Ink, Press, Repeat: National Juried Printmaking and Book Art Exhibition

Press Release

Ink, Press, Repeat 2014, a national juried exhibition of traditional and digital print media and book art by 37 professional artists from across the United States, will be on view at the William Paterson University Galleries from November 3 through December 12, 2014. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on November 16, 23, and December 7 from noon to 4 p.m. Admission is free. An opening reception for the exhibit will be held on Sunday, November 9, from 2 to 4 p.m.

The exhibition, in the Court Gallery of the University’s Ben Shahn Center for the Visual Arts, includes a variety of printmaking media, including woodcut, etching, monotype/monoprint, lithography, intaglio, silkscreen, and processes involving photography-derived imagery and digital collage. The exhibition was juried by Susan Tallman, editor-in-chief of Art in Print. Tallman selected 43 artworks by 37 artists from more than 600 works submitted by 231 artists. The artists featured in the exhibition hail from 21 states. 

According to Tallman, the exhibition showcases the significance of the medium in today’s culture. “For 50 years prints and printmaking have been central to the concerns of contemporary art. Living in a world awash with reproductions, with pictures glossy and tattered, artists in all media have turned their attention to questions of replication and repetition, identity and difference, social engagement, and the provocative gap between the material thing in front of you and the distant event to which it points. The prints in this exhibition, chosen from a rich set of submissions, demonstrate the range and profundity of what ‘print’ means in the 21st century. From the social isolation of cell-phones to the beauties of rotting infrastructure, they capture the inconsistent complexities of our world.”

The grand-prize winner is Marsha Goldberg of Highland Park, New Jersey, who will receive a solo exhibition in the University Galleries. Goldberg’s winning works are etchings from a series titled “Smoke Rises,” which pulls its imagery from news photographs of war-related explosions. 

The cash prize recipients are Robin Gibson of State College, Pennsylvania; Donald Furst of Wilmington, North Carolina; Miguel Aragon of Brooklyn, New York; and Robert Darabos of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Other artists in the exhibition are Ben Anderson, Steven Arnerich, Cynthia Back, Janet Badger, Diana Behl, James Boychuk-Hunter, Veronica Ceci, Edwige Charlot, Brian Cohen, Michael DalCerro, Raymond DeCicco, Alyssa Delly, Aubrey DiDonato, James Dormer, Holly Downing, Amze Emmons, Cathleen Ficht, Kim Fink, Jenny Freestone, Brett Groves, Mario Laplante, Anthony Lazorko, Christina Massey, Anna Mavromatis, Amy Pirkle, Michelle Ray, Celeste Regal, Carrie Scanga, Ayumi Shibata, Charlee Swanson, Red Butte Press, and Josh Winkler. 

Susan Tallman is an art historian who has written extensively on the history and culture of the print, as well as on issues authenticity, reproduction and multiplicity. She is editor-in-chief of the international journal and website Art in Print, and her writing has appeared in Art in America, Parkett, Public Art Review, Art on Paper, Print Quarterly, Arts Magazine and many other publications. Her books include The Contemporary Print: from Pre-Pop to Postmodern (Thames and Hudson), The Collections of Barbara Bloom (Steidl), and numerous museum catalogues. She has lived and worked in New York, Amsterdam and Berlin, and currently teaches in the Departments of Printmedia and Art History, Theory and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Ink, Press, Repeat 2014 is one of three exhibitions on view concurrently in the William Paterson University Galleries. Tall Tales: Recent Work by Yuji Hiratsuka, on view in the East Gallery showcases the work of the grand-prize winner of Ink, Press, Repeat 2013. 35 in 350: The Story of New Jersey, on view in the South Gallery, narrates the experience of living in New Jersey.

This exhibition is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. The William Paterson University Galleries are wheelchair-accessible. Large-print educational materials are available. For additional information, please call the William Paterson University Galleries at 973-720-2654.