US $30

The Global Journal of Prints and Ideas November – December 2014 Volume 4, Number 4

Arabic Gospels in Italy • Wangechi Mutu • Lorena Villablanca • in the • Ukiyo-e Heroes David Hockney • Connecting Seas • Yona Friedman • Ed Ruscha • Gauguin at MoMA • Prix de Print • News

November – December 2014 In This Issue Volume 4, Number 4

Editor-in-Chief Susan Tallman 2 Susan Tallman On Globalism

Associate Publisher Evelyn Lincoln 4 Julie Bernatz Gospel Lessons: Arabic Printing at the Tipografia Medicea Orientale Managing Editor Dana Johnson Zoe Whitley 11 International Geographic: Wangechi Mutu News Editor on Paper, Print and Isabella Kendrick Carlos Navarrete 16 Manuscript Editor Everyday and Popular Imagery Prudence Crowther in the Prints of Lorena Villablanca

Online Columnist Robert J. Del Bontà 20 Sarah Kirk Hanley Engraving in 17th- and 18th-century Design Director Skip Langer Christina Aube 26 Navigating Difference, Connecting Seas Editorial Associate Andrew Saluti 30 Michael Ferut Defenders of the Floating World

Editor-at-Large Prix de Print, No. 8 34 Catherine Bindman Faye Hirsch Cartier Window by Stella Ebner

Reviews Julia Beaumont-Jones 36 The Rake’s Progress

Laurie Hurwitz 40 27 Square Meters, 1001 Nights

Faye Hirsch 42 Ruscha’s Course of Empire

Calvin Brown 45 Gauguin at MoMA On the Cover: Coenraet Decker, detail of (1672), copperplate engraving from Jaclyn Jacunski 49 Philippus Baldeaus, Afgoderye der Oost- Past Partisans Indisch heydenen (Pt. III of Naauwkeurige beschryvinge), : J. Janssonius v. John Murphy 50 Collective Brilliance Waasberge & J. v. Someren. Elleree Erdos 52 This Page: Wangechi Mutu, detail of The Proof: Lingen—Melby—Miller Original Nine Daughters (2012), series of nine , relief, letterpress, digital printing, News of the Print World 55 collage, pochoir, hand coloring and handmade Contributors 79 carborundum appliques. Printed and published by Pace Editions, New York. Courtesy of the Guide to Back Issues 80 artist and Pace Editions, Inc.

Art in Print 3500 N. Lake Shore Drive Suite 10A Chicago, IL 60657-1927 www.artinprint.org Art in Print is published with the [email protected] generous support of the IFPDA 1.844.ARTINPR (1.844.278.4677) Foundation, the Malka Foundation No part of this periodical may be published and individual donors. without the written consent of the publisher. On Globalism By Susan Tallman

rt in Print’s purloined motto— raised in Kenya and now lives and works A “without prints you don’t under- in Brooklyn, speaks with Zoe Whitley stand the culture of the world”—was about printed matter as a vehicle of ideas uttered by Leo Steinberg with regard to a and of action. The playful Ukiyo-e Heroes particular print from his vast collection. project, described by Andrew J. Saluti, A Descent From the Cross, the image brings together an American artist based derived from Marcantonio Raimondi’s in Utah, an English printmaker based in engraving after Raphael, which had been Tokyo, three centuries of Japanese tra- rebuilt in Mughal style by the Indian art- dition and four decades of videogame ist who engraved it sometime after Jesuit design. As ever, things are both lost and missionaries introduced the technique to gained in translation. the subcontinent. The recent print retrospectives of Globalization is often discussed as David Hockney (reviewed by Julia Beau- if it were something new, rather than mont-Jones) and Ed Ruscha (reviewed by simply the bulked-up version of age-old Faye Hirsch) are reminders of the power exchanges. The globalization of visual of the outside view: Hockney produced culture began in earnest when Asian images that remain emblematic of a cer- print and paper technologies and Por- tain dream of America, while Ruscha’s Francis Cleyn, Geometria, plate from a suite tuguese navigation techniques came of seven including title plate showing the seven News, Mews, Brews succinctly summa- together in Europe in the 15th and 16th liberal arts entitled Septem Liberales Artes rizes American clichés about Britain. centuries. The depicting and distorting, (1645), etching on paper, 12.5 x 10.4 cm. In , the exhibition of Hungarian- understanding and misunderstanding Published by Thomas Hinde. Victoria & Albert born, Israel-trained, French architect that ensued have been with us ever since. . Gift of Mr. Arthur Laws. Yona Friedman, shows that with the This issue of Art in Print looks at con- right tools, a wide world can be built in a versations between New World and Old, Brown, stands as testament to the dis- tiny room (reviewed by Laurie Hurwitz). East and West, North and South, over the concerting truth that bad anthropology And in New York, Elleree Erdos reviews course of five centuries. can make great art. “Proof” at Planthouse, an exhibition of Religion, then as now, was a primary The 20th century saw a vast increase prints from three master printers, bridg- motivation, though often in unexpected in the global distribution of images and ing a world of artists. ways. The first books printed in Arabic, ideas. The American socialist artists sur- Finally, Stella Ebner’s Cartier Win- examined here by Evelyn Lincoln, were veyed in “The Left Front” at Northwest- dow (2014), selected by Faye Hirsch as Christian gospels produced by the Medici ern University’s Block Museum (reviewed the winner of this issue’s Prix de Print, Oriental Press in 1590-91, replete with 67 by Jaclyn Jacunski) saw themselves as tidily summarizes the concurrent lure of woodblock illustrations of scenes from partisans in an international socio- the homey and the exotic: the New York the New Testament, aimed at converting political movement; a shared aesthetic window of a French company, showing Arabic-speaking infidels to Christianity. language was an instrument in the fight. sapphires and leopards, framed in the Religious images also moved the other In , artists working at the Nordic pagan fir boughs we use to mark direction: Robert del Bontà discusses Taller de Gráfica Popular used similar a Christian holiday. three sets of engravings after Indian tools to articulate the legacies of colonial- What Steinberg recognized was that of , all produced in the ism and the power politics; John Murphy even the most seemingly banal act of imi- Netherlands within a five-year period in reviews the survey of their work at the Art tation is the product of myriad inter- the 17th century (see cover illustration). Institute of Chicago. dependent influences. The printed image, Christina Aube charts the transforma- Today the transfer of information and if you look at it right, reveals the branch- tion of European curiosity into European images (though not of things) is more ing traces of all those cultural exchanges, imperialism through the maps, books unfettered than ever. This has brought the discoveries and the blinders. The and board games included in the Getty unprecedented enrichments of—and prints in this issue are artifacts of intel- Research Institute’s “Connecting Seas” encroachments on—local identities. lectual curiosity, religious evangelism, exhibition. In the 19th century, European The Chilean artist Lorena Villablanca, political agitation, personal desire and romantics saw distant peoples (as well as whose work is discussed here by Car- social critique. They are, to borrow once home-grown peasants) through a differ- los Navarrete, pulls from the regional again from Steinberg, ‘’the circulating ent distorting lens: they were now admi- tradition of woodcut Lira Popular, lifeblood of ideas.’’ rably atavistic creatures, pure of all the from German , and from repressions of “civilization.” The recent mass-market magazines, to build a het- Susan Tallman is the Editor-in-Chief of Gauguin exhibition at the Museum of erogenous, dynamic personal world. Art in Print. Modern Art, reviewed here by Calvin Wangechi Mutu, who was born and

2 Art in Print November – December 2014 CHARLINE VON HEYL / TEN COLOR CROWN POINT PRESS

Nightpack (Red, Yellow and Blue), 2014, edition 10.

CROWN POINT PRESS 20 Hawthorne San Francisco, CA 94105 415.974.6273 crownpoint.com Gospel Lessons: Arabic Printing at the Tipografia Medicea Orientale By Evelyn Lincoln

n 1590 and 1591 the Tipografia Medi- I cea Orientale (Medici Oriental Press) in Rome published its two much-adver- tised illustrated versions of the Gos- pels in Arabic. The Evangelium sanctum Domini nostri Iesu Christi conscriptum a quatuor Evangelistis Sanctis, idest, Mat- thaeo, Marco, Luca, et Iohanne was printed first in Arabic only, then in Arabic with corresponding Latin text between every line (Fig. 1). Sixty-seven woodblock prints of the Gospel scenes appeared in both versions of these luxurious books, illustrating the Life of Christ as told by the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Many of the blocks appear mul- tiple times in each book, illustrating the same story as told by the different evangelists. The registering of identical illustrations to these slightly different narratives reinforced the documentary plausibility of the material.1 The pictures also helped readers who knew the stories, but were unfamiliar with the languages, navigate the Gospels. The Arabic Gospels were designed to carry out the evangelical mission at the heart of the press. The Tipografia Medi- cea Orientale was founded in 1584 at the request of Gregory XIII (1502–1585), who dedicated his papacy (1572–1585) to attempting to restore the Eastern Church to Roman orthodoxy. Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici (1549–1609), soon to become Grand Duke of Tuscany, pro- vided financial support for the venture, and Giovanni Battista Raimondi (ca. 1536–1614), one of the century’s most erudite Arabists, was brought in as direc- tor. Twenty-six years after the press was Fig. 1. Leonardo Parasole (after Antonio Tempesta), Saint John with an Eagle from the interlinear founded, Raimondi wrote a letter to version of the Evangelium sanctum Domini nostri Iesu Christi conscriptum a quatuor Phillip III of Spain about the power of Evangelistis Sanctis, idest, Matthaeo, Marco, Luca, et Iohanne (1591), woodblock print, the printed books and papal ambitions 10.1 x 12.6 cm. Rome: Tipografia Medicea. for them, in what would turn out to be introduce the Gospels in those coun- they begin to be sent with merchants, a fruitless effort to sell the king copies of tries and among those people where or by any other means possible, to all the beautiful Gospels that still remained preachers cannot penetrate without the countries where Arabic was spo- in his storeroom: great danger to their lives, and where ken or understood. In these countries He [Gregory XIII] also desired that they would not meet with any suc- they should be exchanged or sold at a there be erected in Rome a print shop cess. He ordered therefore that there very low price, and even deftly given for foreign languages, so that all the be printed 18,000 volumes of the away at any opportunity, lest we not books pertinent to refuting schisms Gospels in Arabic, with Latin trans- attain our goals. And said Gospels and heresies might be printed, and to lation between the lines, and that would only have to have been read

4 Art in Print November – December 2014 Left: Fig. 2. Anonymous (after Antonio Tempesta), The Sermon on the Mount from the Arabic version of the Evangelium sanctum Domini nostri Iesu Christi conscriptum a quatuor Evangelistis Sanctis, idest, Matthaeo, Marco, Luca, et Iohanne (1590/91), woodblock print, 10 x 12.5 cm (Rome: Tipografia Medicea). Houghton Library, Harvard University Library. Right: Fig. 3. Workshop of Leonardo Parasole(?) (after Antonio Tempesta), The Sermon on the Mount, from the interlinear version of the Evangelium (1591), woodblock print, 10 x 12.5 cm. Rome: Tipografia Medicea.

by the infidel Muslims and by oth- ting style in the images that appear in the arrived at the preferred solution, which ers who understand that language last two books.6 Some blocks, cut in the was in the style of the blocks like those to have this effect, having personally more literal style appearing in the early used in the later books of the Arabic text seen the experience of many who were books, were eventually discarded in favor and in the whole interlinear edition. All converted from the sect of Moham- of blocks cut like the later ones, suggest- three blocks still exist, cut from the same med to the true Christian faith, with- ing that a standardized cutting style was design, but exhibiting different concep- out argument and without preaching, implemented at some point in the print- tions of how Tempesta’s wash draw- but with only a single reading of the ing process. We can see this in the case ings might be effectively translated into Gospel in whatever language into of The Sermon on the Mount, for example, woodcut hatching (Figs. 2 and 3). which it was translated.2 which was cut twice before the printers The abstraction Field observes in the

While the circumstances surrounding the foundation of the press were recorded in briefs and letters, there is no written documentation on the woodblock illus- trations.3 When the woodblocks, which miraculously survive, came up for sale a few years ago, Richard S. Field noted that the illustrations were made with great leg- ibility and simplicity.4 At the same time, they were sophisticated enough to act as ambassadors of modern papal style, with brilliant effects of light and shade. Their visual clarity directly reinforced the scrip- tural lessons in the accompanying texts. The designs for all the illustrations seem to have originated with the painter and printmaker Antonio Tempesta (1555–1630). Several of the blocks in the last two Gospels bear his monogram and that of the printer, publisher and wood- block carver, Leonardo Parasole (ca. 1552–1612).5 Field points out stylistic dif- ferences in the blocks, showing a transi- tion from a more descriptive and literal style of cutting, visible in several unused blocks and in some of the images of the Fig. 4. Leonardo Parasole (after Antonio Tempesta), Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery from the first Gospel books, to a more abstract cut- interlinear version of the Evangelium (1591), woodblock print, 10 x 12.5 cm. Rome: Tipografia Medicea.

Art in Print November – December 2014 5 Fig. 5. Leonardo Parasole (after Antonio Tempesta), The Visitation from the interlinear version of the Evangelium (1591), woodblock print, 10 x 12.6 cm. Rome: Tipografia Medicea. later blocks results from changes in the written on the ground, into spotlight. The Parasole’s workshop consisted of several method of cutting.7 The woodcutter Visitation, told only in Luke, needs fewer possible cutters familiar with Tempesta’s subordinated individual shapes to an figures to carry the story (Fig. 5), but here style, including Parasole’s wife, Geronima overall graphic system from which the too, broad swathes of parallel lines estab- (ca. 1567–1622).8 image emerges through the use of sinu- lish the background that is easily read as The organization of such an ambitious ous outlines as well as dots and dashes hills and a city wall, before which Eliza- publishing project required the expert for facial features and other details. beth and Mary reach to clasp hands and coordination of specialists in languages, Anonymous figures intended to provide embrace. The joyful meeting is bracketed international commerce and every aspect necessary witness are rendered as barely by the women’s inclining haloes, their of printing and censorship. The copious distinguishable shapes in passages of faces modeled in complementary shad- diaries and correspondence of travelers parallel hatching. This abstract chiar- ing as the old dispensation strides for- sent to India and Africa to evaluate the oscuro characterizes, for example, Christ ward without hesitation to greet the new market for the books reveal the many and the Woman Taken in Adultery, creating one. The strong, angular hatching lines fronts on which Raimondi worked to drama in the backlit scene of the bystand- of varying width and unvarying bold- keep the press afloat and under the radar ers who are reduced to vertical lines in ness proclaim the momentous nature of of both the Medici, who tended to micro- the resulting shadow (Fig. 4). An even the occasion as forcefully as Tempesta’s manage with an eye to maximum finan- grayness in the form of a curving screen traditional iconography and his lively cial profit, and of the papal Inquisition, unifies this crowd of astonished figures; and decorative figures. Some blocks, like which was excessively concerned about against it, a sharp diagonal shadow these, bear both monograms, while some the inadvertent spread, through Arabic throws Christ’s important judgment, show only that of Parasole or Tempesta. materials, of precisely the sorts of her-

6 Art in Print November – December 2014 esies it was trying to extinguish. Among the problems with printing in Arabic in Italy (a process that was not undertaken in Arabic-speaking countries until the 18th century) was the limited availabil- ity of credible manuscript exemplars for content and calligraphy, the founding of the difficult type so that it retained the dignity appropriate to a sacred text, and finding compositors fluent enough in the language to proofread the letters back- ward and forward.9 Medici financing was essential to the operation of the press, as was the presence in Rome of Jewish converts and Arabic-speaking Chris- tians who could read, translate and set type in Hebrew and Arabic.10 Ferdinando de’ Medici not only expected Raimondi to supervise the scholarly and mission- ary aspects of the press, but also to run it as a profitable business.11 For this rea- son, and because it was a major interest of Raimondi’s, the press also published Arabic works of geography, medicine and mathematics, all of which proved com- mercially successful. Fig. 6. Workshop of Leonardo Parasole(?) (after Antonio Tempesta), The Transfiguration There was an avid (although limited) from the interlinear version of the Evangelium (1591), woodblock print, 10 x 12.6 cm. Rome: market for books in Oriental languages in Tipografia Medicea. Italy and in Northern European universi- ties where scholars lacked the grammars It will be the same with the Arabic books the images were not translated into an and dictionaries, much less other publica- that we will print in Louvain.”15 Clenar- Eastern idiom. Illuminated manuscripts tions of scholarly interest, indispensable dus failed to befriend people who could of the Gospels were readily available in for pursuing their studies.12 The finan- teach him Arabic; this eventually led him Byzantium and visualized the tales in a cial support of the Medici, as well as the to purchase a slave in Granada for this different style and iconography. scholarly presence of Raimondi, meant purpose so he could print Arabic works The Transfiguration, for example, an that European scholars eagerly antici- in the Brabant. For European human- early unsigned block that is printed three pated the first publications of the Tipo- ists like Clenardus, who had a real stake times in the Medici Gospels, shows the grafia Medicea. Unlike Latin or Ancient in learning Arabic in order to carry out Roman idiom used for the illustrations Greek, Arabic was a living language, still peaceful conversions, or to uncover the (Fig. 6). The story of the revelation of spoken by merchants, diplomats and mysteries they believed lay hidden in the Christ’s divinity as he prays with three doctors in their professional transac- Jewish and Islamic faiths, the luxurious apostles on a high mountain is one of the tions.13 The major drive for learning such volumes for which the Tipografia Medi- more abstract subjects in the scriptures. languages among humanist scholars in cea was founded were, however, to prove In it, Christ and his robe suddenly turn Europe was to allow them to acquire bet- disappointing. brilliant white, followed by the arrival of ter knowledge about the oriental roots of In spite of all the expense and care a cloud at once bright and dark that over- Christian religious learning; there was taken to provide illustrations for the Ara- whelms the apostles. From the cloud, the also new impetus, in the wake of failed bic Gospels, there is no evidence that the voice of God, as in the Baptism, identifies military actions, to find peaceful ways of woodcuts were looked on favorably by Christ as his beloved son.17 The wood- converting Muslims and Jews.14 To learn readers, even those who otherwise noted cut, in which the artist emphasizes the this language well enough to read and the beauty of Robert Granjon’s Arabic apostles’ fear, shows Christ lofted into the interpret difficult texts required books type.16 Muslims, who forbade narrative sky with Moses and Elijah, the estab- of exceptional clarity or potentially prob- images in sacred texts, would certainly lishing a heaven-borne counterpart to the lematic association with an infidel native not have wished to see them, and Euro- group of three cowering apostles below. speaker. The Flemish Latin teacher, pean students of foreign languages did Blinded by the radiant figure of Christ Nicolas Clenardus (1495–1542), worked to not need them. Scholars, therefore, have and terrified by the thundering cloud, establish Arabic learning in the Nether- assumed that the inclusion of images in they tumble over each other in the fog and lands in order to fight the spread of Islam these books indicates they were actu- dark in the lower section of the picture. without resorting to military means, ally intended for the European market The airborne Christ, the graceful writing: “The Hebrew books which Bom- in general and to bring Arabic-literate Moses cradling his tablets, Elijah and the berg prints in Venice go everywhere to Christians into the Roman church, rather earthbound apostles are all modeled on find the Jews, to Egypt, to Africa, to India. than to convert infidels. Unlike the text, those in the most successful pictorial ver-

