Ivanco Talevski (MFA '08) is mentioned in a review of an exhibition by the New York Times

Ivanco Talevski’s “Self Portrait” (2009)

Ivanco Talevski (MFA '08) was mentioned in an enthusiastic review of the exhibition, Up and Coming: New Printmakers Make Their Mark, currently on view at the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, NJ. The show will be up until the 13th of Sept., 2009. The review was written by Benjamin Genocchio of the New York Times. Yay Ivanco!

By Invitation Only

By BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO
Published: August 21, 2009

"There is a welcome recent trend at regional museums in which exhibitions of work by nominated or invited emerging artists are taking the place of juried shows open to whomever pays the entry fee. This phenomenon has led to better quality control by curators and ultimately much better exhibitions.

The Hunterdon Art Museum is treading this path, replacing its annual juried print exhibition with an invitational show of prints by M.F.A. candidates and recent graduates from East Coast art schools. Titled “Up and Coming: New Printmakers Make Their Mark,” it is one of the best contemporary print shows I have seen in a long time.

To choose the artists, the museum’s curator, Mary Birmingham, asked 11 art schools to nominate their best up-and-coming printmakers, from which she selected 22 artists. Some work with traditional printmaking techniques, but over all the accent is clearly on artists experimenting with the print medium.

If the majority of exhibitors have anything in common, it is probably that they tend to look beyond conventional printmaking materials and techniques, incorporating elements like painting, drawing, sculpture and collage. One artist, Tara Cooper, has even combined printmaking with new technology to create a 10-minute animation.

Nearly all the artists are first rate, and I suspect that several will go on to have long and productive careers...

There are artists here working in more traditional media, but this does not mean their art is in any way conventional or boring. Ivanco Talevski makes strikingly unusual and beautiful etchings of figures, among them “Self Portrait” (2009), which shows him in profile wearing a fanciful hat; it combines elements of a village folk costume from his native Macedonia and an ancient helmet worn backward...

Nothing about this show is brisk or businesslike, qualities all too common in juried exhibitions. Chalk it up to the exuberance or the optimism of youth, but for many of the participants in this show, being an artist appears to be the most important thing in the world. That is a quality worth fostering."

“Up and Coming: New Printmakers Make Their Mark,” Hunterdon Art Museum, 7 Lower Center Street, Clinton, through Sept. 13, 2009.

Read the full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/nyregion/

For more info on the exhibition see: www.hunterdonartmuseum.org

To see more of Ivanco's work see: http://www.ivancotalevski.com/