As he began to exhibit more sculptural work, Walton concurrently made works that while technically are not prints explore the issues raised by printmaking. This exhibition brings together twelve varied examples of these works made over a period of thirty years and selected by the artist. They include a perfectly constructed copy of one of his sculptures, drawings that have been transferred while still wet onto another surface, as well as a reproduction of a small Walton drawing made by a professional artist in Vietnam.

Walton was born in 1931 in Camden, NJ, and lived and worked in Philadelphia. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Margaret Thatcher Projects, New York; Patricia Sweetow Gallery, San Francisco; Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia; Schmidt-Dean Gallery, Philadelphia; Locks Gallery, Philadelphia; Cava Gallery, Philadelphia; and Larry Becker Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. A monograph of Walton’s work was published by Arcadia University Art Gallery in 2006.

Tracings / Transfers / Copies / Forgeries: Bill Walton will be on view at The Print Center from May 1 – July 24, 2010. A reception celebrating the life of the artist will be held on Wednesday, May 26 from 5:00-7:00pm.

Philagrafika 2010: The Graphic Unconscious
January 29 – April 11, 2010

Eric Avery (US), Bittercomix (South Africa), Sue Coe (UK), Julius Deutschbauer (Austria), Dexter Sinister (US), Dispatch (US), Drive By Press (US), Eloísa Cartonera (Argentina), Art Hazelwood (US), Jenny Schmid (US), Self Help Graphics & Art (US) and Temporary Services (US)

Saturday, January 30
Opening Reception with Space 1026 Artists: 2:00-5:00pm

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center is proud to be a partner of Philagrafika 2010, an international festival that celebrates the role of print as a vital force in contemporary art. Set to be one of the largest arts events in the United States, Philagrafika 2010 will showcase the work of more than 300 artists and will unite 88 Philadelphia art institutions, including the five core venues: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Moore College of Art & Design, Temple Gallery, Tyler School of Art, Temple University along with The Print Center.

Philagrafika 2010 is the first presentation of what will be a recurring event in Philadelphia, highlighting print in contemporary artistic practice. Philagrafika 2010 will offer regional, national and international audiences the opportunity to see contemporary art that references printmaking in dynamic, unexpected ways and to experience Philadelphia’s rich cultural life in the process. Complete information on the artists, exhibitions and participating venues included in the citywide festival is available on the Philagrafika 2010 website at www.philagrafika2010.org.

The festival’s Artistic Director, José Roca, is an internationally recognized Colombian curator who co-curated the 2006 São Paulo Biennial. Roca formed a curatorial team whose members include: John Caperton, Curator at The Print Center; independent curator Sheryl Conkelton; Shelley Langdale, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Lorie Mertes, Director/Chief Curator of the Galleries at Moore College of Art & Design; and Julien Robson, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Working with the curatorial team, Roca traveled across continents, visiting artist studios, print shops, biennials and other art events in search of artists to include in Philagrafika 2010.

Philagrafika 2010’s core exhibition, The Graphic Unconscious, explores the ubiquitous presence of printed matter in our visual culture, exposing the print component in sculptural, environmental, performance, pictorial and video works, and highlighting their relevance to contemporary art and society. “Leaving an imprint is the basis of printmaking ― the print is the witness of the primeval urge to make one’s mark for posterity,” says Roca.

At The Print Center, the space has been redesigned by the Philadelphia artists’ collective Space 1026, turning the main gallery into a lounge/reading room/meeting space. Serving as the hub of Philagrafika 2010’s activities, the space will host a diverse roster of artists and collectives. Centered on the idea of creating community through production, the exhibition also addresses how artists have used printmaking to access a broad audience and disseminate their work widely. The Print Center will include an interactive printed system by Mexican artist Erick Beltrán; as well as editions, publications, videos and programs by Eric Avery (US), Bitterkomix (South Africa), Sue Coe (UK), Julius Deutschbauer (Austria), Dexter Sinister (US), Dispatch (US), Drive By Press (US), Eloísa Cartonera (Argentina), Art Hazelwood (US), Jenny Schmid (US), Self Help Graphics & Art (US) and Temporary Services (US).

Philagrafika 2010: The Graphic Unconscious will be on view at The Print Center from January 29 to April 11, 2010. There will be an opening reception on Saturday, January 30 from 2:00-5:00pm with an origami workshop offered by artists from Space 1026.

In conjunction with the exhibition, five public events will be presented:

Print Origami Workshop with Space 1026
Saturday, January 30, 2:00-5:00pm, Free and open to the public
In conjunction with The Print Center’s Philagrafika 2010: The Graphic Unconscious opening reception, members of Space 1026 will give a workshop on creating origami forms using prints made by the artists.

Open Book
Saturday, February 20, 2:00-5:30pm, Free and open to the public
This event will bring together three exhibiting artist collectives, Dexter Sinister, Space 1026 and Temporary Services, joined by the artists’ book store Printed Matter. Each will give presentations on their publications and how they relate to their artistic practice. It will be a wonderful opportunity to collect books, meet the artists and have them personally inscribe their books.

The DIY Quick and Dirty PRINTERESTING SWAP!
Saturday, March 20 at 2:00pm, Free and open to the public
Bring your prints, posters, photocopy art, zines, comix, buttons, t-shirts, stickers, chapbooks, mail art, broadsides and any other form of multiple that is ripe for distribution. The Swap is intended for creators to trade the stuff they've made and embrace the gift economy made possible through mass production. Printeresting began in 2008 as “the thinking person’s favorite online resource for interesting printmaking miscellany.” It was founded by Gallery Store artists Amze Emmons and Jason Urban along with R.L. Tillman. They can be found at www.printeresting.org.  

Outloud: Artist Books Performed
Saturday, April 3rd at 2:00pm, Free and open to the public
An exhibition and performance of new work from regional and international artists committed to the form of the book. This event is organized by Gallery Store artists Katie Baldwin and Gregory Pizzoli.

Printing Event with Drive By Press
Wednesday, March 24, 6:00pm, Free and open to the public
Drive By Press will present a signature one-day-only print event as part of Philagrafika 2010: The Graphic Unconscious. The entire 1600 block of Latimer Street in front of The Print Center will be closed to traffic as artists Greg Nanney and Joseph Velasquez create a site-specific installation. Come and make your own custom printed t-shirt!

Between the Sheets: The Print CenterAnnual Auction
Offers Exceptional Art and a Fabulous Party!

PHILADELPHIA: Between the Sheets: The Print Center Annual Auction will be held on Saturday, December 5, 2009 from 6:00-8:00pm with an Exclusive Champagne Preview beginning at 5:00pm. The Print Center, one of Philadelphia’s oldest and most prestigious nonprofit cultural institutions, has set the goal to raise $33,000 with this year’s auction to support its outstanding visual art exhibitions and educational programs. Board of Governors President, Hester Stinnett said, “This will surely be our biggest and best auction in years. It’s going to be a great party, and we want not only to attract members of the art community, but individuals interested in visiting us for the first time.” This is a wonderful opportunity to buy original artwork at reasonable prices, and a great way to do holiday shopping!

The auction includes work by many renowned local and international artists who donate their work to show their support for The Print Center including Dotty Attie, Andrea M. Baldeck, Diane Burko, Paul Cava, Susan Fenton, Carl Fudge, David Graham, Daniel Heyman, Henry Horenstein, Jane Irish, Tristan Lowe, Sam Maitin, D.W. Mellor, Andrea Modica, Stuart Shils, Larry Spaid, Doug & Mike Starn and many more. Goods and service items will include tickets, gift certificates and products from local favorites including a fabulous South African Safari.

Enjoy the sensual delights of decadent chocolate and delectable champagne during the Champagne Preview. Exclusively for The Print Center’s Auction, one of our favorite artists, Virgil Marti, is teaming up with Philadelphia’s premiere chocolatiers Sara and Tom Block of Naked Chocolate Café, to create a specially crafted chocolate delight. Preview guests will get the first look at auction items and can close bidding by selecting the Buy It Now option.

Proceeds from The Print Center Auction fund group and solo exhibitions featuring local, regional and international artists and all of The Print Center’s other exciting programs. Tickets are $25 by December 4, $35 on December 5. The event will feature delicious hors d’oeuvres and libations. The Exclusive Champagne Preview begins at 5:00pm and tickets are $100. Preview and bid online at www.printcenter.org starting November 20. For more information or tickets, please call Ashley Peel Pinkham, Assistant Director, at 215.735.6090 x2. 

Streets of Philadelphia: Photography 1970-1985
September 10 – November 21, 2009
James B. Abbott, Robert Asman, Gary Lee Boas, Randl Bye, Don Camp, Jack Carnell, Paul Cava, Harvey Finkle, David Graham, Tom Gralish, Nancy Hellebrand, Charles Isaacs, Julie Jensen Bryan, George Krause, Paul McGuirk, Ray Metzker, William Owens, Stephen Perloff, Thomas Porett, Rosemary Ranck, Paul Runyon, Laurence Salzmann, Stephen Shore, Jack Tinney & William Earle Williams

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center presents Streets of Philadelphia: Photography 1970-1985, the first overview of street photography made in Philadelphia during an era which was critical in forging the city’s contemporary identity. Capturing an era that began with jubilant preparations for the Bicentennial and ended with the tragic MOVE bombing, the show reveals the city at a time that is distinctly different than today. The exhibition brings together the work of over twenty widely celebrated photographers and features many excellent works that have not been shown publicly in nearly thirty years. The more than fifty images displayed in Streets of Philadelphia: Photography 1970-1985 create a diverse and complicated portrait of the city.
  
While photography has been used to document life in the street since its invention, by the 1970s street photography had become a richly diverse and critically acclaimed genre of its own, with a number of recognized masters. During that decade, many photographers focused on the familiar, everyday details of the street and subject matter that seemed commonplace and unremarkable. The 1970s was also the first decade in which color photography began to receive attention as a legitimate artistic medium. There has been a recent resurgence of interest in American street photography from that time and the aesthetic of these works continues to wield significant influence on contemporary fine art photography as well as having a pervasive presence in advertising imagery.

Many of the photographs in the exhibition depict Philadelphia as a harsh, alienating and challenging place. Ray Metzker’s cityscapes, which have come to be known as masterworks, are dramatically stark, showing isolated figures moving between canyon-like skyscrapers. Tom Gralish, a long-time staff photographer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, received a Pulitzer Prize for his harshly honest photo essay on the life of the homeless in winter in Center City. Other photographers in the exhibition captured the raucous exuberance of the city during those years. William Earle Williams’ views of crowds at the premiere of Rocky are affectionate and riveting. Charles Isaacs’ scenes of South Street show youths dressed to the nines in the latest fashions of the early 1980s. Gary Lee Boas’ snapshots of visiting movie stars capture a time when celebrities were worshipped. A sense of irony and satire pervades much of other works, including Paul McGuirk’s wryly humorous depictions of historic re-enactors in a bustling city.

Streets of Philadelphia: Photography 1970-1985 will be on view at The Print Center from September 10 to November 21, 2009. On Wednesday, September 9 there will be gallery talk by John Caperton, Curator, The Print Center at 5:30pm and an opening reception from 5:30-7:30pm.

In conjunction with the exhibition, two public events will be presented:

Film Screening with Secret Cinema: Trick Baby           
Thursday, October 15, 7:30pm
The Print Center is partnering with Secret Cinema to present a screening of the 1973 film Trick Baby, which was shot in many locations in West Philadelphia. This hilarious action film about two con men running from both the cops and the mob gives a glimpse back into a very different time in Philadelphia’s history. The film will be introduced by Irv Slifkin, author of Filmadelphia: A Celebration of a City’s Movies.

Panel Discussion
Thursday November 12, 6:00pm
Hosted by The Print Center’s Curator, John Caperton, this panel will include Miles Orvell, Professor of English and American Studies at Temple University and author of the Oxford History of Art: American Photography; Stephen Perloff, a photographer whose work is included in the exhibition and the editor Focus Magazine, The Photo Review, The Photograph Collector, and The Photographic Art Market; and Zoe Strauss, a Philadelphia photographer whose gritty documentary photographs of the city have received international attention, including inclusion in the Whitney Biennial. The panelists will discuss the legacy of the works on display in the exhibition, the era they represent in Philadelphia’s history and their relationship to the history of street photography and to work being created today.

There’s No Place Like Here: Nadine Rovner
September 10 – November 21, 2009

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces There’s No Place Like Here, an exhibition of new work by emerging Philadelphia photographer Nadine Rovner. She was awarded this solo exhibition from The Print Center’s 82nd Annual International Competition: Photography, 2008.

Finding inspiration in the suburban landscape of southern New Jersey where she was raised, Rovner creates works that are part reality, part cinematic fantasy. Depicting parking lots and highway roadsides in rich, saturated colors, Rovner’s work recalls 1970s color street photography, including the work of William Eggleston and Stephen Shore. The carefully staged figures in her photographs seem to be acting out scenes reminiscent of 1970s film. We see her subjects meeting in dark alleys, living out of suitcases and killing time in diners. In this series of work, Rovner combines the gritty detail of documentary photography with the highly polished style often seen in fashion work and narrative elements borrowed from film which together create dreamy and nostalgic images.

This fall Rovner’s work will also be on view in Personal Views: Contemporary Portraiture in Philadelphia at Gallery 339, Philadelphia, PA. She has recently been in exhibitions at Gallery 1401, The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Silicon Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; the Humble Arts Foundation’s 31 Under 31: Young Women in Art Photography and also their 2008 Collector’s Guide to Emerging Art Photography. Rovner received a BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY.

There’s No Place Like Here: Nadine Rovner will be on view at The Print Center from September 10 – November 21, 2009. The opening reception is Wednesday, September 9 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk by the artist at 5:30pm.

There’s No Place Like Here: Nadine Rovneris supported by the Edna W. Andrade Fund of The Philadelphia Foundation.  

83rd Annual International Competition: Printmaking
Jurors: Shelly Bancroft and Peter Nesbett, Publishers of Art on Paper Magazine
May 30 – August 1, 2009

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center’s 83rd Annual International Competition: Printmaking features 33 prints by 29 of the finest contemporary artists working in printmaking today. On Saturday, May 30 jurors Shelly Bancroft and Peter Nesbett, publishers of Art on Paper magazine and founders of Triple Candie, will give a gallery talk discussing the works included in the exhibition with an award ceremony immediately following.