Art in Print November – December 2014 7 Left: Fig. 7. Giulio Bonasone (after Raphael), The Transfiguration of Christfrom Achilles Bocchius, Symbolicarum quaestionum de universo genere (1555), engraving, 11 x 8 cm. Bologna. ©The Trustees of the . Right: Fig. 8. The Transfiguration of Jesus Christ, from cycle of the great feasts of scenes from the lives of Jesus and Mary (manuscript 1322-40), Greek. MS. Gr. th. f. 1. ©The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford/The Art Archive at Art Resource/Art Resource, NY. sion of the scene to that date, painted by the pope, transforming the books into ous financial condition of the business: Raphael for Clement VII (then Cardinal effective “drones” that encouraged con- delays in preparing copy for proofread- Giulio de’ Medici), and widely dissemi- version, especially in regions that were ing because employees were traveling or nated in the West by reproductive prints otherwise too dangerous to send mis- did not show up regularly; when they did (Fig. 7).18 It would be easy for readers sionaries. The fact that they penetrated come to work, their insufferable behav- unfamiliar with the Roman iconographic the hearts of men in the visual idiom ior ruined morale. Further, the bad air of tradition to misread this image—to think of the Roman, rather than the Greek the neighborhood in the Campo Marzio that the apostles had their hands to their Church, further promoted the plan to caused the death of many workers.21 Rai- heads because they were dreaming, or encompass the older, Eastern Church in mondi’s eventual deal with Ferdinando had fallen off a cliff, or were perhaps even the rites of the younger, Western one. In in 1596 included moving the press to the the same men who appear in the sky, now their own way, the woodcuts proclaimed Medici villa at the top of the Pincian Hill, cast to the ground. In Byzantine repre- the Latinity of the Gospels: in whatever a healthier location.22 sentations of this subject, the apostles language the words were encountered, The images in these Gospels allow us are instead struck by rays emanating they referred to events that did not to understand the technical and commer- geometrically from the body of Christ, look as Easterners might have expected cial challenges, as well as the opportuni- binding his electrified stillness to the them to. ties, presented by this grand first project. turbulence in the souls of the frightened In spite of such subtleties, it is gener- Rather than dismiss it as a costly and mis- men and turning the whole into a sym- ally accepted that the Medici Gospels guided fiasco, we may more usefully con- metrical emblem (Fig. 8).19 were a beautiful failure, neither selling sider it the training ground for a group Raimondi’s letter to Phillip III ended well nor accomplishing the goal of mass of printers, publishers and patrons dur- with a trope that often appeared in the conversion. Raimondi had trouble con- ing the period of the Roman Inquisition Scriptures: the word of God, like a sword, trolling the management of the press and the Atlantic Conquest. The surviving can convert souls.20 The immediacy with until he contracted in 1595 to buy it unused blocks of the Gospels that had to which images entered the soul through from Duke Ferdinando. In a letter writ- be recut show the printers carefully re- the senses rendered them bloodless cru- ten about that time, Raimondi outlined addressing the visual rhetoric of the saders in the eyes of both Raimondi and the major factors leading to the precari- books after a certain point in the print-

8 Art in Print November – December 2014 Fig. 9. Camillo Graffico (after Antonio Tempesta), “Ordination to the Major Order of Deacon,” Pontificale romanum Clementis VIII Pont. Max. iussu Restitutum Atque editum (1595), engraving. Rome: Iacobum Lunam. ©Pitts Theology Library, Emory University. ing. The desired unity of the Church remarkable for their clarity and unifor- nations to public ceremonies and festivi- would come to be represented by a uni- mity of style across the weighty volumes. ties.27 Tempesta again provided models, formity of style throughout the book, Some images were used for both volumes, and engravings were made by Francesco introduced by a standardized system of discussing the same rites for different Villamena, Camillo Graffico and other cutting the images from the blocks. celebrants.24 Parasole had developed a printers active in Rome at the turn of the The printers Raimondi finally kept in method for cutting woodblocks to print century. The publishing histories of these his employ used the lessons from printing music that he, Raimondi and Luna had two books are complex, as different ver- the Gospels to organize related illustrated hoped to use in the printing of a reformed sions disappeared and reappeared with projects that promoted and enabled the Gradual undertaken by Palestrina.25 different plates and blocks—and are the regulation of church ritual, standardiz- Like the Arabic Gospels, bringing material for another story. But the key ing liturgical celebration wherever books church ritual into line with Tridentine point here is that publishing for the in Latin could be read. The printer and recommendations began with Gregory papacy in Rome in the era of reform typographer for the Tipografia Medicea, XIII, was continued by Sixtus V with the required scholarly, courtly, commercial for example, a Lebanese Maronite whose cooperation of participating cardinals, and technical mastery on an unprece- Italian name was Giacomo Luna, teamed and came to fruition with the aid of Car- dented scale, the coordination of which up with Leonardo Parasole to print two dinal Ippolito Aldobrandini. From the was effected by much hard work and inge- richly illustrated manuals that would be beginning Aldobrandini had helped nuity by Raimondi and his team. Science, integral to codifying a standard, reformed supervise the evangelical work of the religion, art and the study of languages celebration of Roman liturgical rites after Tipografia Medicea; when he became came together from a variety of interests the Council of Trent: The Pontificale Pope Clement VIII in 1592 he renewed his coalescing around the publication of a Romanum Clementis VIII (1595) and the attention to the reform of ritual.26 The pair of Arabic Gospels that, while not a Caeremoniale episcoporum iussu Clementis images, in both engraved and woodblock commercial success, established a ful- VIII (1596; Fig. 9).23 These books describe versions, prescribed the proper postures, crum for inventions and associations in and illustrate church ritual led by popes gestures and dress for the celebrants of the world beyond the busy offices of the and bishops; they contain red and black rituals performed by popes or bishops, Tipografia Medicea Orientale. text, musical notation and images from papal elections and imperial coro-

Art in Print November – December 2014 9 Seventeenth-Century England, ed. G.A. Russell Evelyn Lincoln is Professor of the History of Art (, The Netherlands: Brill, 1994), 97–100. & Architecture and Italian Studies at Brown 12.Karl H. Dannenfeldt, “The Renaissance University. She writes about the history of print- Humanists and of Arabic,” in Stud- making and the book in the early modern period. ies in the Renaissance 2 (1955): 113–15; and Jones, “Medici Oriental Press,” 96–100. 13. Dannenfeldt, “Renaissance Humanists,” 117. Notes: 14. Ibid., 96. 1. The interlinear text has 149 illustrations for 15. Ibid., 114–15; and Robert Jones, “Learning which 67 blocks were used. Six other blocks Arabic in Renaissance Europe (1505–1624)” were made but not used. See Richard S. Field, (PhD thesis, School of Oriental and African Stud- Antonio Tempesta’s Blocks and Woodcuts for the ies, University of London, 1988), 146–48. Medicean 1591 Arabic Gospels (Chicago: Les 16. An assessment of Granjon’s prestige and Eluminures, 2011) and the chart on pp. 22–25. work in making characters for the Medici Press is Field kindly shared his observations with me as found in Tinto, 22-56; for the non-success of the we examined the blocks together. books see most recently Fani and Farina, particu- 2. Guglielmo Enrico Saltini, “Della Stamperia Ori- larly 204-209 and elsewhere. entale Medicea e di Giovan Battista Raimondi,” 17. Matthew 17:1–13; Mark 9:2–13; Luke 9:28–36. Giornale Storico degli Archivi Toscani IV (1860): 18. See Field, Antonio Tempesta’s Blocks and 259–60. Woodcuts, 10–11, for Raphael’s imagery in other 3. In addition to Field, Antonio Tempesta’s Blocks prints in the Arabic Gospels. and Woodcuts, see Sara Fani and Margherita 19. Jerzy Miziołek, “Transfiguratio Domini in the Farina, eds., Le vie delle lettere. La Tipografia Apse at Mount Sinai and the Symbolism of Light,” Medicea tra Roma e l’Oriente (Florence: Man- Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes dragora, 2012), for the most recent studies of the 53 (1990): 42–60. press and the Arabic Gospels, and with a compre- 20. Raimondi’s letter (as referenced in note 3) ends hensive bibliography. Also indispensable in this with the following persuasive quotations: “Dice il context is Alberto Tinto, La Tipografia Medicea Salmista: Lex Domini immaculata convertens ani- Orientale (Lucca: Fazzi Editore, 1987). mas; et in altro loco: Et sermo Domini gladius acu- 4. Field, Antonio Tempesta’s Blocks and Wood- tus penetrans corda hominum” (The Psalmist says, cuts, 9–10. “The Word of God converts souls cleanly,” and in 5. These are identified in the chart in Field (ibid., another place, “And the Word of God is a sharp 22–25). sword that penetrates the heart of man”). 6. Ibid., 3–9, 12–18. 21. Fani and Farina, Le vie delle lettere, 78–9. 7. Field (ibid., 17) believes that the early blocks 22. Ibid., 79–80. Raimondi was not able to meet might have been cut by Paul Maupin, whose pres- the payments required by that contract but was ence in these circles is recorded in 1594. retained as custodian for life. 8. Lia Markey, “The Female Printmaker and the 23. Luna’s Arabic name was Ya‘qub ibn Hilal. Culture of the Reproductive Print Workshop,” See Tinto, Tipografia Medicea, 17. The books in Paper : The Reproductive Print in are: Pontificale Romanum Clementis VIII pont. Europe 1500–1800, ed. Rebecca Zorach and max. iussu restitutum (Rome: Giacoma Luna at Elizabeth Rodini (Chicago: University of Chi- the expense of Leonardo Parasole, 1595) and cago Press for the , 2005), Caeremoniale episcoporum iussu Clementis VIII 51–73; and Evelyn Lincoln, “Invention, Origin, and pont. max. editum (Rome: Giacomo Luna, 1596). Dedication: Republishing Women’s Prints in Early For Luna see Borbone “Introduzione,” in Fani and Modern Italy,” in Making and Unmaking Intellectual Farina, Le vie delle lettere, 29; and Tinto, Tipo- Property: Creative Production in Legal and Cul- grafia Medicea, 82–4, on the association between tural Perspective, ed. Mario Biagioli, Peter Jaszi Luna and Parasole in the printing of the Pontifical and Martha Woodmansee (Chicago: University of and the Ceremonial (and note 23 here). See also Chicago Press, 2011), 339–357. Geronima Para- Manlio Sodi and Achille Maria Triacca, eds., Pon- sole signed with the same image of a burin after tificale Romanum, Editio Princeps [1595–1596] her initials that her husband used in his mono- (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997) gram in Antonio Gallonio’s book, De Sanctorum and Manlio Sodi and Achille Maria Triacca, eds., martyrum cruciatibus liber (Rome: Congregationis Caeremoniale Episcoporum, Editio Princeps Oratorii apud S. Maria in Vallicella, 1594), 44. [1600] (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 9. Pier Giorgio Borbone, “Introduzione” in Fani 2000), xiv–xv. and Farina, Le vie delle lettere, 34n18 and 35n24. 24. Sodi and Triacca, Caeremoniale, xxxv. See also Geoffrey Roper, The History of the Book 25. Joshua Joel Veltman, “Prosody and Rhythm in the Middle East (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, in the Post-Tridentine Reform of Plainchant” (PhD 2013). dissertation, The Ohio State University, 2004), 10.See Fani and Farina, Le vie delle lettere, espe- 63–80. cially p. 51 and pp. 57–60. See also Robert Jones, 26. Sodi and Triacca, Caeremoniale, xxvii. “Piracy, War, and the Acquisition of Arabic Manu- Pele Prints 27. Sodi and Triacca, Pontificale, xxx in35. scripts in Renaissance Europe,” in Manuscripts Mary O’Malley of the Middle East 2 (1987): 96–115; and Nata- Hanging Garden #3 lie Zemon Davis, Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth- Century Muslim Between Worlds (New York: Hill & Wang, 2006). www.peleprints.com 11. Fani and Farina, Le vie delle lettere, 46, 73–80. See also Robert Jones, “The Medici Ori- ental Press (Rome 1584–1614) and the Impact of its Arabic Publications in Northern Europe,” in The “Arabick” Interest of the Natural Philosophers in

10 Art in Print November – December 2014 International Geographic: Wangechi Mutu on Paper, Print and Printmaking Interview by Zoe Whitley

rom a paper warehouse in Nairobi F to a lithography studio in Copen- hagen, Kenyan-born, U.S.-based artist Wangechi Mutu’s transnational aesthetic takes printed matter we so often consume and discard and transforms it into some- thing of weight and permanence. This conversation took place 28 August 2014.

Zoe Whitley: I’m struck by how foun- dational works on paper are to your practice. While your work today spans installation, moving image and an array of other media, can we speak a bit about the materiality of paper and what that means to you?

Wangechi Mutu: Well, I don’t know where exactly to start. A childhood anec- dote comes to mind: my father was a businessman with a paper distribution company. He was a middleman import- ing paper from Germany. He had a huge warehouse we played in as children. I remember as a kid being enamored with drawing anyway, but the nice thing was being a kid whose dad had a vast array of paper. As much as he brought home paper, I always ran out and ended up drawing on walls! That motion, that sense of move- ment across the page was constant for me. I continued with that obsessive level of drawing out my thoughts, even more so than writing. I’m a visual thinker. If I can capture it in an image, through draw- ing, it helps me think clearly. That’s why biology and physics were the two scientific subjects I excelled in at school; because they both require cap- turing information visually, drawing, for Wangechi Mutu, Homeward Bound (2009), archival pigment print with screenprint, example, a cell with its nucleus and organ- 24 x 18 1/4 inches. Edition of 45. Printed and published by Edition Jacob Samuel, Santa Monica, California. Courtesy of the artist. elles. Things come alive when you can draw them. Paper helps establish a mind to convey what I am trying to express. I Going through collage and now with the frame. Some people have journals [to write think drawing is connected to the sub- print-collage-paintings, I’m increasingly in], but I often know my state of mind, conscious. If you free yourself up, things accessing , and I never really con- my anxieties, my fears, my hopes, based may come up that you aren’t consciously sidered myself a painter before now. on what I record on paper. It’s part of my aware of. Whatever rumblings and psyche. It’s also how I plan things that are interests are residing deep within will ZW: Collage is usually the first thing one motion-based or three-dimensional. come out. Drawing pulls it out of you— thinks of when visualizing your artwork. Collage is a means of economizing it’s extracting the minutiae embedded I’m fascinated how you have marshalled that visual process. I insert something that isn’t yet fully formed. Drawing is a existing printed matter—usually offset in there—say, a magazine landscape— beginning, and it gets more elaborate. commercial prints from magazines—in

Art in Print November – December 2014 11 Left: Wangechi Mutu, (ca.1993-1996) print on paper. Right: Wangechi Mutu, Untitled (ca.1993-1996) print on paper. Both images courtesy of the artist. the formation of your aesthetic. When ity to create another by fragmenting and The etching and aquatint portfolio Eve did this experimentation with printed playing with the illusion of space and (2006), made with Edition Jacob Samuel publications begin? perspective, or disregarding perspective [Santa Monica, CA], started with tiny col- completely. So that was my initial delving lages of compositions pared down to two WM: Oh my goodness—I think it began into using publications, Newsweek and things—like a bicycle wheel and a wom- way back, further than I can quite remem- Time magazines. Not amazing paper but an’s leg. When you look at publications, ber, as a child. I can absolutely be sure of colorful and varied. My dad was obsessed you make mental associations between using collage for my college applications with finding out what was going on in the images. Those relationships have a ton of to American universities. I applied by world. In our house the radio was on con- information in them. How they are com- doing -esque collages of kitchen stantly, listening not only to local news posed on one page affects how you look scenes—a jug of milk and a chair—using but also BBC radio. Often in an African at the next page. The hierarchies help you bits and pieces of Time and Newsweek, context the radio is the first [thing] to be read the next image. But these can also having seen Picasso on school trips to taken over by militia groups, or the air- be problematic in the way they lead you museums. I travelled to Spain in 1990, waves commandeered to promote pro- to arrange the world. I’m always trying and the modern and contemporary art I paganda of the ruling party. You often to decode what the magazine is trying saw there made a big impression on me. had to circumvent or at least supplement to convey. There are illusions and fanta- It seemed to break up space in a way that local news. He also ordered National Geo- sies presented as fact. Physically looking helped me understand contemporary art. graphic for most of my childhood, which I and thumbing through makes me able to I was interested in how these art forms still use in my work today. come up with a new way to systematically shifted our perceptions, how African art critique our image culture. I used to work I recognized had been incorporated into ZW: I consider you a maker of prints for using negative space with printed imag- the modernist avant-garde. the innovative way you appropriate and ery, too—cutting out of one page in order All this helped me understand what repurpose existing prints, literally creat- for another image to emerge through that the American schools were looking for. ing a new visual form from the printed shape on a different page. I was on a beautiful little island called material around us. Lamu, off the coast of Kenya. I was there ZW: Can you recall the first time you ever to work, to get away from home and apply WM: There’s something about looking worked in the medium of printmaking? to school. It was very remote. I’d take my at physical, tangible works that is still rel- watercolors and magazines to the port evant because many magazines won’t sur- WM: I learned how to etch and make and make pictures. I’d draw still lifes— vive this Internet age. There’s a particular aquatint at Cooper Union [in New York]. awful still lifes until my eyes popped physicality to holding something, the strat- It was there I had to commit to an image out of my head! I was never interested ified imagery, leafing through pictures. I being finished. I always want to go back in a simple representation of the world also like the process of finding things you and work on it more. But printmaking is around me. I was much more interested are interested in but also how that is juxta- an extremely disciplined practice. To have in abstraction. posed with the encounter of seeing things them be identical you can’t go back in and My first official collages used one real- you weren’t necessarily interested in. rework them. It’s a strange process because

12 Art in Print November – December 2014 unless something is framed, I always feel I can go back to it. But with prints, I had to commit. I first made some etchings of dreadlocked people with drooped heads; I was thinking about hair, history and the Mau Mau [the African nationalist move- ment active in 1950s Kenya]. I felt they [the prints] were successful and I was finally making something my family would be proud of. I was so young and did not necessarily feel supported as an artist at the time. It was an image that I was able to show my parents and my aunts and uncles. I gave one to my uncle and he even had it framed. He has it still. It was not only a technical process of how to create a print but also how to retain the integrity of the image from one print to the next. Printmaking became important for me to distinguish another form of two-dimensional art. I learned the technical basics during my BFA but then didn’t make prints again in gradu- ate school [at Yale]. I have only just gone back to experimenting with printmak- ing. Ultimately, it’s a collaborative pro- cess with the printmaking studios. The ghost collaborators are such a part of it: working with Rasmus Urwald at Edition Copenhagen was an amazing experience. The way that place works is remarkable. [I got] to go somewhere and leave with renewed energy. I have an extremely laborious tech- nique. My work is to massage and fiddle with many pieces for a long time. Prints lighten the load. I can ask for help in a way that makes sense. I don’t typically trust other people in the decision-mak- ing process—I make a lot of decisions while gluing—but prints allow me to let Wangechi Mutu, Eve (2011), archival pigment print, 20 x 16 inches. Edition of 75. Printed and go. More people are allowed to access the published by Edition Jacob Samuel, Santa Monica, California. Courtesy of the artist. work, to see it, to buy it, to live with it. I have really begun to invest a lot more thought in what multiples can do to a title referring to coming back home was tion and the death of plant life from oil number of topics, issues and problems. important not only for the people affected contamination contributed significantly. The Born Free [tote bag] project1 was sur- in the Gulf but also for me personally due That print was therefore tied to a prisingly successful in that regard. In the to my inability at the time to travel back much deeper plantation culture and the end, no one needs a new handbag, but if to Kenya under my visa restrictions. dirty business of Big Oil. The BP oil spill the print helps tap into our psychosis in I undertook the process naively. I happened just after. The levees weren’t a capitalist world, then it’s a good thing. didn’t understand at the time about New maintained just as the BP rig hadn’t been Orleans and the environmental prob- maintained. ZW: Your print Homeward Bound (2008) lems and deepseated political and socio- The process taught me a lot about what was also created to raise funds and historical contexts. People close to the it means to “help” or to think you can awareness for Ms. Sarah, a victim of Hur- coast were devastated by the hurricane, come in and help. In the end, the house ricane Katrina. of course, but the area had long been for Ms. Sarah was rebuilt. It was a testa- neglected and raped so that there were ment to hard work—not only my own but WM: Yes, it was one part of an installa- no longer the natural water forests and an architect-activist named Tye Waller. tion to commemorate and focus on the mangrove-type swamps that once pro- She repurposes bathrooms and kitchens aftermath of Hurricane Katrina dur- vided natural protection against extreme from the Northeast through a salvage ing the Prospect 1 biennial.2 But using a weather. The combination of deforesta- firm, given the many well-off people who

Art in Print November – December 2014 13 make cosmetic updates to their property every few years. She then has the interiors driven down and uses them to rebuild for those in need.

