Philagrafika 2010: Philadelphia's international festival celebrating print in contemporary art. 1.29.10 - 4.11.10
Involving more than 300 artists at more than 80
venues throughout the city, Philagrafika 2010 will be one of the
largest art events in the United States and the world’s most important
print-related exposition. Prominent museums and cultural institutions
across Philadelphia are participating in Philagrafika 2010, offering
regional, national and international audiences the opportunity to see
contemporary art that references printmaking in dynamic, unexpected
ways and to experience the rich cultural life of the city in the
process. The Philagrafika 2010 festival is the result of more than
five years of planning by a group of enthusiastic and committed
individuals who have mobilized the entire community around a common
interest. The Artistic Director and the members of the curatorial team
traveled extensively across the country and across continents, visiting
studios, print shops, biennials and other art events in search of
artists to include. And the administrative staff of Philagrafika, the
Artistic Director and the curatorial team have worked closely with
local institutions in planning and implementing a wide range of
exhibitions, public programs and events, resulting in a citywide
collective effort, which appropriately reflects the collaborative
nature of printmaking itself.
The festival is divided into 3 components:
The Graphic Unconscious
is the core exhibition organized by the Artistic Director and the
curatorial team. Works by 35 artists from 18 countries will be
displayed across five venues: Moore College of Art & Design;
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA); Philadelphia Museum of
Art; The Print Center; and Temple Gallery, Tyler School of Art, Temple
University; with significant installations by different artists on view
at each site.
Out of Print pairs
five artists with five historic institutions in Philadelphia: the
American Philosophical Society (APS) Museum; the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania; the Independence Seaport Museum; the University of
Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and the Rosenbach
Museum & Library. Each artist created new work for the festival
inspired by the extraordinary collection with which they were matched.
Independent Projects,
organized by seventy-five additional cultural institutions in
Philadelphia, include a huge variety of monographic, group, and
thematic exhibitions in which the printed image plays a central role.
The Philagrafika 2010 festival contends
that the printed image lies at the heart of contemporary art. Concepts
of imprinting, multiplicity, reproduction, and seriality, as well as
physically printed forms are frequently used by artists who do not
think of themselves as printmakers. As artistic vocabularies have
expanded and mixing media has become commonplace, artists have
increasingly drawn from inherent characteristics of the print to
achieve specific aesthetic and expressive goals.
Topics explored in the exhibition include:
Pattern and Ornamentation: The
multiplication/repetition of an image or text to produce patterns that
are applied to various surfaces as ornamentation or embellishment.
Accessibility and Dissemination:
The long-standing appeal of inexpensive, mass-produced prints, in the
form of posters, broadsides, flyers, etc., as an effective means of
raising public interest in social and political struggles and recent
innovative adaptations as developments in production and communication
technologies have continued to evolve.
Collaboration and Community: The
often shared production of printmaking (an artist working with one or
more printers, publishers, etc.) that has attracted numerous artists
working as collectives, ideally suited to their ambitions to create a
sense of community through collaboration.
The authority of the print: The
use of existing printed images and texts as iconographical or
inspirational sources; the appropriation of printed images; and the
implied validation of a text or an image by virtue of its existence “in
print.”
Craftsmanship and Aesthetics: The
significance of the choice of medium, its intrinsic qualities and the
skilled craftsmanship with which it is executed in relation to the
artist’s expressive goal; and the translation of the inherent
aesthetics of one medium into another.
The print in the public sphere:
The key role of print forms and conventions in the circulation of ideas
and images that create a public realm and help construct consensus
forms such as histories, authorities and individual and community
identities.
Jose Roca, Artistic Director, PHILAGRAFIKA 2010; John Caperton, Curator of Prints & Photographs at The Print Center; Sheryl Conkelton, independent curator; 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; Julien Robson,Curator of Contemporary Art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), co-curators of "The Graphic Unconscious."
Philagrafika
2010 is the first presentation of what will become a recurring event in
Philadelphia, celebrating the role of print in contemporary artistic
practice.