The Print Center’s Annual International Competition is one of the most prestigious exhibitions of its kind and is the oldest juried exhibition in the United States. Alternating yearly between printmaking and photography, it provides a unique opportunity for local, national and international artists to compete in a forum which emphasizes individual talent and expressiveness rather than a specific exhibition topic. Bancroft and Nesbett reviewed over 1,900 images submitted by almost 500 artists. “The result is an exceptional exhibition, representative of the wide variety of concerns in current printmaking practice,” said Executive Director Elizabeth Spungen. 

Jurors Shelly Bancroft and Peter Nesbett are the owners and publishers of Art on Paper, of which Nesbett is the editor. Art on Paper is an international magazine with award-winning coverage of the wide range of paper-based media, including limited-edition prints, drawings, photographs, books and ephemera. Bancroft and Nesbett are also the founders and directors of Triple Candie, a nonprofit contemporary art venue in Harlem, New York. Triple Candie has organized several provocative and critically-acclaimed exhibitions, including unauthorized retrospectives of reclusive artists, such as David Hammons and Cady Noland; a retrospective of a fictional post-Minimalist; the recreation of a pioneering 1950s era photography gallery; and, a quasi-anthropological exhibition of common objects.

A prestigious purchase award for the Philadelphia Museum of Art will be selected by John Ittmann, Curator of Prints, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Additional awards include: The Graphic Chemical and Ink Company Purchase Award ($300) for a hand-pulled print; the Jacqueline L. Zemel Prize ($500); The Print Center’s Honorary Council Honorable Mention ($100); Renaissance Graphics Award ($50); the Silicon Gallery Award ($250); and the Art on Paper Award (one year subscription). A solo exhibition at The Print Center will be awarded by its Curator, John Caperton.

The 83rd Annual International Competition: Printmaking will be on view at The Print Center from May 30 – August 1, 2009. The opening reception is Saturday, May 30 from 3:00-5:50pm, with a gallery talk by the jurors at 3:30pm and an awards ceremony immediately following. The exhibition will travel to Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences, Loveladies, NJ, September - October 2009.

Movement I, Movement II and a Sculpture: Andrew Jeffrey Wright
May 30 – August 1, 2009

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces Movement I, Movement II and a Sculpture, an exhibition of prints, photographs and one sculpture by Philadelphia artist Andrew Jeffrey Wright. Wright is widely exhibited nationally and internationally, and is well known for his screenprints, paintings, animations, drawings, collages, videos, installations and performances.

Wright has received attention for his optically charged screenprints of obsessively repeated abstract patterns as well as for works which incorporate hilarious social commentary drawn in an economic and knowingly naïve style. A new series of screenprints will be shown at The Print Center, along with a wallpaper work created especially for the show. This exhibition will also include recent photographic works which show the artist’s continued fascination with the humorous and abject influences of popular culture on contemporary life.

Wright is a current and founding member of Philadelphia's internationally noted Space 1026 art collective. He has a BFA in Animation from The University of the Arts, Philadelphia. His work has been included in recent group and solo exhibitions at Yerba Buena Arts Center, San Francisco, CA; The Luggage Store, San Francisco, CA; Lump, Raleigh, NC; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; and Foundation Cartier, Paris, France. Wright often works collaboratively, and in addition to his work with Space 1026, has shown with artists and collectives including Barry McGee, Paper Rad, Leif Goldberg, Clare E. Rojas, Marcel Dzama and Michael Dumontier.

Wright’s work will be on view at The Print Center from May 30 - August 1, 2009. The opening reception is on Saturday, May 30 from 3:00 - 5:00pm. The Print Center will also host a special evening featuring Andrew Jeffrey Wright performing stand up comedy on Thursday, June 25, at 7:30pm at The Print Center. Admission is $5.

disorder: Susan White
February 26 – May 16, 2009

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces disorder, a site specific installation by Philadelphia artist Susan White. Created to fill an entire gallery of The Print Center, the exhibition will include collaged printed works, as well as altered books.

White’s installation is an extended meditation on what makes up a book. In her work, the book is deconstructed into its individual parts – words, pages, covers, as well as being subverted for other uses. In earlier works, books became beehives and vessels for honey. Throughout, the book is seen as something that can be changed; content and components become fluid. In disorder, the parts of a book are exploded to a huge scale. The patterns of marbleized paper used for book covers take over the walls of the gallery, resembling microscopic views of cancerous cells. Words lifted from books take on a life of their own, as they form clusters and new sentences. Books are also attached directly to the wall, their covers and pages burrowed through as if by insects, revealing words and phrases within. Instead of being static tomes of facts and knowledge, in White’s hands books become opportunities for improvisation and poetry.

White received her BFA from Moore College of Art and Design and her MFA in Book Arts from The University of the Arts. Currently she teaches printmaking at The University of the Arts and Drexel University. Her work has recently been included in area exhibitions at The Crane Building, Abington Art Center, The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education and City Hall.

White’s work will be on view at The Print Center from February 26 – May 16, 2009. The opening reception is Thursday, February 26 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk by the artist at 5:30pm.

Pulling from History: The Old Masters
Jennifer Bornstein, Ernesto Caivano, David Fertig, Sarah McEneaney,
Norm Paris, Andrew Raftery, Kiki Smith and Anton Würth

February 26 – May 14, 2009

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center presents Pulling from History: The Old Masters, a group exhibition bringing together the work of eight contemporary artists whose work has been influenced by old master prints. When asked to describe her interest in printmaking, artist Jennifer Bornstein explained that intaglio “isn’t exactly a cutting-edge process of image-making. It’s a technology that’s in a time warp, practically unchanged over 500 years. It seemed to have been abandoned by contemporary art. Because of this, I had the impression that I could reinvent it. I could occupy myself less with traditional concerns, and more with hijacking this traditional medium to address my own concerns.” This is the first in a series of exhibitions exploring the ways that contemporary artists are “hijacking” the history of the printed image to create new work.

The works included in Pulling from History: The Old Masters show a variety of responses to the traditional printmaking processes of etching and engraving and also to the imagery of old master prints. In this exhibition we see carefully controlled engraved lines depicting the interior of a home staged for an open house (Andrew Raftery, Providence, RI) and intricate studies of stands used to display jewelry (Anton Würth, Offenbach, Germany). Other works include portraits of friends (Jennifer Bornstein, Los Angeles, CA), animals (Kiki Smith, New York, NY) and bathing nudes (Sarah McEneaney, Philadelphia, PA). Some artists have borrowed from historical sources for their imagery, including a suite of etchings of a dead knight (Ernesto Caivano, New York, NY), scenes from Goya’s Disasters of War (Norm Paris, Providence, RI) and battles scenes from the War of 1812 (David Fertig, Pemberton, NJ).

Pulling from History: The Old Masters will be on view at The Print Center from February 26 to May 16, 2009. On Thursday, February 26 there will be gallery talk by John Caperton, Curator of Prints and Photographs, The Print Center at 5:30pm and an opening reception from 5:30-7:30pm.

Join us for a special discussion, Three Views of the Old Masters, on Wednesday, April 8, 6:00pm, with artists Jennifer Bornstein, Norm Paris and Andrew Raftery, who will be joined by Shelley Langdale, Associate Curator, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Nadine Orenstein, Curator, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Free and open to the public.

Pulling from History: The Old Masters is supported by

Domesticated: Amy Stein
December 11, 2008 – February 14, 2009

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces Domesticated,an exhibition of new photographs by New York-based artist Amy Stein. This series of work focuses on intentional and random interactions between humans and animals and are based on real stories drawn from local newspapers and oral histories. A monograph featuring this series was recently published by Photolucida.

The large-scale color photographs that make up the Domesticated series are touching and surreal depictions of the human and natural worlds colliding. As urban sprawl extends further into what was wilderness, scenes like these are becoming more commonplace. In Stein’s hands, though, they are vivid, dramatic and sometimes humorous.  Stein explains that these works respond to our need for “connection with the mystery and freedom of the natural world, yet we continually strive to tame the wild around us and compulsively control the wild within our own nature."

In the last year, Stein has become one of the most discussed emerging photographers and her Domesticated series has received widespread critical praise. In 2007, she was named one of the top 15 emerging photographers in the United States by American Photo magazine.Stein has exhibited nationally including recent solo exhibitions at the Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Pool Gallery, Berlin, Germany; and the Paul Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. Her work is held in several private and public collections, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, and the West Collection at SEI, Oaks, PA. Stein was an undergraduate at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. She was awarded this solo exhibition from The Print Center’s 82nd Annual International Competition: Photography, 2008.

Stein’s work will be on view at The Print Center from December 11, 2008 – February 14, 2009. The opening reception is Thursday, December 11 from 5:30-7:30pm. Stein will give a lecture on Thursday, January 22, 2009 at 5:30pm at The University of Pennsylvania, Meyerson Hall, Room B-3, in conjunction with PennDesign’s Master of Fine Arts Program.

The Preponderance of Evidence: Shelley Thorstensen
December 11, 2008 – February 14, 2009

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces The Preponderance of Evidence,an exhibition of work by Pennsylvania artist Shelley Thorstensen. The exhibition offers a survey of prints created by the artist during the last six years. 

Thorstensen has been celebrated for her technically complex and visually dense works, which often combine several processes, including lithography, etching, screenprinting and relief printing. The works are both improvisational yet highly controlled, juxtaposing transparency and opacity, and subdued color which emerges from behind vivid marks. Complex organic shapes play off regimented architectural forms. Many combine several layers of imagery, mark-making and printmaking processes to form almost conversational juxtapositions; the eye lands on a baroque flourish, then moves to a barely visible flower and on to an atmospheric void. Thorstensen believes it is printmaking’s “mediating quality that makes me able to work. I draw through grounds, I sketch on limestone, I paint resists, I scan and manipulate, layer and relayer, retransfer, mask and unmask information, coalescing multiple fragile layers of emotion and vision.”

Thorstensen received her BFA from Syracuse University and her MFA from Tyler School of Art. She has taught at Minneapolis College of Art and Design; Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia; Mason Gross School of Art, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ; University of Delaware, Newark and Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, NY. Her solo exhibitions include The Free Library of Philadelphia; the State University of New York, Binghamton and Gallery Recolte, Fukuoka, Japan. Her work is found in several public collections including the Royal Museum of Art, Antwerp, Belgium; Newark Public Library Department of Prints; Texas Tech University, Lubbock and Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia. She was awarded this solo exhibition in The Print Center’s 81st Annual International Competition: Printmaking in 2007.

Thorstensen’s work will be on view at The Print Center from December 11, 2008 – February 14, 2009. The opening reception is Thursday, December 11 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk by the artist at 5:00pm.

SHOP: Art, Commerce and the Printed Image
December 11, 2008 – February 14, 2009

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces SHOP: Art, Commerce and the Printed Image,a group exhibition bringing together over twenty artists whose work explores the boundaries between fine art and commerce.

SHOP will include dozens of artist-printed works, many created specially for this exhibition, that resemble commercial products – ranging from comics to ‘zines, from bags to black light posters. Works in the exhibition include a puzzle by Edna Andrade, a wallet by Chris Duncan, mugs by Eleanor Grosch, cocktail napkins by Nancy Lewis, lampshades by Virgil Marti, a bean bag chair by Lauren Rossi, an oversized ruler by Shelley Spector and many others.
SHOP is a collaborative undertaking between The Print Center’s exhibition program and Gallery Store.  Artists in the exhibition that are currently represented by the Gallery Store include: Katie Baldwin, Candy Depew, Angela Earley, Dennis McNett, Bill McRight, Art Spiegelman and Andrew Jeffrey Wright. The Print Center Gallery Store presents a curated selection of original works from over seventy local, national and international artist-members, and offers the most extensive selection of contemporary prints and photographs in Philadelphia. Through the Gallery Store The Print Center supports emerging and established artists by displaying and promoting their work.
SHOP: Art, Commerce and the Printed Image will be on view at The Print Center from December 11, 2008 – February 14, 2009.


EXPOSED: The Print CenterAnnual Auction
Saturday, December 6, 2008 from 6:00-8:00pm

Offers Exceptional Art and a Fabulous Party!

Auction Preview and Online Bidding: www.printcenter.org
Exclusive Champagne Preview: Saturday, December 6 at 5:00pm

PHILADELPHIA: EXPOSED: The Print Center Annual Auction will be held on Saturday, December 6, 2008 from 6:00-8:00pm with an Exclusive Champagne Preview beginning at 5:00pm. The Print Center, one of Philadelphia’s oldest and most prestigious nonprofit cultural institutions, has set the goal to raise $35,000 with this year’s auction to support its outstanding visual art exhibitions and educational programs. Board of Governors President, Hester Stinnett said, “This will surely be our biggest and best auction in years. It’s going to be a great party, and we want not only to attract members of the art community, but individuals interested in visiting us for the first time.” This is a wonderful opportunity to buy original artwork at reasonable prices, and a great way to do holiday shopping!

The auction includes work by many renowned local and international artists who donate their work to show their support for The Print Center. Artists include: Edna Andrade, Andrea M. Baldeck, Diane Burko, Susan Fenton, Carl Fudge, David Graham, Daniel Heyman, Henry Horenstein, Jane Irish, D.W. Mellor, Stuart Netsky, Bruce Pollock, Dieter Roth, Larry Spaid, Shelley Spector and Sarah Van Keuren.

Goods and service items include tickets, gift certificates and products from local favorites including: Cin Cin Restaurant, The Curtis Institute of Music: The Curtis Symphony Orchestra, D'Angelo's Ristorante Italiano, Ernesto's 1521 Café, Fork Restaurant, The Franklin Fountain, Friday Saturday Sunday, Hello World, Institute of Contemporary Art, Opera Company of Philadelphia, The Prime Rib, Richard Nicholas Hair Studio, Radisson Plaza-Warwick Hotel Philadelphia and a South African Safari!!

Proceeds from The Print Center Auction fund group and solo exhibitions featuring local, regional and international artists and all of The Print Center’s other exciting programs. Tickets are $25 by December 5, $35 on December 6. The event will feature delicious hors d’oeuvres and libations. The Exclusive Champagne Preview begins at 5:00pm and tickets are $100. Preview and bid online at www.printcenter.org. For more information or tickets, please call Ashley Peel Pinkham, Assistant Director, at 215.735.6090 x2. 

