Print + clay: special promotion celebrates major visual arts festivals, conferences, and exhibitions converging in Philadelphia this spring, March 12-April 11

Print + Clay: special promotion celebrates major visual arts festivals, conferences, and exhibitions converging in Philadelphia this spring, March 12-April 11

Over 200 world class print and clay exhibits will be featured throughout Philadelphia as the city celebrates the Philagrafika 2010 International Print Festival & two conferences: “Independence”, The Annual Conference of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and “Mark/Remarque”, The Southern Graphics Council Conference.

March 2, 2010
Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance
1616 Walnut St., Suite 600
Philadelphia, PA 19103

Contact: John McInerney
johnm@philaculture.org
215-399-3515

Philadelphia- From March 12 through April 11 over 200 world class print and clay exhibits will be featured throughout Philadelphia. The exhibitions will celebrate the mediums of print and clay, as thousands of artists, educators, critics and fans celebrate both Philagrafika 2010, a major international festival of printmaking and contemporary art, and two conferences on clay and print mediums: the Annual Conference of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA), hosted by The Clay Studio; and The Southern Graphics Council (SGC) Philadelphia Conference. 

Print + Clay is a special promotion that highlights the many activities available to the public when these  special events overlap during the months of March and April. Complete information on all exhibits and activities is available at www.Phillyfunguide.com/printplusclay. 

“Philadelphia’s visual arts scene will reach a new intensity this spring with the convergence of so many print and clay exhibitions,” says Clay Studio President and CEO Amy Sarner Williams. “This partnership between The Clay Studio and Philagrafika will explore new directions in each media, including the confluence of design and industrial techniques in studio practices, the exploration of conceptually based, installation and performance work, and the use of mixed and new media in the creation of work.”

Featured exhibitions include:

• J.J. McCracken: Hunger, Philadelphia, an installation and performance at the Painted Bride Art Center which brings attention to issues of hunger, locally and globally, drawing on the use of kaolin, a clay that oftentimes in the absence of food, is used by some cultures as a source of nutrition.  The exhibit will feature choreographed performances April 1 and 2.  Curated by John Perreault and commissioned by The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA.
• The Graphic Unconscious, Philagrafika 2010’s core curated exhibition, which can be seen across five exhibition sites including: the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, The Print Center, Moore College of Art & Design, and Temple Gallery, Tyler School of Art, Temple University.March events include The DIY Quick and Dirty PRINTERESTING SWAP, a free swap (no sales) for prints, posters, zines, comix, t-shirts, stickers, and other print-based items, on March 20 at 2pm at The Print Center (1614 Latimer St). The Graphic Unconscious runs through April 11, 2010. Admission prices vary, many events are free.
• Also at The Print Center, Drive By Press will present one of their signature one-day-only print events on March 24. The entire 1600 block of Latimer Street will be closed to traffic as artists Greg Nanney and Joseph Velasquez create a site-specific installation. Visitors can participate by making their own custom printed t-shirts. Wednesday, March 24, 6 – 9pm, Free.
• Convergence: Pottery from Studio and Factory, an exhibition curated by Judy Clowes and commissioned by the Clay Studio, that will take place at the Philadelphia Art Alliance and examine the blurred line between industrial produced and objects created by artists, employing industrial techniques and practices. Extended hours on Friday, April 2 (11am-8pm) with a wine bar.

• Bounding Billow: Sailors Printing on the High Seas, a special printing event and ice cream social presented by Philagrafika 2010 artists Cannonball Press, who will be reanimating the letterpress shop with live printing on board the Cruiser Olympia at the Independence Seaport Museum (Penns Landing, S. Columbus Blvd & Walnut St).  RSVP required, see www.philagrafika 2010.org. Friday, March 26, 3-5pm, Free.

• Ceramic Interactions, is a project curated by four nationally recognized curators and commissioned by The Clay Studio.  The project involves ten artists who created new work in response to a piece, collection or space housed within one of three of Philadelphia’s most venerable institutions, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, U Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and Eastern State Penitentiary.  Through these Ceramic Interactions, viewers are offered opportunities for new ways of thinking about art, as well as a new way of looking at familiar sites and collections.  Crosses, Bones, Cherry Trees is a piece created by Judyth van Amringe while a guest artist in residence at The Clay Studio.   Housed at Eastern State Penitentiary, the piece, a memorial to the generations of souls who inhabited the prison, includes bones created by participants of free workshops hosted at The Clay Studio.

