Brodsky Center at PAFA Announces Participants in 2020 Traveling Seminar on Contemporary Prints for Early- to Mid-Career Curators

PHILADELPHIA (February 5, 2020) -- The Brodsky Center at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is pleased to announce the participants in its upcoming traveling seminar on contemporary prints for early- to mid-career curators. The seminar, made possible by a grant from the Getty Foundation, will take place April 5–10 across multiple venues in Philadelphia and New York City.

Organized by Paola Morsiani, Director of the Brodsky Center at PAFA, the purpose of this multi-day seminar is to provide a learning experience that will enhance awareness and understanding of the unique creative processes, tools, materials, and contexts that characterize the print medium.

The participating curators are:

• Josefina Barcia, Museum of Latin American Art (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
• Avijna Bhattacharya, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (New Delhi, India)
• Kimberli Gant, Chrysler Museum of Art (Norfolk, VA)
• Jenny Graser, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin, Germany)
• Ryan Hardesty, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Washington State University (Pullman, WA)
• Solomon Salim Moore, Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL)
• Berit Ness, Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago (Chicago, IL)
• Ksenia Nouril, The Print Center (Philadelphia, PA)
• Rory Padeken, San Jose Museum of Art (San Jose, CA)
• Janelle Rebel, Ringling College of Art + Design (Sarasota, FL)
• Essi Rönkkö, Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL)
• Jodi Throckmorton, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Philadelphia, PA)
• Melissa Yuen, Sheldon Museum of Art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Lincoln, NE)

Participants will engage in a series of printmaking and papermaking demonstrations, presentations on conservation techniques, workshop, studio and collector visits; discussions with artists, printmakers, and fellow curators; as well as other print-related programming. Traveling seminar venues include Durham Press, Philadelphia Museum of Art, PAFA, Conservation Center for Art and Historical Artifacts, The Print Center, Museum of Modern Art, New York Public Library, Prints of Darkness, and many other influential print institutions.

"It is very exciting that this dynamic and diverse group of curators will take part in our inaugural traveling seminar," said Morsiani. "Printmaking is a historically and artistically rich medium, one that presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities for curators. It is our hope that this spring's program will equip these participants with a deeper understanding of processes so that print-focused curatorial projects will continue to flourish at their respective institutions and beyond."

This traveling seminar is made possible by a grant from the Getty Foundation, as part of The Paper Project: Prints and Drawings Curatorship in the 21st Century. Introduced in 2018, The Paper Project was conceived to help prints and drawings curators navigate the demands of the 21st-century museum, both by preserving traditional skills that have been passed down through generations of specialists and by making their collections accessible to today's museum audiences.

The dates of the traveling seminar will coincide with the final week of two exhibitions at PAFA devoted to the art of printmaking: Making Community: Prints from Brandywine Workshop and Archives, Brodsky Center at PAFA, and Paulson Fontaine Press, and At One Stroke: Prints by Helen Frankenthaler.

About the Getty Foundation

The Getty Foundation fulfills the philanthropic mission of the Getty Trust by supporting individuals and institutions committed to advancing the greater understanding and preservation of the visual arts in Los Angeles and throughout the world. Through strategic grant initiatives, it strengthens art history as a global discipline, promotes the interdisciplinary practice of conservation, increases access to the museum and archival collections, and develops current and future leaders in the visual arts. It carries out its work in collaboration with the other Getty Programs to ensure that they individually and collectively achieve maximum effect.

About the Brodsky Center at PAFA

The Brodsky Center was founded as the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper in 1986 by Judith Brodsky, an artist, printmaker, arts advocate, and professor of art at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. It was established as an international forum for the exchange of new ideas in print and papermaking processes and education. In 2006 it was renamed in honor of Judith Brodsky in recognition of her leadership and vision. In the summer of 2018, the Brodsky Center joined the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The mission of the Brodsky Center aligns uniquely with the mission of PAFA to educate students and to develop and promote the work of outstanding and innovative artists. Since its founding, the Center has completed over 300 editions with a diverse range of emerging and established artists, including PAFA alumnus, Barkley L. Hendricks, and artists in PAFA's collection such as Melvin Edwards, Joan Semmel, and Richard Tuttle.