Prints and Processes A New Interactive Program Presents Great Works on Paper and Sheds Light on Technique Over the past fifteen years, Prints and Drawings curator Richard Campbell, with the help of his able staff, has mounted more than fifty exhibitions featuring works on paper variously convened from the museum's rich collection. He has also placed scores of these works among paintings, sculptures and decorative arts pieces in other permanent collection galleries and in period rooms. The public display of any given print at the Institute is necessarily fleeting. Due to light sensitivity and the sheer enormity of the collection itself (at least 45,000), these delicate objects are frequently rotated, resulting in brief, brilliant appearances. In the interest of creating wider access, the Herschel V. Jones Print Study Room affords scholars, students and the general public an opportunity to schedule appointments to view works, which can be pulled from their climate-controlled storage upon request. Starting this fall, visitors have yet another point of entry into this remarkable collection -through a select group of forty-eight prints, personally chosen and interpreted by the curator- in the form of a touch-screen computer program installed amid the museum's galleries. More at home with 17th-century masters than late 20th-century technology, Campbell allowed the Institute's Interactive Media Group (IMG) the freedom to explore new ways of presenting these works in Prints & Processes, the seventh permanent-collection-based multimedia program to be produced by the Institute. Campbell selected works that, taken together, introduce the story of print development in the western world, dating back to the 15th century. Curatorial Assistant Lisa Michaux and writer Julie L'Enfant elucidated Campbell's concepts, shaping them for the interactive medium and the broad museum audience. As the title implies, a balance was sought between the presentation of great works from the collection and technical information shedding light on fine art printmaking processes. Woodcuts, etchings, engravings, lithographs and screenprints are exquisitely represented -in works by Durer, Rembrandt, Kollwitz, Munch and Warhol, to name just a few- as the processes behind print creation are demonstrated by living artists. Encouraging both looking and learning, the program allows swift movement between two primary print environments: the pristine space where works on paper are displayed and studied, and the gritty studio in which they are produced. The forty-eight selected works appear as stacks of matted prints organized by medium and can be paged through chronologically or selected from a list. Narrated comments illuminate these prints, imparting historical, aesthetic and technical information. Visual highlighting directs the viewer's eye, reinforcing the commentary. Visitors can also choose to enlarge each print beyond the perimeter of the computer screen to examine details and study technique. To constitute the process half of the program, a simple, graphic image of a tree was given to five printmakers with the instruction that they each put this image through the paces of a specific print medium and that they allow the steps of their creative process to be videotaped. The results include a group of print illustrations that show, at once, a consistency of image and the essential differences between the processes' respective natures. These illustrations became effective icons, leading the program's users through it's clean, straightforward interface, realized by graphic designer Julie Loney. The video footage was edited into discreet, step-by-step segments by IMG staffer Brian Thompson, who also handled programming. Recorded in their printmaking studios, artist David Rathman demonstrates relief, Michael Kareken and Fred Hagstrom employ engraving techniques, Philip Barber produces a lithograph, and Ruthann Godollei a screenprint. As part of a museum-going experience, Prints & Processes offers concepts and information that can be applied to the museum's ever-changing display of works on paper. The program is also soon to be published on CD-ROM, allowing access anytime to students, educators, collectors and anyone with an interest in the fine art of printmaking. Location: Prints and Drawings, 3rd floor