ZW: I can see a parallel in that interstate resourcefulness and salvage mentality found in your own transnational repur- posing of images.

WM: I think so. She project-managed for me and we raised the money based on selling 90 percent of the prints. The prints were a vehicle but also raised awareness. They were therapeutic, as I was really trying to sort out my visa to get back home. There was a parallel push in terms of why I was making art. The figure in Homeward Bound is a sea-lion–human- oid braying, asking to be taken home. For me the relationship is poignant between the sheer exertion of will and the weight of the surrounding circumstances.

ZW: I’d also like to discuss your more recent prints, such as the suite of etchings The Original Nine Daughters (2012).

WM: I made that suite of etchings with aquatint, linocut and collage at Pace Prints. The Nine Daughters are part of the Kenyan creation myth, our Adam and Eve. The nine original tribes and clans come from there. They are all freakish poetic hybrids, not literal. Some prints make connections between Renaissance and Victorian etchings, but they are all esoteric. None of the scientific informa- tion is accurate. They also have pins in the body as markers of body parts and body types, which recur in my work. Second born, an etching [with collage] from 2013, is dedicated to my second- born. It took me a year to make, but I wanted to articulate a maternal figure. The mother is in fact holding a child made out of the rescue blankets I use in my installations. There is also the medical series, His- tology of the Different Classes of Uter- ine Tumors, that I made with Hare and Hound Press in San Antonio. They pro- duced most of it, consulting with me at a distance. Those 12 works are all medi- cal diseases of the female reproductive organs. I wanted them to survive as they Wangechi Mutu, The Original Nine Daughters (2012), series of nine etching, relief, letterpress, were on very acidic, yellowed paper. We digital printing, collage, pochoir, hand coloring and handmade carborundum appliques, image printed using an inkjet collage tech- 15 x 7 inches each, sheet 19 x 10 inches each. Edition of 30. Printed and published by Pace nique with hand additions. I added hair, Editions, New York. Courtesy of the artist and Pace Editions, Inc. glitter and rabbit-fur sideburns. All the hand additions were to break up what the

14 Art in Print November – December 2014 Wangechi Mutu, from Histology of Different Classes of Uterine Tumors (2006), 12 digital prints and mixed media collage, 23 x 17 inches each. Courtesy of the artist and the Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Los Angeles. medical prints originally implied about resent them. I was so influenced by the Notes: illness and infertility. The added tactility creatures that were already present. It’s a 1. Mutu designed a printed tote bag produced of the collage over the prints changed the burial ground for so many organisms, with luxury brand Céline for the Born Free project, dimension of the work. and I’ve represented some of that buried which works to end mother-to-child HIV transmis- The interplay in my work of repug- history in the latest work. sion at birth. nant and seductive aspects renders 2. “Prospect.1 New Orleans” was a 2008–2009 exhibition in the tradition of citywide international approachable, tactile and highly vis- exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale. Mutu’s ible inequities in gender and in medical Zoe Whitley is Curator, Contemporary British Art at Tate Britain and Curator, International Art at installation piece was constructed on the empty research—things we might otherwise Tate Modern, where she specializes in contem- site where the house of Sarah Lastie had once avoid or ignore. Printmaking becomes a porary art of the African diaspora. stood (the house had been destroyed by a combi- way to make it relevant and push people nation of Katrina and unscrupulous contractors). The print was used to raise money to rebuild the to think about it in a contemporary con- house. text. The exhibition “Nguva na Nyoka” (“Sirens and Ser- pents” in Kiswahili) presents Mutu’s latest body of print, collage, video and sculptural works at Victoria ZW: Moving on to your most recent Miro Gallery in London through 19 December 2014. works, what did the lithographic process bring to bear for you?

WM: What I was so excited about was using the lithographic stone. The ancient surface was able to take on and hold an image in a particular way. The extremely smooth stone is in itself an archive—it holds fossils and arthropods and shells unearthed from the ocean millions of years ago. I thought so much about the stone itself as an archive and how to rep-

Art in Print November – December 2014 15 Everyday and Popular Imagery in the Prints of Lorena Villablanca By Carlos Navarrete

Stories are voices, fragments of life experiences that are reflected in these accounts. —Álvaro Bisama

he woodcuts of Lorena Villablanca T are intuitive, yet unified by certain technical and narrative principles. These have provided a scaffold for the overlap- ping thematic cycles and visual narra- tives of her artistic trajectory. A member of the generation that came of age during Chile’s transition from military dictatorship to democ- racy, Villablanca is a prominent figure in Chilean art. In the late 1980s and early ’90s, many of her peers at the School of Art of the Pontifical Catholic University chose to pursue conceptual practices or to investigate the language of photo- graphy, but Villablanca turned to wood- cut. Over the intervening decades she has continued to exploit the medium’s distinct formal properties, its expressive charge and its connections to popular literary and visual traditions. Through it she has built a vast repertoire of fan- tastic beings, a cast of characters that articulate the quest for local identity Lorena Villablanca, Las Conquistadoras (1995), woodcut, 70 x 70 cm. Courtesy of the artist. within a global reality. Her recent retrospective at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago elu- printing are as singular and expressive as eccentric anatomies and mutant fauna: cidated her development over the course painting—and she will frequently reuse hook-nosed flying lizards, rubber-legged of 20 years through three major series of blocks in new images, building on and demons, pufferfish with human eyes. works: Los Deformes (The Deformed, 1994– altering what came before. Her final works The emotional intensity and strange- 1999), Retratos (Portraits, 2005–2012) and are both unique objects and members ness of the images is heightened by the Logar donde todos conviven (Place where within a long series of working proofs. stark contrasts and brilliant colors dis- everyone coexists, 2005–2013). The early Clear comparisons can be drawn connected from any objective reality and work is roughly gouged and densely between Villablanca’s concerns and work- by compositions in which there is no packed with fragmented and distorted ing methods and those of Gert and Uwe clear indication of the space inhabited. grotesque creatures crowded into a flat Tobias, who similarly employ woodcut In Los Retratados (The Portrayed, 1995), pictorial space; more recently her carv- as a means of generating large, nonedi- trophy heads of deer, angels and mon- ing has grown decorous and her subjects tioned (though often sequential) prints sters in blue, green and orange push and more clearly tied to Chilean history and that occupy the social space of painting. shove within the darkness, while El Sub- iconography. These varied works are For the Tobias brothers as for Villablanca, marino Verde (The Green Submarine, 1995) united by their use of brilliant, flat color; woodcut is used to draw on the birthright is centered on a large, elongated figure, the powerful hand-carved gestures of of a vernacular regional culture (in their winged but vulnerably human, naked and woodcut; and a nonrational gathering case, Transylvania) as well as on formal bright green. together of motifs and images. and stylistic aspects of modern art. The influential Chilean artist Pedro Villablanca does not use woodcut to In the Deformed prints, Villablanca’s Millar discussed this period of Villablan- create formal editions—the inking and arsenal of carved gestures delineates ca’s work in terms of its

16 Art in Print November – December 2014 Lorena Villablanca, Paisaje con Vaca (Landscape with Cow) (2005), woodcut, 70 x 100 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

extreme tension of form, the rever- rendered symptomatic by the symbols borrowings (the central figure of one beration of the imaginative; the capac- of naive art.2 work is a toothy, deranged Donald Duck). ity to establish interactive reactions Her simplified, distorted figures and of form and color, and through them For Villablanca, similarly, woodcut use of woodcut also recall a more region- construct an immense oeuvre, loaded enables her to reach back to the “naive” ally specific literary and pictorial tradi- with inventiveness and meaning, mov- roots of local Chilean culture. The space tion—the weird proportions, monstrous ing and disturbing at the same time. of these prints is the space of dreams, features and quirky air of innocence of A marriage between paradise lost and but it is also the biome of a primitive and 19th- and early 20th-century “Lira Pop- purgatory.1 native South America. At least some of ular.” This peculiarly Chilean form of these creatures have origins in the popu- penny press consisted of large printed In the 1970s Millar had exploited print- lar legends of the southern Chilean coun- sheets that recounted stories and current making to depict discrete objects of every- tryside, which mix Spanish traditions events in ten-line stanzas of poetry, orna- day life and as vehicles of expression within from the colonial era with the mytholo- mented with rough-hewn relief prints. a society under military dictatorship. As gies of the region’s aboriginal peoples. (These were also called “string literature” explained by the poet Enrique Lihn, Mil- Her merger of the quotidian and the for the cords from which they hung in lar’s use of the commonplace and of print fantastic—red bulls, winged mammals, the marketplace.) The poets and the art- and dewy-eyed lovers sprouting anten- ists (often one and the same) were usu- revived the meanings of a popular nae—suggests a visual analogue of the ally anonymous and self-taught, and they craft that, as such, responds to the literary Magic Realism so characteristic drew on oral traditions that stretched extensive, precise limitations of a col- of Latin America, as does the sense of an back to precolonial Spain.3 (In 2013 the lective subject. In connection with embedded narrative that, like mercury, Lira Popular were accepted into UNES- Millar’s work, this must be understood retreats as soon as you try to put your fin- CO’s Memory of the World registry.) as the elaboration of a concrete meta- ger on it. There are stories here, but never Such local stylistic references are language reflecting on the unthinking one story. Instead Villablanca arranges balanced by a clear nod to German images of popular terror and piety, pointers to cross-historical intercultural Expressionism. Jaime Cruz has linked

Art in Print November – December 2014 17 of Chile, who was born in Villablanca’s hometown of Chillán. The artist explains, “I was trying to reflect a certain identity that is characteristic of my home town ... initially with the face of O’Higgins, and then the national coat of arms and the text of our national anthem.”6 O’Higgins appears in his dress uniform and bright epaulets against a tangle of copihue vines (the national flower of Chile) arrayed like untidy wallpaper. His presence is a nexus, linking Villablanca’s contemporary, imaginative graphic vision to historical portraiture on the one hand and to the vivid serial drama of the Lira Popular on the other. El Lugar Donde Todos Conviven (The Place Where They All Coexist) is the most recent body of work and summarizes the many inquiries conducted, and discover- ies made, by the artist over the past 20 years. Trees, vines and longleaf shrubs wrap themselves around Chile’s national crest, around the figure of an actress from the 1950s, around animals in the forest. These woodcuts are her encomium to the botanical kingdom, a metaphor for the interconnectedness of all life. La Planeada (The Planned One, 2005) Lorena Villablanca, Escudo Patrio (National Coat of Arms) (2005), woodcut, 40 x 40 cm. and Convivencia (Coexistence, 2005) con- Courtesy of the artist. jure intricate prospects of pleasure, cap- turing a moment outside any particular time or place where everything is in Villablanca’s woodcuts to those of George of the printed image. The saturated color balance. Beautifully rendered panthers, Grosz and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 4; I is used to reconcile visually worlds that antelopes and horses share space with would add Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and are irreconcilable conceptually. As in all Renaissance putti; the bandy-legged bird- Emil Nolde to that list. Like these earlier Villablanca’s prints, time and place are am- bug flits in and out. artists, Villablanca taps into streams of biguous; it is left to the viewer to deter- As always, the application of strong, imagination and emotion that are uni- mine whether the subjects inhabit a real or unnatural color distances her subjects versal in nature even if local and specific imaginary landscape, the globalized pres- from their origins and binds them to in their mapping. ent or the early days of republican Chile. their new compositional home. Through In the Retratos series this wild irratio- The title of Campo de Flores Bordado woodcut, Villablanca has built a world, at nality has been sublimated in a calmer (Embroidered Field of Flowers, 2006) comes once open-ended and coherent, from fan- visual style. Prints such as Mamá por siem- from the opening stanza of the Chilean tastic animals and national heroes, the pre (Mother Forever, 2001), Escudo Patrio national anthem: folklore of central southern Chile and the (National Coat of Arms, 2005) and Bianca jetsam of European art history. (2001) are built around images borrowed Chile, your sky is a pure blue, The statement by Chilean writer and from magazines and newspapers of the Pure breezes blow across you, literary critic Alvaro Bisama that opens 1970s, rebuilt in flat, unnatural color and And your field, embroidered with this essay came to mind as I considered violently cut forms. Simpler and bolder in flowers, Villablanca’s work. Her prints are voices composition than the earlier work, they Is a happy copy of Eden.5 carved in wood—inventories of quotidian combine the luminosity of pop art and experience loosened from any specific the irreverence of woodcut. Multiple blocks are joined together time, space or architecture. They invite The poetics of these vine-wrapped and repeated, creating a jungle of Chil- us in to discover, amid their many ten- femmes fatales and prancing horses ean botanical specimens, peppered with drils, our own fables for understanding arise from the artist’s deep and personal birds, horses, tiny stick-figure humans the world. attachment to images. They are the result and the odd, bandy-legged, birdlike figure of haphazard rummaging through the that crops up repeatedly in Villablanca’s nooks and crannies of memory, the sum compositions. In the midst of this “happy Carlos Navarrete is a visual artist and art critic of moments from which intimate daily copy of Eden” stands Bernardo O’Higgins based in Santiago, Chile. life is built, now made public by means (1778–1842), the great hero and liberator

18 Art in Print November – December 2014 The Art in Print Prix de Print

Deadline: 15 November 2014

The Prix de Print is a bimonthly, juried competition open to all Art in Print subscribers.

The winning work of art, selected by an outside juror, is given a full-page repro- duction and is discussed in a brief essay. The jurors are artists, curators and other experts in the field.

Who can enter? Anyone with an active subscription to Art in Print can enter. We can accept one submission per subscription per issue. The subscriber can be an artist, publisher, printshop, gallery or other organization.

How do I submit? Send a high-resolution digital image to [email protected], along with docu- mentation of the work* and the email address associated with the subscription in the body of the email. (Do not send PDF attachments.) Details can be found under the “About Us” tab at www.artinprint.org.

