NYAB Event - "Silent Watch: Contemporary Prints from Finland" Exhibition

"Silent Watch: Contemporary Prints from Finland" Exhibition

International Print Center New York

This event has ended.

International Print Center New York announces the opening of its 2011/12 season with the presentation of "Silent Watch: Contemporary Prints from Finland".

"Silent Watch" is the seventh in a series of international shows organized by IPCNY throughout its eleven year history, and is its first presentation of Scandinavian printmaking. The exhibition includes thirty-five outstanding printed works made in Finland in recent years by nine artists and one artists’ collective.

The project is a collaboration between IPCNY and a team of Finnish curators. Juliette Kennedy, of the University of Helsinki, chaired the curatorial team, working with Leena Ahtola-Moorhouse, Chief Curator of Exhibitions at the Ateneum Art Museum (The National Gallery of Finland, Helsinki), and Päivi Talasmaa, Chief Curator at Espoo Museum of Art (EMMA), Espoo. An illustrated brochure with curatorial statements will accompany the exhibition.

"Silent Watch" is comprised of works made with etching, drypoint, silkscreen, woodcut and digital techniques, as well as several artists’ books and a three-dimensional piece. The exhibition includes prints by the widely exhibited veteran Finnish printmaker, Outi Heiskanen, a multi-panel silkscreen work on plywood by Päivikki Kallio, two artist’s books with silk fold-out pages by Eeva-Liisa Isomaa, a dramatic wall-sized installation of layered woodblocks printed on Japanese paper by Annu Vertanen, and a lead table with movable printed components that the viewer rearranges, by Visa Suonpää and Patrik Söderlund of the artists’ collective IC-98. In the words of Ms. Kennedy: “Emphasis will be on the unexpected—on what is novel and surprising in contemporary Finnish art, rather than on what has traditionally been Finland’s strong point, in the area of modernism and constructivism.”

"Silent Watch" is the first exhibition, to our knowledge, in which the extensive achievements of Finnish artists in contemporary printmaking have been brought to the attention of New York audiences. It represents the seventh in IPCNY’s series of international exhibitions designed to foster appreciation for printed works from cultures other than our own. With this presentation IPCNY recognizes the rich history of Finnish printmaking, and aims to broaden understanding of its current manifestations.

Previous presentations in IPCNY’s international series have included Seeing God in Prints: Indian Lithographs from the Collection of Mark Baron and Elise Boisanté, Graphic Reality: Mexican Printmaking Today, New Editions/Scotland, and many more groundbreaking projects.