New Kunc exhibition features new work inspired by research in Washington, D.C.
calendar icon24 Aug 2018 user iconBy Kathe C. Andersen
Lincoln, Neb.--An exhibition titled “Project Volumina: New Works by Karen Kunc” opened Aug. 25 and features a print installation of new work by Cather Professor of Art Karen Kunc created while she was on faculty development leave last spring.
The exhibition runs through Sept. 22 at Constellation Studios, 2055 O St., in Lincoln. A reception will be held on Tuesday, Aug. 28 from 7-8 p.m. at Constellation Studios.
Kunc was inspired for this body of work by viewing collections from museums and libraries in Washington, D.C., to create a new “image bank” of resources. She studied rare books, manuscripts and incunabula (early printed books published before 1501 in Europe) from the Dibner Library of the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Her research was supported with a faculty development grant from the Hixson-Lied Endowment.
“I’ve always known of the great riches and resources in D.C., and specifically the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology,” Kunc said. “It was intriguing to me because that’s not something I would normally go and look at. I would more likely look at nature and landscape and the travel itself. But this experience allowed me to see things in a little more analytical way, with a bent to study the inside workings of things. I was really looking for unusual apparatus and processes that were diagrammed in illustrations of the time that could be strange and weird and would pique my visual interest.”
Visiting libraries was a different experience for Kunc than visiting museums.
“I don’t normally allow myself to go to special collections, which involves sitting and contemplating in a different way,” Kunc said. “In museums, you’re constantly moving. You try and absorb so much. That’s the way I usually take in all the cultural riches of the world. But to have just a few things brought to you slowly, one at a time and spending time viewing, I’ve never really taken that opportunity before. I wanted to see what it would be like. This was a different way for me to do research.”
She then returned to her studio to create the new work last spring and summer.
“The advantage of going away is that concentration, but also I needed to come back and spend time in the studio and just see how things developed,” she said. “I came back and started preparing copper plates and carving wood blocks, and developing with a standard form how all of these prints would work, by starting to print in a free-flowing way, yet with some of the discipline I have of creating multiples. But there are a lot of variations within this series. I stopped some of the impressions from going really far so they’re very early and simple, delicate, one layer of color. That was an interesting thing to allow myself to do within this whole body of work that creates consistency and variations.”
On display in the exhibition are about 40 monoprints and nine editions. And from each of those nine editions, Kunc took a set out of each to create folio pages.
“I’m showing all of it, so that’s a lot of prints,” Kunc said.
She has noticed some differences in the new work from her previous work.
“One, very deliberately, is the multimedia approach which combines the etching and the woodcut for their different properties,” Kunc said. “Beautiful linework that etching can do along with the woodcut that has the layers and the colors, the carving marks. These processes are literally opposites. They have properties that need to be complementary to each other. I think there’s also more of a sense of these unusual resources and image sources that I viewed. That’s what I was looking for.”
The new research is part of Kunc’s ongoing goal as an artist.
“My personal goal has always been to keep moving forward and to find new visual elements to explore,” she said. “I don’t want to become formulaic. Maybe it’s a kind of fear of being predictable, and so I want to keep introducing something new and to keep my eyes and senses open to new imagery and experiences that filters through my mind and body. I really feel I’m a translator of those influences that I set myself up for. It helps to keep things fresh and new, but yet I’m fortunate that there is a look to my work that is consistent. It always looks like my work—my aesthetic choices and proclivities that just come through no matter what I do. But I think there’s some differences viewers will recognize as new ideas and images, I’m hoping.”
This summer, Kunc also had the opportunity to travel to Paris, France, and Venice, Italy, for two printmaking events.
She traveled to Paris for a group invitational at a small gallery located near The Louvre that featured the work of eight international printmaking artists, including Kunc.
“Some of my new works were shown in this Paris show,” she said. “That was very nice to have a chance to explain my work and processes to people there, and we had a nice presentation. The purpose was really to feature prints.”
In Venice, she had the opportunity to present “Invisible Cities.” A couple of years ago, Constellation Studios presented “Metropolis,” an accordion-folded book created by around 300 participants organized by an Italian artist group. As part of that installation, Kunc invited artists to send a piece to create an answering project to “Metropolis,” which was titled “Invisible Cities.”
“My students and lots of community members took part in that,” she said. “We ended up getting 238 participants from around the world, which created a huge, accordion-fold book, and the Italians invited me to bring that to Venice and exhibit it there. These projects create a great metaphoric network, as we all are able to share and create something greater than ourselves.”
In September, Kunc will travel to Santander, Spain, for the IMPACT 10 Print Conference, which meets every three years in a different site around the world.
“I instigated a collaborative project and invited 12 artists to take part in a print exchange,” Kunc said. “It’s called ‘Fragment Encounters.’ The artists exchanged pieces of their prints and proofs with each other before we even began the project so we each had something to respond to from a collaborative partner or to include into the work or just be inspired by it. And then each artist sent either a flat print or a dimensional print-object.”
Included are three-dimensional prints, as well as scrolls and flat prints that will be placed into a container presentation box.
“This presentation is meant to actually engage the viewer, as one has to open and move and play with all the parts of special trays, dividers, boxes inside, that becomes a revelatory encounter,” Kunc said.
Kunc has received additional support from the Hixson-Lied Endowment for the presentations in France, Italy and Spain, which she said, is instrumental in making any of these projects possible.
“I believe it fulfills the mission and the goals of why we have this funding,” Kunc said. “We have to have a presence out there in the world and make these ‘people-to-people’ connections. I think it’s important to always have Nebraska in the listing of participants for these things, putting us in the big picture. Nebraska has the vision to know how important it is to have our faculty, myself and my colleagues, and our students, take part in these academic forums, exhibitions, opportunities and residencies. It’s mind-blowing to be the representative of Nebraska.”
For more information on “Project Volumina,” visit https://constellation-studios.net/.