Lorena Villablanca, Bernardo O’Higgins (2004), woodcut, 69 x 49 cm. Courtesy of the artist. Deadlines: Deadlines will be the 15th of every odd-numbered month: 15 January, 15 March, 15 May, 15 July, 15 September Puras brisas te cruzan también, Notes: and 15 November. 1. Pedro Millar, “Grabados de Lorena Villablanca.” Y tu campo de flores bordado Catalogue essay for an exhibition by the artist Es la copia feliz del Edén. *Please submit artist’s name, title of at the Gallery of the University of Concepcion, 6. Campo de Flores Bordado was the outcome Chillan Campus, Chile, 1997. of a workshop between Chilean and Argentinean work, year, medium, dimensions, artists and the curator Justo Pastor Mellado, who 2. “Ars Memorandi de Pedro Millar” in Enrique edition size, printer/publisher Lihn, Textos sobre Arte (Santiago: Ediciones Uni- encouraged participants to consider local and information, versidad Diego Portales, 2008), 291. regional identities. Carlos Navarrete in conversa- 3. For a better understanding of this form of poetry tion with the artist, Santiago, Chile, 29 Jan 2014. price and where see: http://www.memoriachilena.cl/602/w3-arti- available. cle-723.html 4. See Jaime Cruz, “A propósito de la obra gráfica PRIX de Lorena Villablanca” in El Lugar donde todos de conviven (The Place Where They All Coexist) PRINT (Concepción, Chile: Pinacoteca de la Universidad de Concepción, 2011), 4–6. Exhibition catalogue. 5. Puro, Chile, es tu cielo azulado,

Art in Print November – December 2014 19 Engraving India in 17th- and 18th-century Europe By Robert J. Del Bontà

nly in the 17th century did Indian O paintings begin to arrive in Europe in some numbers and engravers begin to copy them. These unfamiliar pictures aroused the interest of artists (Mughal miniatures were copied by Rem- brandt and his contemporary Willem Schellinks1) as well as scholars. Mughal rulers were a source of fascination—por- traits of the emperor Jahangir and his son Shah Jahan were reproduced in Samuel Purchas’s Purchas His Pilgrimes (1625)2 and in later books such as Athanasius Kircher’s Monumentis Illustrata (1667).3 But early modern Europeans were also deeply curious about the pantheon of Indian divinities. The early information was largely fanciful: a rooster-footed demon called Deumo, described by Ludovico di Var- thema who visited India between 1503 and 1508, became a popular subject of depiction in the 16th century, appearing in widely dispersed editions of Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia.4 As with many engravings, this figure had a long life and was copied, transformed and reconfig- ured in a wide variety of compositions for centuries. Later, when actual Hindu religious paintings became available, they helped familiarize Europeans with Indian spatial and stylistic conventions, and provided important iconographic markers to assist in the recognition and interpretation of Hindu gods. The most dynamic of these works were paintings of the daśāvatāra of Vishnu, his ten major incarnations, which dramatically conveyed the deity’s complex iconography—one god who has many forms. In the five years between 1667 and 1672, three sets of engravings of Fig. 1. this subject appeared in books published Jacob van Meurs, Matsjas of Matx autaer, d’eerste (Matsya , the first) (1672), copperplate engraving, image 30 x 18, sheet 31 x 20 cm. From Olfert Dapper, of Naukeurige in the Netherlands. beschryving van het rijk des Grooten Mogols, Amsterdam: Jacob van Meurs. Each of these volumes had a slightly different purpose and character. Kircher’s minister Philippus Baldaeus, who unlike it is likely to have been less elaborate than China illustrata, illustrated by an unknown Dapper and Kircher had actually lived the colorful paintings on which the other engraver, included images of the ten incar- and worked in Ceylon and South India, two engravers relied. The texts of the man- nations amid a variety of other information included a section on Hindu gods in his uscripts Decker and van Meurs worked collected by Jesuit missionaries working Description of the East India, Malabar and from both derive from Dutch versions of in China, India, Egypt and Tibet. Olfert Coromandel coasts (1672), with engravings an earlier Portuguese source, and each Dapper, an Amsterdam-based writer and by Coenraet Decker.6 included similar Indian paintings.7 Deck- physician, published his account of Asia Kircher’s engraver employed a simple, er’s source had been collected by a Dutch in 1672, with plates engraved by Jacob schematic style. We do not know the exact East India Company merchant named van Meurs.5 And the Dutch Calvinist source material he was working from, but Philip Angel and is now in the Norber-

20 Art in Print November – December 2014 Fig. 3. Anonymous engraver, Matsya (1668), copperplate engraving, image 16.6 x 10, sheet 37.5 x 25 cm. From Kircherus (Kircher), Athana- sius, Toonneel van China (China Monumentis Illustrata), Jan Hendrik Glazemaker (trans.) Amsterdam: J. Jansson à Waesberge & E. Weyerstraet.

have ten major forms, or avatāras, among them and . Incarnations such as the Buddha, Vishnu’s ninth form, are believed by scholars to have been sub- sumed into this fold as an expression of Vaishnavism’s (devotion to Vishnu) rise, and Buddhism’s fall, on the Subcon- tinent. Representations of the daśāvatāra in art accommodate a diverse range of styles across regions, dates and mediums, all bound by a common iconography that ties the representation to the incarnation and the incarnation to Vishnu. A thorough study of all ten incar- nations in the three Dutch volumes is Fig. 2. Coenraet Decker, Matsya (1672), copperplate engraving, image 21.4 x 17.1, sheet 31 x 19 cm. beyond the scope of this article, but a From Philippus Baldeaus, Afgoderye der Oost-Indisch heydenen (Pt. III of Naauwkeurige comparative examination of the first beschryvinge), Amsterdam: J. Janssonius v. Waasberge & J. v. Someren. two incarnations— Matsya the fish and the tortoise—shows the kinds of tine Abbey in Postel, Belgium. Van Meurs’ chiaroscuro and other effects to make inventions and departures made when model is held in the British Museum. Both them more appealing to European audi- artists trained in one representational sets of works were probably painted shortly ences. Van Meurs was particularly inven- mode and iconographic tradition are before they arrived in Europe, in roughly tive (or less concerned with accurate faced with the task of communicating the mid-17th century. On the basis of style, representation of the original work), information they are struggling to under- Decker’s models are apt to have originated heightening the drama of the narrative stand through a visual language they are in Mewar and van Meurs’ in Golconda. and realism of the depiction through just starting to learn. Very little is known, however, about either light, shadow and scale. Both artists the provenance of these paintings or their nonetheless also attempted to convey the Matsya into European hands.8 original content and to elucidate the sub- The version of the Matsya myth Both Decker and van Meurs trans- ject at hand. recounted in the prints tells of a demon formed the original paintings, adding Hindus consider the god Vishnu to that captures the four , India’s old-

Art in Print November – December 2014 21 Left: Fig. 4. Anonymous artist, from Persian Portraits, Etc. (ca. late 1600s), watercolor with ink and gold on paper, image 21.2 x 16.7 cm, folio 34.5 x 22.7 cm, ©Trustees of the British Museum. Right: Fig. 5. Jacob van Meurs, Kanon (Matsya) (1680), copperplate engraving, image 14 x 17, sheet 34.2 x 20.5 cm. From Arnoldus Montanus, Ambassades Memorables de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales… Amsterdam: Jacob van Meurs. est sacred books, from the god to one side, with the four-headed figure Japan published by Arnoldus Montanus and takes them into the ocean. Mean- of the god Brahma hovering above four in 1669,9 where the subject was mis- while, a great fish (matsya) reveals itself as figures representing the four Vedas on identified as Kannon, the Japanese form Vishnu to Manu, the first man, who has the right. (These positions are reversed of the Chinese goddess Guanyin (Fig. 5). faithfully raised it. When a great flood left-right from the original paintings.) The composition and iconography are hits the earth, Matsya rescues Manu and Brahma appears to be receiving the sacred quite similar to a roughly contemporary many other beings by towing them in a books from Matsya in both Decker and Indian painting of Matsya now housed boat through the waters. At the end of van Meurs. The reproductions, however, at the Berkeley (Fig. 6). In the flood, he slays the demon and recov- contain numerous departures from the the painting, the four crowned Vedas are ers the Vedas. source paintings and misconstrue the seated on a lotus leaf coming out of Vish- Each of the three European authors original iconography. In Indian depic- nu’s navel, but in the Montanus volume, accompanies the engraving of Matsya tions Vishnu typically appears with four they stand in a row at the top of some with some version of this tale. Kircher arms, carrying a lotus, club, discus and stairs to the left. Like the other engrav- tells the story of a goddess and four maids conch; Decker and van Meurs both substi- ings, the demon here emerges from a sea- abducted by a demon but freed when Mat- tute books for the lotus; Kircher mistakes shell, but unlike Kircher, Decker and van sya cuts off the demon’s head; Baldaeus Brahma for a goddess. Van Meurs seems Meurs, who all show him decapitated, and Dapper both recognize that the Vedas, to have misread the four figures repre- Montanus has him worshipping the god. not actual people, have been captured. senting the Vedas in his model, recasting The compositions produced by van them as members of a throng of devotees Kurma Meurs (Fig. 1), Decker (Fig. 2) and Kirch- that fills in the background around the In the story of Kurma, Vishnu’s second er’s artist (Fig. 3) are almost identical, figures of Brahma and the fish. incarnation, the gods make peace with indicating that their sources, though dis- A fourth early engraving of Matsya the demons () so that together they tinct, were quite similar (see van Meurs’ should be noted, this too the work of Jacob can churn the cosmic sea and produce model: (Fig. 4)). Each places the fish avatar van Meurs. It appeared first in a book on the elixir of immortality. They use the

22 Art in Print November – December 2014 serpent Vasuki as a rope and Mount Man- reads his coiffure (which includes the face for his Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses dara as a churning stick, while Vishnu of the river Ganges descending to Earth de tous les peuples du monde.10 Picart’s takes the form of the tortoise Kurma and through his locks) as a hood. prints were particularly influential since offers his shell as a fulcrum. This churn- Van Meurs, who habitually took more his massive work had a wide readership ing reveals a number of treasures, includ- liberties in his copying, has moved the across Europe. Working with Jean Fred- ing the coveted elixir. treasures produced by the churning to eric Bernard, who sorted through the Kircher’s text does not actually address the bottom of the composition to allow available textual sources, Picart com- the Kurma myth; instead, he connects Vishnu, floating on a lotus above, to piled as much imagery as possible for his the image with the early life of another dominate the scene. He also renders the seven-volume set. It appears that he did incarnation, Krishna, labelling the incar- mountain as a waterfall; the original not use the Dapper/van Meurs Vishnu nation Krexno. Baldaeus’ and Dapper’s painting depicts a column-like mountain engravings, although he drew from other texts describe the churning of the sea composed of violet and yellow shapes, a works in the Dapper volume; Picart, who that produces ambrosia; they end their frequently used shorthand in Mughal had experience with actual Indian paint- accounts by attributing the myth to the painting for stone. If, like later authors, ings, may have found van Meurs’ stylis- “banyans” or “gentiles,” common appella- the artist saw the myth as a reflection of tic choices and the addition of so many tions used during the period for the Hin- the biblical Great Flood story, a waterfall Europeanized figures inauthentic.11 dus of modern-day Gujarat. flowing into the ocean would have made By Picart’s time, many more Indian Here again the engravings resemble conceptual sense. paintings had been imported to Europe, one another in composition and follow and he copied a large group of them for the source paintings we know of closely Later Engravings the Indian volume of Henri Châtelain’s (see van Meurs’ model: (Fig. 7). All show Accurate or not, many of these engrav- 1719 Atlas Historique;12 some of these he two demons to one side and two gods to ings endured, were reproduced and were reengraved for his own later publica- the other. One of Kircher’s gods (Fig. 8) occasionally altered over the centuries. tion.13 Most were portraits and depic- possesses a single head that might sug- In the 18th century Bernard Picart cop- tions of ascetic figures. There was little gest Vishnu, though he is already present ied the Kircher engravings (by way of an religious iconography, apart from a single in the scene at the top of the mountain. intervening reproduction for a French figure of Brahma. Decker (Fig. 9) and van Meurs (Fig. 10) fol- edition of a 1670 work by Abraham Roger Picart’s engravings of India were in low their models in depicting one of the that combined all ten into a single large turn copied and transformed to further gods as the four-headed Brahma and the engraving). He also faithfully copied the illustrate India for the European market. other as Shiva, though van Meurs mis- full set of Decker’s images from Baldaeus Thomas Maurice’s History of Hindostan,

Left: Fig. 6. Anonymous artist, Matsyāvatāra, India, Punjab Hills, Basohli (ca. 1690), ink and opaque watercolor on paper, 20 x 19.4 cm. University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Gift of Jean and Francis Marshall, 1998.42.115. Right: Fig. 7. Anonymous artist, from Persian Portraits, Etc. (ca. late 1600s), watercolor with ink and gold on paper, image 21.2 x 17.2 cm, folio 34.5 x 22.7 cm, ©Trustees of the British Museum.

Art in Print November – December 2014 23 Left: Fig. 10. Jacob van Meurs, Kaurans of Kaurmas autaer, de tweede (Kurma avatar, the second) (1672), copperplate engraving, image 29.3 x 18, sheet 31 x 20 cm. From Olfert Dap- per. Right: Fig. 8. Anonymous engraver, Krexno (Kurma) (1668), copperplate engraving, image 16.6 x 10, sheet 37.5x 25 cm. From Kircher.

Jansson à Waesberge & E. Weyerstraet, 1668). Originally published in Latin as China Monumen- tis Illustrata in 1667. Later copies of portraits of Indian rulers became extremely common. In 1672 Olfert Dapper included fanciful depictions of Jah- angir (Lach 1993: fig. 115) plus other members of his family, including his grandson Aurangzeb. Authentic sets spanning the entire Mughal Timurid genealogy from Timur (Tamerlane) to contempo- rary rulers of the 1720s were produced and full sets were engraved in Henri Abraham Châte- lain, Atlas Historique, ou Nouvelle Introduction a l’Histoire..., vol. 5 (Amsterdam: Chez les Freres Chatelains, 1719), and Francois Valentijn, Oud en nieuw Oost-Indien,… (Dordrecht: Joannes van volume 1, of 1795,14 copied nine images conceptual grounding. Equipped with Braam, 1724–1726). Curiously these authentic from the Baldaeus group, probably via Indian artifacts and European tools, they sets made little impact, while the earlier fanciful Picart.15 This time the engravings, along strove not simply to depict the “other” but Dappers were copied often. with the findings of scholars of , to represent a distant way of seeing. 4. Partha Mittar, Much Maligned Monsters: a His- were explicitly employed to link the tory of European Reactions to Indian Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 27. For a dis- myths of Matsya and Kurma to the story Robert J. Del Bontà is an independent scholar cussion of this and related engravings, see also of Noah.16 of South Asian art and culture. Robert J. Del Bontà, “Early European Engravings Maurice offers a case study in the pur- on Indian Themes,” The CSMVS Research Jour- poseful manipulation to which such nal, published by the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj

engravings—originally the product of Notes: Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai, in press. 5. Olfert Dapper, Asia, of Naukeurige beschryv- cross-cultural curiosity and conflicting 1. For further examples, see Pratapaditya Pal et al., Romance of the Taj Mahal (New York: Thames ing van het rijk des Grooten Mogols (Amsterdam: habits of representation—can be sub- and Hudson, 1989), 195–98. Jacob van Meurs, 1672). Published in English jected. The religious bias and cultural 2. See Donald F. Lach and Edwin J. Van Kley, using the original plates in 1673. chauvinism of such later actors have col- Asia in the Making of Europe, Vol. III: A Century 6. Philippus Baldeaus, Afgoderye der Oost-Indisch ored the way we view those first artists of Advance, Book Two: (Chicago: Uni- heydenen (Pt. III of Naauwkeurige beschryvinge) and their attempts to represent India. versity of Chicago Press, 1993), fig. 113. (Amsterdam: J. Janssonius v. Waasberge & J. v. 3. Athanasius Kircherus (Kircher) (in Dutch), Toon- Someren, 1672). Published in English using the They were attempting to translate a neel van China (China Monumentis Illustrata), original plates in 1703. visual idiom for which they had no prior trans. Jan Hendrik Glazemaker (Amsterdam: J. 7. For a discussion of the similarities, see Jarl

24 Art in Print November – December 2014 Fig. 9. Bernard Picart, after Coenraet Decker, Premiere incarnation Seconde incarnation (The First and Second Incarnations of Vishnu) (detail of an engraving of the first four) (1721), copperplate engraving, image 17 x 22, sheet 41.5 x 25.5 cm. From Bernard Picart and Jean Frederic Bernard, Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses des peuples idolatres, Vol. 1. Amsterdam: J. F. Bernard.

Charpentier, “The Brit. Mus. MS. Sloane 3290, with a large group of portraits under the title “Per- but the iconography is clearly Hindu. the Common Source of Baldaeus and Dapper,” sian Portraits, etc.” They were once labelled as 12. Henri Abraham Châtelain, Atlas Historique, Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, Uni- Add. Ms. 5254, but other numbers were later ou Nouvelle Introduction a l’Histoire..., vol. 5 versity of London, vol. 3, no. 3 (1924), 413–420. given to them and this set of ten paintings bears (Amsterdam: Chez les Freres Chatelains, 1719). The models for Decker appear as figs. 2 and 4 the numbers 1974,0617,0.2.58–67. There are later editions. in Carolien Stolte, Philip Angel’s Deex-Autaers: 9. Arnoldus Montanus, Ambassades Memora- 13. R.W. Lightbown, “Oriental art and the Orient Dutch Sources on South Asia c. 1600–1825, bles de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales des in late Renaissance and Baroque Italy,” Journal vol. 5 (New Delhi: Manohar, 2012). The British Provinces Unies, vers les empereurs du Japon… of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 32 Museum acquisition numbers for the paintings (Amsterdam: Jacob van Meurs, 1680). Originally (1969): 228–279. that van Meurs used as models are Matsya: published in Dutch in 1669. 14. Maurice, Thomas, The History of Hindostan, 1974,0617,0.2.58 and Kurma: 1974,0617,0.2.59. 10. Bernard Picart and Jean Frederic Bernard, vol. 1 (London: W. Bulmer and Co., 1795). 8. The source for van Meur’s engravings was Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses des peuples 15. Maurice had the nine Baldaeus/Picart images identified as early as 1924 by Jarl Charpentier, but idolatres, vol. 1 (Amsterdam: J. F. Bernard, 1723). copied, but used a print from a more recent work there was much confusion about the actual paint- Also listed as: Cérémonies et coutumes reli- by Pierre Sonnerat as his model for Krishna. Per- ings he mentions since the text used by Dapper gieuses de tous les peuples du monde…, vol. 3 haps he didn’t understand the complicated com- that had accompanied the paintings had become (Amsterdam: J.F. Bernard, 1723). position for this incarnation seen in the earlier separated from them over time (Charpentier 11. Picart also included four incarnations of Vishnu engravings. 1924). Charpentier discovered that the texts used (Matsya, Kurma, and ) in 16. Also copying from Picart in the 1730s and by Dapper and Baldeaus were versions of the another section of his massive work, the section ’40s was Thomas Salmon’s popular Modern His- same Dutch text that he studied. Knowing that both on Japan. These engravings of Japan were based tory: or, the Present State of all Nations, which text and paintings were in the British Museum, a on Montanus, probably the French edition of was published in various languages (English, few intervening scholars chose the wrong group 1680; one of them is a copy of fig. 5 here. Recent Dutch and Italian). The book copied a selection of of paintings in the museum and presented them scholarship on Picart has not considered these Picart’s own copies of Baldaeus to illustrate sec- as van Meurs’ models (British Museum acquisi- images, perhaps because scholars of Japanese tions on India. In Salmon’s case many of the illus- tion nos. 1940,0713,0.35–44). The paintings we art do not recognize the iconography. They bear trations merely are window dressing; the actual now know to be the actual sources are combined titles that refer to Buddhist deities on the whole, illustrations are not discussed in the text.

Art in Print November – December 2014 25 Navigating Difference, Connecting Seas By Christina Aube

After Ferdinand Verbiest, Kunyu quantu (Complete Map of the World, Eastern hemisphere (ca. 1860). The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2003.PR.63).

he monumental Kunyu quantu augmented with text-filled cartouches core to the exhibition, which included T (Complete Map of the World), a and animal motifs borrowed from earlier more than 150 objects3 produced from 19th-century Korean reproduction of a European prints. A cosmopolitan world the 16th century to the present, and woodcut map designed by the Flemish of knowledge was brought to bear and examined the visual, cultural and eco- Jesuit missionary Ferdinand Verbiest in depicted on a grand scale: each hemi- nomic exchanges arising from mari- 1674 for the Kangxi emperor of China,1 sphere measures approximately five feet time exploration and the motivations featured prominently in the recent Getty in diameter. that underlay them. Prints, transport- Research Institute exhibition “Connect- The product of European carto- able and mass-produced, were particu- ing Seas: A Visual History of Discover- graphic principles and an Asian world- larly critical to the encapsulation and ies and Encounters.”2 Verbiest’s map of view, the Kunyu quantu places the popularization of images about distant the eastern and western hemispheres hemispheres so that China lies at the cen- lands. They transmitted knowledge— drew on almost a century of European– ter of the world. This work, which effec- or fantastic, word-of-mouth accounts Chinese cartography beginning with tively demonstrates that the “foreign” is masquerading as knowledge—to curious Matteo Ricci’s first efforts in 1583, and was a relative concept, offered a conceptual publics.

