Unlimiting the Edition

12th – 30th January 2024

Curated by Ria Czerniak-LeBov 

Preview: Thursday 11 January 2024 from 6.00 – 8.00 pm at The Library Project, 4 Temple Bar, Dublin 2.

Featuring selected BCPS and invited artists: Ailbhe Barrett, Maya Brezing, Niamh Flanagan, Margot Galvin, Des Kenny, Grace Ryan.

Black Church Print Studio presents Unlimiting the Edition, curated by Ria Czerniak-LeBov, recipient of BCPS Emerging Curator Award 2024.

As contemporary print practices continue to expand beyond the boundaries of tradition, everything from the formal and material qualities of the medium, to the social and economic status of Print have become the subject of re-evaluation. In the practices of Ailbhe Barrett, Maya Brezing, Niamh Flanagan, Margot Galvin, Des Kenny and Grace Ryan, it is the concept of the limited edition itself that is being expanded. Divorced from the rarity value system that governs the formal edition, the matrix’s potential to iterate and generate ad infinitum becomes an exciting prospect, one that allows these printmakers to build and fragment, collage and extract, tell stories and challenge existing narratives.

Across their practices, these artists explore a diverse range of themes and contemporary phenomena, in an equally diverse range of traditional techniques including etching, screenprint, paper-making and carborundum. What is visible throughout these works is a shared sensibility, one that acknowledges the complexities and contradictions of making art in unprecedented times. Climate crisis, gender identity, consumerism and the enduring, and all too human, search for a place to call home are thoughtfully and often, playfully explored through the hand-made, printed multiple. Unlike the definitive nature of the conventional print edition, these works embrace the speculative, iterative and exploratory potential of the medium, resulting in limitless configurations and re-imaginings. With its unparalleled capabilities for multiplication, printmaking offers a rich, process-driven vehicle with which to explore the increasingly complicated times we live in.

Exhibition continues until Tuesday 30 January 2024.

Opening hours: Mon – Fri 11 am – 6 pm, Sat 12 – 6 pm

 

My practice as both a curator and writer is rooted in printmaking, its position within the wider contemporary visual landscape and the rarity value systems it so often conforms to. Print’s historical links to early mass production, technology, craft and the democratisation of the Art image are unique to the medium. Unlimiting the Edition is the culmination of an academic research project which focussed on the widely accepted convention of limiting editions of hand-made, original fine art prints. In the wake of digital reproduction and online image saturation, the analogue, tactile and material processes embedded within printmaking have become sites of conceptual and technical exploration. Unlimiting the Edition features 6 printmakers, each of which engage with the printed multiple as medium. These practices complicate conventions, pushing Print beyond the limits of the edition.

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