Nakazora: space between sky and earth: Masao Yamamoto
September 10 – November 26, 2008

Wednesday, September 10
Gallery Talk by John Caperton, Curator: 5:00pm
Opening Reception: 5:30-7:30pm

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces Nakazora: space between sky and earth, a major new site-specific work by the renowned Japanese photographer Masao Yamamoto. Yamamoto will travel to Philadelphia from Japan to create a site-specific  installation of dozens of his photographs (sized between 2x3” and 3x5”) attached directly to the walls of The Print Center, creating an ambitiously scaled, yet exquisitely delicate, new work. His tiny images of still-lives, nudes and landscapes are treated with dyes, toned (with tea), painted, sometimes torn and then installed individually and unframed on the gallery’s walls in unexpected juxtapositions and lyrical combinations. This will be Yamamoto’s first exhibition in Philadelphia and will coincide with an exhibition of the artist’s work at Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York.

This exhibition provides a significant opportunity for American audiences to experience the work of this celebrated Japanese photographer. While several of Yamamoto’s Japanese contemporaries have received critical attention in the United States, including Hiroshi Sugimoto and Daido Moriyama, Yamamoto’s achievements have not yet been fully recognized. While his work is often startlingly contemporary, especially his installations, the quiet simplicity of his work reflects a Japanese spirit and deep connections to the historical traditions of Japanese photography. Individual images may recall the landscapes of early Japanese photographer Suizan Kurokawa’s, or Kazuma Ogawa’s photographs of Japanese buildings. Yamamoto’s work also relates to contemporary Japanese photography, including Masahisa Fukase’s dark portraits of ravens or Miyako Ishiuchi’s details of the female body. Nakazora: space between sky and earth will help to contextualize this work in both the history of Japanese photography as well as contemporary international photography.

Yamamoto has had numerous solo exhibitions internationally, including recent exhibitions at the Center for Photographic Art, Carmel, CA; Galerie Gabriel Rolt, Amsterdam; and Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo. His work was also included in the exhibition Picturing Eden at the George Eastman House, Rochester, NY. Six publications of the artist’s work have been published by Nazraeli Press.

Nakazora: space between sky and earth will be on view at The Print Center from September 10 to November 26, 2008. On Wednesday, September 10 there will be gallery talk by John Caperton, Curator of Prints and Photographs, The Print Center at 5:00pm followed by the opening reception from 5:30-7:30pm. Free and open to the public. This exhibition is made possible by generous support from the Japan Foundation.  


Foreclosed: Alejandra Laviada, Gillian Pears, Hirsch Perlman,
Tommy Reynolds, Melanie Schiff & Ryan Widger
September 10 – November 26, 2008

Wednesday, September 10
Gallery Talk by John Caperton, Curator: 5:00pm; Opening Reception: 5:30-7:30pm

Friday, October 17, 5:00pm
Gallery Talk by Gillian Pears, Tommy Reynolds & Ryan Widger

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center presents Foreclosed, a group exhibition bringing together the work of six photographers, who construct and then document sculptural installations. The works reflect the tedium, repetition and endless quest for purpose faced by the artist in the studio. Together the works also share a feeling of being foreclosed or blocked, as well as a sense of anxiety about the future and of turning inward rather than out. In a sense these works could be seen as the opposite of street photography, giving a sense of being barricaded away and in need of fresh air.

In this exhibition we see discarded buckets and chairs arranged in patterns that belie their former function (Alejandra Laviada); plastic sheeting hanging in a room conveying the potential of being soiled (Gillian Pears); a bundled mattress suggesting an unsettled life (Ryan Widger); a room crammed with objects reflecting an anxious need to hoard any and everything (Tommy Reynolds); a prism made from a CD case suggesting a search for beauty in something banal (Melanie Schiff); and finally, a plastic bag and a flashlight creating something akin to a failed mushroom cloud (Hirsch Perlman).

Alejandra Laviada, based in Mexico City, was included in the 2008 New York Photography Festival. Gillian Pears, based in Philadelphia, will have a solo exhibition at Kelly Weber Gallery, Philadelphia in November. Hirsch Perlman, based in Los Angeles, has exhibited internationally including recent solo exhibitions at Robert Miller Gallery, New York, and Gallery Min Min, Tokyo. Tommy Reynolds, based in Philadelphia, was recently included in a group exhibition at the Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI. Melanie Schiff, based in Chicago, IL, was included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, FL. Ryan Widger, based in Philadelphia, recently had a solo exhibition at Kelly Weber Gallery, Philadelphia.
 
Foreclosed will be on view at The Print Center from September 10 to November 26, 2008. On Wednesday, September 10 there will be gallery talk by John Caperton, Curator of Prints and Photographs, The Print Center at 5:00pm followed by the opening reception from 5:30-7:30pm. In conjunction with Center City District Gallery Night, Gillian Pears, Tommy Reynolds and Ryan Widger will give a gallery talk on their work on Friday, October 17 at 5:00pm. Free and open to the public.

82nd Annual International Competition: Photography
May 31 – August 2, 2008

Saturday, May 31: Opening Reception 3:00-5:00pm
Gallery Talk & Awards Ceremony by the Juror: 3:30pm
Juror: Joel Smith, Curator of Photography, Princeton University Art Museum

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center’s 82nd Annual International Competition: Photography features 37 prints by 36 of the finest contemporary artists from around the world. On Saturday, May 31 juror Joel Smith, Curator of Photography, Princeton University Art Museum will give a gallery talk discussing the works included in the exhibition with award ceremony immediately following.

The Print Center’s Annual International Competition is one of the most prestigious exhibitions of its kind and is the oldest juried exhibition for printmaking and photography in the United States. Alternating yearly between printmaking and photography, it provides a unique opportunity for local, national and international artists to compete in a forum which emphasizes individual talent and expressiveness rather than a specific exhibition topic. Mr. Smith reviewed over 2,100 images submitted by over 500 artists.  “The result is an exceptional exhibition, representative of the wide variety of current photographic practices, with a particular nod to the digital viewer,” said Executive Director Elizabeth Spungen. 

This year’s Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchase Award, selected by Kate Ware, Curator of Photographs, Philadelphia Museum of Art was awarded to Amy Stein and was supported by Julie Jensen Bryan and Robert Bryan and the Callan/McNamara Award. Mr. Smith awarded The Print Center’s Honorary Council Award of Excellence ($500) to Susan Lakin and Honorable Mention Awards ($50) to Jimmy Fike and Timothy Fitzgerald. The Olcott Family Award ($500) was given to Irene Imfeld and the Florence Whistler Fish Award ($300) went to Nadine Rovner.

Material awards include the Aperture Award (two year subscription) to Daniel Farnum, the Blind Spot Award (one year subscription) to Libby Rowe, The Photo Review Award (one year subscription) to Devorah Bowen and the Art on Paper Award (one year subscription) to Sarah Bones. The Silicon Gallery Fine Art Print Award ($250 gift certificate) was given to Jack Ramsdale, the Calumet Award ($250 gift certificate) to Jennifer Tauber and the Crane & Company Paper Award (paper valued at $350) to Chris Smiar. The Print Center’s Curator of Prints and Photographs, John Caperton awarded prestigious solo exhibitions to Nadine Rovner and Amy Stein. The exhibition will travel to Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences, Loveladies, NJ, September 19– October 27, 2008.

The Triumph of Democracy: Inside the StudioBenjamin Edwards
May 31 – August 2, 2008

Saturday, May 31
Opening Reception: 3:00-5:00pm

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces The Triumph of Democracy: Inside the Studio,an exhibition of digital prints by Washington, DC artist Benjamin Edwards.  This exhibition will be the first solo show of Edwards’ printed works in the United States and will include several studies that Edwards has created relating to a recently completed, epically scaled public commission entitled The Triumph of Democracy.

Edwards’ work has always reflected his keen interest in utopias, as well as his close observation of the rampant corporate culture of the last decade. He is also inspired by the new architecture of Washington, DC, calling it a “fantasy of a perfect capitalist, contradictions and all.” The Triumph of Democracy shows a manically detailed cityscape that is both familiar and disorienting, combining blandly handsome low-rise office buildings, vacant parking lots and fast food restaurants lining streets crammed with signs. The works included in this exhibition will show the entire wonderland along with smaller studies showing different layers of the city, breaking it apart and revealing how the hugely complex image was created. Edwards works from photographs of the generic types of buildings that all American consumers experience. He uses these photos to create virtual models using 3D modeling software, which are then combined in numerous layers to create an overall landscape.

Edwards was born in 1970 in Iowa City, IA. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles and received his M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design. He has recently had solo exhibitions in New York, Paris and Tokyo and his work has been included in a number of significant group exhibitions at such institutions as The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI; P.S. 1, Long Island City, NY and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, Providence, RI. His work is in a number of public collections, including the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; and the New York Public Library, New York, NY.

Edwards’ work will be on view at The Print Center from May 31 to August 2, 2008. The opening reception is on Saturday, May 31 from 3:00-5:00pm. Edwards will give a public lecture on Wednesday, July 16, from 12:00-1:00pm *NEW DATE* at The University of the Arts, CBS Auditorium, Hamilton Building, 320 S. Broad St, Philadelphia, PA. This talk is cosponsored by The University of the Arts’ Master of Fine Arts Program.

The Road Not Taken: Orit Hofshi
February 28 – May 17, 2008

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces The Road Not Taken, an exhibition of epically scaled woodcut prints by Israeli artist Orit Hofshi.  The exhibition includes four prints on paper and one large piece created from the carved wooden planks which form the matrix used for printing. The works are loosely constructed narratives featuring isolated figures in desolate landscapes.

The painstakingly carved lines in Hofshi’s work reveal the very labor intensive process of their making. The carved marks mirror the rocky crags illustrated in these landscapes; the grain of the wood sometimes playing off the marks and sometimes disappearing into them. Hofshi references both the history of woodcuts as well as apocalyptic landscape as seen in artists such as Anselm Kiefer and Albrecht Dürer.

Hofshi was born in 1959 and lives in Herzliya, Israel. She studied at the Wizo College of Design, Haifa, Israel and Leeds University, United Kingdom, before attending the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the International Print Center, New York; the Royal Academy of the Arts, London and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. She was included in The Print Center’s 79th Annual International Competition: Printmaking in 2005.
Hofshi’s work will be on view at The Print Center from February 28 to May 17, 2008. The opening reception is Thursday, February 28 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk by the artist at 5:00pm. The exhibition is co-sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel, Philadelphia, as part of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel.

Etchings & Drypoints 2005-2008: Bill Scott
February 28 – May 17, 2008

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces Etchings & Drypoints 2005-2008,an exhibition of prints by Philadelphia artist Bill Scott.  The exhibition, which will bring together over a dozen recent prints, is the first devoted to these exceptional works.

Scott is a highly-regarded Philadelphia artist who creates color-based abstract paintings and prints. His influences are both art historical and deeply personal, ranging from Joan Mitchell, who he met in France while on a student traveling grant, to the Impressionist paintings in the Barnes Foundation near his childhood home. Scott’s abstract works are full of references to the real world, with rectangles that recall windows and jagged lines that echo the branches seen from Scott’s studio. In 1999, Scott began making these etchings and drypoints (a printmaking technique in which the image is incised directly into the plate) with Philadelphia-based master printer Cindi R. Ettinger. Since that time Scott has made an extended body of prints, which have grown increasingly complex, with dense markings and beautiful colors.

Scott was born in Bryn Mawr, PA in 1956 and attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In 2004 he was the recipient of an Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts and the Adolph & Clara Obrig Prize from the National Academy Museum, New York.  He received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2006 from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he presently teaches. His work is found in many prestigious public collections including the Delaware Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The State Museum of Pennsylvania and the Woodmere Art Museum. He is represented by Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York and has been the subject of solo exhibitions in London, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

Scott’s work will be on view at The Print Center from February 28 to May 17, 2008. The opening reception is Thursday, February 28 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk by the artist at 5:00pm.

The Philadelphia Etchings: Janet Towbin
February 28 – May 17, 2008

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces The Philadelphia Etchings,an exhibition of work by artist Janet Towbin.  The exhibition presents an overview of prints made by the artist, who recently moved to Phoenix, AZ, during the eight years she lived in Philadelphia. 

In these etchings, which she made with master printer Cindi R. Ettinger, Towbin finds inspiration in the growth patterns of plants and the movement of wind and water. Their ceaseless, almost obsessive markings seem to mark time and its passing, while their repeating patterns recall textile designs, which Towbin has taught for a number of years. For each of the works in the exhibition, Towbin creates a new solution to abstraction. In some cases the lines become crystallized forms, like responses to some complex algorithm. At other times they verge into chaos, borrowing less from logic and more from intuition. In all of the works we see Towbin’s masterful approach to drawing and line.

Towbin attended the University of Cincinnati and has taught at Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia, PA and Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. She has exhibited nationally including solo exhibitions at the Abington Art Center, Jenkintown, PA; Tadu Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM and Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH. Her work is in several public collections including The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, PA and Arcadia University, Glenside, PA. She was included in The Print Center’s 81st Annual International Competition: Printmaking in 2007.

Towbin’s work will be on view at The Print Center from February 28 to May 17, 2008. The opening reception is Thursday, February 28 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk by the artist at 5:00pm.

Moon Studies and Star Scratches: Sharon Harper

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces Moon Studies and Star Scratches,an exhibition of large-scale photographic works by internationally acclaimed artist Sharon Harper. The works in this series were created with an 8x10 view camera in locations around the world.

Harper uses photography to explore the ways that technology mediates our relationship with the natural world. In the Moon Studies and Star Scratches series, Harper photographed the moon and stars over a period of days, weeks and months on a single sheet of film, both black & white and color. The long exposures capture the movement of celestial objects, rendering them as lines of light and reminding the viewer of the link between the moon and stars and the units we use to measure time and distance. By using the camera as a metaphor for the pervasive presence of technology within the landscape, Harper plays on our conception of photography as providing an objective, virtually scientific representation of the world.

