Call for Curatorial Proposals

Print Center New York invites emerging and early-career curators to submit letters of interest for exhibition opportunities beginning in 2028. Through this curatorial open call—the first in our organization’s history—we aim to identify promising voices and areas of research that are pushing our field forward, and to accelerate professional opportunities for curators who are building the print exhibition and scholarship of tomorrow. 

Print Center New York’s curatorial program aims to generate new knowledge and understanding of printmaking’s potential by: 

• locating print within broader artistic, historical, and cultural contexts
• re-examining and expanding established histories and narratives 
• fostering cross-disciplinary conversation 
• making print visible and accessible to non-specialist audiences 
• imagining possible futures and developing new theoretical frameworks 

We are interested in rigorous curatorial projects that align with these goals. Projects may be either monographic or group exhibitions, either historical or contemporary, and while they should be firmly grounded in print, they may include works in other mediums that add nuance and clarity to the curator’s vision.

Learn more on our website: www.printcenternewyork.org/curator-open-call

Program Features

We work closely with guest curators to realize their projects at their fullest potential.

• Financial Support: Guest curators receive an unrestricted curatorial fee (beginning at $5,000 and scaling upward), plus, if needed, an additional travel budget that can be used for curatorial research and related exhibition travel. The amounts of these fees and budgets vary, depending on the scale and scope of the project. Print Center New York also covers all exhibition, publication, and public programming costs.
• Advisory Group: To support guest curators’ intellectual growth and professional development, Print Center convenes a working group of subject-area experts who act as a sounding board at key intervals in a project’s development.
• Comprehensive Guidance: Our curatorial staff provides guidance and feedback on areas such as project conceptualization and argumentation; exhibition writing; and public engagement and publication development.
• Production Support: Our team handles project management, logistics, and budget administration, and all aspects of exhibition production and installation, outreach, and publicity. 

The exhibition will be on view in Print Center New York’s main exhibition space, the Jordan Schnitzer Gallery, on the ground floor of 24th Street in Chelsea. The gallery is approximately 1800 square feet, and floor plans will be shared with curators we invite to submit full proposals. We are able to borrow works from a range of lenders, including institutional/museum collections.

 

Our exhibitions are on view for about 12 weeks and are accompanied by a roster of public programming and, typically, a modest publication.

Curator Eligibility: 

• Open to emerging and early-career curators based anywhere in the United States.
• We define “emerging and early career” as those with less than 15 years of professional arts experience.
• Curators must be present for key dates such as exhibition installation, opening, and select programming.
• Anyone with an SSN or ITIN is eligible to receive payment. 
• Artists are welcome to apply if the project does not include their own work.

Submit a brief letter of interest (no more than 500 words) describing the project and a current resume/CV to [email protected] with “Curatorial Open Call Letter of Interest” in the subject line.

Letters of interest should outline a concise and compelling pitch for an exhibition the curator would like to develop, including the artist(s) the curator is considering. Curators should express how the project generates new knowledge and may want to consider the following: 

• What questions does your research/project aim to explore? 
• Where are you in the process of developing this idea? Why does it excite you?
• What similar exhibitions exist? How is your proposed project different? 

We’ll invite curators with ideas that excite us and align with our programmatic priorities to prepare full exhibition proposals for our consideration. Curators invited to prepare full proposals will be compensated $300 for their additional time. Projects we decide not to move forward with will remain the intellectual property of the curator. 

Letters of interest will be accepted through April 6, 2025, 11:59 ET.

04/06/2025