26 Art in Print November – December 2014 and the most stately in all the east; all the carv’d work being gilt, so that it looks like marble, or any other carv’d stone, the Chinese being wonderful ingenious at shaping their bricks in all sorts of figures.9

The verbal account is concise and informative, yet the visual images prom- ised to transport readers to realms that, though geographically real, were so dis- tant they could almost have been imagi- nary. Gemelli Careri’s work was hugely popular and was described by a contem- porary as a “true relation” in which the author “omitted nothing.”10 Though the images provided crucial support and appeal, there are just 50 illustrations in some 2,500 pages of text. In contrast, the 23 volumes of the Description de l’Égypte (1809–1828), pub- lished a little more than a century later, Porcelain Tower of Nanking, from Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri, Giro del mondo, vol. 4, contain some 900 engraved plates.11 Cina (1699–1700), pl. facing. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2698-167.v4). Geographic inquiry was no longer the province of individual adventurers like Gemelli Careri or dependent on unre- Unsurprisingly, given European domi- European images of distant places liable secondary sources; in France at nance of the seas during the period in frequently included what appear today least it had been institutionalized on question, most of the works on display as bizarre fantasies. The intellectual and a grand scale. Napoleon’s campaign in were made in Europe for European audi- diplomat Giovanni Botero’s inclusion of Egypt (1798–1801) ended in humiliating ences, and their subjects were Asian, Afri- a headless man with a face embedded in failure, but the savants who accompa- can and New World peoples and places. As his torso, supposedly from the wilds of nied the expedition achieved an unprec- charted in the exhibition, European atti- Asia, in Le relationi universali (Universal tudes and approaches ranged from frank Relations, first published 1591–92), drew curiosity in the early modern period, to inspiration from sources originating in the self-consciously “scientific” acquisi- the 13th century.5 Botero himself never tion of data during the Enlightenment, to set foot in Asia. the economic exploitation of colonialism. The Italian adventurer Giovanni Fran- (The exhibition was divided into three cesco Gemelli Careri, however, spent sections, which broke down in large part roughly five years traveling through along chronological lines: “Orienting the Egypt, Turkey, Persia, India, China and World” focused primarily on rare books; the New World.6 His six-volume account, “Expeditions and Exploration” featured Giro del mondo (Tour of the World), pub- large-scale print publishing projects of lished between 1699 and 1700,7 features the late–18th and 19th centuries, and engravings of monuments, geographical “Commerce and Colonialism” included features, flora and peoples. Among its chromolithographs, albumen prints, and compelling images is a detailed depic- photomechanical reproductions produced tion of the 15th-century Porcelain Tower in the late–19th and 20th centuries.) of Nanking (Nanjing) looming above a The Kunyu quantu makes clear the gathered crowd. The related text, which limits of knowledge of even the most trav- appears some 40 pages after the image, elled and learned of individuals, and of describes the building’s impressive height the difficulty of finding reliable sources. and materials:8 Among the animals Verbiest depicted are a Dürer-esque rhinoceros, an ostrich and There were nine stories, as has been a turkey; there is even a unicorn. He drew said; and in the midst of each of them much of his zoological information (and was a work like a pilaster to set several specific images) from Konrad Gesner’s idols about it. At the foot of the tower Historiae Animalium (History of Animals, the wall of it was twelve foot thick, Man from the Wilds of Asia, from Giovanni Botero, Le relationi universali … (1618), 1551–1587), a work that had attempted to and eight and a half above. The struc- n.p. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles distinguish the real from the mythical.4 ture is certainly artificial and strong, (85-B15519).

Art in Print November – December 2014 27 After Jean-Baptiste Lepère, Column from Temple of Hathor at Dendera [Tentyris], from Louis-Jean Allais, Description de l’Égypte; ou, Recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte pendant l’expédition de l’armée française: Antiquités, Planches, vol. 4 (1817), pl. 12. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (83-B7948). edented feat of observing, depicting and time of the expedition, the French artists depth, offering a high-definition experi- cataloguing the country—its ancient necessarily repeated some of the visible ence of the world and facilitating “travel” monuments, landscapes, animals, plants, hieroglyphics—offering a reminder that to distant lands.13 modern life and customs. The scale of meticulousness does not always equate to Published in Paris after a design by their ambition is visible in the physical accuracy. As in Gemelli Careri’s account, the Dutch painter and printmaker Jan size of the publication: the plate volumes image and text joined forces to provide a van Ryne, the bird’s-eye view showed a measure 29 inches high by 40 inches wide fuller sense of the foreign. In the Descrip- colonial cityscape punctuated with trad- when open. Though the project’s direc- tion, however, the plates comprise their ing ships in the foreground—an image tor, Nicolas-Jacques Conté, invented a own separate volumes.12 not just of a busy port but of the strength machine that made it possible to engrave The Description de l’Égypte stands as of the . Dutch large areas such as skies in a matter of a remarkable monument to the human presence and power is at the heart of this days rather than months, some of the aspiration to know and understand the image, embedded in the gridded streets folios took years to produce. world that is also present in the Kunyu and canals of the walled city, and in the The spectacular color etching and quantu. But that desire to know was rarely inscribed title, View of the Island and the engraving of the column from the Temple detached from an equally strong desire to City of Batavia Belonging to the Dutch for of Hathor at Dendera (Tentyris) engraved control: the primary purpose of Napo- the India Company.14 by Louis-Jean Allais after a design by leon’s Egyptian adventure was conquest. Unlike Verbiest’s cartographic vision, Jean-Baptiste Lepère invites comparison Two works in the final section revealed Gemelli Careri’s adventurous reporting with Gemelli Careri’s Porcelain Tower. implicit power relationships between or the French attempt to catalogue all of The attention to detail evidenced by the the center and the periphery. The first, Egypt, the focus here is not on the indig- meticulous rendering of hieroglyphics a hand-colored, engraved vue d’optique enous mysteries of the foreign, but on outstrips any of the illustrations in the of Batavia (present-day ) made in Dutch occupation. This shift of attention Giro del mondo, which provided a general the mid–18th century was designed to away from curiosity about the exotic and sense of structures and lands, not precise be seen through a zograscope, an opti- toward utilitarian exploitation was even elevations. Yet because the columns of the cal device that intensified the colors and more explicit in the exhibition’s display portico were largely buried in sand at the heightened the sense of perspective and of colorful, lithographic board games.

28 Art in Print November – December 2014 Left: Zograscope (ca. 1750), wood (walnut) and glass. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (93.R.118). Right: After Jan van Ryne, Island City of Batavia from Daumont (ca. 1750). The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (P970012).

The mid-20th century Jeu des échanges: observations et des recherches qui ont été faites Notes: en Égypte pendant l’expédition de l’armée fran- France-Colonies (Trading Game: France- 1. Impressions of Verbiest’s 1674 map are held çaise (Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1809–28). The Colonies, 1941), encouraged children to in the Library of Congress, Washington D.C., and publication is divided into three sections: Antiq- the Hunterian Museum. The woodblocks for the plant their nation’s flag on colonial soil, uités, Histoire naturelle, and État moderne, and Korean version still exist. On the Kunyu quantu, establish a foothold and export natural comprised of text and plate volumes. see Gang Song and Paola Demattè, “Mapping resources—rice from Laos, wild animals 12. Ibid. The column appears in Antiquités, an Acentric World: Ferdinand Verbiest’s Kunyu Planches, vol. 4 (Paris, 1817). from Dahomey, palm oil from the Ivory Quantu,” in China on Paper: European and Chi- 13. A walnut zograscope appeared in the exhibi- Coast—back to the mother country.15 nese Works from the Late Sixteenth to the Early tion below the engraving. Nineteenth Century, ed. Marcia Reed and Paola The array of continents at the center of 14. On the history of Batavia, see Jean Gelman Demattè (Los Angeles: The Getty Research Insti- the game board reflects fairly closely that Taylor, The Social World of Batavia: Europeans tute, 2007), 71–87. in Verbiest’s Kunyu quantu almost three and Eurasians in Colonial Indonesia, 2nd edition 2. Curated by Peter Bonfitto, David Brafman, (Madison, WI: University of Press, centuries earlier, with one important Louis Marchesano, Isotta Poggi, Kim Richter and 2009). difference: Verbiest pictured the eastern Frances Terpak, the exhibition ran from 7 Dec 15. On this game, see Isotta Poggi, “Color- hemisphere on the left side of the bipar- 2013–13 April 2014. ful Board Game Turns the French Colonies into 3. The exhibition featured illustrated books, loose tite image, allowing the easternmost part Child’s Play,” The Getty Iris, 24 Feb 2014, http:// prints and photographs, navigational instruments, of the Eurasian landmass—China—to blogs.getty.edu/iris/colorful-board-game-turns- optical devices, and blue-and-white porcelain. the-french-colonies-into-childs-play/. appear near the center of the world; the 4. Song and Demattè, “Mapping an Acentric French game, like most contemporary World,” 76–77. maps, locates the eastern hemisphere on 5. “Connecting Seas” drew a comparison between the right, with France and its West Afri- the headless figure in Botero’s Relationi and a can colonies at the center. similar figure depicted in a 16th-century Azer- The prints exhibited in “Connecting baijani manuscript reproducing depictions of for- eign lands by the Baghdad scientist Abu Yahya Seas” tell us as much about their audi- Zakariya ibn Muhammad al-Qazwini (1203–83). ences and makers as they do about their 6. While most long-distance travel was conducted ostensible subjects. under the auspices of church or other institutional sponsorship, Gemelli Careri is believed to have initiated and financed the trip on his own. 7. Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri, Giro del Christina Aube is a curatorial assistant at the mondo, 6 vols. (Naples: Giuseppe Roselli, 1699– Getty Research Institute. Her research interests 1700). Volumes are subtitled Turchia (1), Per- include early modern prints and illustrated books sia (2), Indostan (3), Cina (4), Filippine (5), and and the history of printmaking and collecting. Nuova Spagna (6). 8. Gemelli Careri, Giro del mondo, 4:90–92. 9. A Voyage Round the World, by Dr. John Fran- cis Gemelli Careri, in A Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. 4 (London: H. C., 1704), 310. 10. Ibid. See “The Preface,” n.p. 11. Description de l’Égypte; ou, Recueil des

Art in Print November – December 2014 29 Defenders of the Floating World By Andrew Saluti

dozen, places videogame characters of the past 40 years in the stylistic world of Edo-period Japan through hand-cut and -printed woodblocks, published like their forebears in inexpensive, unlimited edi- tions, and distributed (unlike their fore- bears) through the Internet. The appearance of these old friends— Mario, Link and the robotic Mega Man, complete with his forearm cannon—in this unexpected setting can delight the inner nerd of viewers whose youth was spent glued to a home gaming system or pumping quarters into a video game console. Ukiyo-e Heroes pays homage to Japanese influence on the visual design of videogames as well as to the traditions of Japanese woodblocks. It also resurrects an essential characteristic of those earlier prints that has been often overlooked in celebrating Ukiyo-e artistry—their origi- nal appeal as totems of mass-market entertainment. Ukiyo-e translates as “pictures of the floating world” and the genre flourished with the rise of urban, mercantile life in the Edo (1615–1867) and Meiji (1868–1912) periods. The prints were popular and populist works of mass-produced art, depicting beautiful courtesans, Kabuki actors, romantic sagas and famous land- scapes. Their production was an overtly commercial enterprise: publishers com- missioned and financed the work, artists designed the images, carvers translated those designs into matrices, and printers inked, registered and hand-printed each block of the intricate, multicolor com- positions. The aristocracy may have ignored such Jed Henry, Rickshaw Cart (2011), color woodblock print, 9 x 7 inches. Mokuhankan Woodblock material as crude, cheap and unoriginal, Prints, Tokyo. Courtesy of the artist. but it appealed to a growing merchant class, described by Lawrence Bickford as a he small woodblock print Rick- the shelled villain resembles Mario’s “remarkably lively, hedonistic, and fatal- Tshaw Cart (2011) might at first glance , Bowser, and the runners recall istic lot who lived for the moment, loved be mistaken for a fresh reissue of a 19th- the sidekick Toad and a Koopa Troopa. their pleasures and entertainments, and century Ukiyo-e pictorial melodrama, Indeed, the cartouche at the top spells out craved souvenirs thereof.”1 given its strong diagonal composition, “Mario” while one at the bottom reads Ukiyo-e Heroes are similarly souve- tipped-up perspective, eloquent black “Beloved friends, dear rivals.” nirs of a popular public amusement, and outline and luminous blocks of color, not The joint creation of American are also produced in unlimited editions to mention the grimacing hero and fan- illustrator Jed Henry and Tokyo-based through a clear division of labor: the tastic demon in their racing rickshaws. mokuhanga master printer David Bull, images are designed by Henry, carved On closer view, however, the musta- Rickshaw Cart is the first of their ongo- by Bull and printed on Echizen Hosho chioed figure looks eerily like the video- ing series, Ukiyo-e Heroes. Each of the Washi2 paper. game plumber-turned-hero Mario, while prints, which now number more than a Prints such as Infestation, in which the

30 Art in Print November – December 2014 Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre (ca.1844) color woodblock print, 14 3/4 x 9 1/8 inches each. Collection of the British Museum. heroine Samus (from Nintendo’s science- a gamer and a larger-than-life-antagonist who may have been pulled in by the gam- fiction game Metroid) battles swarming who must be vanquished to move on to the ing iconography but stay to learn about jellyfish-like alien creatures, wed the next level of play). mokuhanga. To date, more than 8,000 dynamic design and delicate physicality Bull, who is English, was working as a impressions have been sold.7 of antique Japanese prints to the visual computer programmer in Toronto in 1980 The popular response should not be culture of one of contemporary Japan’s when he was first captivated by Ukiyo-e. surprising: video game culture now spans most influential exports, the video game. Six years later he moved with his family two generations and has grown expo- For many young players, the video to Japan to learn mokuhanga technique nentially in the size of its community, games and home gaming systems that largely through self-study, copying the the sophistication of its technology and boomed in the 1980s constituted their masters while teaching English to make range of experiences it provides. The iso- first exposure to aspects of Japanese ends meet. In 1989 he undertook the ambi- lated manipulation of joysticks in arcades visual style, much like manga and anime3 tious project of reproducing the 18th-cen- or basement rec rooms has given way to do for younger audiences today. Henry, a tury Hyakunin Isshu (One Hundred Poems online community tournaments and children’s book illustrator with a degree from One Hundred Poets) of Katsukawa multiplayer experiences. And while early in computer animation, cites game Shunsho. It took ten years to complete, but games were designed for teenage boys, designer Yoshitaka Amano as an early its success established his reputation and today 68 percent of gamers are adults and artistic influence.4 Amano was responsi- enabled Bull to devote himself full-time to 45 percent are women.8 Gaming has infil- ble for Nintendo’s Final Fantasy as well as block cutting and printing. trated mainstream culture in innumer- the original 1967 anime version of Speed In 2010, Henry contacted Bull about able ways, from educational strategies to Racer, and Henry used to draw from the the idea of merging contemporary video- job recruitment tools, to the profusion game instruction manuals as a child. This game subject matter with traditional of terms like “game over.” In the past few eventually led him to a broader inter- print techniques and Ukiyo-e stylistic years there has been increasing recogni- est in Japanese visual culture, extending conceits. Bull translated the Rickshaw tion of videogame design in the context back to those woodcut compositions of Cart drawing into a 16-block impression of art, most notably in the Smithson- arched bridges and graceful geishas that, in the small koban format,6 and in 2012 ian’s 2012 exhibition, “The Art of Video for many Westerners, remain essentialist they launched Ukiyo-e Heroes on the Games.”9 exemplars of Japan. crowd-source funding site Kickstarter, Mokuhanga print techniques have, Henry observes that prints such as the linking the prints to support of Bull’s similarly, spread far beyond their original Kuniyoshi triptych Takiyaha the Witch workshop. They reached their original domains. Ukiyo-e aesthetics and tech- and the Skeleton Spectre (ca. 1844) can be goal of $10,200 (the cost of producing the niques have been adopted and adapted seen as aesthetic precursors of Japanese first print) on the first day and eventually by Western artists since the first waves of gaming design.5 The drama between the raised more than $313,000 before leav- 19th-century Japonisme. The Shin Hanga looming skeleton and the intrepid heroes ing Kickstarter. On their own website, movement of the first half of the 20th resembles, he says, “an end-of-level boss videos detailing the production of each century involved both Japanese and West- fight” (the culminating challenge between print illuminate the process for viewers ern artists and melded nostalgic Ukiyo-e

Art in Print November – December 2014 31 Left: Jed Henry, Infestation (2011), color woodblock print, 9 x 7 inches. Mokuhankan Woodblock Prints, Tokyo. Courtesy of the artist. Right: Jed Henry, Fox Moon (2012), color woodblock print, 9 x 7 inches. Mokuhankan Woodblock Prints, Tokyo. Courtesy of the artist.

qualities with more contemporary com- material presence, inviting a community www.kickstarter.com/projects/1499165518/ukiyo- positional structures. Prints such as rooted in virtual existence to engage with e-heroes Yoshida Hiroshi’s Grand Canyon (1925) tangible objects. The prints—visually 6. Japanese paper sizes can vary with manufac- dynamic, funny, and reverent about both turer. This print measures 9 x 7 inches. exhibited a broader palette and a larger 7. Jed Henry, email interview, 9 Sept 2014. scope of subject matter, aiming for a more sets of sources—may be regarded as low- 8. “Transformation of the Video Game Industry,” global audience. More recently, Crown tech ephemera or as part of a continuum http://www.theesa.com/games-improving-what- Point Press began taking American and stretching back to the masterpieces of matters/transformation.asp. Accessed 3 Oct 2014. European artists to Japan in 1982 to work Hokusai and Hiroshige. Ukiyo-e Heroes 9. The show will be traveling through 2016. with master woodblock printers, kick- reminds us that those prints were also ing off a widespread interest in Japanese once low-tech ephemera. woodblock. (who worked with Crown Point and with Yasu Shibata) and Neil Welliver (working with Shi- Andrew Saluti is assistant director and a curator gemitsu Tsukaguchi) are just two of many at the Art Galleries. who have worked closely with Japanese master printers. Meanwhile thousands of artists around the world pursue moku- Notes: hanga technique on their own [see April 1. Bickford, Lawrence, “Ukiyo-e Print History,” Vollmer’s article, Art in Print, Jul–Aug Impressions, no. 17 (Summer 1993), Japanese Art Society of America. http://www.jstor.org/sta- 2012]. ble/42597774 Ukiyo-e Heroes represents a natural evo- 2. The paper is made by Iwano Ichibei IX, who has lution of these trajectories. The gaming been designated a national living treasure of Japan. world, like the floating world, is one of lim- 3. Animated Japanese cartoons and graphic novels. itless (if virtual) pleasures, a place of ad- 4. “Artist Focus: Jed Henry,” On the Level Gam- venture and simulation where players can ing, 5 Aug 2012. http://www.otlgaming.com/ post/28772387090/artist-focus-jed-henry-this- become anyone and do anything. Henry week-we-have-a-very and Bull offer a bridge to both history and 5. “Ukiyo-e Heroes” Kickstarter video, https://