Harper is Assistant Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University. She has had solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Marcel Sitcoske Gallery, San Francisco; and the Goethe Institute, New York. Her work has been in numerous group exhibitions including: Greater New York, PS1, New York; On Site, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson; and The Print Center’s 80th Annual International Competition: Photography, 2006, for which she received The Print Center Honorary Council’s Award of Excellence. Her work is found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR. She received her MFA in Photography and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts, New York and a BA from Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT, in Literary Studies.

Sharon Harper’s work will be on view at The Print Center from December 6, 2007 to February 16, 2008.  The opening reception is Thursday, December 6 from 5:30-7:30pm.



Dakar Portraits: Vera Viditz-Ward

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces Dakar Portraits,an exhibition of photographs by Pennsylvania photographer Vera Viditz-Ward.  In 1996, Viditz-Ward began an ongoing photographic project investigating urban life in West Africa. The recent works featured in this exhibition are from Dakar, the capital of Senegal and an important political and cultural hub between North Africa and the sub-Saharan countries. The viewer is led through the city - entering homes, glimpsing into businesses and viewing crowds from the window of a taxi. Her portraits can give a sense of disarming intimacy, clearly showing the character and surroundings of the subject. In others, we are blocked from entering these personal worlds by closed doors and crushing crowds.

Viditz-Ward is Professor of Photography at Bloomsburg University, Bloomsburg, PA. She has had solo exhibitions at international venues including: The Balch Institute of Ethnic Studies, Philadelphia; The Newark Museum, Newark, NJ; the National Museum of Sierra Leone, Freetown, Sierra Leone; and the Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham, England. Her work was included in The Print Center’s 80th Annual International Competition: Photography, 2006 and received The Print Center’s Exhibition Award. Her photographs have appeared in numerous publications, including those of the National Geographic Society, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.

Viditz-Ward’s work will be on view at The Print Center from December 6, 2007 to February 16, 2008. The opening reception is Thursday, December 6 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk by the artist at 5:00pm.



That’s Women’s Work: Laura Wagner

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces That’s Women’s Work,an exhibition of prints by Philadelphia artist Laura Wagner. The exhibition features two recent series by the artist: Cannibal Debutantes silkscreen prints and mixed-media Barcode Bondage Babies. 

Wagner’s Cannibal Debutantes are inspired by illustrations from 1950s cookbooks. Borrowing the cheerful imagery of happy housewives teaching obedient daughters how to prepare a meal, Wagner has injected them with a macabre humor through the use of dismantled body parts. British critic Ana Finel Honigman wrote, “For these women and girls, the raw meat of human experience and fleshy sensation has been boiled and baked until becoming utterly bland. Biting through the banality, Wagner's sharp, smart imagery reveals the complex humanity buried behind plastic-fantastic images of perfection.” The inventive Barcode Bondage Babies combine woodcut prints with hand stitching.

Wagner was born in Bangkok, Thailand and raised in Nepal, Bangladesh and Michigan. She received her BA in Visual Art from Brown University in 2005 and moved to Philadelphia in fall of that year. Her work has been included in several group exhibitions including those at the Perkins Center for the Arts, Moorestown, NJ, Art in City Hall, Philadelphia and The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA. She was included in The Print Center’s 81st Annual International Competition: Printmaking in 2007 and was the recipient of The Print Center’s Exhibition Award.

Wagner’s work will be on view at The Print Center from December 6, 2007 to February 16, 2008. The opening reception is Thursday, December 6 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk by the artist at 5:00pm.

TIME AFTER TIME: COMMUNITY PINHOLE PROJECTS

PHILADELPHIA – The Print Center announces Time after Time: Community Pinhole Projects, an exhibition of photographs created in response to The Print Center’s recent exhibition Taken with Time: a camera obscura projectwhich featured work by Ann Hamilton, Vera Lutter and Abelardo Morell. Time after Time includes photographs made in collaboration with The Print Center’s Artists-in-Schools Program by students at Benjamin Franklin, Frankford, West Philadelphia and William Penn High Schools and CHANCES, an outpatient substance abuse treatment program for women and women with children. The Print Center’s Artists-in-Schools Program brings art education and awareness to underserved young people in The Philadelphia Public School System, while increasing their self esteem and encouraging them to think more expansively about their lives and the world around them.

As part of The Print Center’s Artists-in-Schools Program, coordinated by Tina Zavitsanos, artist educators Simona Josan, Nick Lally, Shalya Marsh and Stacy Treier worked with high school teachers Caroline Allen, Nina Gordon, Robin Lane and Vanessa Marshall to help student artists explore issues of identity and self-representation by producing self-portraits using the camera obscura or pinhole cameras.

Participants in the CHANCES workshops explored self-identity in response to their addiction recovery through art making. The upside-down to right-side up nature of working with the camera obscura or pinhole camera was parallel to the way participant’s lives have been affected by substance abuse and the road to recovery. The Print Center’s collaboration with CHANCES, to provide art education and life management skills, was made possible by a partnership with Art-Reach, a nonprofit organization that joins the performing and visual arts with special needs audiences through organizations serving people with disabilities or economic disadvantages.

The exhibition will be on view August 8 – 18, 2007 with an opening reception Wednesday, August 8 from 5:30 – 7:30pm.

81st ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION: PRINTMAKING

PHILADELPHIA - The Print Center’s 81st Annual International Competition: Printmaking features 44 prints by 42 of the finest contemporary artists from around the world. On Saturday, May 19 juror, Shelley Langdale, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings, Philadelphia Museum of Art will give a gallery talk in which she will discuss the works included in the exhibition. The award ceremony will immediately follow her talk.

The Print Center’s Annual International Competition is one of the most prestigious exhibitions of its kind and is the oldest juried exhibition for printmaking and photography in the United States. Alternating each year between printmaking and photography, it provides a unique opportunity for local and international artists to compete in a forum which emphasizes individual talent and expressiveness rather than a specific exhibition topic. 

Ms. Langdale reviewed over 1,600 slides submitted by over 400 artists.  “The quantity and diversity of the entries not only affirm the vitality of the medium, but also suggest the ever-expanding role of the print in contemporary art-making strategies” said Ms. Langdale. 

This year’s prize, selected by John Ittmann, Curator of Prints, Philadelphia Museum of Art was awarded to William Smith for Moon-Moonlight, 2005. The Graphic Chemical and Ink Company Purchase Award ($300) for a hand-pulled print was given to Michiko Yamamoto for Untitled woodcut, 2006.

Shelley Langdale selected the following cash and material award recipients: the Jacqueline L. Zemel Prize ($500) Laura Wagner; The Print Center’s Honorary Council Award of Excellence ($500) Ann Johnston-Schuster, given in honor of Charlotte Yudis (1939  - 2007); Honorable Mention ($100) Serena Perrone, given in honor of Shirley Moskowitz Gruber (1920 - 2007); the Art on Paper Award (one year subscription) was awarded to Thomas Stavovy; Renaissance Graphics Award ($50) to Katie Baldwin and the Silicon Gallery Award ($250) to  Kim Baranowski. The Print Center’s Curator, Jacqueline van Rhyn awarded solo exhibitions to Shelley Thorstensen and Laura Wagner. This exhibition will travel to Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences, Loveladies, NJ October 18 – December 3, 2007.

Abu Ghraib Detainee Interview Project: Daniel Heyman

Interview with Daniel Heyman by Joel Rose, WHYY

Weekend America host Alex Cohen
speaks with Daniel Heyman about his work

City Paper interview with Daniel Heyman by Drew Lazor

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces Abu Ghraib Detainee Interview Project by Philadelphia printmaker Daniel Heyman. Heyman was invited to witness interviews conducted by a legal team prosecuting a class action suit on behalf of the former detainees of Abu Ghraib prison in Amman, Jordan and Istanbul, Turkey in 2006. During those proceedings, Heyman created portraits combing the faces of these victims of torture with the text of their testimony.

Most Americans are familiar with the disturbing photographic images from Abu Ghraib in which victims of torture appeared hooded, unclothed and anonymous. In Heyman’s etchings and woodcuts, the detainees’ faces, as well as personal details emerge. Heyman intends these portraits to restore the dignity and individuality of these prisoners in the eyes of the world. Writing on this body of work, Shelley R. Langdale, Associate Curator for Prints and Drawings, Philadelphia Museum of Art states “…rather than portraying the former prisoners in their victimized state, … here Heyman takes advantage of his first-hand experience to focus on them as people. He reclaims their humanity by showing them seated in suits and ties, shirtsleeves or a patterned shawl, as he encountered them when they related their testimony and spoke of their homes, families and friends.”

Daniel Heyman received an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Dartmouth College. His work has been shown in numerous solo and group shows and his work is in many public and private collections including the Free Library of Philadelphia, the New York Public Library, and the Yale University Gallery. Heyman currently teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design and Swarthmore College.

Daniel Heyman’s work will be on view at The Print Center from February 22 – May 5, 2007 and the opening reception is Thursday, February 22 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk at 5:00pm.



Books: Photographic Sequences: Ditta Baron Hoeber
February 22 – May 5, 2007

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces Books: Photographic Sequences by Ditta Baron Hoeber. This exhibition presents her artist’s books focusing of artists at work and the spaces in which art making occurs.  She focuses on the specific gestures these individuals make while working, highlighting the qualities of concentration, intention and grace. In each image the people are focused on something just outside the frame, leaving viewers to compose their own stories as they read the book.

Ditta Baron Hoeber attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME and Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia, PA.  Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the United States including Arcadia University Art Gallery, Glenside, PA; Philadelphia Art Alliance; Society for Contemporary Photography, Kansas City, MO; Houston Center for Photography; and the State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA.

Ditta Baron Hoeber’s work will be on view at The Print Center from February 22 – May 5, 2007 and the opening reception is Thursday, February 22 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk at 5:00pm.

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces Dream,an exhibition of black & white photographs by Philadelphia artist James Stogdill.  The photographs, made in the 18 months after the artist's 40th birthday, tell a story of loss, waiting, family, and the moment when hopefulness begins to feel the first constraints of mortality.  The pictures use the artist as a central figure and take the viewer inside the dreams of a man at the intersection of nostalgia, childhood and love.

The highly constructed nature of these photographs represents a departure for Stogdill whose previous work identified common threads of feeling in pictures made of "found" scenes.  The new use of composed scenes and self-portraiture has given Stogdill an opportunity to offer a narrative with greater intentionality.

Stogdill was one of two photographers awarded a solo exhibition from The Print Center’s 80th Annual International Competition: Photography, juried by Stephen Pinson, Curator, Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. His work has also been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums including: the Perkins Center for the Arts, Moorestown, NJ and the Radnor Arts Center, Radnor, PA.  His work has also been published in Shots Magazine.

James Stogdill’s work will be on view at The Print Center from February 22 – May 5, 2007 and the opening reception is Thursday, February 22 from 5:30-7:30pm, with a gallery talk by the artist at 5:00pm

Prints by New Jersey Artists: 15 Years of the Brodsky Center (formerly Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper)
PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces Prints by New Jersey Artists: 15 Years of the Brodsky Center (formerly Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper) which will show the variety, creativity and exuberance of contemporary printmaking.  The projects are all the work of New Jersey artists who had the opportunity to be in residence at the Brodsky Center, located at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.  The Brodsky Center was established in 1986 by Judith K. Brodsky as an international, national and regional center for leading edge printmaking and papermaking ideas and education, providing outstanding artists in all media who are contributing new narratives to the American cultural mainstream the opportunity to create new work of the highest esthetic and technical distinction in printmaking and papermaking. 

This traveling exhibition celebrates the 100 New Jersey artists who have been in residence from 1987 through 2002.  They were selected by committees composed of curators and artists.  The Print Center will be exhibiting works from 13 of the participating artists, including Carmen Cartiness Johnson, Carson Fox and Gary Petersen, with work ranging from silkscreen to etchings to digital prints.  The work, according to William Zimmer in his New York Times review, is a “rich cultural stew” and that all the works “contribute to the dynamism of the show.

”100 New Jersey Artists will be on view at The Print Center from November 30, 2006 – February 10, 2007.  The exhibition is traveling nationally and internationally for the next three years, including the Tweed Museum at the University of Minnesota; the Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia, Athens; and will then travel to Europe, the Middle East and Africa.


New Work: Barbara Duval
November 30, 2006 – February 10, 2007
PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center announces New Work: Barbara Duval. This exhibition will focus on etchings Ms. Duval has done over the past few years.  The human figure has always been central to her work, and groupings of figures are of particular importance. Gesture, placement, configuration, as well as the relationship of figures to each other and to their environment provide Ms. Duval with ways in which to question human nature in a broad context.

Ms. Duval received a BFA from Pratt Institute in 1978 and an MFA from the Yale University School of Art in 1982.  Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums in the United States and abroad, and is included in numerous public and private collections, among them: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Fogg Art Museum, and the Contemporary Art and Culture Center in Osaka, Japan.  She has received numerous awards including a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship in Painting/Graphic Art to Berlin, Germany; a Belgian American Education Foundation Fellowship in Painting/Printmaking to Antwerp, Belgium; two South Carolina Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowships; and two Ford Foundation Grants.  In 2001 she received the College of Charleston’s Distinguished Research Award.  She has been a Professor of Studio Art at the College since 1982.

Barbara Duval’s work will be on exhibit at The Print Center from November 30, 2006 – February 10, 2007 and the opening reception is Thursday, November 30 from 5:30-7:30pm.

Ann Hamilton Photographs in Historic Philadelphia’s Sites, Old Swedes’ Church, Old Saint George’s Church, Free Library, and Carpenters’ Hall for Taken with Time, A Camera Obscura Project.
PHILADELPHIA: Internationally-renowned artist, Ann Hamilton, undertakes a new photography project in preparation of The Print Center’s fall exhibition Taken with Time: A Camera Obscura Project which will also include commissioned work by Vera Lutter and Abelardo Morell.

Taken with Time brings together three internationally recognized contemporary artists in the field of photography who have taken a unique and innovative approach to reviving the magical camera obscura, a simple device for capturing an image. It is a box, sometimes as big as a room, with a hole in one of its walls. Light passing through the hole produces an inverted image of the view outside on the opposite interior wall. The light is very dim inside a camera obscura necessitating a long exposure time to capture the projection. In Taken with Time each of the three invited artists—Ann Hamilton (Columbus, OH), Vera Lutter (New York, NY) and Abelardo Morell (Boston, MA)—has devised his or her distinct method of executing the time-consuming exposures resulting in three images representing Philadelphia’s architectural, social and industrial histories.

