Two NSCAD print students, Evan MacPherson and Christie Melville, travelled to New York City with Professor Mark Bovey on a four-day trip that covered all major galleries, plus the IFPDA Print Fair, the Printed Matter book fair, and an alumni event at the Canada Gallery.
The students who went applied to go and received supporting funds from the NSCAD student travel subsidy.
“We’ve done this for several years and we hope to grow this into a regular annual trip for students in our printmaking program. Going to the print fair and taking advantage of everything New York has to offer as the world’s centre for contemporary art is an invaluable experience for our students,” says Bovey.
Trip notes from Evan and Christie
Wednesday
We arrived in New York on Wednesday night and once settled in, we immediately got to exploring as much as we could of the city. We walked Central Park, Fifth Ave, and saw much of Museum Mile.
Thursday
Thursday was our free day before hitting the big fairs and museums. We had lunch in Soho before heading to the Chelsea galleries, many of them recommended by Craig Leonard. The highlights included Wade Guyton’s exhibition of paintings at Matthew Marks Gallery, Delcy Morelos’ monumental installations at Dia Chelsea, and Nina Canell’s group of sculptures presented at 303 Gallery. We also got to see some iconic works in print at Pace Gallery by artists like Lichtenstein and Picasso. In Chelsea, we also paid a visit to Printed Matter. I spent hours combing through their massive inventory of artists’ publications and bought quite a few books and zines to take home. That evening we met up with Mark and had dinner at John’s of Bleeker St. Their pizza was amazing! and the arancini was pretty good too.
Friday
Friday was a busy day. We grabbed some New York bagels before heading down to the Javits Center to meet Mark Bovey and NSCAD’s Director of Advancement Kara Holm for the IFPDA Print Fair. The fair was huge and featured every form of printmaking: screenprint, lithography, intaglio, relief, and digital.
The print fair to be extremely inspiring since we were able to see the ways in which artists experimented with each medium in a non-conforming way. By the end of their time at the print fair, Christie had written down about 20 different new techniques and styles that they wanted to explore in their own work.
At the fair, we also had the opportunity to hear a talk with master printmaker Jacob Samuel and two of the recent artists he had worked with, moderated by Esther Adler, curator for MoMA’s Depart of Drawings and Prints. This was a great privilege as we went to see Jacob Samuel’s show at MoMA the next day. We were so inspired by the way he got excited about pushing boundaries and trying to do the impossible.
After the fair, we visited the Robert Blackburn Printshop to check out their facilities and take a look at their gallery before heading to the alumni event at Canada Gallery where we met with NSCAD President Peggy Shannon and were introduced to several NSCAD graduates. It was very interesting to see what the alumni were doing and how their times at NSCAD massively impacted their trajectories although in very different and unique ways. Later in the night we decided to further explore the city. We walked for hours and eventually ended up at Times Square, which was sensory overload but super interesting to see.
Saturday
Saturday morning, we met with Mark, Kara, and President Shannon at MoMA. Highlights at the museum included Refik Anadol’s AI-driven piece Unsupervised, Jacob Samuel’s exhibition of etchings: New Ground and the Ed Ruscha show. We then had lunch together at a great Mexican restaurant nearby. We went off later in the day and enjoyed dinner at a Japanese restaurant.
Sunday
Sunday was our last day in New York. We decided we had to see the Met and so walked there through Central Park. Evan was thrilled to see Jacolby Satterwhite’s Great Hall Commission, A Metta Prayer, as they are a huge fan of his work. His film installations spectacularly lit up the space. The museum was an overwhelming maze and we were suggested to choose a select few areas to explore. They went off to see the Modern and Contemporary Wings and enjoyed the Cecily Brown show. We were thoroughly exhausted after the Met. We headed for lunch and then spent the rest of the day at a coffee and doing some shopping.
It was all in all an amazing trip. We still cannot believe how much we packed into four days.