32 Art in Print November – December 2014

Prix de Print No. 8 PRIX de Cartier Window by Stella Ebner PRINT Juried by Faye Hirsch

This iteration of the Art in Print Prix de Visiting the artist’s website, we dis- thought to myself, “Gee, this is similar to Print has been judged by print scholar cover that the print is part of a new series work I have seen by Stella Ebner. Is this Faye Hirsch. The Prix de Print is a (designated “Coming soon . . . ”) consist- way of creating screenprint, with effects bimonthly competition, open to all sub- ing of nine screenprints. One of these like Ukiyo-e woodcut, gaining traction scribers, in which a single work is selected presents an awards ceremony in which a among printmakers? Is it right to select by an outside juror to be the subject of a woman is receiving a trophy from a man it feeling that the artist might be copying brief essay. For further information on in a suit. The figures’ heads and shoulders her style?” In the end, I couldn’t resist its entering the Prix de Print, please go to are cut off like the Cartier logo, and our seductions—and of course it wound up our website: www.artinprint.org/index.php/ viewpoint is from way below, as if we are being by Ebner. So, for this Prix, selected about#competitions. members of a press corps below the stage. in all fairness, I overcame a certain ethi- The shiny trophy is obscured by the blind- cal ambivalence to indulge my sheer plea- Stella Ebner, Cartier Window (2014) ing reflections of camera flashes, and the sure in the winner. And, as it turns out, I Screenprint, 25 x 36 inches. Edition of 5. only object in full view is a large bouquet was able to speak with the artist directly Printed and published by the artist, New of flowers to the left of the action—again, about her process. York, NY. $1,600. seen from below, not unlike the famous Having grown tired of the lengthy still life by Caravaggio. Among the other time required by woodcut, the effects prints in the series is a darkened, unin- of which she loves, Ebner has developed habited interior of a Japanese restaurant, a method of making screenprints that efore us is a shop window with a its only decoration a brightly lit screen produces the painterly effects and oddi- B jewelry display. To either side, fes- decorated with the reproduction of an ties of registration that can happen in the toons of pine or tinsel hint at Christmas. Ukiyo-e woodcut. In another, a man in Ukiyo-e manner. I asked her how many Above is the brand: a logo unmistakably shorts with his head cropped off lies on a colors she used for Cartier Window, and readable as Cartier, despite its being cut sofa near a coffee table on which a partly she responded by showing me 36 Mylars, off at the top. Like any fancy Christmas finished jigsaw puzzle depicts Van Gogh’s each a different size or shape, each repre- window on Madison, this one includes a Starry Night. For its part, Cartier Window senting a different layer of the print. She gimmick: a video, one presumes, of snow brings to mind early lithographs by James reuses colors, but in layering them (in a leopards—tinged with pink, like a glacier Rosenquist or works in various medi- way reminiscent of woodblock painting) under a winter sun—bounding through ums by Wayne Thiebaud—especially his she creates varying densities of transpar- an ice-blue background. Whether belong- woodcuts of a cake and candy apples pro- ency or opacity, subtly altering her hues ing to several leopards, or just one, the duced in the 1980s at Crown Point Press in the process and creating a color-based swiveling profiles at the left and the in Kyoto with Tadashi Toda, a master of sense of depth. Thus, in Cartier Window, cropped, bounding pose of the creature in Ukiyo-e. the leopards do indeed appear one in front suggest startled motion. Turquoise I must continue this Prix with a dis- front of another. And throughout the and violet shadows enhance the fluidity claimer. I am a colleague of Ebner’s at print, we feel a dramatic recession into of the leopard action, as slightly off-reg- Purchase College, where we both teach. I pools of color, even as the image remains ister shadows and cartoonlike sparkles had no idea, however, that she had made fundamentally flat. give the jewels before them vivacity and Cartier Window when I saw it among Ebner pays homage to numerous art allure. the blind entries. Call me stupid, but I historical sources, but there is something

34 Art in Print November – December 2014 Stella Ebner, Cartier Window (2014). Detail below.

quite contemporary in these scenes—all combining, the artist informs me, the flawed memory of real things seen and pure invention. Their contemporaneity lies in their focus on modest spectacles: low-level awards ceremonies; high-school sports events; historical reenactments; the ads and milieux of consumer culture. In every print, we are asked to question the way we receive images—the second- ary, tertiary or umpteenth-iary ways they are delivered to us. That message of com- promised origins feels especially appro- priate to the medium of prints, even as the handwrought quality of Ebner’s ver- sions provides a delicious palliative to our relentless, lens-based culture and its phantom effects.

Faye Hirsch is Editor at Large at Art in America, and teaches in the MFA program at SUNY Purchase.

Art in Print November – December 2014 35 EXHIBITION REVIEW The Rake’s Progress By Julia Beaumont-Jones

David Hockney, Myself and My Heroes (1961), etching in black with aquatint, 10 1/4 x 19 3/4 inches. Edition of 50 (approximately). ©David Hockney.

“Hockney, Printmaker” lithograph Self-Portrait (1954). This retro- eminence as one of Britain’s most cel- Dulwich Picture Gallery, London spective of some of David Hockney’s ebrated artists, they felt something was 5 February – 11 May 2014 most personal, playful and eloquent missing. The provocative wit and swagger Bowes Museum, County Durham works seems to have satisfied the critics’ of his youth appeared to have been sup- 7 June – 28 September 2014 desire to revisit the autobiographical and planted in later life by simplistic pastoral graphic elements the artist neglected in visions. Some critics hankered after the Hockney, Printmaker his recent Yorkshire landscapes. Those self-mythology and Los Angeles glamor By Richard Lloyd oil paintings, multicamera films and of Hockney’s most famous figurative 160 pages, 130 color illustrations iPad drawings, vivid and voluminous, works, while others mourned the intui- Published by Scala Arts & Heritage were showcased in “David Hockney RA: tive sophistication of his earlier drafts- Publishers Ltd, London, 2014 A Bigger Picture” at the Royal Academy manship.2 £25 / $39.95 of Arts and other venues in 2012–13. The “Hockney, Printmaker” presented curators positioned these works as ambi- more than one hundred works, from his he exhibition “Hockney, Print- tious sequels to the artist’s investigations teenage experiments at Bradford School Tmaker,” shown in two British loca- in Polaroid, photocollage, fax and video.1 of Art to his mature collaborative work- tions this year, marked the 60th anni- Yet while critics doffed their caps to his shop projects. This extensive survey of versary of the artist’s first print, the lifetime of restless reinvention and his etchings, lithographs, “homemade” fax

36 Art in Print November – December 2014 prints and inkjet computer drawings established the graphic work, often over- looked, as an inventive, important ele- ment of the artist’s oeuvre, belying his modest assertion: “I am not a printmaker. I’m a painter who makes a few prints.”3 While it is true Hockney took up print- making when a student as a secondary practice to painting, in its considerable quantity, subject matter, experimen- tal range and stylistic synthesis over time, this oeuvre clearly reflects a seri- ous commitment to the medium. As the exhibition revealed, Hockney has been anything but a dilettante printmaker.4 The show, arranged broadly chrono- logically and by medium, was divided into two main areas: etching, and lithog- raphy and other media. This scheme addressed Hockney’s prints within the traditional designations of disegno and colore, in which the lyrical etched line was employed for drawn, narrative sub- jects, while vibrant, saturated hues were used to create atmospheric, sometimes David Hockney, Afternoon Swimming (1980), lithograph, 31 3/4 x 39 1/2 inches. Edition of 55. painterly effects. Illustrations for Fourteen ©David Hockney / Tyler Graphics Ltd. Poems from C.P. Cavafy (etchings with aquatint, 1966) and The Weather Series that constitute some of his first works in 1735, is Hockney’s most explicit refer- (six lithographs with screenprint in col- the medium. Myself and My Heroes (1961) ence to the history of printmaking. He ors, 1973) exemplify these two extremes, shows the insecure young artist paying took the titles of Hogarth’s plates as his with precise outline on the one hand homage to Walt Whitman and Mahatma starting point but updated the story as an and limpid tusche washes on the other Gandhi, crowned with halos. In The Fires autobiographical tale of his adventures (see, for example, Rain, from The Weather of Furious Desire (1961) Hockney draws in in 1961 and extended it Series). This curatorial model engaged on William Blake’s poem “O Flames of to 16 plates. The appeal of the Hogarth the viewer in the expressive distinctions Furious Desire” as he explores sexual prints lay in the notion of “telling a story Hockney makes between different print yearning—his head enveloped in flames, just visually,” as Hockney put it, adding techniques and the ways he tests their he imagines a vision of love: two shad- that “Hogarth’s story has no words, it’s formal boundaries. It revealed most com- owy figures representing himself and his a graphic tale. You have to interpret it pellingly his sensitive and sophisticated lover holding hands. A charming naïveté all.”6 Hockney employs numerous meth- understanding of techniques, his aware- suggested by the lively art brut drawing ods on the etching plate and in the over- ness of their capacities and limitations, style is also found in his paintings of the all composition to tantalize the eye and and his interest in their art-historical period. But while the painted line seems guide the viewer through each episode. legacies. As Craig Hartley has observed, fluid and considered, the scratchy line of In The Arrival (plate 1) and The Wallet “His techniques are inextricably linked to the prints creates a more vivid sense of Begins to Empty (plate 6A), hard, rapidly meaning. Most of his pictures are about immediacy. This might also account for drawn etching lines delineate figures in picture-making, and many of his prints the more successful narrative quality of motion, while softer, nuanced flourishes are about printmaking. They were made the early prints over the paintings; the of aquatint indicate solid structures for a knowing audience: an audience vigor of the drawn line commands a sense and changes of mood. Variations in bit- knowing the techniques.”5 This focus on of movement while its blackness asserts ing give subtle tonality to static objects technique draws us into Hockney’s own permanence and authorial weight. The like the plant in Receiving the Inheritance discourse on printmaking, establish- graffiti-like inscriptions further define (plate 1A). Bold patches and strokes of red ing the exhibition as a historiography as these inky images as stories of sorts. aquatint amplify the emotional energy much as a survey. Indeed, they mark the beginning of the of otherwise monochrome scenes: in The etchings Hockney made as a “graphic tales” Hockney would pursue The Gospel Singing (Good People) Madison student at the Royal College of Art through the 1960s, among them A Rake’s Square Garden, a splotchy red cloud shape between 1961 and 1963, with their crude Progress (1961–63), Illustrations for Fourteen hovers above the worshippers like a heav- hard-ground lines and smudgy aqua- Poems from C.P. Cavafy (1966) and Illustra- enly presence, while in Cast Aside (plate tint markings, reveal his early interest tions for Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers 7A), a similar blood-red form reinforces in the spontaneity of drawing directly Grimm (1969), all shown in complete sets. the sense of peril as the artist is fed to a onto the plate. The exhibition began A Rake’s Progress, based on Hogarth’s monster. with the witty autobiographical images famous series of eight engravings from A Rake’s Progress is celebrated as the

Art in Print November – December 2014 37 artist’s most directly narrative subject. Working as a student with limited tech- nical assistance, Hockney rejected the technical complexity of multicolor etch- ing, preferring the simplicity of inking the plate just once.7 He also valued the clarity of the etched line: “All the early etchings deal with line, and somehow the line telling the story seemed appealing, whereas in the paintings you get involved with other things, the paint, the texture, and narrative is harder to deal with.”8 The Illustrations for Fourteen Poems from C.P. Cavafy are good examples of this principle: the coupled figures, drawn from life with spare etched lines, are set against predominantly white backgrounds with barely a suggestion of further defini- tion. Only two images indicate Cavafy’s Alexandrian setting. Hockney’s narrative series emulate the intaglio language of the popular British satirical prints of the 18th and 19th centuries, exploiting the con- straints of line and tone. While Hockney continued to regard etching as a primarily linear discipline, over time he expanded his use of the tex- tural, tonal and eventually color techiques offered by the medium. His Illustrations for Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm, published in 1970 in both book and port- folio editions, remains one of his most ambitious printmaking projects. Increas- ingly sophisticated handling of his sub- jects is evident in prints such as The Pot Boiling from Fundevogel (Foundling-Bird), where a pan of bubbling water is depicted through hard-ground crosshatching to suggest the solidity of metal and various aquatint bites to describe the volume and heat of the liquid. Similarly, the contrast- ing textures of limp straw and solid gold in Straw on the Left, Gold on the Right from David Hockney, Rain on the Studio Window from My Yorkshire Deluxe Edition (2009), inkjet printed Rumpelstiltskin are evoked by soft-ground computer drawing on paper, 22 x 17 inches. Edition of 75. ©David Hockney. Photo: Richard Schmidt. and hard-ground etched lines. Hockney had been introduced to soft-ground etch- ing through the printer Maurice Payne, detailed celebrations of the characters’ of Picasso in Artist and Model (1973–74) but his crosshatching was inspired by idiosyncrasies, and lure us into those was his first successful experiment with the prints of Giorgio Morandi.9 In obvi- strange fairytale territories. sugar-lift, the master’s trademark tech- ous homage to the Italian artist, Hockney Hockney’s collaboration with Aldo nique. The color-printing methods, how- employed it in A Black Cat Leaping from Crommelynck elevated his etching to an ever, effected the greatest change in The Boy Who Left Home to Learn to Fear altogether new level: “I learned more in Hockney’s etching. Crommelynck had as an effective middle ground for posi- three months about etching than in all invented for Picasso (too late for him to tioning light or dark figures; in A Wooded the years I’d been doing it,” he recalls. “I adopt it) a system for precisely registering Landscape from Fundevogel for building discovered many, many techniques that each plate with a wooden frame, giving form, mass and shadow; and in numer- I just hadn’t been able to do before.”10 the artist free rein to draw directly onto ous works to achieve deeper blacks than Hockney had an enduring fascination the matrix, using multiple color separa- aquatint alone provided.9 The prints with Picasso, with whom Crommelynck tions with ease. In Contrejour in the French present fragments from the stories, had worked, and in 1973 began an etch- Style (1974), Hockney fully exploited the rather than full narratives—the composi- ing with Crommelynck in memory of method, using eight colors applied with tions are highly distilled and exquisitely Picasso. Hockney’s painterly treatment three plates. All these discoveries were

38 Art in Print November – December 2014 synthesized in The Blue Guitar (1976–77), “other media.” Moving Focus (1984–85), Notes: Hockney’s 20-etching tribute to Picasso. a series of 29 large portraits, still lifes 1. “David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture,” Royal Inspired by poet Wallace Stevens’ belief and domestic interiors, was perhaps Academy of Arts, London, 21 Jan 2012–4 Feb 2013; in the power of art to transform real- Hockney’s most ambitious collabora- Guggenheim Bilbao, 15 May–30 Sept 2012; Museum ity, Hockney draws an analogy between tion with Tyler. For Hotel Acatlan: Second Ludwig, Cologne, 27 Oct 2012–3 Feb 2013. printmaking and poetry as imaginative Day (1984–85), Hockney sketched with 2. Alastair Sooke in “David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, Royal Academy of Arts Review,” The forms of art, each with its own possibili- inks and crayons on layers of transpar- Daily Telegraph, 16 Jan 2012, wrote: “You would ties for interpreting the world. The print ent Mylar—each of which would become be forgiven for asking: what happened? After Etching is the Subject is titled in reference a different color plate—so he could see all, Hockney is best known as the raunchy Cali- to Stevens’ line, “poetry is the subject of how the plates would combine to create fornian sensualist who painted sun-kissed boys the poem.” The Blue Guitar is ultimately the whole. Altogether the prints of Mov- gliding through the azure swimming pools of Los about etching itself and lays bare Hock- ing Focus involved more than 500 colors, Angeles in the Sixties. And yet here he presents himself as a modest pastoralist, content to hymn ney’s stylistic concerns as informed by hand-painted sculptural frames and vari- the bounty of nature with quiet exultation—danc- Picasso’s methods and motifs. ous combinations of lithography, etching, ing, like Wordsworth, among the daffodils ... The Color dominated the second section screenprinting and collage; the studio, radical has come over all conservative.” http:// of the exhibition, mainly through litho- Hockney observed, offered “something www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturevideo/art- graphs. Many of these were made with you couldn’t do on your own—something video/9018846/David-Hockney-A-Bigger-Picture- at-the-Royal-Academy-video-tour.html; Laura 14 master printer Ken Tyler, first at Gemini you don’t even know about.” Cumming in “David Hockney: A Bigger Picture GEL in Los Angeles and subsequently at In contrast to such grand scale, the Review, Royal Academy, London,” The Observer, Tyler Workshop and Tyler Graphics out- small series of homemade fax prints, pro- 22 Jan 2012 said that: “Hockney is justly admired, side New York. Tyler’s sensitivity to the duced soon after, in 1986, are intriguingly not to say adored, for his pictorial ingenuity, his gestural styles of painters, his conviction modest objects, made without techni- superlative draughtsmanship, his deft and witty inventions ... This is the first Hockney show I have that prints can be as painterly as paintings cal assistance. They point to the artist’s seen that appeared completely in earnest.” http:// and produced on a comparable scale, and attempt to reclaim control of his own www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jan/22/ his joy in experimenting with inks and image-making, rather in the manner of david-hockney-bigger-picture-review; and Brian color find clear expression in the swim- his recent prints created with iPhones, Sewell in “David Hockney, RA: A Bigger Picture, ming-pool subjects made with Hockney iPads and inkjet printers. Surprisingly, Royal Academy—Review,” Evening Standard, 19 Jan 2012, reminisced nostalgically: “There was beginning in 1967.11 These lithographs only two digital prints were included in a time in the 1970s when I thought him one of mark a departure from his draftsman- this otherwise broad survey. Hockney the best draughtsmen of the 20th century, won- ship-printmaker concern with line, and himself has classified them as “computer derfully skilful, observant, subtle, sympathetic, a transition to the role of painter-print- drawings,” suggesting he thinks of them spare, every touch of pencil, pen or crayon essen- maker, interested in emulating in print as something other than printmaking. tial to the evocation of the subject, whether it be the vibrant painterly effects of his works Nonetheless, the digital print Rain on the a portrait or light flooding a sparse room.” http:// www.standard.co.uk/goingout/exhibitions/david- on canvas. Rather than being translations Studio Window (2009) made for an elo- hockney-ra-a-bigger-picture-royal-academy--re- of paintings, for example A Bigger Splash quent reprise of his lifelong interest in view-7439570.html (1967) and Portrait of an Artist (Pool with the depiction of water. 3. Nikos Stangos, ed., David Hockney by David Two Figures, 1972), these are new composi- “Hockney, Printmaker” not only deliv- Hockney: My Early Years (London: Thames & tions that take lithography to an expres- ered a vast quantity of diverse material, it Hudson, 1976), 294. 4. Ibid., 34, 64. sive level above that of the works on intelligently addressed the artist’s chief 5. Craig Hartley, “David Hockney: Printmaking canvas. The challenge of depicting water, concerns as a printmaker. It offered a use- and Technique—I,” Print Quarterly 5, no. 3 (Sep- its reflections, colors and ripples led to the ful reminder that many of Hockney’s tember 1988): 242. experimental paper-pulp works, 95 Paper most celebrated early works—A Rake’s 6. Stangos, David Hockney, 91. Pools (1978), which Hockney described as Progress, the Cavafy illustrations, Six 7. Ibid., 91–92. 8. Marco Livingstone, David Hockney (London: “like paintings.”12 He also worked with Fairy Tales—are, in fact, prints. And stu- Thames & Hudson, 1996), 37. crayon and liquid tusche markings for dent prints also brought us (happily) face 9. Stangos, David Hockney, 195. Lithographs of Water Made of Lines (1978– to face with Hockney the enfant terrible, 10. Stangos, David Hockney, 201-202. 80), whose individual titles name spe- the “seven stone weakling” and antihero 11. Stangos, David Hockney, 202. cific materials and techniques as if they whose visions of gay love and sexual long- 12. Pat Gilmour, Ken Tyler: Master Printer and the American Print Renaissance (New York: Hudson are ingredients in the creative process.13 ing, pop icons and muscular alter egos, Hills Press, 1986), 100–111, 121. With his spare crayon lines (more akin to very early assured his place as one of the 13. Nikos Stangos, ed., David Hockney: Paper his visual language in etching) and limpid most daring and inventive artists of his Pools (London: Thames & Hudson, 1980), 100. blue washes, the artist urges the viewer to time.15 14. Ibid. Featured in the exhibition were: Litho- consider the unique expressive qualities graphic Water Made of Lines; Lithographic Water of different printmaking techniques. His Made of Lines and Crayon; Lithograph of Water Made of Lines and a Green Wash; Lithograph Julia Beaumont-Jones specializes in 19th- gestural use of tusche in Afternoon Swim- of Water Made of Thick and Thin Lines, a Green century to contemporary works on paper. From ming (1980), however, makes it as paint- Wash, a Light Blue Wash, and a Dark Blue Wash; 2005–13 she served as Manager of the Prints erly as a lithograph can possibly be. all 1978–80. and Drawings Rooms, Tate Britain, London. 15. Quoted in Gilmour, Ken Tyler, 121. The final room united Hockney’s boldest mixed-media works from Tyler 16. “The Seven Stone Weakling” (plate 3A), etch- ing and aquatint on paper, from A Rake’s Prog- Graphics with his fax prints and recent ress, 1961–63. inkjet drawings under the category

