Left: Jess Rowland (b. 1971). Sound Tapestries, 2013–ongoing, installed at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, UC Berkeley, 2013. Copper foil on acetate; electronics. Installation dimensions variable. © Jess Rowland. Photo: Sibila Savage. Right: Jason Moran (b. 1975). Note Count, 2021. Pigment on gampi. 25 1⁄2 x 38 1⁄4 inches. Courtesy the artist and Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York. © Jason Moran. Image courtesy the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York.

Print Center New York, New York’s flagship non-profit arts institution dedicated to advancing print as a primary artistic, cultural, and social medium, opens its new, ground floor home at 535 West 24th Street to the public on October 8. The inaugural exhibition, Visual Record: The Materiality of Sound in Print, on view in the Jordan Schnitzer Gallery, investigates how artists since the 1970s have employed print-based processes to examine the relationship between sound and its visual representation. Visual Record includes works in a range of media by 15 artists, including Terry Adkins, John Cage, Bethany Collins, Glenn Ligon, Christian Marclay, Dario Robleto, and Audra Wolowiec , among others, and will be on view through January 21, 2023.

Print Center New York (formerly International Print Center New York or IPCNY) opens its new space along with a fresh visual identity, reflecting the vision created with a strategic plan for its 20th anniversary in 2021. Milestones reached to date include an enhanced Board of Trustees and staff, deepened support for artists with new professional development opportunities through the New Voices program, an expanded exhibition calendar that will incorporate monographic shows, and the exploration of prints within a broader and more diverse artistic and cultural framework.

“The Print Center has endeavored to define print in a wide and interdisciplinary context—not as an isolated art practice but one connected across mediums, and as a tool that can address and transmit the pressing issues, ideas, and conversations of our time. We are excited to celebrate our new space and further define our role as a leader within the arts community,” states Judy Hecker, Executive Director, Print Center NewYork.

New Space and Architecture

The new location more than doubles the scale of the Print Center’s previous space to a total of 4,100 square feet, providing nearly three times as much wall space for the installation of artworks. Designed by architect Markus Dochantschi of studioMDA, the ground floor space with expansive windows welcomes visitors from a well-traveled street in the heart of New York’s Chelsea art district into an entrance with seating and publications for browsing. The lobby features an interior door and glass wall that serves as a vestibule, providing climate control and offering visitors and passersby a visual connection to the exhibitions. The main interior space, the designated Jordan Schnitzer Gallery, allows for variable uses, including exhibitions, artist programs, performances, and receptions. The space also features art storage, a conference room, and an office for staff.

Exhibition on View

Visual Record: The Materiality of Sound in Print is organized by guest curator Elleree Erdos, who was last year appointed Director of Prints & Editions at David Zwirner. Rooted in the traditions of both sound and print, the works in Visual Record reflect an increasing interest in how prints relate to and inform broader multimedia practices. Visual Record highlights artists whose work translates between sound and print using distinctly physical means. Across a wide range of subjects—from the rhythms of jazz and American nostalgia to the sound of silence and the encoding of race in aural matter—the works demonstrate how the idea of the “record” is bolstered by innovative technical and conceptual approaches to printmaking.

The works vary widely in their relationship to printmaking—some are unique transfer drawings, some are traditional editions, and others employ modes of casting, cutting, or digital printing. For example, to create Note Count, 2021, Jason Moran, a jazz pianist and composer, spread a sheet of paper over a keyboard, covered the paper with pigment, and played. The resulting marks map the artist’s movement in relationship to the piano through the density of pigment and the folds, creases, and tears of the paper. Playfully transforming an everyday object in an unexpected way, Peter Fischli/David Weiss’s Record (for Parkett), 1988, employs traditional casting techniques but uses synthetic black rubber to create a seemingly useless imitation record, but one that does indeed play music. Some works on view also expand into installation and bring sound into the gallery: a new iteration of Jess Rowland’s Sound Tapestries, 2022, creates an environment of spatialized sound using suspended copper printed circuits that carry audio signals.

An accompanying publication features essays by Elleree Erdos, Jennifer L. Roberts, Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University, and musician and writer David Toop, and will be available for purchase online and on site.

Public Programs

Programs offered to the public along with Visual Record are free and include:

Saturday, October 22, 2pm

Exhibition tour led by Jenn Bratovich, Director of Exhibitions and Programs, in conjunction with Open House New York, in-person RSVP encouraged, capacity limited to 20 individuals

Early November

Performance of Bethany Collins’s America: A Hymnal, in-person Meetinghouse of the Religious Society of Friends, 15 Rutherford Street Visitors may come and go throughout the evening
Walk in

Tuesday, November 15, 7pm ET

Printing with Fire: Bethany Collins and Dario Robleto in Conversation with Jennifer L. Roberts, virtual
RSVP→

Saturday, December 10, 2pm

Exhibition tour led by Jenn Bratovich, Director of Exhibitions and Programs, in-person RSVP encouraged, capacity limited to 20 individuals.

More information about additional programming will be available on Print Center New York’s website soon.

Visitor Information

Print Center New York is open to the public and located at 535 West 24th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues. Hours are Tuesday–Saturday, 10am—6pm. Admission is free.

About Print Center New York

Print Center New York is the leading non-profit exhibition space in New York dedicated to exploring the dynamic and accessible medium of print within broader artistic and cultural discourses. Print Center New York engages audiences in a welcoming environment, both onsite and online, through interdisciplinary exhibitions, innovative scholarship, educational programming, and digital resources. A 501(c)(3) institution, Print Center New York depends on foundation, government, individual support, and members’ contributions to fund its programs.

About studioMDA

studioMDA is a multidisciplinary design firm based in New York and founded in 2002 by Markus Dochantschi, with the mission of challenging the boundaries of design. studioMDA has worked extensively across the United States and internationally with a wide range of typologies, including both high-end and affordable residential, cultural, commercial, institutional, mixed-use, and architectural design competitions. studioMDA designed the new Phillips auction house New York headquarters, the Faurschou Foundation in Brooklyn, and the Center for Advanced Mobility in Aachen, Germany, as well as New York art galleries including Anton Kern Gallery, Bortolami Gallery, Kasmin Gallery, Lisson Gallery, Luhring Augustine Gallery, and PPOW Gallery. Other recent projects in the Chelsea neighborhood include Harper’s Gallery and Galerie Templon’s first New York location.

Credits

Print Center New York is funded, in part, by New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council.

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