Hyperallergic : IFPDA Print Fair Takes Over the Park Avenue Armory

The largest art fair for prints and editions will premiere an editioned Jeffrey Gibson blanket and showcase work by an extraordinary roster of artists. On view in NYC February 15–18.

Ilya And Emilia Kabakov, “We Are Free!” (2018), serigraph (image courtesy the artists and Art-19 / Mike Karstens)

On February 15–18, the 31st IFPDA Print Fair will celebrate over 550 years of prints and printmaking at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City.

Organized annually by the IFPDA, this year’s fair will see the premiere of an editioned blanket by Jeffrey Gibson, created to benefit the United States Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Art Biennale in partnership with commissioners the Portland Art Museum and SITE Santa Fe, Sotheby’s, and Sharon Coplan Hurowitz. Gibson is a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and is of Cherokee descent.

William Kentridge and David Krut Projects are presenting two monumental collaged intaglio etchings. Printmaking is a pivotal part of Kentridge’s practice, noted for exploring history, colonialism, and the legacy of apartheid. His works “The Old Gods Have Retired” (2022) and “The Flood” (2016–17) form epic landscapes that comment on power, trade, and migration. “The Old Gods Have Retired” is one of Kentridge’s first experiments with the “coffee lift” etching process, a sustainable technique where the coffee liquid is painted onto the etching plate.

Returning for a third year, David Zwirner is bringing a collection of works by Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, Gerhard Richter, and Ed Ruscha along with a selection by Vija Celmins showcasing the artist’s meticulous serial explorations of natural phenomena, including the ocean, desert, and night sky.

Hauser & Wirth will offer newly editioned work by George Condo and Amy Sherald, and earlier works by Louise Bourgeois and David Smith.

Tiziano Vecellio (Titian), “The Submersion of Pharaoh’s Army in the Red Sea” (c. 1514-15), woodcut printed from 12 blocks on 12 sheets (image courtesy David Tunick, Inc.)

David Tunick, Inc. will exhibit Titian’s monumental woodcut, “The Submersion of the Pharaoh’s Army in the Red Sea” (four x eight feet), one of the largest and rarest Old Master prints ever made. Tunick will also be presenting two art historical icons, Edvard Munch’s “Madonna” and Albrecht Dürer’s “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” in different versions, providing an experience in connoisseurship through side-by-side comparisons.

German gallerist Mike Karstens is exhibiting works by William Kentridge, Shirin Neshat, Yoko Ono, Gerhard Richter, Kiki Smith, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, and Rosemarie Trockel in a portfolio published by Art-19 to benefit Amnesty International, with the artists are contributing 100% of their fees to the cause. The name Art-19 comes from an abbreviation of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.”