MGC Juried Show: 2026 National MGC Community Print Studio Exhibition
Ongoing
Small Hall
Exhibitions are a cornerstone of MGC Community Print Studio’s programming, which aims to provide access and visibility to artists working in a broad range of printmaking processes. Building on MGC’s legacy as a vital home for prints since 1986, we are excited that this will be our first open call print exhibition in our new home in Powerhouse Arts (PHA) in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Coinciding with PHA’s second annual Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair, MGC is pleased to announce our 2026 National Print Exhibition, a juried competition and exhibition devoted to fine art prints, which will be part of a series of events celebrating the 40th anniversary of MGC’s founding.
Last year, the Fair’s inaugural, saw 7,500 visitors. Anticipating even larger crowds of print enthusiasts, collectors, curators, and journalists, the exhibition will provide expanded opportunities for professional community building, sales, as well as open dialog during the Fair’s four days, April 9–12, 2026. The MGC Community Print Studio National Juried Exhibition will become a recurring highlight of future fairs.
Ann Shafer is an independent curator, art historian, and a leading expert on intaglio printmaking by Stanley William Hayter and Atelier 17. Formerly Shafer was associate curator of prints, drawings, and photographs at the Baltimore Museum of Art, where she curated a variety of exhibitions and hosted myriad classes and visitors. She also organized the museum’s Baltimore Contemporary Print Fair in 2012, 2015, and 2017, featuring an international array of twenty presses, publishers, and dealers. In April 2022, she mounted a new, independent print fair in Baltimore, and in 2025, she consulted Powerhouse Arts on its inaugural Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair. She hosts the podcast Platemark: prints and the printmaking ecosystem and writes a blog about favorite works of art (annshafer.com). Shafer has a BA from The College of Wooster and a MA from Williams College, both in art history. In addition to the BMA, Ann has worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Williams College Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art.
Diya Vij is the Vice President of Curatorial and Arts Programs at Powerhouse Arts in Brooklyn, NY and is committed to critically investigating the evolving role of art in politics and civic life. Most recently, she served as the Curator at Creative Time where she commissioned and stewarded large-scale public art work, launched the public programming space CTHQ, re-launched the Creative Time Summit, and initiated the R&D Fellowship for socially engaged artists. Over the past decade, she has held programming, curatorial, and communications positions at major New York City Institutions. As the Associate Curator of Public Programs at the High Line, she organized dozens of live events and performances with artists, activists, practitioners, and healers. At the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Vij launched and co-directed the Public Artists in Residence (PAIR) program. Additionally, she helped lead the Agency’s citywide Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiative, and played an active role in public monument efforts, as well as CreateNYC—New York City’s first strategic long-term plan for culture. She was a curatorial fellow and the communications manager at the Queens Museum from 2010–2014. She currently serves on the Boards of A Blade of Grass, the Laundromat Project and the Poetry Project and was co-curator of the Counterpublic Triennial 2023 in St. Louis, MO.
More Programs
Mindreading since 1997 with Glenn Ligon and Luther Davis
Small Hall
Apr 11, 2026 4:00 PM
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5:00 pm
For almost thirty years artist Glenn Ligon and master printer Luther Davis have collaborated on some of Ligon’s largest works including two of his series Come Out (2014-2015) and Debris Field (2018– ). Most recently Ligon produced a body of work titled Blue (for JB); the foundation of these monumental works on paper start with a silkscreened image based off of Ligon’s rubbings on top of one of the paintings from his Stranger series. In order to create the ideal ground or working surface for Ligon, he and Davis developed various iterations until the screened image resonated.
Glenn Ligon is an artist living and working in New York. Throughout his career, Ligon has pursued an incisive exploration of American history, literature, and society across bodies of work that build critically on the legacies of modern painting and conceptual art.
