AUSTIN.- This exhibition is the first comprehensive presentation of a crucial, yet little-known, episode in the history of American and Latin American Conceptual art. Showcasing over 100 prints, drawings and mixed media works, the exhibition will explore contributions made to the Conceptualist movement of the 60's and 70's through the printmaking of The New York Graphic Workshop (NYGW). The NYGW was founded in 1965 by three young Latin American artists in New York— Luis Camnitzer, José Guillermo Castillo, and Liliana Porter—whose mission was to redefine the practice of printmaking in conceptual terms, focusing on the mechanical and repetitive nature of printmaking, rather than its traditional techniques. As they stated in their first manifesto, "The printing industry prints on bottles, boxes, electronic circuits, etc. Printmakers, however, continue to make prints with the same elements used by Dürer. The act of printing in editions, the act of publishing, is more important than the work carried out on a printing plate." The exhibition will examine the group's philosophies and processes through examples by NYGW founders Camintzer, Castillo and Porter, along with other artists. Works produced by the group on behalf of some of the leading contemporary artists of the period, including Michael Snow, Max Neuhaus, José Luis Cuevas, and Salvador Dalí will also be exhibited.

New York Graphic Workshop is organized by the Blanton Museum of Art. Funding for the exhibition is provided by Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and by the Alcoa Foundation. The exhibition is curated by Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, director of the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and former curator of Latin American Art at the Blanton, and Ursula Davila-Villa, interim curator of Latin American art at the Blanton.