18 N. Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103

215-972-7600

Museum hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 10 am - 5 pm; Sunday, 11 am - 5 pm

Admission: $7 general; $6 students and seniors; $5 for ages 5 - 18; members and children under 5 free

PAFA is one of five venues presenting the exhibition The Graphic Unconscious in conjunction with Philagrafika 2010, Philadelphia’s international festival celebrating the print in contemporary art. Philagrafika 2010 will focus on artistic practices that engage the visual, intellectual, and creative frontiers in printmaking and how these approaches relate to social and political issues in the public sphere.

The Graphic Unconscious, the core exhibition of the festival, is curated by José Roca, Artistic Director of Philagrafika 2010, with John Caperton, Curator of Prints and Photographs at the Print Center; Sheryl Conkelton, for Temple Gallery, Temple University; Shelley Langdale, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Lorie Mertes, Director/Chief Curator of The Galleries at Moore College of Art & Design; and Julien Robson, Curator of Contemporary Art at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Exhibited in the Morris Gallery, in the museum’s Historic Landmark Building, and in the majestic Fisher Brooks Gallery in the Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building, PAFA’s participation in The Graphic Unconscious brings contemporary art into the midst of the museum’s collections. PAFA’s School of the Fine Arts is one of the oldest and most prestigious in the world, with a program whose history, while grounded in figuration, emphasizes both tradition and innovation. Addressing this commitment to craft-based practices, at PAFA, The Graphic Unconscious presents the work of seven international artists who take conventionally recognized mediums and treat them in new and imaginative ways. Working with woodcuts, Christiane Baumgartner and Orit Hofshi realize the woodcut’s potential on an immense scale, while the Indonesian artist group Tromarama turns each cut of the wooden panel into the frame of a stop-motion animation. Mark Bradford collages together found posters and then sands this surface to excavate other forms of information hidden underneath, while Pepón Osorio prints on confetti in a work that turns two-dimensional print into three-dimensional sculpture. Kiki Smith collages lithographs on handmade paper into large-scale poetic works, while Qiu Zhijie carves traditional Chinese calligraphy from concrete blocks that, after being printed, stand as sculptures in their own right alongside the wall-hung images.

Founded in 1805, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is America’s oldest art museum and school of fine arts. The Academy collects and exhibits the work of distinguished American artists and is renowned for its reputation in training artists from the United States and, increasingly, from around the world. PAFA offers a Certificate program, a Master of Fine Arts degree program, a coordinated Baccalaureate of Fine Arts degree program in conjunction with the University of Pennsylvania, and a Post-Baccalaureate program in painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Notable alumni include Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, Cecilia Beaux, Henry Tanner, Maxfield Parrish, Robert Henri, John Sloan, Charles Sheeler, William Glackens, John Marin, Robert Gwathmey, David Lynch, Bo Bartlett, and Vincent Desiderio.