Ann Hamilton visited Philadelphia April 29 - May 1 and will return June 11-18 to place pinhole cameras at multiple sites which exemplify Philadelphia’s rich tradition as a political and religious meeting place. Hamilton selected Gloria Dei (Old Swedes’) Church, Old Saint George’s Church, Free Library and Carpenters’ Hall in Old City, as significant places where Philadelphians have in the past and still continue now to gather. The churches represent the colony’s edict of religious freedom. Old Saint George’s Church is known as ”The Cradle of American Methodism” and Gloria Dei which has been in use since 1700 making it the oldest church building in Pennsylvania and the second oldest in the country. Here, Hamilton will place a set of rectangular cameras on or near the altar and pews to capture the congregation’s movements during the service. The Free Library is a public site where everyone and anyone is welcome to obtain knowledge. Small pinhole cameras will be placed on the balconies of Pepper Hall to record Philadelphians coming together to educate themselves. Carpenters’ Hall was the meeting site of the First Continental Congress in 1774, which had political repercussions leading to the country’s independence. During the first week of the opening, Hamilton will place a circa 1800’s round table in the center and invite visitors to read in unison a historical text. Their joint effort will be recorded with a round pinhole camera with multiple apertures custom made for the table.

The exhibition is scheduled for September 7 – November 11, 2006 and is curated by Jacqueline van Rhyn, Curator of Prints and Photographs at The Print Center. Taken with Time is made possible by the Philadelphia Exhibition Initiative, a granting program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts, Philadelphia.

Vera Lutter’s Camera Obscura at 30th Street Station
for TAKEN WITH TIME, A Camera Obscura Project
PHILADELPHIA: Internationally renowned artist, Vera Lutter, undertakes a new photography project in preparation of The Print Center’s fall exhibition TAKEN WITH TIME: A Camera Obscura Project which will also include commissioned work by Ann Hamilton and Abelardo Morell. TAKEN WITH TIME brings together three internationally recognized contemporary artists in the field of photography who have taken a unique and innovative approach to reviving the magical camera obscura, a simple device for capturing an image. It is a box, sometimes as big as a room, with a hole in one of its walls. Light passing through the hole produces an inverted image of the view outside on the opposite interior wall. The light is very dim inside a camera obscura necessitating a long exposure time to capture the projection. In TAKEN WITH TIME each of the three invited artists—Ann Hamilton (Columbus, OH), Vera Lutter (New York, NY) and Abelardo Morell (Boston, MA)—has devised his or her distinct method of executing the time-consuming exposures resulting in three images representing Philadelphia’s architectural, social and industrial histories.

Vera Lutter, with the help of The Print Center and Amtrak, will create a shipping-container sized camera obscura, which will be placed on the northwest corner of the second floor of the Amtrak parking garage at 30th Street Station. This site affords a west view overlooking the rail yard, a rail bridge, and Amtrak’s abandoned steam plant. Lutter will capture her image directly on photographic paper, not on negative film, making a series of unique photographs. Weather permitting; the exposure will take place during the second and third weeks of April.

Lutter will use Amtrak’s Acela Express to travel daily between her studio in New York and the camera obscura in Philadelphia. Each morning she will ‘load’ photographic paper onto the back wall of her camera obscura. The total time of the exposure will depend on the intensity of the daylight, from a few hours on a bright sunny day to possibly even 2 days of dreary overcast. After the exposure is completed, Lutter will pack the exposed paper in a light-tight tube and return to her studio in New York. There she will develop the image in her custom-made darkroom where she can easily process the over-sized photographic paper. The final images will depict the sites with great factuality but also have a ghost like appearance. Lutter’s ghostly representation of an industrial site will encapsulate Philadelphia’s once flourishing industrial age.

The exhibition is scheduled for September 7 – November 11, 2006 and is curated by Jacqueline van Rhyn, Curator of Prints and Photographs at The Print Center. Vera Lutter will give an artist lecture at the University of Pennsylvania on October 23rd at 5:00 pm. TAKEN WITH TIME is made possible by the Philadelphia Exhibition Initiative, a grant program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts, Philadelphia.

TAKEN WITH TIME, a Camera Obscura Project in Philadelphia
PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center, a nonprofit gallery continuing its 91 year mission to support printmaking and photography, announces the opening of its Fall 2006 exhibition, TAKEN WITH TIME: A Camera Obscura Project.
TAKEN WITH TIME brings together three internationally recognized contemporary artists in the field of photography who have taken a unique and innovative approach to reviving the magical camera obscura. The camera obscura is a simple device for capturing an image. It is a box, sometimes as big as a room, with a hole in one of its walls. Light passing through the hole produces an inverted image on the opposite interior wall of the view outside. The light is very dim inside a camera obscura necessitating a long exposure time to capture the projection. In TAKEN WITH TIME each of the three invited artists—Ann Hamilton (Columbus, OH), Vera Lutter (New York, NY) and Abelardo Morell (Boston, MA)—has devised his or her distinct method of executing the time-consuming exposures resulting in three images representing Philadelphia’s architectural, social and industrial histories.

Abelardo Morell converted Gallery 171 in the Modern and Contemporary wing of The Philadelphia Museum of Art into a giant camera obscura. Through a small hole in one of the gallery’s clerestory windows, Morell projected the corner of the museum’s West Entrance onto Giorgio de Chirico’s painting The Soothsayer’s Recompense (1913) hung on the opposite gallery wall. Morell captured the projected image of the museum with three 4x5 cameras, one filled with color film which was a first for Morell. This color image has revitalized Morell’s series for the camera obscura, which prior to his work with TAKEN WITH TIME was coming to a close. Instead, this image has become the first of a new series of color camera obscura photographs.

Vera Lutter, with the help of The Print Center and Amtrak, will create a shipping-container sized camera obscura, which will be placed on the northwest corner of the second floor of the Amtrak parking garage at 30th Street Station. This site affords a west view overlooking the rail yard, a rail bridge and Amtrak’s abandoned steam heating plant. Lutter will capture her image directly on photographic paper, not on negative film, making her photograph one-of-a-kind. Weather permitting; the exposure will take place during the second week of April.

Ann Hamilton’s cameras are miniature in size compared to those of Abelardo Morell and Vera Lutter. The artist has selected three different sites. The first will capture visitors to Carpenter’s Hall in Old City who will be invited to gather around a circa 1800’s round table for the duration of the exposure. The second will be set in front of a congregation at a Philadelphia church, temple or meeting house to capture the congregation’s movement or lack there of during the mass, Shabbat or meeting. The third camera will be placed in the center of a group meeting in a location specifically used for a gathering. Ann Hamilton is scheduled to begin photographing the last weekend of April 2006.

The exhibition is scheduled for September 7 – November 11, 2006 and is curated by Jacqueline van Rhyn, Curator of Prints and Photographs at The Print Center. TAKEN WITH TIME is made possible by the Philadelphia Exhibition Initiative, a grant program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts, Philadelphia.


Diamonds are Forever: Edna Andrade
March 16 – May 27, 2006
PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center is proud to present a body of work barely seen in Philadelphia: Edna Andrade’s prints from the 1960’s and 1970’s. At the forefront of the op art movement, Andrade’s paintings meticulously handpainted hard-edged geometric patterns are perfected in her prints. The margin of error was much less forgiving in screenprinting and lithography, demanding exactness and patience from both the artist and the master printer. Most of her prints are made up of a single geometric shape reiterated over and over leading to a dynamic, pulsating composition. Her prints unsettle the eye and sometimes induce a mild sensory experience for the viewer. Andrade was drawn to printmaking as a medium to make her work more accessible and create as wide an audience as possible, regardless of the person’s art education. The immediacy of her work does not require an explanation. “People don’t have to be aesthetes in order to understand it [her art];” Andrade explains, in the ICA’s exhibition catalog, “It has a direct visual-emotional impact.”

The exhibition at The Print Center also includes a few prints Andrade made at the Tamarind Institute after it moved to New Mexico in 1970. The influence and impression of the vast open land and the desert colors are prominent in Andrade’s prints. Although still playing with optical geometric forms, the compositions are more organic making direct reference to the land and her experience of the non-urban landscape.

What is most surprising, Andrade’s prints from the 1960’s and 1970’s are contemporary. Distinctly made and 30-40 years ago, they share the ideas with which and the contexts in which art is perceived today—the interchange between art, architecture and design. At the young age of 89 years old Andrade has her style come into prominence, fall out of favor only to become the focus of a new generation of art in the beginning of the 21st century.

Edna Andrade, born in 1917 in Portsmouth, VA, is based in Philadelphia and represented by Locks Gallery. She graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1938. Throughout her career she has exhibited at numerous national and international venues including the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania (2003), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1993-4), Amerika Haus, Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich, Germany (1985), Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. (1979), Philadelphia Museum of Art (1973-4), Brooklyn Museum of Art (1971) and Philadelphia Art Alliance (1965).

The Guides: Justyna Badach
March 16 – May 27, 2006
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Artist Talks: 5:00 p.m. and Opening Reception: 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
PHILADELPHIA: This new series of photographs by Philadelphia resident Justyna Badach presents several changes in her work. To begin, it marks her return to color photographs after having printed digitally since 1999 and despite her allergic reaction to the chemicals. Tired of the computer screen, Badach missed the hands-on process in the darkroom. Secondly, and more importantly, Badach reintroduces people into her photographs. Her previous work almost exclusively dealt with the landscape imbued with cultural dislocation and personal isolation. On the contrary, in The Guides the human figure is the subject matter and the focus of our attention while the architectural background becomes almost unnecessary. In this series, Badach reverts to street photography with the interest to merge the distance of the stranger and the proximity, or intimacy, of the photograph into one image. Her subject is the tourist and the tour guide; the latter purposely making him- or herself stand out from the group by the choice of majestic or whimsical flag, umbrella or staff. The tourists appear to blend in with the group or attempt to appear as inconspicuous as possible. As the artist notes, the guided tour gives the visitor a chance of being an insider, to have access to information and sights unavailable to those who do not participate. At the same time, being in a group of people all holding or wearing cameras and guided by a person holding an umbrella or something of the sort, is itself highly visible. Badach’s series The Guides, repetitive in form and composition, depicts the tourist’s desire to blend into and gain access to a new culture and yet their photographs of this new place will all be similar, capturing all the same sites.

Justyna Badach is currently Associate Professor of Photography at University of Delaware, previously teaching at Drexel University since 2000. She received her MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1998 and has been awarded most recently a Leeway Foundation Special Opportunity Grant (2004) and a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts S.O.S. Grant (2003). Her solo exhibitions include the Philadelphia International Airport (2004) and Leonard Pearlstein Gallery at Drexel University (2005). Her photographs have been included in several group exhibitions at Vox Populi Gallery (2005), Studio Thomas Kellner, Germany (2005), Main Line Art Center (2003) and White Columns, New York (2001).

Short Stories: A Narrative in Mezzotint, Art Werger
March 16 – May 27, 2006
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Artist Talks: 5:00 p.m. and Opening Reception: 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
PHILADELPHIA: Art Werger from Athens, OH has worked almost exclusively with intaglio printmaking for the last 25 years. Moreover, he has mastered and is one a few contemporary printmakers who uses the labor intensive print process, mezzotint, a process for which you first create a black surface and then burnish, scrape or scribe a white image out of it, the reverse for a typical print process. In this exhibition, Werger presents over 200 three inch squared black and white mezzotints with aquatint laid out in a crossword grid on the wall. Each image captures a single moment, a snippet of a larger action. Yet presented as a group, they together create visual and narrative connections. Werger refers to these groups as having a cinematic quality, capturing single moments within a larger continuous motion. But this continuous motion remains unfixed as the grid format can be shuffled into a new and different presentation. The grid format also engages the viewer to create her own narrative out of the abstracted images. In this series, Werger collapses concepts of time and space letting them be formed and read differently by each viewer.

Art Werger is currently Professor of Printmaking at Ohio University, Athens. He has exhibited his work extensively in solo and group exhibitions at national and international venues including the Davidson Gallery, Seattle, WA; The Japan Foundation, Tokyo; Culture Centers throughout Poland; Contemporary Museum of Atlanta, GA; Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY; and Fanny Garver Gallery, Madison, WI. He has been awarded hundreds of prizes including three from The Print Center Annual Competitions in 2005, 2003 and 1988. His prints can be seen in over 50 public collections including the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, Philadelphia Museum of Art and Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

The Print Center Receives Grant from Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative
$150,000 Towards Camera Obscura Project, TAKEN WITH TIME

PHILADELPHIA: The Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative (PEI), funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts, announced the 2005 awardees in April. The Print Center was one of four Philadelphia institutions selected, including the Fabric Workshop and Museum, Moore College of Art and Design and the Institute of Contemporary Art. The Print Center received $150,000 for the exhibition TAKEN WITH TIME.

TAKEN WITH TIME brings together for the first time, three contemporary artists of international significance in the field of photography who have each taken different and innovative approach to reviving the camera obscura—the oldest and simplest photographic device. Ann Hamilton (Columbus, OH), Vera Lutter (New York, NY) and Abelardo Morell (Boston, MA) will temporarily install camera obscurae in different Philadelphia locations and will present the final images in an exhibition at The Print Center. The new work will be exhibited at The Print Center and documented in an accompanying catalog. Related outreach programming will illuminate the project and the magic of the camera obscura to targeted audiences. A planning grant that was awarded in 2004 by PEI offered the opportunity to invite each artist to spend two weeks in Philadelphia. At that time they conducted research and explored the city to determine the site for their camera obscura. The second part of the planning grant also supported hiring a project manager and art education coordinator to make contact with the community of each selected site and to begin formulating outreach programs based around the construction and use of each camera.

TAKEN WITH TIME will present three different uses of the camera obscura to address how we perceive light, observe space and experience time. The site specificity of each camera obscura’s location will be significant in the context of Philadelphia reflecting on its communities, history, architecture and cultural wealth. Morell will turn a gallery at the Philadelphia Museum of Art into a camera, Lutter will place her camera which is the size of a shipping container on a rail platform, while Hamilton’s portable pinhole camera will sit in the center of various types of gatherings in the city.

