A one day symposium on Thursday 9 July will mark the opening of the exhibition RE: Print /RE:Present at the Ruskin Gallery, Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University, co-curated by Dr Véronique Chance (MA Fine Art and MA Printmaking Course Leader) and Mark Graver (Director of Wharepuke Print Studio and Gallery, New Zealand).

This exhibition, along with an accompanying symposium, marks the launch of the RE:PRINT International Research Project with the aim of promoting International Networks in discussion, exhibition and exchange.

The project was initiated following discussions with national and international academics and artists whose concerns centre on inter-medial approaches to printed media and the nature of reproduction and reproducibility within current art practice.

A key aim of both exhibition and symposium is to examine, through practice and dialogue, the impact of continuing technological developments in reproductive media on trans-medial art practice and to RE-Present, challenge, question and connect to previously established relationships between media in unexpected, provocative and radical ways.

Witches' Sabbaths, bizarre monsters, and skeletons engaged in macabre practices – this kind of imagery seems at total odds with the familiar pictorial language of the Renaissance, which is characterized by emulation of the classical world's ideals of beauty, a turning away from otherworldly concerns, and a conception of life that places humans at the center of the universe. For the first time, the exhibition is illuminating this obscure corner of Renaissance art. It shows that these images were not simply hangovers of the medieval imagination, but that new developments in areas such as science and artist training inspired unusual imagery and that printmaking was the medium of choice for the creation and dissemination of such images.

APS is pleased to announce its inaugural lecture, supported in part by the International Fine Print Dealers Association:

"Why Study Prints Now?"
Peter Parshall, Former Curator of Old Master Prints at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Friday, September 25 at 4 PM
Martin Segal Theater at The Graduate Center City University of New York
365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

Please save the date and RSVP (recommended but not required) via the link below or at info@printscholars.org.

Sims Reed Gallery is delighted to present ‘Bruce Nauman Prints 1970 – 2006’ in collaboration with Galerie Ronny Van de Velde. The exhibition will include around 30 prints and will run from 24 June – 17 July 2015. Bruce Nauman is one of the most prominent and influential artists to emerge from America in the 1960s. His work has consistently been at the forefront of contemporary art and continues to challenge convention, even today.

Printmaking has been central and fundamental to Kiki Smith’s work for over 30 years and continues to be a source of discovery for her. Smith has been working primarily in print for the past year and has chosen to exhibit prints in Each Day at John Davis Gallery.

The works are made in a variety of different techniques, primarily etching, inspired by methods inspired by Kathan Brown’s book Magical Secrets about Aquatint and from making demo plates to teach printmaking at New York University and Columbia University. Also represented are color polymer, digital and relief printing techniques.

Smith has been privileged to work in some of the great printmaking studios across the United States. This exhibition includes prints published by Harlan & Weaver, LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies at Columbia University, Ribouli Digital, Savannah College of Art and Design, Universal Limited Art Editions, University of North Texas, and her own homemade efforts published under Thirteen Moons. Most of the images were inspired by the various living beings found in Catskill, New York.

Xu Bing’s first solo presentation in Los Angeles explores the artist’s two-decade-long career. One of the most active and influential Chinese artists living today, Xu Bing received his training in the Printmaking Department at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing. Book from the Sky, an installation of books and scrolls printed with more than 4,000 fake Chinese characters, captivated the burgeoning art community in China in the mid-1980s. Since then, Xu has been investigating the significance and meaning of language.

This exhibition highlights works such as the video The Character of Characters, the artist’s magnum opus and a personal account of the significance of Chinese language and characters through history, culminating with their significance to Chinese society today. The installation Square Word Calligraphy Classroom, composed of tracing books with Xu Bing’s invented calligraphy, was created to help English speakers understand the language and the art of Chinese calligraphy. The work is on view in the Boone Children's Gallery, where visitors are invited to take up a brush and practice his calligraphy.

