Photo-based print show

Here’s another printmaking exhibition I’ve just read about in Art Daily :

Photo Image in American Prints: 1960s-1990s at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, until 18 July 2004.

The diverse range of styles and viewpoints of over 20 contemporary artists will be showcased in Photo Image in American Prints 1968-1998. This exhibition of 30 prints and books explores the use of photographic imagery in creative printmaking, from Andy Warhol’s screenprints of the 1960s, which utilized imagery borrowed from mass media, to Kiki Smith’s 1996 photogravure, My Blue Lake, in which the artist used a peripheral camera to create her self-portrait. The majority of works in the exhibition are selected from the Crown Point Press Archive and the Anderson Graphic Arts Collection.

American painters, sculptors, and conceptual artists, with a few exceptions such as Richard Hamilton and Jannis Kounellis, are the focus of the exhibition. Among the other artists whose work will be on view are Jasper Johns, Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Christopher Brown, Tom Marioni, Gay Outlaw, and Ed Ruscha.

Also included in the exhibition are hand-drawn prints by Robert Bechtle, Vija Clemins, and Chuck Close. Although these images are inspired by photographic images and despite their distinctly photographic look, these works do not involve the actual use of photographs.

Saving the best for the last, look at this Virtual Exhibition of 35 Years at Crown Point Press, by the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Crown Point Press, a community studio in San Francisco founded by Kathan Brown, was a gathering place for artists to share ideas and equipment. Many of the best-known American painters, sculptors, and other artists, collaborated with the master printers here to create printworks. You can see a number of these prints in this virtual exhibition along with some discussion of printmaking techniques and a history of contemporary printmaking.

June 8, 2004 in Art Exhibitions, Printmaking by Marja-Leena