NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ.- Dancing with the Dark: Prints by Joan Snyder 1963-2010, the first retrospective of the artists prints, displays the extraordinary range of Joan Snyders distinctive graphic achievement. A Rutgers alumna, nationally-noted painter, and 2007 MacArthur Fellow, Snyder has developed a powerful body of work that explores aspects of nature, humanity and identity. A pioneering feminist artist who was championed early in her career, Snyder has infused her works with physical energy and vibrant color to express deeply personal experiences. For over 45 years, she has created remarkable prints full of passion and zeal, in addition to her widely acclaimed paintings; over 110 prints will be featured in this exhibition. Her adventurous, if unorthodox, approach to printmaking challenges traditional uses of graphic media. Snyder restlessly combines different print techniques, then varies them with painterly applications of color ranging from melancholy darks to sensuous hues to shocking accents. The visual eloquence and vigorously applied techniques in the resulting prints, which are full of confessional and memorializing iconography, invite engagement with their raw emotional power.
This major exhibition presents rare uneditioned prints, unique hand-colored monoprints, and outstanding examples of editioned prints with selected variant impressions or working proofs. The exhibition ranges from Snyders earliest woodcut portraits, executed during her student years, to hot off the press prints. Many of the images and variant proof impressions are borrowed from the artist; other works are from the Zimmerli Art Museums collection or from other museums and private holdings.
This exhibition is accompanied by the first illustrated monograph documenting Joan Snyders prints, with essays by Faye Hirsch, the noted contemporary arts writer and senior editor at Art in America, and Marilyn Symmes, the exhibitions organizing curator and the Zimmerlis Director of the Morse Research Center for Graphic Arts and Curator of Prints and Drawings.
The exhibition is on view from January 29 - May 29, 2011 at the
Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University located at 71 Hamilton Street in New Brunswick, NJ.