The exhibition is currently scheduled for September 7 - November 8, 2006 and will be curated by Jacqueline van Rhyn, Curator of Prints and Photographs at The Print Center. Ms. van Rhyn co-curated The Print Center’s recently funded PEI exhibition, IMPRINT, a public art project, which placed the work of six artists on billboards, coffee cups and newspapers throughout the city.  

Sun Pictures and Other Broken Images: Richard Torchia
December 1, 2005 – March 4, 2006
PHILADELPHIA: Not a single printed image is presented in Richard Torchia’s photographic installation. Instead, The Print Center’s second floor galleries are filled with ephemeral images made by capturing and redirecting various lights sources—the sun, a candle or an electric light—through a lens or perforated material to create a projected image. Torchia’s site specific installation transforms the space into the camera in which visitors experience the photographic image in process. Depending on its light source, the image is always changing, defying the photograph as a single fixed image. Torchia, who does not want to add more images to an already visually full world, presents ephemeral “unfixed” images that do not commit to a decisive moment. Rather they are in constant flux depicting a singular image in multiple ways. Torchia raises the question; does an image have to be fixed to be replicated? As the final exhibition of The Print Center’s 90th Anniversary Year, Sun Pictures and Other Broken Images brings together three decisive moments in the history of the printed image: printmakers use of the camera obscura, photographers’ struggles to fix the image inside the camera, and the revival of the oldest photographic technique in era dominated by the digital image and its capability to have unlimited reproductions.

Richard Torchia is based in Philadelphia, currently teaches at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and is Director of the Art Gallery at Arcadia University. Torchia was awarded a Pew Fellowships in the Arts the first year it was offered in 1994 and a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship in 1999. Torchia has presented his site-specific installations at the Morris Arboretum at the University of Pennsylvania (2002-2005), at Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia (1997-2001), and as part of the group exhibition Points of Departure, Art on the Line in Philadelphia (2000-2001). Torchia is currently installing a permanent installation at the Hilton Garden Inn as part of the Percent for Art Project commissioned by the Redevelopment Authority of Pennsylvania. Torchia is also represented in several public collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Prudential Life Insurance Company and the Franklin Furnace Archives, Museum of Modern Art, New York.

On My Own: Recent Philadelphia Graduates
Craig Mateyunas, Althea Murphy-Price, Zoe Soslow and Sarah Stolfa
December 1, 2005 – March 4, 2006
PHILADELPHIA: At the closure of The Print Center’s 90th anniversary year, this exhibition looks toward the promises of the next generation. On My Own presents four artists who graduated from four different bachelor and master of fine arts programs in Philadelphia this spring: Craig Mateyunas (MFA, University of Pennsylvania), Althea Murphy-Price (MFA, Tyler School of Art, Temple University), Zoe Soslow (BS, The University of the Arts) and Sarah Stolfa (BS, Drexel University). What ties this selection of prints and photographs together are the artists’ responses to their immediate environment or personal experiences. Craig Mateyunas, trained as a painter during his undergraduate studies, discovered photography in graduate school and fell in love with its ability to give an unmediated record of its subject. Mateyunas’ discovery of photography coincided with his coming out. Turning the camera onto his naked body, Mateyunas re-discovered his body through the camera’s ‘objective’ lens. Similarly, Althea Murphy-Price explores issues of the self within a social community. Using synthetic hair in her screenprints, she addresses how hair is an essential expression of beauty for the African-American woman and how beauty salons play a significant role in their community. Sarah Stolfa documents another social meeting place, McGlinchey’s Bar in this case, where she has worked for the last eight years. All her subjects have come to the bar by themselves. Their body language expresses the conflict of being alone and the desire for companionship while being conscious of maintaining a personal dignity. The protection of the self is critical for the subjects in Zoe Soslow’s lithographs which were made in response to her experience at a mental hospital for prisoners of maximum security. Her white on white prints represent the patients’ needs to share feelings and thoughts with others but at the same time protect their only private possession of their incarcerated lives.

The Print Center’s 90th Anniversary Exhibition, 90 Years: Nurturing the New will open with a stellar gala opening on September 8, 2005. The 90th Anniversary Exhibition will be a retrospective utilizing key works from our collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art together with photographs and prints from exclusive private collections from the Mid-Atlantic region.
Divided into ten year segments, from 1915 - 2005, the exhibition will explore key developments in printmaking and photography and relate them to The Print Center's role in nurturing these developments during the same period. Artists include Ansel Adams, Edna Andrade, Will Barnet, Leonard Baskin, Morris Blackburn, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Warrington Colescott, Imogen Cunningham, Lesley Dill, Walker Evans, Allan Freelon, Leon Golub, Emmet Gowin, Red Grooms, Stanley William Hayter, David Hockney, Earl Horter, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Misch Kohn, Sam Maitin, Ray Metzker, Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Ben Shahn, Art Spiegelman, Benton Spruance, Maggie Taylor, Ruth Thorne-Thompson, Dox Thrash and many more. An exhibition catalog will be available and provide background to The Print Center’s extensive ninety year history of nurturing the new.

Founded in 1915 as The Print Club, this extraordinary small gem of a Philadelphia arts organization, has maintained a clear focus on printmaking and photography which has made it a national and international nexus for printmakers, photographers, collectors, educators and artists of all disciplines. Our mission is to support printmaking and photography as vital contemporary arts and encourage the appreciation of the printed image in all its forms. In 1942 The Print Center donated its collection to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to form the foundation for its Print Department. In 1996, The Print Club changed its name to The Print Center to mark its commitment to serve both its members and the community.

The Print Center is one of only a few organizations, and certainly, at ninety, one of the most long-lived, who have dedicated themselves to the promotion of printmaking and photography two of the most democratic and collaborative disciplines of artistic endeavor. Since its inception, The Print Center has been encouraging new artists, new work, new processes and new collectors and continues this important work as it progresses to its 100th Anniversary in 2015.

A stellar gala will mark the opening of the 90th Anniversary exhibition on Thursday, September 8, 2005. The dazzling opening reception at The Print Center’s charming Rittenhouse Square carriage house will begin at 5:00 p.m. with a cocktail reception and a private tour led by John Ittmann, Curator of Prints, Philadelphia Museum of Art. At 7:00 p.m. The Print Center will open its doors to the general public. The celebrations will continue until 9:00 p.m. Tickets start at $90 to attend to the cocktail reception and private tour. For $180 per individual/$270 per couple guests will receive a limited edition 90th Anniversary print by Philadelphia artist, Charles Burwell.

Abelardo Morell, Internationally Known Photographer, will be producing work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art This August for The Print Center’s Camera Obscura Project, TAKEN WITH TIME

PHILADELPHIA: TAKEN WITH TIME brings together for the first time, three contemporary artists of international significance in the field of photography who have each taken different and innovative approach to reviving the camera obscura—the oldest and simplest photographic device. Ann Hamilton (Columbus, OH), Vera Lutter (New York, NY) and Abelardo Morell (Boston, MA) will temporarily install camera obscurae in different Philadelphia locations and will present the final images in an exhibition at The Print Center. Through a $150,000 grant given by Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, a grant program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, the new work will be exhibited at The Print Center and documented in an accompanying catalog. Related outreach programming will illuminate the project and the magic of the camera obscura to targeted audiences.

TAKEN WITH TIME will present three different uses of the camera obscura to address how we perceive light, observe space and experience time. The site specificity of each camera obscura’s location will be significant in the context of Philadelphia reflecting on its communities, history, architecture and cultural wealth.

Abelardo Morell will be converting gallery no. 169 in the Modern and Contemporary wing at the Philadelphia Museum of Art into a giant camera obscura. Through one of the gallery’s clerestory windows, he will project the corner of the museum’s east entrance onto the gallery’s north east corner where on each wall hangs Fernand Léger’s The City (Fragment, Third State), (1919) and The City, (1919). Morell will set up three 4 x 5 format cameras to photograph the inverted museum entrance projected on the paintings and the corner of the gallery. The exterior image is unaltered and unabridged when brought inside but through being inverted, the image is wrenched out of context. The photographs will be taken August 6 – 10, 2005. Rain dates are August 13 – 17 or August 20 - 24.

Vera Lutter will place her camera which is the size of a shipping container on a rail platform, while Ann Hamilton’s portable pinhole camera will sit in the center of various types of gatherings in the city. Dates and specific locations for Lutter and Hamilton’s projects will soon be announced. The exhibition is scheduled for September 7 - November 8, 2006.

Recent Prints: Elizabeth Osborne
May 19 – July 23, 2005
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 19, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Gallery Talk by the Artist: Thursday, May 19, 5:00 p.m.

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center presents the inaugural exhibition of prints by Elizabeth Osborne. In her 40 year career, this is her first opportunity to have an exhibition dedicated to her prints. Based in Philadelphia and primarily known as a painter, Osborne has been making prints as long as she has painted. This exhibition focuses on work created in the last five years, all of which will be on view for the first time. Her prints engage in the same themes as her paintings: still-life, landscapes and interiors. Osborne translates her visual responses to her experiences and surroundings into a composition of broad horizontal bands of color with simplified almost abstracted shapes. Details are indicated with nuanced strokes providing the essential information. With her great sense of color and quick lines, each print captures the essence of the moment: a balmy July day; an icy clear blue sky; or the calming radiance of light pouring through a window. Osborne’s prints, both interior and exterior compositions, capture the serenity and beauty of our world.
To celebrate the inaugural exhibition, The Print Center will publish an accompanying catalog with an essay by Jacqueline van Rhyn, Curator of Prints and Photographs of The Print Center. This catalog will not only document and highlight a selection of Osborne’s most notable prints but will also be an elegant medium to make her prints readily available to a larger audience.
Elizabeth Osborne’s exhibition is presented as part of The Print Center 90th Anniversary which celebrates the organization’s 90 years of nurturing new artists, new techniques and new work; the latter exemplified by Osborne’s exhibition. Ms. Osborne has been a long time supporter of The Print Center. Along with regularly submitting work to our annual auctions, she participated in our 65th Anniversary publication, The Philadelphia Portfolio, 1980, which also included commissioned prints by other Philadelphia artists, Edna Andrade, John Dowell and Peter Paone. The opening reception for this exhibition will celebrate both Osborne’s prints and The Print Center’s 90 years of encouraging the appreciation of the printed image.

79th ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION: PRINTMAKING
May 21 – July 23, 2005

Opening Reception and Gallery Talk by the Juror:
Saturday, May 21, 2005, 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Juried by Judith Hecker, Assistant Curator, Department of Prints and Illustrated Books, Museum of Modern Art, NY

PHILADELPHIA - The Print Center’s 79th Annual International Competition: Printmaking features 40 prints by 35 of the finest contemporary artists from around the world. On Saturday, May 21 juror, Judith Hecker, Assistant Curator of Prints, Museum of Modern Art, New York will give a gallery talk in which she will discuss the works included in the exhibition. The award ceremony and opening reception will immediately follow her talk. The Print Center’s Annual International Competition is one of the most prestigious exhibitions of its kind and is the oldest juried exhibition for printmaking and photography in the United States. Alternating each year between printmaking and photography, it provides a unique opportunity for local and international artists to compete in a forum which emphasizes individual talent and expressiveness rather than a specific exhibition topic.

Ms. Hecker reviewed over 1,200 slides submitted by 312 artists. “The remarkably varied and often inventive group…suggests the continued, perhaps increasing, vitality of the print medium today—its specialized nature as well as its broader relevance to fine art and contemporary culture,” said Ms. Hecker.

Among the awards given this year will include: The Print Center Honorary Council Award of Excellence ($500) awarded to František Blažo; Jacqueline L. Zemel Cash Award ($500) awarded to Susannah Bielak; The Print Center Selection awards were given to Art Werger and Barbara Duval for solo exhibitions. The Print Center Honorable Mention ($100) awarded to Doris Eisen; and John Ittmann, Curator of Prints at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, will be selecting one print for inclusion in The Print Center Permanent Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This exhibition will travel to Long Beach Island Foundation of Arts and Sciences, Loveladies, NJ September 11 – November 11, 2005.

90 Years: Nurturing the New
The Print Center’s 90th Anniversary Exhibition and Opening Gala
Thursday, September 8, 2005, 5:00 – 9:00 p.m.

PHILADELPHIA: A stellar gala event will mark the opening of The Print Center’s 90th Anniversary Exhibition, 90 Years: Nurturing the New on September 8, 2005. The 90th Anniversary Exhibition will be a retrospective utilizing key works from our collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art including Picasso, Rauschenberg and Baskin prints and together with photographs and prints from exclusive private collections along the East Coast. Divided into ten year segments, from 1915 - 2005, the exhibition will explore key developments in printmaking and photography and relate them to The Print Center's role in nurturing these developments during the same period. An exhibition catalog will be available and provide more extensive history on The Print Center’s ninety years of nurturing the new. With a private tour given by a notable curator, the dazzling opening reception, at The Print Center’s charming Rittenhouse Square carriage house, will begin at 5:00 p.m. with a spectacular cocktail reception. A solo flutist, William McKenty, will serenade the assembled guests. At 7:00 p.m. The Print Center will open its doors to the general public. The celebrations will continue until 9:00 p.m. Tickets start at $90 to attend to the cocktail reception and the private tour. For $180 per individual/$270 per couple guests will receive a limited edition 90th Anniversary print.

Founded in 1915 as The Print Club, this extraordinary small gem of a Philadelphia arts organization, has maintained a clear focus on printmaking and photography which has made it a national and international nexus for printmakers, photographers, collectors, educators and artists of all disciplines. Our mission is to support printmaking and photography as vital contemporary arts and encourage the appreciation of the printed image in all its forms. The Print Center is one of only a few organizations, and certainly, at ninety, one of the most long-lived, who have dedicated themselves to the promotion of printmaking and photography two of the most democratic and collaborative disciplines of artistic endeavor. From the beginning, The Print Center has been encouraging new artists, new processes and new collectors and continues to do so with great enthusiasm.

1n 1942 The Print Center donated its collection to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to form the foundation for its Print Department. Exhibitions have featured work by local and international artists alike such as; Mary Cassatt, Pablo Picasso, Dox Thrash, Jasper Johns, Ansel Adams, Art Spiegelman, and more recently Kara Walker, Jerry Uelsmann, Nancy Spero, Leon Golub, Dotty Attie, John Coplans and Red Grooms. In 1996, The Print Club changed its name to The Print Center to mark its commitment to serve both its members and the community.

