Proposition; Pressure; Proof
The Prints of William Kentridge and Phillip Chen
January 24 – March 15, 2020
Opening Reception: Friday, January 24 from 5:00-6:30 p.m.
Dazzle Hour: Thursday, February 13 at 5:00 p.m.
Gallery talk with artists Phillip Chen and Randy Hemminghaus: Thursday, March 5 at 6:00 p.m.
This exhibition brings together the work of internationally-recognized printmakers William Kentridge and Phillip Chen. Kentridge (b. 1955) was raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, sensitized by the region’s violent history of colonial power; Chen (b. 1953) lived in Chicago for much of his adult life, raised in a household challenged by anti-Chinese legislation of the late 19th and early 20th century, facing the legacy of exclusion, foreclosures, and the denial of citizenship. Both artists gravitated towards printmaking early in their formative years, drawn to its crucial role in the dissemination of political critique, protest, and dissent exampled by the volition of artists such as Hogarth, Goya, Daumier, and Kollwitz.
While aligned in using print as a platform for revisioning, Proposition; Pressure; Proof presents the work of Kentridge and Chen in terms of their openness to using print to test ideas, to think and to act through the creation of images, and to convey intensely personal memories and reckonings. The exhibition encourages visitors to see printmaking—or artmaking more generally—as a matter of knowing and not knowing; a testing of ideas; a piloting of a hypothesis that is proven under press pressure.
About the gallery talk with Randy Hemminghaus and Phillip Chen: They will discuss the works included in the exhibition in detail as well as their collaborations. As master printer at the former Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions at Rutgers, Hemminghaus began collaborating with Kentridge in 2000. Hemminghaus printed all of Kentridge’s works in the exhibition through close collaboration with the artist. Phillip Chen has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally. Major institutions have added his work to their permanent collections, including the Brooklyn Museum, New York Public Library, Carnegie Institute Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts. Phillip Chen is the recipient of the Louis B. Comfort Tiffany Award and Pollock Krasner Grant; he was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2018.
Proposition; Pressure; Proof and related programs are made possible in part by funding from the Robert and Shirley Berg Fund at the Cedar Falls Community Foundation, the Cedar Falls Art and Culture Board, Friends of the Hearst, and legacy funding in memory of Clara A. Trapp. Works by William Kentridge are on loan from the Mason Gross School of Art at Rutgers University; works by Phillip Chen are on loan from the collection of the artist.
For more information on the artists and their work please follow the links below:
William Kentridge – MOMA + The Guggenheim Museum + art21 + TATE + The Broad
Phillip Chen – MOCA + Artist Website + The Guggenheim Museum + The Art Institute of Chicago + A/P/A Institute of NY + Sioux City Art Center
Cedar Falls Student Art Exhibition 2020
March 29-April 26, 2020
Opening Reception: Sunday, March 29 from 1 – 4 p.m., Sponsored by Friends of the Hearst
This exhibition features works by students from the elementary and secondary schools in Cedar Falls. The emerging talent of young artists provides an impressive and diverse exhibition with works in all media including ceramics, photography, printmaking, and painting.