Carroll Dunham: Where am I? Prints 1985–2022.

Dear friends of the arts

Dear Carroll Dunham!

My first acquaintance with Dunham and his work was in 1991, when I visited ULAE – Universal Limited Art Edition – in Bay Shore for the first time. This well-known workshop on Long Island, New York – the studio of master printer Bill Goldston and his fantastic team. I had known Bill for some time and wanted to visit and see for myself this famous place.

I remember vividly the silhouette of Carroll Dunham against the window frame and the light outside. The artist was deeply concentrated – maybe you were working on the portfolio “Seven Places” in intaglio?

I am fascinated by all the series you have created through the years in different techniques. Your creative ideas, in strong and bold colors, forms, and figures – often alluding to, and referencing art history and popular culture. Never ordinary, often provocative – and sometimes – quite adventurous. I am intrigued by your fondness for fine art printmaking — one of the reasons why we are here today.

I am fascinated by how you came to work with graphic art. The story goes that Bill Goldston in 1984 wanted to recruit young artists to work at ULAE, so he simply visited you in your studio in New York, bringing with him a lithographic stone! He hoped to broaden your artistic practice through prints – and he succeeded!

As one is working with prints there is the collective collaboration that fascinates. The workshop is a conveyor of knowledge about techniques, materials and processes constantly exploring new ways of producing art. In this unique environment surrounded by machinery and skilled craftspeople, one is able to create unique prints – like the works on paper that we are lucky to admire here in our new National Museum.

A personal remark: Last Autumn I was fortunate enough to see Dunham’s “Green Self Model” series at ULAE – right before they were shipped off to Oslo, where the prints arrived just before Christmas – as we have heard. And now I was able to admire the prints again some minutes ago! Thank you, Caroll Dunham, and thanks to Universal Limited Art Editions and all the other excellent print studios you have collaborated with.

Carrol Dunham’s donation to the National Museum is of immense value to our new museum – but it is also a precious gift to us all; we, the grateful visitors. Dunham has given us all a remarkable present – about to be unwrapped.

I have seen the exhibition already, and I can tell you: You are in for a treat!

Dear Carroll Dunham, I wish to thank you – and our wonderful new National Museum – for sharing your unique art with us all.

I hereby declare “Carroll Dunham. Where am I. Prints 1985-2022 open!