Art in Print November – December 2014 39 EXHIBITION REVIEW 27 Square Meters, 1001 Nights By Laurie Hurwitz

“Yona Friedman: 1001 nuits + 1 jour” 6 June – 3 September, 2014 mfc-michèle didier, Paris

1001 nuits + 1 jour By Yona Friedman mfc-michèle didier, Paris, 2014 286 pages and 4 cover pages, limited edi- tion of 75 copies and 25 artist’s proofs. Certificate signed and numbered by the artist, €1,700.

y studio on the Boulevard Pasteur “ M was small (27 square meters),” reminisces the 91-year-old Hungarian architect Yona Friedman in the preface to 1001 nuits + 1 jour, his new artist’s book. Describing this tiny Parisian atelier, he explains, “I didn’t repaint the walls, but cov- ered them with drawings … of my secret, imaginary world.” In 1968, when Friedman relocated to a more spacious apartment, the drawings were taken down. He recently Yona Friedman, from 1001 nuits + 1 jour (2014), artist’s book. Produced and published by rediscovered them in a drawer, “older and mfc-michèle didier. ©2014 Yona Friedman and mfc-michèle didier. aged, both the drawings and myself, even more moving than before.” The charming and spirited exhibition way of “infrastructures that are neither and lovers, mermaids and the Three “1001 nuits + 1 jour” (1,001 nights + 1 day) determined nor determining,” in direct Graces. He drew centaurs and knights, presented both the book and a group of contrast to functionalist ideas that domi- birds and butterflies, and a creature that reproduced drawings in a scatter hang. nated the postwar period. His concept of seems half-monkey and half-crocodile. The book, a playful rather than precious the ville spatiale (spatial city) proposed an His mixed-up legends give home to Don object, enables its owner to recreate Fried- elevated, three-dimensional structure Quixote, Napoleon, Hercules, Isis and man’s original décor or to invent a new whose inhabitants could create their own Osiris. Samson is exchangeable with Gil- one. As in a children’s sticker book, each living space. gamesh; Saint George battles a crocodile drawing has been pre-cut by laser and can The whimsical drawings he made in rather than a dragon. Animals become be easily detached from the page (and, if that early studio pictured faraway lands like men while men become like animals. needed, painlessly slipped back into posi- and fantastical creatures and evoke the On two of the gallery walls, bare, spiky tion), dovetailing nicely with the notions work of Victor Brauner, and branches (supplied by the Parisian park that are central to Freidman’s work. Max Ernst, as well as cave paintings and service ) ran from floor to ceiling, a proto- Born in Budapest in 1923, Friedman cartoons.1 Rectangular, circular or irreg- type reconstructed virgin forest imag- studied architecture in his hometown, ularly shaped, they freely mix references ined by Friedman for his apartment on then immigrated to Haifa in 1946, where and time periods, and are divided into six the Boulevard Garibaldi2 but never real- he pursued his studies while living on categories: animals, myths, cities, Afri- ized. The installation resonated with the a kibbutz. In 1967 he settled in Paris, can fairy tales, fragments and miracles. book and the wall of reproductions; visu- where he founded the GEAM (Groupe In that tiny apartment, Friedman’s ally compelling, it invited viewers to par- d’Etude d’Architecture Mobile). In the imagination knew no boundaries. Con- ticipate and to complete it using their group’s manifesto, Friedman argued for a ventions were turned upside down. own imaginations. theory of self-planning: flexible housing He drew places he would like to have that allowed freedom of choice for the lived—Noah’s ark, Paris, Taj Mahal-like residents. Architects would provide the marvels, a mountain in the sunlight, Laurie Hurwitz is a curator at the Maison foundations and structure, while occu- the submerged city of Atlantis or an européenne de la photographie and the Paris pants would customize their dwellings by oasis without a desert. He drew women correspondent for ARTnews magazine.

40 Art in Print November – December 2014 Yona Friedman, installation view of “1001 nuits + 1 jour,” presented at the galerie mfc-michèle didier, Paris, from 6 June–9 August 2014.

Notes: 1. The style also recalls the animated film series African Tales, made by Friedman and his wife, film editor Denise Charvein, between 1960 and 1963. The films were shown in Africa by the French filmmaker and anthropologist Jean Rouch, and one of them won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival in 1962. The series was recently rediscovered and restored by CNEAI, the Centre National Edition Art Image in Paris. One of them, Les aventures de cheveux lion, can be seen online: http://vimeo. com/83679337. 2. Since then, Friedman has lived on the Rue Garibaldi in Paris’s 15th district, in a kind of con- stantly evolving, walk-in laboratory. His merzbau is documented in French artist Camille Henrot’s 2007 Film Spatial, a portrait of Yona Friedman seen through his apartment, and through the point of view of his dog, Baltkis. Amidst the jum- ble of drawings, masks, books, papers, mirrors, Yona Friedman, interior spread from 1001 nuits + 1 jour (2014), artist’s book, 286 pages plus toys and boxes, one finds his architectural inven- 4 cover pages, 34.2 x 24 cm. Edition of 75. Produced and published by mfc-michèle didier. tions: laméllaires, made of cash-register rolls, ©2014 Yona Friedman and mfc-michèle didier. merzstructures, from pharmaceutical packages; gribouillis (scribbles) and macaronis, fashioned from wire or cables; trains, which string together wine corks and needles; froissés crumpled-paper structures… His drawings and maquettes from the Garibaldi studio have since been acquired by the collection of the French CNAP, the Centre National des Arts Plastiques.

Art in Print November – December 2014 41 EXHIBITION REVIEW Ruscha’s Course of Empire By Faye Hirsch

“Ed Ruscha: Prints and Photographs” Gagosian Gallery, New York 8 May – 27 September 2014

ew York was not one of the venues N for the retrospective “Ed Rus- cha: Editions 1959–99,” organized by Siri Engberg at the 15 years ago. It traveled to Los Angeles, where Ruscha has long resided, and to Tampa, but not to the Northeast. A New Yorker, I remember feeling really disap- pointed about that at the time. Ruscha is one of a handful of postwar artists for whom the printed image (photographs, books, portfolios and wall-mounted edi- tions) has been as important as any of his work in monumental mediums. He began making prints in graduate school at Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts), which he entered in 1956, and took them up professionally in 1963. Photography was a constant for Ruscha in those early days. Offset books such as Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1963) and Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966) revolutionized the artist’s book and pointed the way to the deadpan serial imagery of the New Topographics photography of the follow- ing decade. Already by the mid-1960s in screenprint and lithography Ruscha was exploiting the multiple meanings in sig- Ed Ruscha, Periods (2013), lithograph, 73 x 71.1 cm. Edition of 60. ©Ed Ruscha. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photo: Robert McKeever. nage (Hollywood, Standard gas stations) and other forms of text, with its innate ties to print, and making poetry of banal Even at 139 works, the Ruscha show played in big vitrines. The four screen- vernacular imagery. Some might argue made no claims of being comprehensive. prints of the 1975 Tropical Fish Series that of all the mediums in which Rus- The great silhouette prints (galleons, an depict neither tropics nor fish. Made at cha has worked, none has more capably anchor, wheat, a dog) that Ruscha began Gemini G.E.L. and related to the film embodied his interests. producing in various mediums in the late Miracle, which Ruscha was shooting at the A summer exhibition curated by Rob- 1980s were absent, as were certain classic time, the prints were created by photo- ert Monk at Gagosian’s Madison Avenue images such as the street intersections. graphing rhyming sets of found objects space sampled 139 prints and photo- Among the prints, the focus was on works in horizontal rows then recasting them graphs—many in groups and series— with text; most of the photographs were vertically against lushly colored fabrics, from 1959 to the present and whetted taken in the early 1960s but printed after anticipating the effects of digital manip- the appetite for an update to the Walker 2000. Monk, a director at the gallery with ulation. “Sweets, Meats, Sheets” includes show. It ran nearly concurrently with a long history in prints, has an excellent a bag of Hershey’s kisses, three packaged Jeff Koons’s four-floor behemoth at the eye, and the show looked simply great. steaks, and a new set of sheets still in Whitney across the street, offering a lyri- The 1970 portfolio News, Mews, Pews, plastic; the objects seem to rise supernat- cal, strangely handwrought alternative to Brews, Stews & Dues, whose title words are urally—and cinematically—from their his heady cynicism and allowing for an screenprinted in “ink” made of organic crinkly backdrop. almost textbook demonstration of the foodstuffs ranging from chocolate to From the late ’80s, the show included a two artists’ post-Pop divergences. Bolognese sauce, was generously dis- dozen of the artist’s so-called Suggestors,

42 Art in Print November – December 2014 “Ed Ruscha: Prints and Photographs” installation view. ©Ed Ruscha. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photo: Robert McKeever. in which words of certainty (“definite,” Ruscha has worked with a stellar inter- in so many major ateliers. “correct,” “true,” etc.) materialize against national roster of shops, including Tama- By 1999, Engberg’s catalogue rai- raking grids that suggest colored light rind, ULAE, Cirrus, Mixografia, Atelier sonné had logged 374 prints of one sort refracted through a window. Collectively Crommelynck, Alecto, Crown Point or another and 17 books, but many more titled That Is Right (1989), the lithographs and Gemini, among others, a scope that have appeared since. And that show did were produced at Hamilton Press in plays an important role in the works’ rich not include photographs meant to be Venice, Calif. Ed Hamilton was one of material and technical diversity. It’s hard viewed as such, rather than in books. At many printers represented in the show; to think of another artist who has worked Gagosian, the placement of groups of

Ed Ruscha, Tamarind Set (1975), three color lithographs, 76.2 x 55.9 cm each. Edition of 35. ©Ed Ruscha. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photo: Robert McKeever.

Art in Print November – December 2014 43 photographs alongside prints allowed a ready, enlightening, comparison; in both, Ruscha eschews, as much as pos- sible, overt human presence and extrane- ous detail. However, there is a difference. One is always aware of the indexical nature of the photograph—we are fairly certain that a dinner party produced the poignant leftovers in Joyce Wallace’s Auto- matic Table Arrangement (1962/2005). In Roof Top Views (1961/2003) and Roof Top Views 50 Years Later (2012), Ruscha shot neighborhoods from the same angle a half century apart; the photos were exhibited one above the other, allowing us to peer closely at the changes from one era to the other. A cool early ’60s series of consumer products (Spam, Sunmaid raisins, et al.) feels downright nostalgic, given the sheer plethora of today’s competing brands, and gives us a sense of the epoch. By contrast, the prints are dramatic fictions. The four looming Standard sta- tion screenprints made between 1966 and ’69, with their raking perspectives and rainbow skies, are downright mythic, a sharp contrast to the banal gas stations of the photographic series. Flies and ants (screenprints again, 1972), though repro- duced faithfully and to scale against faux- woodgrain backdrops, are displayed in gorgeous golden ambience for no appar- ent reason, spread out in an irregular all- over scattering and producing a surreal frisson. One sees Ruscha’s agency more readily in the prints, where in the photo- graphs his cool, almost passive witness- Ed Ruscha, Black Course of Empire (2005), lithograph, 45.7 x 38.1 cm. Edition of 35. ing is more the point. And of course, there ©Ed Ruscha. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photo: Robert McKeever. are those texts—signs, phrases, random words—often with a punning humor that arises from the signifying properties lete. This quality is made more explicit of the words but also through how they later, when the same images appear under are formally deployed. The word “carp” the titles Brown Course of Empire and Black in Carp with Fly (lithograph, 1969) flops Course of Empire (2005). From the start, around liquidly on its page; “news” in Ruscha showed the famous Hollywood News, Mews, Pews alludes to the tabloid sign deteriorating, and more recently he culture in London, where Ruscha made has blazoned giant words and abbrevia- the prints. The self-confident words in tions (“history kid,” “wks. mos. yrs.”) over That Is Right are spelled out in large capi- Western peaks lit by Technicolor sunsets. tals printed in a ghostly white ink that It’s an ending, the close of a long medita- seems to appear and disappear, undoing tion on the failure of American exception- certainty before our very eyes. alism and the death of industry. “There’s The sweep of time represented in the no job too small” reads a 1975 lithograph. show allows us to see, beyond the wit- At the time it must have carried the whiff tiness, a kind of melancholy. The generic of counterculture. Today, it seems down- items—upholstery, tires, mufflers, parts— right prophetic. denoted in signs on the topmost part of the facades of blank buildings in the Archi-Props series (1993/1997; all seven Faye Hirsch is Editor at Large at Art in America, lithos were present) are delivered in a deli- and teaches in the MFA program at SUNY cate upper case that feels strangely obso- Purchase.

