Exhibition Tour: Layers of Liberty
Advance registration is required.
Join us for a curator-led tour of Layers of Liberty: Philadelphia and the Appalachian Environment with Terra Foundation Curatorial Fellow Ali Printz. Discover Philadelphia’s relationship to Appalachian extraction of natural resources, explored through a compelling selection of paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures from PAFA’s permanent collection, spanning both historical and contemporary perspectives.
Motivated by both a lack of representation of Appalachian art in museum collections and recent trends in ecocritical scholarship, Layers of Liberty examines themes that relate directly to Philadelphia and rural Appalachian Pennsylvania, referencing the ecology of early America, the establishment of networks of transportation like the railroad and the commodification of natural resources, and the pastoral relationship to the environment that inspired Philadelphia (and PAFA) artists.
Image: Louis B. Sloan, Self-Portrait in Landscape, 1970, oil on canvas, 48" x 42", 2019.55.
Ali Printz is the Terra Foundation curatorial fellow at PAFA, a PhD candidate in art history at the Tyler School of Art & Architecture at Temple University, and a practicing artist based between Philadelphia and Appalachia. Her research investigates Appalachian regionalism in modern and contemporary American art, ecocriticism, and the intersections of fine art and craft. She received a BFA in Painting and a BA in Art History from West Virginia University and an MA in Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, New York. Her research has been supported by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and The Center for Curatorial Leadership.