Robert Beckman

Robert Beckman is an artist and educator living and working in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Mr. Beckman is the Co-Founder and Executive/Artistic Director of Artists Image Resource. He received an MFA from Kent State University and has taught at Carnegie Mellon University and Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. Beckman co-founded Artists Image Resource in 1996 and has organized over 100 projects with working artists throughout the US. Mr. Beckman is a working artist and printmaker who has been exhibiting work for over 30 years.

Beckman’s approach to artmaking considers how we create and communicate meaning; how we determine significance and value. Authorship and ownership are at the core of many of the issues surrounding the work. Are “ideas” specific to individuals or are they cultural? Does physicality inform authorship? Ownership? Systems and structures that we use to create and exchange information as well as the languages and devices that we use to discuss meaning are part and parcel of Beckman’s thinking about the work.

Analog and Digital print and imaging media and technologies are often the preferred means of production. These methods provide the vehicles to capture, assess, articulate, and ultimately disseminate meanings. Presentation formats that can be navigated in experiential ways through both time and space often seem most productive as the optimal means of expression. Work most often is presented in series or in accumulations.