UT will host more than 1,500 printmakers from around the world for the Southern Graphics Council International Printmaking Conference March 18–21. The conference will be held at the Knoxville Convention Center and around campus.
The SGC International Conference will include keynote addresses, panel sessions, technical demonstrations, a product fair, and numerous exhibitions.
Several events and exhibitions will be free and open to the public.
This is the third time the School of Art has hosted the conference, said Beauvais Lyons, Chancellor’s Professor in the School of Art.
“Hosting the conference is significant not only to the number three ranking of our Master of Fine Arts program, but it is a way to connect our current students and alumni to their colleagues in the profession,” he said. “It is also a way to enhance our collaborative relationship with local arts organizations.”
One of the exhibitions open during the conference is CNTRL + P: Printmaking in the 21st Century at the Ewing Gallery in the Art and Architecture Building, 1715 Volunteer Boulevard. It is curated by Sarah Suzuki, the curator of prints and drawing at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The exhibition presents the quality and breadth of work being done currently by 21 UT alumni. Artists selected for the exhibition completed undergraduate and graduate degrees from UT between 1994 and 2014.
A public reception for the exhibition will be held 6:00 to 8:30 p.m. on Friday, March 20, in the Ewing Gallery.
“I am especially excited that we will be presenting an exhibition of work by our alumni,” Lyons said. “With many of our alumni returning for the conference, it will be a Tennessee art homecoming.”
Other free public events and exhibitions include:
- Prints in Peculiar Places—6:00–9:00 p.m., March 19. The art walk exhibition project features a series of indoor and outdoor “printstallation” pieces in twenty different locations along Jackson Avenue.
- Drawn from the McClung Museum—Open until May 24 in the UT McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture Gallery. The exhibition involves twenty-seven artists who have produced original prints in response to objects from the museum’s collection. The objects and prints will be paired to see how people perceive and interpret art, science, and culture.
- International Print Center, New York New Prints: Selections from Somewheres to Nowheres—Open until March 30 in the Concourse Gallery in the University Center. The exhibition features 14 works originally included in Somewheres & Nowheres: New Prints 2014 selected by Nicola Lopez and shown at IPCNY’s Chelsea Gallery in fall 2014.
- SGCI Members Open Portfolio—9:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., March 21, at the Knoxville Convention Center, Exhibition Hall B. More than 600 students, emerging artists, and professionals attending the conference will present their portfolios of prints during four one-hour sessions.
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CONTACT:
Beauvais Lyons (865-974-3202, blyons@utk.edu)
Lola Alapo (865-974-3993, lalapo@utk.edu)