He is best known for his landmark text-based paintings, made since the late 1980s, which draw on the influential writings and speech of 20th-century cultural figures including James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Jean Genet, and Richard Pryor. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Wesleyan University and attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. In 2011, the Whitney Museum of American Art held a mid-career retrospective, AMERICA, organized by Scott Rothkopf, that traveled nationally. Important solo exhibitions include Break It Down, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO (2025); All Over the Place, The Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge, England (2024); Post-Noir, Carre d’Art, Nîmes (2022); Call and Response, Camden Arts Centre, London (2014); and Some Changes, The Power Plant Center for Contemporary Art, Toronto (traveled internationally) (2005). Select curatorial projects include Grief and Grievance, New Museum, New York (2021); Blue Black, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis (2017); and Encounters and Collisions, Nottingham Contemporary and Tate Liverpool (2015). Ligon’s work has been shown in major international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (2015, 1997), Berlin Biennial (2014), Istanbul Biennial (2019, 2011), and Documenta XI (2002).
Luther Davis has been the Master Printer and Director of the Powerhouse Arts Print Program since 2016. Luther teaches printmaking at Parsons School of Design and The Cooper Union. He was the co-founder of Forth Estate, a fine art publisher focused on producing limited editions with emerging artists, and from 1999-2016 he was the Master Printer and Director of Axelle Editions, a fine art print atelier specializing in screen printing that produced over 300 editions a year with more than 100 artists.
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Please note seating is first-come, first-served. Plan to arrive early to secure your seat(s).
We provide live-captioning services and ASL interpreters at every conversation over the weekend.
Put the Message in the Hands of the Peoples and Move On with Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. and Josh MacPhee
Small Hall
Apr 12, 2026 2:00 PM
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3:00 pm
Bringing together Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. and Josh MacPhee, their conversation will center print as a democratic force that is portable, accessible, and unapologetically political. From Kennedy’s bold, type-driven calls for justice to MacPhee’s collaborative social movement archives, the conversation challenges the myth of art’s neutrality and individual authorship. Drawing from Black printing traditions, social movements, and grassroots distribution, Kennedy and MacPhee explore how printed matter circulates beyond elite art systems and spaces. Together, prints are positioned not as an artifact, but as action, a tool to agitate, educate, and move people toward change.
I am negro! - Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.
Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. is a letterpress printer and artist renowned for bold typography and socially engaged messages. After discovering letterpress printing in the late 1980s, he left a career as a systems analyst and earned an MFA in graphic design from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Hyperallergic, and The Economist, and is held by institutions including the Library of Congress, MoMA, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Josh MacPhee is a founding member of the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative (Justseeds.org) and Interference Archive, a public collection of cultural materials produced by social movements (InterferenceArchive.org).
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Please note seating is first-come, first-served. Plan to arrive early to secure your seat(s).
We provide live-captioning services and ASL interpreters at every conversation over the weekend.
Mokuhanga Demonstration with Artist and Printmaker Takuji Hamanaka
MGC Community Print Studio (5th Fl)
Apr 10, 2026 1:00 PM
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2:00 pm
Join artist Takuji Hamanaka for a hands-on look at traditional Japanese woodcut printing. This demonstration introduces the core elements of mokuhanga—printing with a baren, using kento marks for precise registration, and creating subtle bokashi color gradients. Visitors will see woodblocks, brushes, pigments, and examples of both historic ukiyo-e prints and contemporary artworks. Whether you're new to printmaking or an experienced maker, this is an approachable glimpse into a centuries-old craft that continues to inspire.
Takuji Hamanaka is an artist and printmaker living in Brooklyn, New York. He apprenticed in traditional woodcut printmaking in Tokyo, Japan and has worked in studios both in Japan and the US, collaborating with many artists for editions. His work has been exhibited internationally, including the International Print Center, NY; Whitman College, Washington; National Academy of Fine Arts, India; and the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is a recipient of the NYFA fellowships, a Pollock-Krasner Grant, The Gottlieb Foundation Individual Support Grant and a Macdowell Colony fellow. He is represented by Kristen Lorello Gallery in NY.