Social Justice

Opening Reception Fri, Sep. 2, 5-8pm
Sep. 2 - Sep. 28

This exhibition is a reflection and a statement about current social justice issues and events on a local, national, and international level. The topics of social justice are vast: racism, classicism, sexuality, poverty, etc. Submitted work may be any technique of printmaking: narrative, abstraction, figurative, and conceptual. This art serves to educate and sensitize the viewer to various issues while conveying an underlying philosophy to the commitment to social justice, humanism, and collective responsibility. Expressions of strength, pain, humor, as well as defiance used by the artist reflect not only their diverse personal views and opinions, but also are used to facilitate awareness and promote dialogue.  Daumier, Kathe Kollwitz, Goya, Sue Coe, ASARO, The Beehive Collective, John Hitchcock, and Eric Avery serve as good examples of artists whose work continues in the long tradition of social justice advocacy. We encourage submissions using all forms of printmaking techniques.

Juror Dusty Herbig
Statement
First, I would like to thank the committee at the Ink Shop, for inviting me to select work for this exhibition. Social Justice is a particularly poignant subject for the title of a national exhibition in today’s complicated sociopolitical climate. Given the constant tide of fresh and recurring subject matter for activist artists to explore, the opportunity to select work for this exhibition should be a diagrammatic experience of current issues.

During a recent lecture by a prominent social activist, I was empowered, hearing references and explanations to the term stability, and instability on numerous occasions. This terminology describing subtle interpretation of foreign policy, and its definitions, resonated with me and will certainly find its way into future creative research and academic expectations.

This recent experience and my invitation to jury this exhibition were serendipitous and rejuvenated the rigor in my activist/artistic practice.  With fresh perspective about what sociopolitical priorities might be, I look forward to seeing what the artists of 2011 have to say about our world, both good and bad.

Biography: 
Dusty Herbig is an Assistant Professor of Art, and the Director of Lake Effect Editions at Syracuse University, where he teaches lithography, intaglio, serigraphy, relief, digital printmaking, letterpress, and all levels of advanced and graduate print courses. Herbig earned an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002, and his BFA from Fort Hays State University, in Hays, KS in 1996.

Herbig exhibits nationally, participating in juried exhibitions from Los Angeles to Miami to New York City, and internationally, including shows in Canada, Spain, Taiwan, Brazil, Germany, South Korea, Scotland, Pakistan, China, Argentina, Japan, and Poland. His socially provocative work is in the permanent collections of many institutions, including: The Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, KUMU: The Art Museum of Estonia, Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, KS, The Hunterdon Museum of Art, Hunterdon, NJ The Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA, Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, NYC, among others. He currently lives and works in Syracuse, NY.                  View Herbig’s work.