The Boston Printmakers will return to Boston University to celebrate its 75 th anniversary with the 2023 North American Print Biennial, after a 4-year hiatus. The BU Art Gallery will host the exhibition in the newly renovated 808 Gallery. The juror for the exhibition is Elizabeth Rudy, the Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Curator of Prints at the Harvard Art Museums. Dr. Rudy has selected 121 prints from 1800 entries for this exhibit. She writes, “The extraordinary talent typifying the Boston Printmakers’ history and legacy was palpable in the wide range of submissions to this year’s Biennial. The prints made by artists attracted to this international call are unanimously compelling and beautiful, expanding the perceived boundaries of the medium. Several themes emerged from the submissions; the strong focus on environmentalism, social justice, and portraiture illuminated the nuanced, critical contributions printmakers make to broader society’s conversations about current struggles and aspirations. It was a distinct honor to be the Juror for the 75 th anniversary of the organization, which has been such an important and vibrant hub of fine art printing in Boston for generations.”

The exhibit features a broad array of contemporary prints, spanning traditional to contemporary/integrated media approaches, with both emerging and established artists from across the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean. Emerging from the pandemic, themes and imagery reflect the many personal and social concerns of artists across North America, as well as a vibrant vision of the future.

In an extraordinary 75 years, the primary mission of The Boston Printmakers has been to create dynamic exhibitions and promote interest in the graphic arts. Founded in 1947, The Boston Printmakers reaches a large and diverse audience through the North American Print Biennial, national and international members' shows, and traveling exhibitions across North America.

The North American Print Biennial awards $12,000 in purchase prizes and material awards. Founders’ Prizes are purchased for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Art Complex Museum collections, and purchase prizes will go to The Boston Printmakers Collection at the Boston Public Library. For this anniversary year, two additional prints will be purchased for the Harvard Art Museums and the Boston Athenaeum, totaling 5 purchase awards.

Along with the North American Print Biennial, The Boston Printmakers is celebrating the 75 th anniversary of their first exhibition with two additional shows at the 808 Gallery venue. The exhibition Disciplines of the Spirit: Prints of Human Existence will be at the Boston University Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground, and A Legacy of Leadership: The Boston Printmakers Celebrating 75 Years will be shown in the 808 Hall Gallery. There is a Biennial Symposium on November 4, gallery talks by Edward Saywell (Boston Museum of Fine Arts), Deborah Cornell (Boston University), Christina Michelon (Boston Athenaeum), Peter Scott (SMFA), and Richard Baiano (Childs Gallery) and many other events. To acknowledge the many contributions of this organization, Mayor Wu is issuing a Proclamation, making October 14th “Boston Printmakers Day” in the City of Boston.

EVENTS: Juror’s Lecture: Elizabeth Rudy: Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Curator of Prints, Harvard Art Museums CFA Concert Hall, 855 Commonwealth Ave., Saturday, October 14, 1 PM (free and open to the public).

Biennial Symposium: At the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground Auditorium Boston University 808 Commonwealth Ave., Room 104 (free and open to the public) Saturday November 4

10:00 AM – Panel: “Figuring It Out: Portraiture and Printing Today”, Biennial Juror Elizabeth Rudy, in discussion with Biennial artists Chloe Alexander, Miguel Aragon, and Juan Correa

12:00 PM – Panel: “Common Ground: Shared Environments and Community Print Studios”, Six of New England’s open-access print workshops will present and discuss their mission and ethos.

​2:30 PM – Artist-led tours of the Biennial, A Legacy Of Leadership, and Disciplines of the Spirit

The word ‘Chicano(a)’ was first used as a derogatory term used towards lower income Mexicans living in the United States. Though originally used as a classist and racist slur, by the 1940’s, Chicano was being reclaimed as a term of pride by Mexican Americans who have a non-Anglo self-image. The title of this exhibit, Borderline: Chicano Voices Speak, was intentionally chosen to engage those very discussions – racism, division, identity and cultural pride.

Borderline: Chicano Voices Speak will feature the voices of Mexican, Mexican-American, and Latino(a) artists whose work also expresses the immigrant experience. The word “borderline” also relates to multiple aspects of this exhibit – a physical division of countries, a social separation of cultural groups, and a psychic division of identities producing the ‘othering’ of people.

This exhibit will feature Juan Fuentes, Carlos Barberena, Celeste de Luna, J. Leigh Garcia, Frank Estrada, Diego Marical Rios, Eugene Rodriguez, Fernando Marti, and Raoul Deal.
​
Hours: Tuesday-Friday 9am-5pm; Saturday 10am-5 pm
Admission: $5 for adults, $3 for students, Free for TVAA members

La Biennale internationale d’estampe contemporaine de Trois-Rivières (BIECTR) tient à féliciter tous les récipiendaires des prix décernés aux artistes pour la qualité de leurs œuvres et leur démarche lors de la cérémonie d’ouverture de sa 13e édition le 17 juin 2023.
Les récipiendaires :

• Grand prix de la 13e BIECTR : Cassandre Boucher – Canada (Québec)
• 2e prix de la 13e BIECTR : Carlos Barberena – Nicaragua / États-Unis
• Prix Télé-Québec : Hélène Latulippe – Canada (Québec)
• Prix Loto-Québec artiste émergent du Québec : Cathy Bélanger – Canada (Québec)
• Prix UQTR artiste de la relève du Québec : Michelle LaSalle – Canada (Québec)
• Prix Invitation Presse Papier : Ariane Fruit – France

Mentions honorables :

• Olesya Dzhurayeva – Ukraine
• Cynthia Back – Portugal
• Carmen Isasi – Espagne

Source : BIECTR

Barberena Statement
"I create to counteract great silences, demystifying “foreign” experience, bridging the distances and bringing awareness to the ways our lives are intimately connected through the lens of justice. Closest to me are ways migrants’ humanity—our memories, attachments, relationships and traumas— is swept aside leaving visible only our work value. In these prints, I honor the farmworkers, most undocumented, whom the US population & Federal government labeled “Essential” in the context of COVID, a so-called honor for their centrality to the food system, while doing little to alleviate their lack of basic rights and vulnerability to exploitation and imminent deportation".

This print is to raise awareness about the humanitarian catastrophe that the Yanomami indigenous people are suffering, largely due to the disastrous effect of illegal gold mining that has displaced them, brought diseases, child malnutrition, destroyed the land and contaminated the rivers with mercury and poisoning the Yanomami people. Mercury is used for gold mining to extract gold, over 90% of the Yanomami people have higher levels of mercury than the World Health Organization recommends.

Carlos Barberena at La Onda Gráfica in Houston, Texas
Video by Christian Riquelme kabta.co

PRINT DETAILS:
FORA GARIMPO! 24" x 18". Relief Print, Letterpress & Screen Print on French paper. Signed by Carlos Barberena. Numbered Edition of 100. Published by La Onda Gráfica, Houston. TX. 2023