The exhibition showcases innovative printmaking techniques utilized at the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies; specifically the combinations of etching, screen print, woodcut, and unique hand-worked transfer, laser etching and cutting. Pace Prints recognizes the technical advances that the organization has made to the field, as well as their commitment to the number of highly-respected artists with whom they explore the printmaking medium.
The LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies was founded by a generous endowment from LeRoy and Janet Neiman in 1996 to promote printmaking through education, production and exhibition of prints. The Center provides students, as well as established artists, a rich environment to investigate and produce images through a myriad of printmaking techniques which include intaglio, lithography, silkscreen, relief, photography, photogravure and digital imaging.
Among the works highlighted in the exhibition, Rirkrit Tiravanija's untitled 2008-2011 (the map of the land of feeling) will be on view to the public for the first time. The project, which took 3 years to complete and employed over 40 students' hands to edition, is the artist's first print (two dimensional) and one of the most ambitious projects the publisher released to date. Comprised of three 27+ foot long scrolls, the visuals progress as a timeline of two decades of the artist's life, with the central imagery as Tiravanija's passport fully reproduced, end-to-end as open book folios. Overlaying these are further embellishments in silkscreen and chine collé, consisting of images of maps, time zones, contemporary art references (Duchamp, Broodthaers, Shindler, Smithson etc), early Chinese exploration documents, reproduced artist notebooks with recipes, automatic fiction writing and more.
Making its debut is a new series of five bright and colorful prints by Trenton Doyle Hancock, entitled The Year. In the series, the artist incorporates images of overflowing buckets, a rain drenched glowing pink head, and two organic cones which he calls "beacons." The works, which are done in an edition of 25, are available individually or as a group, and incorporate silkscreen, intaglio etching and watercolor pochoir.
Also on view will be six unique monoprints by Tomas Vu. Incorporating laser engraved wood veneer, silkscreen and hand coloring; the series is from a larger body of 100 works entitled Flatland. The imagery depicts, in dark to light tones of white, black and silvery grey, potent imagery of society and nature in flux.
Other highlights of the exhibition include a series of prints by Ellen Gallagher (her first portfolio in prints titled: Ssblak!Ssblak!!Ssblakallblak!), a three-dimensional edition by Sarah Sze entitled Notebook, two woodcuts by Dana Schutz, an offset lithograph by Yun-Fei Ji as well as a number of works by Polly Apfelbaum, Ernesto Caviano, Dasha Shishkin and Shahzia Sikander.