Curator's choice: IFPDA Print Fair 2020

Ann Shafer

There is a holiday song with a lyric, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” that runs through my mind every October during New York Print Week. Encompassing three major print fairs—the IFPDA Print Fair, the Editions and Artists Books fair, and the Satellite Fair—there is a cornucopia of wonderful prints to see. There is, of course, also a lot of attendant programming, dinners, and socializing. Oh, and we always try to hit various galleries and museum exhibitions. It’s a super busy week, exhausting and energizing, and it’s so fun to catch up with all the artists, printers, and publishers we’ve gotten to know over the years.

Because of the pandemic, New York Print Week 2020 is occurring virtually. While the IFPDA has really stepped up to the plate with a month’s worth of daily virtual artist talks and studio tours, and each fair has set up online viewing rooms, there is nothing like being there in person.

I will always believe that one must see works of art in person to really absorb them accurately. As a curator on the hunt for contemporary (ish) works on paper, New York Print Week is one-stop shopping. At the IFPDA fair alone there are usually ninety vendors. I thought it would be fun to pick out favorite works from each fair. The caveat being, of course, that seeing the works in person might change my mind. Here’s a group from the IFPDA Print Fair in no particular order.

Derrick Adams
Self Portrait on Float, 2019
Woodblock, gold leaf, collage
40 × 40 in (101.6 × 101.6 cm)
Tandem Press

Richard Long
Speed of the Sound of Loneliness, 2014
A two panel carborundum relief, both panels printed in Black/Ultramarine Blue ink mix
47 3/4 × 152 3/4 in (121.3 × 388 cm)
Jonathan Novak Contemporary Art

William Kentridge
Telephone Lady, 2000
Linoleum cut
85 × 47 in (215.9 × 119.4 cm)
Gallery Neptune & Brown

Shahzia Sikander
Portrait of the Artist, 2016
One in a suite of four etchings
27 × 21 in (68.6 × 53.3 cm)
Pace Prints

Jacob Hashimoto
Tracing the Ever-fragile Balance of Dreamless Silence: This Unruly Forest, These Imaginings, and the Final Exhalation, 2019
Mixografia print on handmade paper
34 1/2 × 61 1/2 in (87.6 × 156.2 cm)
Mixografia

Peter Milton
Interiors VI: The Train from Munich, 1991
Resist-ground etching and engraving,
20 × 35 5/8 in (50.8 × 90.5 cm)
The Old Print Shop

Walton Ford
Benjamin's Emblem, 2000
Etching
44 3/16 × 30 3/8 in (112.2 × 77.2 cm)
Susan Sheehan Gallery

Richard Diebenkorn
High Green, Version I, 1992
Color spit bite and soap ground aquatints with soft ground and hard ground etching and drypoint
52 × 33 in (132.1 × 83.8 cm)
Crown Point Press

Tom Marioni
Drawing a Line, 2012
Drypoint with plate tarnish printed in sepia and black
54 × 16 in (137.2 × 40.6 cm)
Crown Point Press

Tauba Auerbach
Mesh Moire I-VI, 2012
Suite of six color softground etchings on Somerset white paper
86 × 98 in (218.4 × 248.9 cm)
Carolina Nitsch Contemporary Art

Charles Gaines
Numbers and Trees, Tiergarten Series 3: Tree #1, April, 2018
Color aquatint and spitbite aquatint with printed acrylic box.
41 1/4 × 32 × 3 1/2 in (104.8 × 81.3 × 8.9 cm)
Paulson Fontaine Press