• Sunday Studio: Printmaking Without A Press; a workshop presented by the Philadelphia Museum of Art (26th & Benjamin Franklin Pkwy).  Participants are invited to bring ideas, sketches, and photographs as inspiration for a “Sunday Studio,” which will offer instruction on how to make prints and how to create a small body of work without a press. During the studio workshop, participants will become immersed in the printmaking experience as they create relief and frottage prints, and then incorporate their prints into gelatin prints for a layered and thematically rich series.  Sunday, March 28; 9:15am – 4:30pm. Members: $80, Nonmembers: $100, plus $35 supplies fee.

• In addition to Philagrafika 2010’s curated exhibitions and artist projects, the festival’s Independent Projects include nearly 80 additional cultural institutions in the Greater Philadelphia region.  These institutions have organized exhibitions and events individually and will continue to offer dozens of print-related exhibitions and programs throughout the months of March and April.

Information on additional exhibitions and events are available at www.phillyfunguide.com/printplusclay

“Our region stands out for it’s incredibly rich selection of visual arts,” says Tom Kaiden, Acting Executive Director  of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. “From the Philadelphia Museum of Art to small artist run collectives, Print + Clay brings together the many threads of creative energy that make our city so special.”

Print + Clay is a collaboration between Phillyfunguide.com (run by the Cultural Alliance), The Clay Studio, the local host of the NCECA conference, and Philagrafika.

Philagrafika 2010
The inaugural year of Philagrafika 2010 (January 29 – April 11, 2010), the largest international city-wide art festival celebrating print as a vital role in contemporary art, showcases the work of more than 300 artists in nearly 90 Philadelphia art institutions, Philagrafika 2010 offers audiences the opportunity to see contemporary art that references printmaking in dynamic, unexpected ways and to experience Philadelphia’s rich cultural life in the process. Philagrafika 2010 has been curated by Artistic Director José Roca, an internationally recognized Colombian curator who co-curated the 2006 São Paulo Biennial. Roca, in turn, assembled the integral curatorial team which has collaboratively organized The Graphic Unconscious exhibition, which spans the curators’ five venues. The Philagrafika 2010 curators include: John Caperton, Curator of Prints & Photographs at The Print Center; independent curator Sheryl Conkelton; 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; and Julien Robson, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.  

The Clay Studio and The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) present: Independence: the celebration of independent spirit in both traditional & groundbreaking ceramic art. Independence is NCECA’s 44th annual conference scheduled from March 31st-April 3, 2010 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. The conference is expected to draw over 6,000 artists, educators, curators and collectors from all over the world bringing an economic impact of over $7 million dollars to the community. As the on-site liaison, The Clay Studio has coordinated over 90 refined and meaningful ceramic art exhibitions to be mounted in galleries, alternative spaces, and museums throughout Philadelphia and the nearby suburbs. This monumental exhibition will immerse conference attendees into the heart of Philadelphia’s cultural scene and offer a truly unique opportunity for the public to experience the astonishing breadth of expression articulated through the ceramic medium.

The Southern Graphics Council (SGC) Philadelphia Conference “Mark/Remarque” (SGC)
The Southern Graphics Council (SGC) Philadelphia Conference is scheduled to take place March 24-27. Printmaking is a paradigmatic artmaking process with the potential of recording all stages of the creative process. Mark/Remarque will examine traditional and digital print processes (marks), critical discourse important to the field (remarks), and consider the concepts associated with the historical print term remarque: rarity, testing, concept amplification, and boundary extension.

Phillyfunguide.com
Phillyfunguide is an online events calendar produced by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance and the source for information on Print + Clay.  (www.phillyfunguide.com/printplusclay). It includes information on thousands of leisure events and attractions. Listings include ticketing information, detailed descriptions, directions, reviews, videos and more. Nearly two dozen cultural, tourism, and media organizations partner with Phillyfunguide including the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (gophila.com), the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, WXPN, the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, and Dance/USA Philadelphia. A complete list of partners is available at www.Phillyfunguide.com/OurPartners.