Print Week NYC: 1st Stop – Beyond a Memorable Fancy

Curated by the intrepid arts administrator and artist, Michelle Levy, the Beyond a Memorable Fancy exhibition is situated in the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts building, in their second floor Project Space gallery. Having been a fan of her work while she worked as Program Manager at the International Print Center of New York, I was excited to see what sort of show Michelle would assemble. The Artist’s include some I was familiar with and many I was happy to discover; the roster includes, Glen Baldridge, Robert Buck, Benjamin Cohen, Nayda Collazo-Llorens, Ian Cooper, Jenelle Covino, Alex Dodge, Rachel Foullon, David Gatten, Dylan Gauthier, Graffiti Research Lab, Lynne Harlow, Adam Helms, Wennie Huang, Matthew Day Jackson, Heidi Neilson, Evan Roth, Jennifer Schmidt, Peter Simensky, Mary Temple, and Stephan von Muehlen.

Michelle’s curatorial statement reveals some of the curatorial process that choosing the artist’s and works in the exhibition.

‘I started out wanting to create a show about “conceptual printmaking”. I sought out artists who were utilizing the print process itself as a fundamental element in their work, although their final result might not be a conventional print.’

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‘As the show took form, I was struck by the a passage from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, “A Memorable Fancy,” which paints printmaking as a series of pwerful, supernatural manifestations. It became clear that, just as in Blake’s metaphor, this exhibition would be about printing as a means for Transformation.’
I titled the show “Beyond a Memorable Fancy” as an allusion to the limitless possibilities introduced when print is combined with creative vision. Although each featured artist has a distinct sensibility, process, and intent, all use print to transcend the way we see the world around us.’

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‘Beyond the Memorable Fancy explores the transformative power of artistic intervention in the print process. The exhibition represents a current snapshot of the evolving trend of artists experimenting with printmaking as a form of cultural commentary, using inventive techniques to appropriate and manipulate text, imagery, symbols and nature. Each artist in the exhibition toys with the subjectivity of perception and challenges us, as viewers, to participate.’

It seems that everyone really is printing money.

In the catalog that I’m quoting Michelle from there are bios of the participating artists organized into several thematic groupings, ‘Transformations of the familiar,’ ‘The Act of Re-Creation & Investigation of Impermanence,’ ‘Re-Creation as Political commentary,’ and ‘Public Interference as Political Commentary.’ Assembling them into a constellation of artists working on the printeresting fringe of the discipline, Michelle Levy makes a strong case for her curatorial intuition.

If it’s not clear my photographs of the exhibition do not do it justice; if you have the ability I would highly recommend seeing this in-person. If you can’t you may want to contact the EFA for a copy of the free color catalog that accompanies the exhibit.

I don’t really have the space for an in-depth review of all the work in the show but I would like to highlight some the more memorable works. David Gratten’s 16 mm films created via various experimental processes seem to capture a lost memories and contrast sharply with Jenny Schmidt’s animations that stream everyday print ephemera to dizzying effect. Peter Simensky’s work was some of my favorite, and addressed many of the lingering questions I have about relational aesthetic work. He creates situations where collaboration and exchange generate the transformative ‘art’ moment for those directly involved, but the remnants captivate equally on an aesthetic level in a way Rirkrit’s dirty dishes leave me wanting. His Collector crates are both interesting multiples but also context containers when employed to hold fragments of his collaborator’s collections. The story surrounding the bag of money in the corner of the gallery was so zany that I won’t attempt a retelling. Jenelle Covino’s C-prints occupy an unassuming place, appearing to be collages of water and rocks revealed after reading her supporting materials to be evidence of a long running interview & collaboration between the artists and a refugee. Glen Baldridge’s compellingly slick experiments in scratch-off coffin prints and ‘tattoo gun transfer drawing’ are virtuous process invested in morbid kitsch. Wennie Huang has created a pentimenti matrix of a tree’s shadow that reveals itself to the viewer in subtle beats. The Wunderkind Alex Dodge appears to have run his cyborg doppleganger though a paper shredder putting it (him) out of its (his) technological purgatory. The Graffiti Research Lab created a ‘laser stencil’ that is capable of beaming text well across the hudson from their Brooklyn hide-out, creating laser tags onto the Version building (you can rest easy knowing that the ‘laser’ was confiscated by the Chinese authorities when the GRL’s ‘Free Tibet/Free Beer’ laser tag plot was discovered). Adam Helm’s suite of prints where he’s printed a ‘Che hood’ onto some of histories finer examples of the history of extreme insurgency. And Lastly, the ‘Liberum Semi-Dory’ is a river keeper’s dream. A do-it-yourself plan for making a boat is well displayed in the gallery in various stages of progress is the product of three artist/designers with some measure of nautical prowess, Benjamin Cohen, Dylan Gauthier and Stephan Von Muehlen.

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