Organized by The San Diego Museum of Art, Divine Desire: Printmaking, Mythology, and the Birth of the Baroque showcases engravings produced in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in northern Europe and Italy. These sophisticated works of art, produced by the leading artists of the period, are assembled primarily from The San Diego Museum of Art's Permanent Collection, together with several important loans from significant Southern California collections. Themes revolve around the romantic entanglements of the gods of Classical Antiquity and how such imagery relates to a Reformation/Counter-Reformation Europe. While these prints were produced using visually stunning and sophisticated techniques in order to delight the senses of their audience, their subject matter served a moralizing and instructive purpose. As in Greek and Roman times, the gods served as foils for contemporary mortals, complete with the imperfections inherent to human nature. By turns comic, erotic, satirical, and moralizing, the imagery reflects the norms and ideals of a society undergoing agonizing transition. Featured artists include Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1616), Jacob Matham (1571 – 1631), and Albrecht Dürer (1471 – 1528). The spectacular artistic achievements explored in Divine Desire signal a crucial moment in the artistic developments of the Baroque Age in Europe.

This exhibition is accompanied by several related programs including Culture & Cocktails on Thursday, May 28, and a gallery talk with the curator on Saturday, May 30.

This spring, the Museum is proud to partner with the Portland Opera and the David Hockney Foundation to present David Hockney: A Rake’s Progress. Hockney, one of the most significant artists of our generation, has long engaged with the paintings and engravings of 18th-century English artist William Hogarth. Hockney was particularly captivated by Hogarth’s series The Rake’s Progress, 1733, which chronicles the rise and fall of Tom Rakewell, the son and heir of a rich merchant, who squanders his money on luxurious living, prostitution, and gambling. After a trip to New York, Hockney produced his own interpretation of the story. Hockney’s A Rake’s Progress was published as a portfolio of 16 etchings in 1963 and is considered one of the high points of his early career.

In 1975, Hockney collaborated with director John Cox to create a new production of Igor Stravinsky’s opera based on Hogarth’s The Rake’s Progress. Hockney drew inspiration from the 18th-century master’s engravings, endowing the set designs and costumes with a linearity that speaks not only to the language of prints, but also to the modern angularity of Stravinsky’s score. The result is both playful and rigorous, a perfect blend of the aural and visual.

The exhibition is an exciting look into Hockney’s creative process. It will feature etchings, drawings, models, and watercolors that depict the 1975 opera’s set design from initial idea to final concept, offering a rare glimpse into working methods of one of England’s finest living artists.

The exhibition of this work is complemented by the Portland Opera’s production of The Rake’s Progress on June 11, 12, and 14, 2015, featuring Hockney’s celebrated scenic and costume designs.

The University of Glasgow holds one of the UK's most important collections of early printed books, or ‘incunabula’, published over the fifty years from the invention of printing in the mid-15th century.

The collection is the largest in Scotland and more than half comes from the library of Hunterian founder Dr William Hunter (1718-83).

Showcasing the University’s rich collections and the results of new research from the Glasgow Incunabula Project, this major exhibition charts the development of the early printed book in Europe, exploring the transition from manuscript to print and its impact on late medieval society.

The invention of mechanical movable type printing revolutionised book making in Europe and was instrumental in the emergence of the Renaissance and the spread of learning more generally.

Ingenious Impressions features a number of key themes, including the transition from scribal to print culture, the design, decoration and illustration of the earliest printed books, the technology and challenges of printing, and finally 500 years of book ownership and collecting.

The exhibition also features demonstrations on a replica 15th century printing press, on loan from the University of Reading.

International Print Center New York presents 15th Anniversary Exhibition of the New York Society of Etchers in commemoration of this milestone in the Society’s history. The exhibition is curated by Stephen A. Fredericks and will be on view in IPCNY’s Project Space at 508 West 26th St, 5th Floor, from June 11 – July 31, 2015. Presented during IPCNY’s 15th Anniversary year and concurrently with New Prints 2015/Summer, the show brings together prints from a handful of current New York Society of Etchers directors and additional artists who have supported the Society during its 15-year exhibiting history. Also included will be catalogs, photographs, and various historical items from the collection of Stephen A. Fredericks and the New York Society of Etchers.