May 4, 1978
Graphicstudio U.S.F.: An Experiment in Art and Education will be held at The Brooklyn Museum, Eastern Parkway and Washington Avenue, from Saturday, May 13, through July 16. The Museum’s major Spring exhibition consists of about 140 prints, drawings, portfolios and multiples produced during a unique collaborative experiment at the University of South Florida Graphicstudio, Tampa, between 1968 and 1975.
“The viewer will be treated to a pyrotechnic display of the graphic artist’s vocabulary interpreted by some of the most provocative artists of our time,” says Michael Botwinick, Director of The Brooklyn Museum, in his Foreward to the exhibit[i]on catalogue.* “The work of the University of South Florida Graphicstudio is the result of an incredibly rich and vital interaction among many people--artists and patrons, bureaucrats and printers, teachers and students. Under the leadership of Donald Saff, a yeasty environment was created and maintained for seven years, and the process was as much a part of the goal of all involved as the product. In this exhibition, we are looking at both.”
Major works on view were undertaken at Graphicstudio by James Rosenquist (Waterspout and Cold Light, 1971), Robert Rauschenberg (Made in Tampa Clay Pieces Suite, 1972, Crops Suite, 1973), and Jim Dine (The Plant Becomes a Fan #1 through #5 Suite, 1974-75, The Tampa Tool Reliefs, 1973-74). Other important artists included are Richard Anuszkiewicz, Arakawa, Larry Bell, Harrison Covington, Lee Friedlander, Charles Hinman, Jeffrey Kronsnoble, Nicholas Krushenick, Bryn Manley, Bruce Marsh, George Pappas, Philip Pearlstein, Mel Ramos, Frank Rampolla, Edward Ruscha, Donald Saff, Richard Smith, and Adja Yunkers.
The exhibition was organized by Gene Baro, Consultative Curator of Prints and Drawings at The Brooklyn Museum. “Donald Saff,” Mr. Baro writes in his catalogue text, “used the University of South Florida’s mandate to ‘explore new areas through research that will contribute in a substantive way to knowledge’ as the rationale for Graphicstudio. Artists of national and international reputation would produce their prints in the University setting, using a physical plant provided by or through the University; faculty would provide support expertise; and students would benefit from extended informal contact with the invited artists in an atmosphere free of the didacticism and proselytism normal to artist-in-residence programs. Practical and aesthetic problems in contemporary printmaking would be at issue and observation would therefore supply the students with invaluable insights, models, and standards without, however, making them over as studio disciples.”
The community was asked to subscribe to print projects, Mr. Baro points out, thus supporting Graphicstudio directly as a matter of practical investment, with the added dividend of self-education and cultural caché. The University enhanced its prestige by becoming a center of the visual arts, contributed to knowledge in printmaking, and built a collection of prints that it could not otherwise afford, prints also to be used as a teaching device. Students were encouraged to acquire early the post-university levels of practical information necessary to the practicing artist.
“In fact,” Mr. Baro says, “all that was proposed came to pass, though less from the logical distribution of benefits than from the sympathetic interaction of some of the personalities involved. What could not have been anticipated were the extraordinary technical and ae[s]thetic achievements of Graphicstudio in its seven-year history, before inertia fatigue, and financial stringencies killed it. No other university-based program of similar duration and likewise modest funding and staffing has produced a variety and body of work of comparable excellence, work that ranges from tradition to innovation in the best senses.”
Gene Baro, organizer of the exhibition, writes, lectures, and broadcasts frequently on cultural subjects. He is the author of the Brooklyn Museum publications 30 Years of American Printmaking and Anni Albers.
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*Graphicstudio U.S.F.: An Experiment in Art and Education, Foreward by Michael Botwinick; introductory essay by Gene Baro; a conversation between Baro and Graphicstudio Director Donald Saff; biographies; index. 208 pp., 160 illustrations (18 in color). Published by The Brooklyn Museum. Paperback, $8.95.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1971 - 1988. 1978, 019-20. View Original
