The Print Center Names Ksenia Nouril the Jensen Bryan Curator

Elizabeth F. Spungen, Executive Director, announces the appointment of Ksenia Nouril, PhD, as the Jensen Bryan Curator. Nouril joined The Print Center staff in January 2019. The addition of Nouril to The Print Center's professional staff is a significant and exciting development; her expertise, knowledge and enthusiasm bring a new energy and focus to the organization's compelling and innovative curatorial program.

Nouril's unique combination of experience, curiosity, dynamism and scholarship brought her to the top of an outstanding group of candidates, and she will lead The Print Center to new curatorial achievements. She brings an understanding of the international context for contemporary photography and print, and we are looking forward to adding all that the Philadelphia community has to offer to her curatorial framework. - Elizabeth F. Spungen

We asked Ksenia what intrigued her the most about The Print Center's curatorial potential:

I am honored and excited to be the new Jensen Bryan Curator at The Print Center, a historic and beloved institution with immense potential to engage diverse audiences and affect contemporary art practices both within and far beyond Philadelphia. I look forward to developing progressive programming that fosters collaboration among colleagues, expands audiences, and supports critical dialogues that are relevant to and reflective of art and society today. - Ksenia Nouril

Programming

Upcoming programs to be presented under Nouril's tenure include James Siena: Resonance Under Pressure in spring 2019, examining the relationship between the renowned artist's new prints, drawings and paintings, complemented by an exhibition of typewriter prints created by a group of internationally-based artists. In the coming year, Nouril will also participate in planning exhibitions for Philadelphia artist Amze Emmons and Macedonian artist Ivanco Talevski and will oversee the 94th ANNUAL International Competition.

About Ksenia Nouril

Ksenia Nouril received her PhD in Art History from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick in 2018. Her doctoral dissertation examined the role of history in contemporary art through the cross-media work of post-socialist artists Olga Chernysheva, Deimantas Narkevičius, Paulina Ołowska and Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. She graduated summa cum laude from New York University with a BA in Art History and Russian & Slavic Studies. Ksenia has organized numerous collection and loan exhibitions for museums and nonprofit institutions, including the Bruce Museum, Greenwich; Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick; Lower East Side Printshop, NY; and, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), NY.

Before joining the staff at The Print Center, Nouril was part of a team of curators and conservators at MoMA dedicated to researching, cataloging and interpreting modernist photographic history through the Thomas Walther Collection. In conjunction with that project, she co-organized the 2015 exhibition Production-Reproduction: The Circulation of Photographic Modernism, 1900-1950, which contextualized the Walther Collection photographs with other printed matter of the period. From 2015 to 2017, Ksenia was a Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives (C-MAP) Fellow at MoMA, a position that allowed her to use her expertise in global art along with skills in strategic planning, administration and fundraising, while contributing original research to numerous gallery rotations, exhibitions and multi-platform publications. Ksenia is a co-editor of and contributor to Art and Theory of Post-1989 Central and Eastern Europe: A Critical Anthology (MoMA/Duke University Press, 2018) and has published in numerous exhibition catalogues and magazines, including ARTMargins Online, The Calvert Journal and OSMOS.

About the Jensen Bryan Curatorial Chair

Since 2010, The Print Center's curatorial chair has held the title of Jensen Bryan Curator, acknowledging a transformational gift from dedicated and inspired supporters Julie Jensen Bryan and Robert Bryan. That gift created the first permanently named position at The Print Center and provided an unprecedented level of financial strength for the organization.

Robert and I are thrilled to have Ksenia named the new Jensen Bryan Curator for The Print Center. We are delighted that she brings an international emphasis to our programs. It is very gratifying to see how transformational this position, first named in 2010, has been for The Print Center, and we look forward to Nouril bringing an exciting focus to our work. - Julie Jensen Bryan

About The Print Center

Since 1915, The Print Center has encouraged the growth and understanding of photography and printmaking as vital contemporary arts through exhibitions, publications and educational programs. The Print Center has an international voice and a strong sense of local purpose. Free and open to the public, it presents changing exhibitions which highlight established and emerging, local, national and international contemporary artists. It mounts one of the most prestigious art competitions internationally, now in its 94th year, and offers emerging and established collectors the largest selection of contemporary prints and photographs in Philadelphia.

Press release originally published by The Print Center