PRINTS OF DARKNESS PRESENTS
RADIO ON
OPEN STUDIO AND EXHIBITION

SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 2025 • 6-8PM

21-16 40TH AVENUE, 5TH FL
LONG ISLAND CITY, NY 11101
(5 floor walk-up, with access to freight elevator)

In 1937, Isamu Noguchi created the Radio Nurse and Guardian Ear, an early room monitoring device. Sparse and Minimalist in design, and shaped like a woman’s head, the Radio Nurse was built to receive the calls of both the young and the very old, and relay them to the Guardian Ear, a receiver situated near their caretaker. 

What is special about communicating with the human voice? What is gained by the intonations, the spacing of words, and the shifts in volume? How are speaking and listening intrinsically tied? How can symbols and text make a visual image speak?  The artists in this show answer these questions in various formats, all of which incorporate tools of repeatable markmaking: etchings, 3-D prints, monoprints, and zines. 

Some of the artists incorporate specific strategies, such appropriation, heavily mediated markmaking, and self-publishing. Others lean into the representational, depicting the act of listening through line art drawing, or incorporating symbolic imagery, using images of everything from flowers to snakes. Some focus on the sensory experience that occurs when patterns and opposing colors cause optic vibrations, imparting a sense of visual frequencies and airwaves.

Looking at these works together through the lens of the Radio Nurse – and when ideas of care are embodied so gracefully in an everyday household appliance – we can consider ways in which methods of communication, both old and new, can be used to broadcast distress signals and send aid.

Alex Bradley Cohen
Alex Dodge
Alison Dell
Leslie Diuguid
Michael Hambouz
Kate McQuillen
Zorawar Sidhu and Rob Swainston
Megan Stroech
Zach Taylor
Sofie Vandevoorde