On the Grid: Ways of Seeing in Print

Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY

August 20 - December 22, 2022

Eleanor Antin, Jared Bark, Thomas Barrow, George Brecht, Harry Callahan, Chuck Close, Walter De Maria, Marcel Duchamp, André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, Walker Evans, Andreas Feininger, Lukas Felzmann, Stephen Frailey, Duane Hanson, Leslie Hewitt, Jess, Ann Kalmbach, Tatana Kellner, R. B. Kitaj, Michael Langenstein, Sol LeWitt, Roy Lichtenstein, El Lissitzky, Duane Michals, Eadweard Muybridge, Reginald H. Neal, Radha Pandey, Eduardo Paolozzi, Bruce Pearson, Werner Pfeiffer, Man Ray, Bridget Riley, Alexander Rodchenko, Alison Rossiter, Ed Ruscha, Arthur S. Siegel, Susan Silton, Benneville Lloyd Singley, Aaron Siskind, Jesus Rafael Soto, Frank Stella, Stephanie Syjuco, Athena Tacha, Rhiannon Skye Tafoya, Anne Thompson, Aaron R. Turner, Victor Vasarely, Tim Youd, Imin Yeh

The grid often hides in plain sight, from notepads and spreadsheets to halftone photographic reproductions and pixelated images. It dominates the organization, perception, and representation of the modern world, especially in print. Deeply embedded in a Western worldview, the grid visualizes control, stability, and order. As an invisible framing device, it is so pervasive that we habitually ignore it. Yet when artists call our attention to the grid, its layered meanings come fully into view. Spanning over 150 years of American and European art and visual culture, this exhibition surveys photographs, prints, artist’s books, and printed sculptures from the dynamic permanent collection of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. It explores how artists have embraced, rejected, and reclaimed the grid. By altering and challenging perception, they offer new ways of seeing the world.