Philagrafika 2010: Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is one of the Graphic Unconscious sites for Philagrafika 2010. The exhibition there, while modest in it’s square footage, comprises some of the most interesting conceptual work in the related exhibitions. The curatorial statement on the Philagrafika site describes the show, expertly curated by Shelley Langdale, below:

Concepts of imprinting, multiplicity, reproduction, and seriality, as well as printed images and print techniques 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.

In keeping with its role as a major repository of the work of Marcel Duchamp, the “father” of Conceptual Art, the museum will feature exhibitions by two artists who translate aspects of printmaking into other mediums, pushing the conceptual boundaries typically associated with the print. Óscar Muñoz explores the ephemeral implications of the imprint with two projects: a new installation of portraits printed in pigment floating on water (shown in-process) and a suite of video portraits that involve a variation of this innovative printing technique. Using imagery inspired by Japanese cultural sources that range from traditional woodcuts to contemporary comics and animations, Tabaimo continues her examination of the complexities of everyday life with the U.S. debut of a 2007 video installation.

The first rooms of the exhibition presents the two major projects by Óscar Muñoz described above. All I can say is that they both breathtakingly beautiful, playfully clever and ultimately existentially sad.

Video stills from Tabaimo’s work is below. While much younger and speaking from a very different cultural context than Muñoz, Tabaimo’s work also pushes us to look inward with questions about how comfortable we are in our own skin.

(Side note: The above images were culled from the Philagrafika and PMA websites. Due to the Museum policy photos could not be taken of the exhibition. We had hoped that some ‘behind the scenes’ and installation shots would be made available for this post but they never materialized.)

The images below are from the curatorial lectures presented by José Roca and Shelley Langdale. The lectures were lively and allowed a wide ranging audience an accessible point of entry for the work in the show.

What followed after these lectures was perhaps the most unusual artist talk I’ve seen in a while, Victor Munoz, Shelley Langdale and Jose Roca conducted a three way conversation in English and Spanish and Q & A with the surprisingly bilingual audience. Some what stilted but often enlightening and amusing all the proceedings were translated by José Roca.