Excerpt from the Press Release for:
Bearing Witness: A History of Prints by Joyce J Scott
April 12 – September 2, 2024
Goya Contemporary Gallery
Curated by Amy Eva Raehse
April 1, 2024...
...Goya Contemporary Gallery has represented and managed the career of Joyce J Scott as her primary global gallery for over 25 years. In the 3-year process of working towards Scott’s 50-year retrospective co-organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art and Seattle Art Museum, we sifted through hundreds of works to help achieve a checklist that examined major examples from Scott’s diverse oeuvre of subjects. In developing the checklist, the focus prioritized objects over works on paper, with a handful of examples of graphic media in a dense exhibition of approximately 140 incomparable works. In examining Scott’s legacy, it is surprising to many who have followed her career that Scott has been prolific in pushing the boundaries of printmaking, a practice which she has upheld since the 1980’s.
To complement the retrospective Goya Contemporary Gallery is happy to present a historic installation of Joyce J Scott’s printmaking history comprised of 30 works on paper made over five decades, from the 1980’s to present day. Through that time, we both facilitated prints with Scott at Goya-Girl Press and have maintained a print archive of collaborative print works by Scott alongside her archive of sculptural objects.
The exhibition allows visitors to dive into the depts of Scott’s printmaking history, working across the United States with celebrated presses and master printers including early pulp paper works from the 1980’s produced with Helen Fredrick at Pyramid Atlantic, handmade pulp paper with beaded and embossed woodcuts created with Maryanne Ellison Simmons at Washington University in St Louis, MO, the September 11th series, Soul Erased series, Dice Baby series, and Another Dead Sista’ series created at Goya-Girl Press, the SEXecution series created with University of Tampa, FL, the Hip Hop Saints and Fallen Angels series and Obama series created at Sol Print Studios, and even paper works created at the Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle.
This striking compilation of hand-pulled fine art prints fluctuate in theme as vastly and frequently as her sculpture, and of course has informed the breath of her larger practice in a cycle that includes performative work, sculptural objects, garments, jewelry making, theatre, music, and yes, printmaking. Just as her sculptural objects interrogate and investigate, Scott’s prints offer a visual representation of the complexities of human nature, catalyzing her audience to learn and ponder subjects that are as pertinent today as they were when they came into being. Pushing at the boundaries of printmaking’s nature, perhaps it is appropriate timing to revisit this remarkable facet of Scott’s practice, one that is often less known by the general public, and more known by scholars and those in the printmaking world. Seeing this historic collection of print-based media works helps further contextualize Scott’s invention and foresight, which have become well known and celebrated within the resourcefulness of her material exploration, and the hallways of the cannon of art history and humanity at large. More details regarding the travel schedule and locations for this exhibition will be released in the future.
Amy Eva Raehse
Curator of the exhibition Bearing Witness: A History of Prints by Joyce J Scott
Partner and Executive Director at Goya Contemporary Gallery/ Goya-Girl Press
Director of the Joyce J Scott and Elizabeth Talford Scott Art Estate