Doing Time/Depth of Surface

Philagrafika followed up its 2010 citywide festival—an exploration of the role of print in contemporary art that included the work of over 1,000 artists—with Doing Time/Depth of Surface, an artist residency with Spanish artists Patricia Gómez and María Jesús González that resulted in an exhibition at the Galleries at Moore College of Art & Design. Gómez and González, neither of whom had exhibited previously in the U.S., have a collaborative practice grounded in art conservation; utilizing a modified version of a technique known as strappo, they work primarily to preserve the surfaces of buildings—the veritable "skin of architecture"—by detaching a wall's paint with glues and fabric and transferring that surface paint, in its entirety, to a new canvas. In Philadelphia, they worked at the now abandoned Holmesburg Prison, creating large-format "printings" of drawings, paintings, and graffiti left by former inmates on the walls. These large-scale printings were then displayed at the galleries. A live Web stream throughout the residency, Doing Time: Captured!, allowed audiences to watch Gómez and González as they worked at Holmesburg.