Camouflage: Carl Fudge
March 4 – May 7, 2005
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 10, 2005, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Artist Lecture: Wednesday, April 6, 11:15 a.m. - 1:00 p.m., President’s Hall, Tyler School of Art. Sponsored by the Department of Painting Drawing and Sculpture, Tyler School of Art.

Patron Party: A Private Evening with Carl Fudge, April 7 at 6:00 p.m. at The Print Center

PHILADELPHIA: Carl Fudge’s work involves the intersection of old and new printmaking technologies. Many of his prints are complex digital reworkings of master prints and contemporary popular images. The selection of prints on view at The Print Center are based on Andy Warhol’s “Camouflage Paintings” which Fudge has recombined in the computer and then printed using small hand silkscreens. Warhol’s series, painted in the last ten years of his life and also made into a series of prints, are abstract in appearance and were deliberately made as parodies of the history of abstract or “modernist” painting. Fudge takes Warhol’s irony one step further by scanning a reproduction of Warhol’s image and then using digital technology as an intermediary step, to rework every inch of the scanned image into his own abstract composition that becomes the model for a meticulously executed screenprint. Fudge’s prints, each an abstraction of an abstraction, blur the boundaries between original and reproduction.
Carl Fudge, born in England, is based in New York and currently teaches at Columbia University. In 1990 he received his MFA from Tyler School of Art and is one of the very few artists whose work was purchased by the Philadelphia Museum of Art while still a student. Fudge has exhibited at numerous national and international venues including Ronald Feldman Gallery, Locks Gallery (1993), The Fabric Workshop and Museum (1991), Whitney Museum of American Art (2001), Brooklyn Museum of Art (2001) and Banff Center for the Arts (2000). Fudge’s work has been published in exhibition catalogs and publications, and has received critical acclaim in Artforum, Art on Paper and The New York Times. His prints and paintings can be found in many public collections including Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Denver Museum of Art and Whitney Museum of American Art.
Carl Fudge will be speaking at Tyler School of Art on Wednesday, April 6 at 11:15am. This lecture is free and open to the public. Mr. Fudge is also The Print Center’s 2005 Patron Party artist. He will give a private champagne tour of his exhibition and then go to the home of Print Center Board Member E. Tama Williams for a private dinner with the artist. Prices range from $100-$600 depending on level of support.


New Work: Keith Johnson

March 4 – May 7, 2005
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 10, 2005, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Gallery Talk by the Artist: Thursday, March 10, 5:00 p.m. at The Print Center

Artist Lecture, Wednesday, April 13, 1:15-2:00 p.m., Hunt Room, Dorrance Hamilton Hall, The University of the Arts, 320 S. Broad Street, a Paradigm Lecture Series sponsored by the Media Arts Department, The University of the Arts.

PHILADELPHIA: Keith Johnson new work is about how we use and claim the land that defines our space and place. Having spent the past number of years on the road photographing the cultural and social landscape, Johnson is tuned to the in congruencies of our environment and intrigued by them as the same time. He is lured into the piles of clay, fishing net or algae on a pond, those things most of us pass by without even recognizing let alone to be items of intrigue. Johnson’s photographs record the found items which have stopped him in his tracks. But it is not until in the darkroom Johnson discovers the beauty and a new fascination for the odd curiosity found on the side of the road. New Work presents selections of three bodies of work which make the viewer think about the surface and texture of the banalities in our world. The images are often difficult to discern and dissolve into landscapes of abstract forms and shapes. In the end, Johnson wants us to share and experience the sense of discovery of taking the photographs and seeing the banalities of our world anew.
Keith Johnson is based outside of New Haven, CT. He received his MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. Johnson has received several awards and grants including most recently a residence at Light Work in Syracuse, NY and a Fellowship at Silver Eye Center in Pittsburgh, PA. His photographs can be found in several collections George Eastman House, Rochester, NY, Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ and New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA. Johnson has exhibited his work extensively throughout the United States including the Sol Mednick Gallery at The University of the Arts and the Photographic Resource Center, Boston, MA.
Keith Johnson will be giving a gallery talk at The Print Center with fellow exhibiting photographer, Phil Marquez on March 10 at 5:00pm. Mr. Johnson will also be giving a lecture on Wednesday, April 13 at 1:15-2:00 p.m. at The University of the Arts, 320 S. Broad Street. Both lectures are free and open to the public.


The Suburban Landscape: Phil Marquez

March 4 – May 7, 2005
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 10, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Gallery Talk by the Artist: Thursday, March 10, 5:00 p.m.

PHILADELPHIA: Phil Marquez is interested in the landscape found in middle-class America suburbia and focuses his camera unemotionally and directly onto the ‘natural’ environment of the suburban landscape. Fascinated by our need to control the environment, Marquez photographs all areas of suburban architecture and urban planning where all natural forms have been stripped away. What is left is an artificial environment. Through his straight-forward approach, Marquez remarks on the irony of people’s motivation to move out to the suburbs—to live closer and within a natural environment—to only in the end control it and make it artificial. Plants are imported, tamed and biogenetically altered to accommodate the suburbanites’ needs and desires for a more accommodating vegetation which requires little work. Marquez’s images reflect the mundane of these carefully planned and altered landscapes.
Phil Marquez is based in Placentia, CA, he received his MFA at Claremont Graduate University in 2002 and his BA from California State University at Fullerton in 1999. He has exhibited at numerous venues including Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA; New Jersey Center for the Visual Arts, Summit, NJ; and Huntington Beach Art Center, Huntington Beach, CA. Marquez currently an Adjunct Professor of Photography at Santa Ana College, Santa Ana, CA and Long Beach City College, Long Beach, CA and also a Visiting Professor of Photography at Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA and Soka University, Aliso Viejo, CA.
Phil Marquez will be giving a gallery talk at The Print Center with fellow exhibiting photographer, Keith Johnson on March 10 at 5:00pm. The gallery talk is free and open to the public.

9 x 9: New Prints by Mid Atlantic Arts
Foundation Creative Fellows 2003

December 2, 2004 – February 19, 2005

PHILADELPHIA: 9x9 features the work of nine artists who participated in the Creative Fellowships Program in Printmaking of the Mid Atlantic Art Foundation. Nine host organizations were invited to form a collaborative partnership with the Foundation to select an artist from its member states to receive a fellowship. The selected artists received a stipend, materials allowance, and subsidized housing and travel for their printmaking project. The host facility provided technical support and expertise in producing the new works. The artists had access to space, equipment and technical support, and uninterrupted studio time to create new works of art which are presented in this exhibition.

In the spring of 2003, The Print Center was a host organization in collaboration with Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper and selected Kenneth Jones, Newark, DE, to receive the MAAF Creative Fellowship in Printmaking. Jones created the series Beginnings which includes six digital prints. In each print, Jones begins with a cut engraving plate taken from a defunct Vandercook letterpress machine. Through the use of digital manipulation, Jones was able to detach the engraved cut plate from its traditional role and redefine it: that is the plate became less physical and more immaterial.

Jones received a BA in Communication and Photography and his MFA from the University of Delaware. He was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship in Photography in 1997 by the Delaware State Arts Council and is currently on the faculty of Harford Community College in Maryland.

The other eight hosts for the fellowships were Artists Image Resource, Pittsburgh; Brandywine Workshop, Philadelphia, PA; Pyramid Atlantic, Riverdale, MD; University of Richmond, Richmond, VA; The Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, NY; West Virginia University, College of Creative Arts, Morgantown, WV; and Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY. In addition to Kenneth Jones, the participating artists are La Vaughn Belle (St. Croix, Virgin Islands), Chakaia Booker (New York, NY), Claudia Giannini (Morgantown, WV), Michael Iacovone (Washington, DC), Anne Iott (Virginia Beach, VA), Ayanah Moor (Pittsburgh, PA), and Jon Rappleye (Jersey City, NJ) and Ann Rentschler (Baltimore, MD).

Printmaking techniques represented in the exhibition include lithography, intaglio, and screenprinting, as well as artists’ books, and two- and three-dimensional assemblages. Kenneth Jones will be giving a tour of his coinciding solo exhibition of new work at The Print Center on Thursday, December 2 at 5:00 p.m.

Charmed: Susan Dunkerley
December 2, 2004 – February 19, 2005

PHILADELPHIA: Susan Dunkerley’s solo exhibition, Charmed, presents enchanted still-lifes. Each photograph is a compilation of items gathered from her tending in the backyard and in the kitchen. Dunkerley sets up the still-lifes by using a variety of remnants: uprooted sprouts, peelings, trimmings and prunings. She combines these with common domestic items associated with woman’s work including of a pair of scissors, a broken piece of china, a fork and a female figurine. Each still-life exists only temporarily. It is constructed right in front of the studio window. The daylight, or lack thereof, illuminates the scene from behind. Dunkerley watches the daylight change the composition’s tonal values until it has the perfect balance between the bright lights and dark shadows. She then clicks the shutter and dissembles the still-life. What remains is both a documentation of the moment and more importantly, an image which opens us up to a new world and puts our imagination into motion.

Susan Dunkerley received her MFA from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY in 1990 and is currently an Associate Professor in the art department at Baylor University in Waco, TX. Her photographs have been published and exhibited nationally and in Europe. She has received numerous awards including a Fellowship from Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh, PA in 2001 and a 2002 Carol Crow Memorial Fellowship Award from the Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX. Her photographs are can be found in many private and public collections including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

The Disconnected Dislocation Dilemma: Kenneth Jones
December 2, 2004 – February 19, 2005

PHILADELPHIA: Kenneth Jones’s solo exhibition titled, The Disconnected Dislocation Dilemma, is both aurally as well as visually a collision of excessiveness. But like the title which can be mastered with practice and by saying it slowly, the images too can be deciphered, navigated, and understood.

Each image is a frozen moment of an accumulated frenzied activity on a computer desktop. Countless windows opened, piled over each other, revealing and hiding plenty of information. Nothing is complete, everything is in-progress and maybe even perpetually undone. The images are filled with anxiety of the unresolved. However, assuming this cacophony of silent messages is orchestrated by one user, we desperately search to find a narrative. Yet for Jones it is not the distillation of these images rather the collection of them that is important. Each final digital print reflects our daily encounters with a mania of pictures many of which, as in Jones’ work, we either register, process, or just simply ignore.

Jones’ one-person exhibition is presented in conjunction with the group exhibition 9x9: New Prints by the Mid Atlantic Art Foundation’s Creative Fellows 2003 (on view in the adjacent gallery). In the spring of 2003, Kenneth Jones collaborated with The Print Center and Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper to participate in the MAAF Creative Fellowship in Printmaking. It brought nine artists with nine different print shops together to produce a new work. Jones created a series of six digital prints based on parts taken from a defunct Vandercook letterpress machine recently donated to Rutgers’ print department.

Kenneth Jones received his BA in Photography and Communication in 1986 and his MFA in 1999 from the University of Delaware. In 2002 he completed his post-graduate work in Digital Video at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY. He has received many awards and his work has been featured internationally in numerous one-person and group exhibitions and consistently reviewed. Currently Jones is Associate Professor and Director of the Digital Arts at Harford Community College, Bel Air, MD.

re-pose: Isaac Diggs
September 9 – November 10, 2004   

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 9, 2004, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Gallery Talk by Isaac Diggs at 5:00 p.m.

PHILADELPHIA: New York based artist, Isaac Diggs, addresses issues of leisure, gender, race and sexuality in his photographs. His exhibition presents two series of work which stem from Diggs’ ongoing exploration of African American beach parties. At these events, boundaries between public and private blur. In part because of their locations: the beach where certain levels of undress are encouraged. The outfit, or lack thereof, is an amplified projection of personal identity for the benefit of the spectator. As Diggs notes, “the additional presence of thousands of still and video cameras and the continuous glances of participants testify to the importance of being seen and recorded, [as well as the act] of seeing and recording. It’s as if this ritual was staged primarily to be documented.” Diggs, a participant only to the extent of seeing and recording the rituals, uses the camera and formal strategies to focus on specific movements and gestures of the hands. These movements suggest intimacy, immediacy and seduction of the experience. Yet paradoxically, Diggs’ tight focus and magnification of the subject leads to an abstraction which in turn prevents full immersion into the pictorial illusion. The oscillation between intimacy and distance in the image leads to an undefined reality—open to multiple interpretations.

Isaac Diggs received his MFA from Bard College in 2002 and his BA from Columbia University in 1994. Diggs’ first solo exhibition was held at Luxe Gallery, New York in 2004 and has been included in several group exhibitions throughout New York including Artist in Marketplace at the Bronx Museum of Arts, NY (2003) New Prints 2001/Autumn at the International Print Center, NY (2001) and Black New York Photographs of the Twentieth Century, at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NY (1999). Diggs’ work is in the collection of The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN and his work was reviewed in Art on Paper by Faye Hirsch (March/April 2002).

PhotoPlay: Jenny Lynn
September 9 – November 10, 2004

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 9, 2004, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Gallery Talk by Jenny Lynn at 5:00 p.m.

PHILADELPHIA: The Print Center presents Jenny Lynn’s PhotoPlay. It includes a selection of photographs, hand-made collages and three-dimensional constructions drawn from diverse bodies of the artist’s work which explores the psyche and sensuality. Lynn thinks of her work as visual poems in which she teases the interplay between dream and reality, chance and design, word and image, and collective and personal consciousness. Drawing upon her backgrounds in painting, photography and film, Lynn likes to use everything in her art. She takes an intuitive, tactile, hands-on approach, mixing careful planning with the accidents that happen during the creative process. It's an active collaboration between herself and the work where the finished image then becomes the starting point for the viewer.

A 48-page book also titled PhotoPlay is available in The Print Center’s Gallery Store. Jenny Lynn is based in Philadelphia and received her BFA from Tyler School of Art at Temple University and studied a year at NYU’s Graduate School of Film and Television. Her work has been recently exhibited in both solo and group shows at The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT, Wexler Gallery and Works on Paper Gallery, both in Philadelphia. Lynn’s photographs have appeared in numerous publications including The New Yorker, Photo District News, and ZOOM International. Her work can be found in collections of The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL, the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ, and the Polaroid Collection Program, Cambridge, MA. Also known for her trademark Box of Blue, Photototems, and Eyewatch, Jenny Lynn exhibits regularly and teaches and lectures at colleges, universities, and other organizations around the country.

