The Avocet Portfolio 2023

Curated by Andrea Callard

November 4 to December 16, 2023 - Extended to January 20th!

Artists: Tomie Arai, Noah Baen, Lisa Bateman, Andrea Callard, Susan Spencer Crowe, Jane Dickson, Conrad Gleber, Betti-Sue Hertz, Carter Hodgkin, Rebecca Howland, Miriam Jacobs, Peter Julian, Darra Keeton, Whitfield Lovell, Sarah Greer Mecklem, Ann Messner, Richard Mock, Peter Nadin, Gail Nathan, Florence Neal, Kingsley Parker, Cara Perlman, Rachael Romero, Christy Rupp, Rand Russell, Clarissa Sligh, Kim Sloane, Kiki Smith, Jolie Stahl, Richard Tobias, Frances Valesco

Opening Reception: Thursday November 16th at 6 - 8:30pm with a Curator Tour at 7pm

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Bronx River Art Center (BRAC) is pleased to present The Avocet Portfolio 2023, an exhibition of 48 fine art screen prints by 31 artists that were produced between 1985 and 1991 in a farmhouse studio at the non-profit cultural organization, Art Awareness, located in the heart of the Catskill Mountains in Lexington, NY. In this pastoral setting artists from New York City worked alongside artists from upstate using a new line of nontoxic inks to complete forty-eight editions of screen prints over seven summers. In groups of three or four artist’s mutually supporting the production of each print to produce editions ranging from 10 to 25 large-scale prints.

Image: Christy Rupp, Untitled, 1985, screen print, 13/30, 14.25” x 20”

The range of these vibrant, and richly layered prints are stylistically diverse. Some take inspiration from the studio’s rural surroundings, depicting fauna, figures and landscapes coexisting. Others explore geometric abstraction or nascent geopolitical concerns. Seen together, the Avocet Portfolio reflects the dynamic exchange of ideas, techniques and innovations central to creative collaboration, an extension of the sensibility of the printshop’s primary organizers, Andrea Callard and Jolie Stahl who were original members of the well-known activist collective, COLAB (Collaborative Projects, Inc.), known for its DIY exhibitions and multimedia projects including the renowned 42^nd St. Show produced in Times Square in 1980. Twelve of the members of COLAB were among the 31 participants invited to the Avocet workshop over the seven years of operation. This fertile creative period represents a vital moment in the history of experimental printmaking.

Image: Kingsley Parker, Infancy II, 1988, screen print, 27/35, 22” x 30”

Curator Statement

During the summers of 1985-1991, 31 artists created the 48 editions of screen prints of the Avocet Portfolio at Art Awareness in Lexington, New York in the Catskills. Over seven summers, we worked together to initiate a more social and more collaborative production model than the traditional Master Printer/Artist relationship. We tested new, non-toxic, water-based products being developed by Vince Kennedy of Createx, Ltd. So, the prints have both vivid and subtle color interactions. 
 
Every summer, Art Awareness hosted visual, theatrical, and musical artists as residents and presenters. Decades before the current population bloom of the Hudson Valley, a mix of regional year-round and summer residents gathered as an arts audience. In previous eras, Art Awareness had been a resort hotel through the Depression and a camp for creative children in the 1950's, all run by different generations of the same family. 
 
Run by Pam and Judd Weisberg, Art Awareness was one of only two non-profit arts organizations supported by the NEA and NYSCA that were not located geographically in a city. It was located on many acres in a beautiful valley on the Schoharie Creek in the Catskill Mountains of New York. The town dammed up the river each summer to make an excellent swimming area. The weather changed often and we could see it blowing towards us up the valley. 

- Andrea Callard