For You: Liliana Porter
September 9 – November 10, 2004

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 9, 2004, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Gallery Talk by Liliana Porter at 5:00 p.m.

PHILADELPHIA: Liliana Porter’s solo exhibition, For You, presents a selection of prints, photographs and video. The subject matter for each image is an item from her extensive collection of souvenirs, toys, functional knickknacks and figurines. Porter places these figures in various scenarios that, with masterful simplicity, distill life into its basic elements, at once playful and tragic. The characters: a bunny, duck, bird, or penguin, are depicted true to their original size either on their own in lithographs or as a group in photographs. The figures take on personalities in a 16mm film (16 minutes). It is a series of short vignettes in which Porter creates relationships between her inert figures and infers qualities that are clearly not there in the objects themselves. Hence, the film builds up feelings of sympathy and loss in the viewer—despite the fact the plastic bird was never alive.

Liliana Porter lives and works in New York. She was raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she attended Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes and then later Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, Mexico. She held her first solo exhibition in New York in 1973. Outstanding among her group exhibitions are Latin American Artists of the 20th Century at MoMA, New York in 1993 and Drama Queens - Women behind the Camera at the Guggenheim Museum, New York in 2001. Her solo exhibitions include The Secret Lives of Toys: Liliana Porter Photographs held at the Phoenix Art Museum also in 2001. Liliana Porter has received the PSC-CUNY Research Award five times as well as scholarships from Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Italy, and New York Foundation for the Arts. Her work can be found in international museum collections including Museum of Modern Art, New York, Philadelphia Museum of Art, La Biblioteque National, Paris, Museum of Contemporary Graphic Art, Fredrikstad, Norway, Musée d’Art Contemporaine, Montreal, Canada among many others.

HONKY TONK: Portraits of Country Music 1972-1981
Photographs by Henry Horenstein
July 8 – August 21, 2004

Opening Reception: Thursday, July 8, 2004, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. with Live Band

After Party: Drag Show at Bob & Barbara’s Lounge

PHILADELPHIA: This July, The Print Center presents countless unearthed treasures by renowned photographer, educator, and author Henry Horenstein. Taken from 1972-1981, Horenstein’s images capture the last great decade of country music. His black and white pictures range from the original Grand Ole Opry, infamous honky tonks, country and bluegrass music parks to famed performers: Tammy Wynette, Mother Maybelle Carter, Doc Watson, Hank Williams Jr., Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Minnie Pearl. In Nashville he captured artists at their homes, on the road, and on stage at Nashville’s most famous honky tonk, Tootsies Orchid Lounge. Horenstein also traveled north to photograph the performers and the fans of New England country music scene. The exhibition is touring the country making stops at Country Music Hall of Fame, Nashville, Photographic Resource Center, Boston, The Light Factory, Charlotte and several commercial galleries.

The exhibition is accompanied by Horenstein’s recently published book, Honky Tonk, published by Chronicle Books, and is available at The Print Center. The opening reception features local bluegrass band, Fred’s Mobile Homes and beer provided by Victory Brewing Company. The party continues at one of Philadelphia’s longest running drag shows presented every Thursday night at Bob & Barbara’s Lounge, 1509 South Street.

Henry Horenstein has exhibited widely throughout the United States and has published over 15 books. Recent exhibitions include the Robert Klein Gallery in Boston, Afterimage Gallery in Dallas and the Bonni Benrubi Gallery in New York City. Horenstein’s work is included in numerous collections including Boston Public Library, Camera Works in New York City, Fogg Museum of Art in Boston, Library of Congress in Washington D.C., and Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and in Houston. He lives in Boston.

The Print Center Receives Grant from Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative $18,397 Towards Camera Obscura Project,
TAKEN WITH TIME

PHILADELPHIA: The Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative (PEI), funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts, announced the list of the 2004 awardees on May 1. Only five Philadelphia institutions were selected including The Print Center who will receive an $18,397 planning grant for an exhibition and outreach project titled TAKEN WITH TIME.

TAKEN WITH TIME will present newly commissioned work created with a camera obscura by internationally known artists Ann Hamilton (Columbus, OH), Vera Lutter (New York, NY) and Abelardo Morell (Boston, MA). Each camera obscura will be installed in a choice location in Philadelphia selected by the invited artists. The new work will be exhibited at The Print Center and documented in an accompanying catalog. Related outreach programming will illuminate the project and the magic of the camera obscura to targeted audiences. The planning grant offers the opportunity to invite each artist to spend two weeks in Philadelphia. At that time they will conduct research and explore the city to determine the site for their camera obscura. Not only will all their expenses be covered but the grant also includes an honorarium for the artists’ time and involvement in the project. The second part of the planning grant will support an art education coordinator to make contact with the community of each selected site and to begin formulating outreach programs based around the construction and use of each camera.

Hamilton, Lutter and Morell each take different and innovative approaches to reviving the camera obscura—the oldest photographic device. In a culture entrenched in the latest technological advancements, these artists use the camera obscura to capture traces of movement and visual imprints of time. Morell turns entire rooms into cameras, Lutter prefers large cavernous spaces like shipping containers while Hamilton places the camera in her mouth and moves her lips to act as the camera’s shutter.

The exhibition is currently scheduled for Fall 2006 and will be curated by Jacqueline van Rhyn, Curator of Prints and Photographs at The Print Center. Ms. van Rhyn co-curated The Print Center’s recently funded PEI exhibition, IMPRINT, a public art project, which placed the work of six artists on billboards, coffee cups and newspapers throughout the city.

Totentanz: Debra Werblud February 5 - April 10, 2004
Opening Reception: 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. Thursday, February 5, 2004

Artist Lecture Monday, March 29 , 5:00 p.m. at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, B-3 Meyerson Hall, 34th & Walnut Streets. Sponsored by PennDesign, University of Pennsylvania.

PHILADELPHIA: Debra Werblud, based in Venice, Italy, will transform the second floor front gallery into a dance between predator and prey represented respectively by vultures which feed on decay, and olive trees that nourish life. The installation references the pictorial tradition of the “Dance of Death” in which the representative of death leads, often in dance, the living to the world beyond the grave. Werblud takes the theme a step further and invites her viewers to walk into and through the installation to involve them in the dance. However, the viewers will be in a state of continual uncertainty. Depending on their position they either will be the prey or the predator. Werblud's installation is based on her interest of the co-existence of an exalting experience and an oppressive loss.

Similarly, her choice of materials keeps the viewer in a state of uncertainty. Two hundred and thirty etched zinc plates (each 8”x8”) depicting olive trees will align the gallery walls. In contrast, thirty photographs of vultures printed on molded plexiglas will swoop from the ceiling onto the floor in the center of the gallery. The single light source will make the birds seem to be in flight and the olive trees grounded in the earth. Transparent materials will appear translucent while lightweight sheets of metal will assume the solidity of stone. The viewers' movements intersecting the light will also alter the appearance of the materials.

Motion is an important factor in Werblud's installation. In addition to the theme of dance and the seemingly movement of the olive trees, the birds were actually photographed in flight. The photographs originate from Eadweard Muybridge's Animal Locomotion , published in 1887 by the University of Pennsylvania. Muybridge's study remains one of the most exhaustive pictorial analysis if electro-photographic investigation of consecutive phases of animal movements. The historical significance of the birds undermines the fierceness of vultures. Once again we are made uncertain.

Debra Werblud is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. Her work has been on view at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, the Studio d'arte contemporanea Pino Casagrande, Rome, Italy, and the New York Armory Show among other galleries and museums. Her work has been reviewed extensively. Since 1988 she has developed significant environmental designs and urban plans in the United States and in Europe.

With Nature: Young-Sook Jang February 5 – April 10, 2004 Opening Reception: 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. Thursday, February 5, 2004

PHILADELPHIA: Based in South Korea, Young-Sook Jang will captivate viewers with her minimalist landscapes created with simple lines and small patches of color. Her intaglio prints capture the true essence of nature: simple and complex, seduction and menace, vulnerability and impenetrability as well as the endless cycle of life and decay. The titles of her prints are equally simple and straightforward: The Plants , Willow Leaves , Crown Daisy , Landscape-Day ; Two Minds and Landscape-Four Seasons . A few prints include the human figure but it always remains subordinate to nature. As the title of her exhibition suggests, we should work with nature rather than fight it. Humans will only loose if they choose the latter.

The Print Center Gallery Store has represented Jang's prints since 1999 and has been one of the top selling artists in the store. Her work was first introduced to Philadelphia in 1998 in the group exhibition 14 Korean Printmakers at The Print Center. Since 1979, Jang has shown extensively in group and solo exhibitions including in Seoul, Pusan and Kwachon South Korea, Tokyo and Kyoto, Japan, Barcelona, Spain, Ljubijana, Yugoslavia, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Shamaliers, France and San Francisco, United States. Yang received her BFA and MFA from Hongik University, Seoul in 1974 and 1977 respectively.

Multiple Impressions: Lesley Dill February 5 – April 10, 2004 Opening Reception: 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. Thursday, February 5, 2004 Lecture: March 4 at 1:00 p.m. at The University of the Arts

PHILADELPHIA: New York artist Lesley Dill is known for her sculptures, prints and drawings that convey a sense of delicacy and drama. Often using the body or its surrogate, clothing, in concert with poetry written by women, her mixed media works walk the line between verbal and visual expression. Dill's recent projects have involved painting the poetry directly on people's skin, then photographing them. For The Print Center's exhibition, Dill will present a selection of her multiple prints, photographs and books published by Dieu Donné, Landfall Press and Graphic Studio.

Dill has produced an identifiable vocabulary of signature images. The dress is a recurring choice of clothing. In Unknown Nourishment from 2001, layers of delicate rice paper build volume and create a little girl's party dress. Its beauty and innocence is offset by the tea-stained paper and the few words framing the dress from above and below: “opening to the unknown nourishment”. Similarly in Homage to N.S. from 1997 words flow from the top left corner of the print into a woman's open mouth in the lower right corner: “Your thoughts don't have words every day… They come a single time like signal esoteric sips…”. Dill uses language and the materials of cloth, thread and paper—often stained with tea—as a means to explore the female psyche both literally and metaphorically, producing works of art that are at once profound and moving.

Lesley Dill's work is collected by national and international museums and galleries. She is represented by George Adams Gallery in New York. Born in Bronxville, NY in 1950, Dill attended Skidmore College, Trinity College and received her MA in art education from Smith College and an MFA from the Maryland Institute, Baltimore. She began to work at Landfall Press in 1992 producing innovative editions which combine traditional techniques, such as lithograph, silkscreen and etching with collaged elements.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: ASHLEY PEEL
215.735.6090x2

Wanderlust: Photographs by Bremner Benedict
November 21, 2003 – January 23, 2004
Opening reception and Gallery Talk by the Artist
5:30 – 7:00 p.m. Friday, November 21, 2003

PHILADELPHIA: Bremner Benedict, based in Newton, Massachusetts, photographs as if she were a filmmaker moving at an incredibly slow speed. Using a Holga camera, Benedict shoots an image and then searches through the lens for another image to create a dialog with the first. Although taken close in time and at the same location, Benedict’s final picture is of an entirely new perspective. Her technique echoes the process of memory in which a collection of fragmented recollections make up the remembered occasion. The use of a plastic camera, its imperfections, soft edges and the partial loss of control by the user, harbor the feelings of impressions rather than recording precise details.

Wanderlust, a series of toned gelatin silver prints averaging in size of 20x24 inches, depicts the world seen at pace of three miles per hour. “Wandering down pathways, looking around, I find places that resemble settings with a past,” explains Benedict. “I see landscaped earth, shaped for imagining stories, that happen somewhere between here and there.” The desire to wander and contemplate has a long tradition in Western culture. Walking as a cultural activity can be traced as far back to the peripatetic philosophers of ancient Greece to philosophers Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) to the poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850), who collectively promulgated the romantic idea of solitary rambling as a contemplative exercise. The process of wandering through memories and past experiences is a common theme in Benedict’s photographic series, including a woman searching through her psyche for lost memories and a child exploring the edges of order and chaos.

Benedict has been actively showing her photographs since the early 1990s. Her work is represented in several public collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Addison American Gallery of Art, Andover, MA, The Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, and the Decordova Museum of Art and Sculpture, Lincoln, MA.

Night Watch: Gloucester Harbor, Photographs by Paul Cary Goldberg
November 21, 2003 – January 23, 2004
Opening reception and Gallery Talk by the Artist
5:30 – 7:00 p.m. Friday, November 21, 2003

PHILADELPHIA: For the past year, Paul Cary Goldberg, based in Rockport, Massachusetts, has been wandering Gloucester Harbor at night amid the fishermen’s fading footprints. Goldberg spends his nightly hours taking color photographs using only the available light radiating from the ships, docks and waterfront buildings. “I am thrilled by the beauty and humbled by the sheer weight, size and physicality of the place,” explains Goldberg. The Night Watch series is a group of non-traditional still-lifes. In each picture Goldberg captures the intense shadows, colors, textures and shapes of the lost and haunted objects deserted nightly on the wharf. The images are both dramatic and mysterious. Mary Bucci McCoy, who reviewed his work recently in Art New England, wrote, “Goldberg accesses a psychological space within himself and the images. The tight composition and strange light in his photographs intersect to create an alternate reality anchored by the subject matter while also referencing something beyond it.” The scale is disorienting and the colors are so crisp that they appear to be flaking off the paper and can be easily mistaken for paintings. The intensity of the Goldberg’s photographs is partly due to the process of capturing the images on film, scanning the negative and then printing the final image on a Lightjet machine. Goldberg uses the digital process to crystallize the image’s colors and starkness.

Goldberg is a member of the Photographic Resource Center in Boston and has received awards for his work in juried exhibitions throughout the country. He has been a photographer since the 1970s but turned to fine art photography in 1999. His work is represented in several public collections including the Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, Fidelity Investments and Fiduciary Trust in Boston, as well as in several private collections in the United States.

13X Artists’ Books from Germany
November 21, 2003 - January 24, 2004
at The Print Center and The University of the Arts