44 Art in Print November – December 2014 EXHIBITION REVIEW Gauguin at MoMA By Calvin Brown

“Gauguin: Metamorphoses” The , New York 8 March – 8 June 2014

Gauguin: Metamorphoses By Starr Figura with additional texts by Eliz- abeth C. Childs, Hal Foster and Erica Mosier Published by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2014 248 pages, 222 color illustrations, $60

he Museum of Modern Art’s sump- T tuous “Gauguin: Metamorphoses” this past spring was the first large-scale exhibition to foreground the celebrated painter’s extraordinary graphic achieve- ments and frame them within the con- text not only of his paintings but also of his woodcarvings, ceramics and writings. Organized by Starr Figura, the museum’s curator of prints and drawings, the exhi- bition comprised some 150 works, among them 120 works on paper and a selection of around 30 related paintings and sculp- tures, including five ceramic pieces and 18 woodcarvings. The astonishing array of zincographs, woodcuts, monotypes and transfer drawings that were the focus of the exhibition confirmed the artist’s position as one of the most expressive and groundbreaking printmakers of the modern era. made prints only spo- radically during the last 14 years of his life, mostly producing them in sets at critical junctures in his career as graphic sum- mations of his pictorial ideas. “Gauguin: Metamorphoses” chronologically traced the artist’s development as an experimen- Paul Gauguin, Tahitian Woman with Evil Spirit, recto (ca. 1900), oil-transfer drawing, sheet 56.1 x 45.3 cm. Private collection. tal printmaker and featured his three major print cycles in their entirety: the Volpini Suite, a portfolio of 11 zincographs 1898–99. These three cycles were shown drawings of 1899–1903. First catalogued on bright yellow paper made in Paris in together with multiple artist’s proofs, and exhibited as a group by Richard Field 1889; Noa Noa (Fragrant Scent), the set of related prints and woodblocks, allowing in 1973, selections of Gauguin’s water- ten innovative woodcuts made in Paris in for a closer understanding of the com- color monotypes and transfer drawings 1893 and 1894 and intended to illustrate plexity of his creative process. But the have since been included in most major the publication of the fictionalized jour- most striking revelation was the evidence Gauguin retrospectives, yet the generous nal of his first Tahitian sojourn of 1891– of how his experimental printmaking quantity of these works at MoMA made 93; and the Vollard Suite, a seldom-seen influenced his drawing style; this could clear how profoundly the printed image series of 14 woodcuts based on Oceanic be seen in the subtle beauty of his water- transformed his vision as an artist at this and European themes mixed with local color monotypes from 1894 to 1895 and late stage of his career.1 subjects that he produced in Tahiti in in the graphic power of his oil-transfer The mapping of Gauguin’s transfor-

Art in Print November – December 2014 45 of the region; they reappear in simplified and abstracted form in the zincograph Bretonnes à la barrier (Breton Women Beside a Fence) from the Volpini Suite. Gauguin’s most innovative contribu- tion to 19th-century printmaking is rep- resented by his first woodcuts—the ten comprising the Noa Noa Suite in which he paraphrased themes derived from his Tahitian paintings and .3 The exhibition featured six of the eight surviv- ing woodblocks for Noa Noa, a woodcarv- ing project of superb skill and delicacy that also reflected the aesthetic “primi- tivism” of his and reliefs of this period. Several of Gauguin’s unique impressions of each of the ten woodcuts were displayed in multiple states from the series, printed and colored by hand. Of particular note were the four proofs, favored impressions of the artist, that had been trimmed to the image and mounted on a distinctive light-blue board.4 An entire wall of this section of the exhibition was devoted to an impressive display of the complete set of Noa Noa woodcuts, editioned from Gauguin’s blocks in 1894 by Louis Roy. Although lacking the nuanced subtlety of the art- ist’s own proofs, Roy’s impressions retain much of the savage intensity that influ- enced future generations of printmakers. The relationship between Gauguin’s woodcarving and his woodcuts was fur- ther clarified in this section by six of the Paul Gauguin, Design for a Plate: Leda and the Swan (cover illustration for the Volpini Suite, curious ti’ii, sculptures the artist made 1889), zincograph printed in black and colored by hand with watercolor and gouache on chrome in Tahiti between 1891 and 1893. Boldly yellow paper mounted on marbled paper applied to millboard (portfolio cover, trimmed), 30.4 x 25.9 carved from short sections of indigenous cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1922 (22.82.2[1]). Photo ©The Metro- wood, these faux-ethnographic totems, politan Museum of Art / Art Resource, New York. which Gauguin called his “barbaric bibe- lots,”5 represent ancient Polynesian gods mation of his iconic figures, emblematic 1889 had produced nearly one hundred as he envisioned them; they were also poses and various cultural themes across imaginatively decorated stoneware cups, the models for his woodcut Te atua (The multiple mediums provided the broader bowls, and vases in Ernest Chaplet’s Paris Gods), one of the most complex images in context for an examination of the specific studio. Cup Decorated with the Figure of the Noa Noa Suite. role of the artist as printmaker. a Bathing Girl (1887–88) and Vase with Interspersed among the woodcuts was At the beginning of the exhibition a Figure of a Girl Bathing under the Trees a selection of six of the magnificent can- the curators asserted a close relation- (ca. 1887–88) both incorporate the figure vases Gauguin painted in Tahiti in 1891 ship between the artist’s ceramics and his of a Breton girl shyly glancing over her and 1893 and incorporating motifs he prints, presenting three early clay sculp- shoulder as she tentatively steps into the would paraphrase in his Noa Noa wood- tures based on Breton pastoral themes in water. She is depicted again in the Vol- cuts the following year. In the painting a single display case near all 11 sheets of pini Suite in the frontispiece, Leda (Projet Mata mua (In Olden Times, 1892; Car- the Volpini Suite, on loan from the Metro- d’assiette, Leda: Design for a China Plate), men Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, politan Museum of Art.2 This portfolio of in which her head and shoulders become Madrid), Gauguin imagined an idyllic professionally printed zincographs, pub- those of Leda embraced by the swan from Tahitian past in which young women lished to coincide with a Symbolist exhi- Ovid’s Metamorphoses (with her sons dance at the feet of an enormous idol. bition in 1889, reflect themes inspired by Castor and Pollux rendered as ducklings) By contrast, in the woodcut of the same trips to Martinique, Arles and Brittany, and foregrounded in Baigneuses Bretonnes subject, Maruru (Offerings of Gratitude) some of which appear in the ceramics (Bathers in Brittany). Vase Decorated with from the Noa Noa Suite, Gauguin simpli- shown here. Gauguin had an idiosyn- Breton Scenes (1886–87) depicts a group of fied the composition with deft gouging cratic gift for the decorative arts, and by young women in the traditional clothing of the wood that transformed his vibrant

46 Art in Print November – December 2014 painted pastoral into a scene of dark and brooding mystery, one that typifies this series in general. The exhibition also provided a rare opportunity to see more than 15 of the watercolor and gouache monotypes Gauguin made in Paris and Pont Aven in 1894 and 1895 (they are seldom exhibited due to their sensitivity to light). Delicate and diaphanous, the unique technique of these watercolor counterproofs undoubt- edly evolved as the artist experimented with the printing of his Noa Noa proofs. In 1895 Gauguin returned to Tahiti, where he devoted himself chiefly to painting and did not resume printmak- ing until 1898. The woodcuts of the Vol- lard Suite,6 the last and least known of the artist’s three major narrative print cycles, was also shown in its entirety in multiple impressions and to stunning effect. Like his previous print series, these woodcuts effectively summarized themes to which the artist dedicated his career; in this case he freely carved discrete figural vignettes that combine Breton and Christian sub- jects with Javanese figures and Polyne- sian motifs. Gauguin cut the 14 images in blocks made of irregular lengths of native wood and handprinted the indi- vidual scenes on tissue-thin Japan paper in small numbered editions.7 The final gallery featured 22 of Gauguin’s oil-transfer drawings (1899– 1903) together with related paintings, wood reliefs and sculpture, and was perhaps the most striking of the exhibi- tion. The Tahitian effigyHead with Horns (1895–97), a -like sculpture carved from tropical wood and then highly pol- ished, suggests Gauguin’s features and might represent his alter ego in the guise Paul Gauguin, Mata mua (In Olden Times; 1892), oil on canvas, 91 x 69 cm. Carmen of an animalistic spirit, an image consis- Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection. On deposit at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. tent with the artist’s notion of himself as Photo: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza / Scala / Art Resource, NY. a savage creature untamed by the con- ventions of French society. Gauguin used finished drawing on the other side. When motifs from one work to another, and this mysterious motif again in a number compared to the controlled elegance of allow[ed] them to metamorphose over of his later works, but nowhere more his original drawing, the transferred time and across mediums.”8 Figura pro- provocatively than in his haunting oil- image appears physically raw, uncon- vides an admirably succinct and schol- transfer drawings of a Tahitian Woman trolled and darkly suggestive. Gauguin’s arly overview of Gauguin’s evolution as with Evil Spirit (ca. 1900) on both sides of overwhelming preference for his inno- a printmaker, organized chronologically a single sheet. Following a method of his vative monotype drawing technique in in the same manner as the exhibition, own invention, Gauguin drew his compo- his later years suggests that the ghostly and addresses the transformation of sition in graphite and colored pencil on a appearance of his hand-printed woodcut Gauguin’s subjects over a decade of exper- sheet of paper placed upon a freshly inked proofs had completely transformed his imentation with innovative print and surface. The pressure from the pencil graphic style. drawing techniques. Elizabeth C. Childs, imprinted the image in reverse on the In her catalogue essay, one of four that in “The Art of the ‘Ultra-Sauvage,’” traces back of the sheet, and it was this trans- make up the first half of the book, Starr the artist’s history with woodcarving, ferred image, frequently augmented with Figura reinforces a central idea in the seeing it ultimately as a “central compo- solvent washes, that the artist considered exhibition—that Gauguin’s “creative pro- nent of his expression.”9 Hal Foster takes the primary work of art, rather than the cess involved repeating and recombining a psychological approach to Gauguin’s

Art in Print November – December 2014 47 first time. Richard Brettell, “The Return to France,” in Richard Brettell et al., The Art of Paul Gauguin (Washington, D.C.: , 1988), 302. An exhibition catalog. 5. Letter, March 31, 1893, in Ruth Pietlkovo, The Letters of Paul Gauguin to Georges Daniel de Monfreid (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1922), 45. 6. Douglas Druick provides a fascinating account of the complex history of Gauguin’s relationship with his Parisian dealer that specifically includes this series of prints. Douglas Druick in Cezanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde, ed. Rebecca Rabinow (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006), 370, exhibition catalog no. 106b. 7. Richard Brettell and Elizabeth Prelinger have independently discussed the frieze-like nature of the suite and speculated on the possible sequenc- ing of these prints for reasons succinctly summa- rized in the catalogue; this sequencing informed the hanging of the prints in the exhibition. See Paul Gauguin, Maruru (Offerings of Gratitude, from the Noa Noa Suite, 1893–94), woodcut, block Brettell, Art of Paul Gauguin, 424–428. Elizabeth 20.5 x 35.5 cm. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA. Photo: Michael Agee, Prelinger, “The ‘Vollard Suite,’” in Tobia Bezzola Photo: ©Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts. and Elizabeth Prelinger, Paul Gauguin: The Prints (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2012), 103–129. 8. Starr Figura, “Gauguin’s Metamorphoses: problematic biography in his essay “The the reader to trace the evolution of Repetition, Transformation, and the Catalyst of Primitivist’s Dilemma.” He posits that Gauguin’s subjects over time, it also awk- Printmaking,” in Starr Figura et al., Paul Gauguin: Metamorphoses (New York: Museum of Modern the artist’s persona was divided between wardly breaks up the continuity of his Art, 2014), 15. An exhibition catalog. his identity as a sophisticated member major print series; one is forced to leaf 9. Childs’s discussion of the artist’s Tahitian wood- of the Parisian avant-garde and his part- back and forth through the illustrations carvings is developed from her essay “Carving the Peruvian heritage, leading him to com- to reassemble them. This minor inconve- ‘Ultra-Sauvage’: Exoticism in Gauguin’s Sculp- pose a fractured “primitivist” art based nience is relieved by the precisely cap- ture” in A Fine Regard: Essays in Honor of Kirk Varnedoe, eds. Patricia G. Berman and Gertie R. on cultural contradictions that could not tioned list of illustrated works that Utley (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2008), 40–57. be resolved. Invoking Freud’s Interpreta- follows, reconstructing the sequence of 10. Figura, “Gauguin’s Metamorphoses,” 55. tion of Dreams (1899), Foster sees Gauguin the exhibition. This exceptionally well- thinking of “painting as a kind of dream written and highly accessible exhibition just as Freud thinks of dreams as a kind of catalogue will undoubtedly be an indis- picture, a rebus of visual signs to be read pensable resource for the study of Gau- symbolically.”10 Finally, Erika Mosher, gin’s graphic work for years to come. a paper conservator at MoMA, provides an exhaustive technical analysis of the innovative techniques used in Gauguin’s Calvin Brown is the Associate Curator of Prints woodcuts and oil-transfer drawings. and Drawings at the Princeton University Art The second half of this beautifully Museum. designed publication is a fully illustrated catalogue of all the exhibited works, again divided into three chronological Notes: sections covering Gauguin’s travels 1. See Richard S. Field, Paul Gauguin: Mono- between 1886 and his death in the Mar- types (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1973). An quesas Islands in 1903. Within these sec- exhibition catalog. 2. For a complete discussion of the origins of tions, Figura and curatorial assistant the Volpini Suite and related works, see Heather Lotte Johnson organize the material Lemonedes, “Gauguin Becomes a Printmaker,” in under 16 subject headings, each intro- Heather Lemonedes et al., Paul Gauguin: Paris, duced by a single page of text. The head- 1889 (Cleveland Museum of Art, 2009), 87–103. ings reflect Gauguin’s titles, such as An exhibition catalog. 3. Although the prints in the Noa Noa Suite are Watched by the Spirits of the Dead, The generally referred to as woodcuts in the litera- Gods and Oviri, or follow more general ture, Gauguin actually cut the images into com- themes such as Tahitian Eve, Monumental mercially produced end-grain boxwood-blocks Frieze and Departure. The works are illus- traditionally used for wood engravings but printed trated in multiple impressions and in them without a press in the manner of side-grain woodcuts. Paul Gauguin, Head with Horns (1895–97), diverse media, but without further com- 4. Gauguin mounted the impressions he selected wood with traces of paint, head 22 x 22.8 x 12 ment or analysis. While this structure for his studio exhibition in December 1894 in this cm; base 20 x 25 x 17.5 cm. The J. Paul Getty makes for a beautiful layout and allows way when he presented the Noa Noa prints for the Museum, Los Angeles.

48 Art in Print November – December 2014 EXHIBITION REVIEW Past Partisans By Jaclyn Jacunski

“The Left Front: Radical Art in the ‘Red Decade,’ 1929–1940” Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois 17 January – 22 June 2014

merican journalist Eugene Lyons A coined the term “Red Decade” for the period in the 1930s when the Rus- sian Revolution energized leftists in the . The Block Museum’s recent exhibition showcased works cre- ated by artists involved in the American Communist Party’s John Reed Clubs during the Great Depression. Organized chronologically by curators John Murphy and Jill Bugajski, the exhibition included 130 mostly black-and-white prints, a small number of books, drawings, paint- ings and periodicals, and an innovative catalogue that brings the underlying question of what responsibilities artists have to society (if any) into the present. The exhibition focused on John Reed Clubs (later renamed and reorganized as the American Artists’ Congress), dozens Mitchell Siporin, Workers Family from the portfolio A Gift to Biro Bidjan (1937), woodcut, of which were founded in cities across 20.4 x 24.7 cm. Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, 1997.30.15. the country in the pursuit of economic justice through revolution-inspiring times problematic. The scaffolding and proverbial fan: Do something, anything!” art, exhibitions and classes. Many of the factory buildings of Stuart Davis’s litho- In addition to these fervent responders, JRC works feature scenes of working- graph New Jersey Landscape (Seine Cart, some adopt an academic tone and ques- class empowerment, such as Chicagoan 1939) are part of the working man’s world, tion whether art is capable of sparking Mitchell Siporin’s Worker’s Families (1937), but Davis’s innovative rendering through revolutions, while others answer with a woodcut of a proud family standing in thick schematic lines and flat shapes wry skepticism: “I don’t know if there is front of a factory. Others are concerned was condemned by some of his peers as such a thing as Revolutionary Art (there with race. When nine African-American bordering on abstraction, a “bourgeois” might be) and if so I don’t know what it is. youths in Scottsboro, Alabama, were approach they felt would be illegible to It might be a well-fitted Brooks Brothers falsely convicted for the rape of two working-class audiences. suit,” writes Geof Oppenheimer. white women, the American Communist The exhibition catalogue, designed The diversity and diffuseness of these Party helped organize an appeal. Prentiss with the bold typography of progressive contemporary voices stand in contrast to Taylor’s beautiful lithograph The Town newspapers, offers discussions about the the relatively unified vision of the JRC of Scottsboro (1932) shows the nine Red Decade and, more broadly, how we artists. “The Left Front” demonstrates “Scottsboro Boys” reaching toward rays draw the line between propaganda and the power of that clear and unified voice of the sun. art. It also includes a number of short as a weapon in class struggle, and also Dynamic skies and angular shapes responses to the curators’ question: reveals the limitations of its ortho- prevail in many works, which borrowed “What is revolutionary art today?” Artist doxies. stylistic conventions from Mexican and curator Thea Liberty Nichols com- murals and Italian Futurism as well as the mends the Russian activist band Pussy Ashcan School, a synthesis that helped Riot for their civil disobedience, while develop “socialist realism” as a style. But video artist Mary Patten’s mini-mani- Jaclyn Jacunski is an artist and is the Research Associate for the Shapiro Center for Research the relationship between style, political festo, “‘Revolutionary Art’ in 150 words or and Collaboration at the School of the Art message and social function was some- less,” urges readers, “The shit is hitting the Institute of Chicago.

Art in Print November – December 2014 49 EXHIBITION REVIEW Collective Brilliance By John Murphy

“What May Come: The Taller de Gráfica Leopoldo Méndez’s Portrait of Posada reactionary powers of church, state and Popular and the Mexican Political Print” in his Workshop (1956) was this exhibi- military. What May Come, made at the tion’s opening salvo, a bracing linocut end of World War II, hints at future hor- 4 July – 12 October 2014 that honors the TGP’s forefather, José rors if progressive partisans (including Guadalupe Posada, the influential pre- artists) do not continue to fight fascism What May Come: the Taller de Gráfica revolutionary illustrator who brought in all its insidious forms. Popular and the Mexican Political Print political printmaking to a pitch of aes- With nearly 50 of the 100-odd objects By Diane Miliotes thetic invention and mass popularity. For in the show credited to his hand, Méndez Published by the Art Institute of Chicago, 2014 20th–century Mexican artists, Posada dominated the galleries; for an exhibition 40 pages with 25 color illustrations was a model for how an artist could com- about a workshop collective, “What May $9.95 municate sophisticated social criticism Come” came close to being a one-man to a mass audience using an inventive show. The co-founders of the TGP, Lusia rom 1937 until the mid-1950s, the formal vocabulary. In Méndez’s print he Arenal and Pablo O’Higgins, made only F Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP) is a sculptural, prophet-like figure, gazing fleeting cameos—especially surprising in workshop produced the most inventive, with Old Testament intensity at a scene O’Higgins’ case considering the exhibi- provocative and topically relevant prints of injustice outside his window: horse- tion catalogue describes him as the TGP’s in Mexico. Published as broadsides, post- mounted officials terrorizing a crowd. “premiere lithographer.” This is more an ers, books, handbills and portfolios, TGP Méndez emphasizes Posada’s strong, arti- observation than a criticism, since on prints showcased the possibilities of sanal hands; he clutches his burin like a the evidence of the displayed works it is graphic art as a powerful and polemical dagger ready for an upward thrust. Rarely clear that Méndez was the most dynamic instrument. Founding members Leop- has the concept “art as a weapon” been so and innovative artist to emerge from the oldo Méndez, Pablo O’Higgins and Luis concretely visualized. group. His formal rigor, expressive use of Arenal stated in their group’s Declara- The title of the exhibition derived line and unmatched graphic invention tion of Principles that “art must reflect from Méndez’s What May Come (1945), an help explain his disproportionate pres- the social reality of the times” but that engraving that acts as both a self-portrait ence, not to mention his leadership role art “can only truly serve the people if it is and an allegory of the socially engaged in the TGP. of the very highest plastic quality.”1 The artist. Lying foreshortened on a sheaf of What May Come had been commis- Declaration outlined the TGP’s ambitions pages, Méndez pictures himself as a fig- sioned by the Art Institute’s Print and to make work collectively of a quality that ure of contemplative melancholy, chin Drawings Club in 1945, and the exhibi- would engage with contemporary issues propped on palm, a skeleton’s bony finger tion illuminated the TGP’s cultural con- and events, “serve the people,” contribute guiding his hand. His inner eye halluci- nections to Chicago, both through the to Mexican culture, oppose reactionary nates a symbol-laden landscape: the eagle museum and via artists such as Eleanor forces and establish solidarity with inter- of the Mexican republic crucified, its tal- Coen and Max Kahn, the husband-wife national progressive movements. ons strangled by the coil of a serpent’s team who were the first Chicago-based “What May Come: The Taller de tail, a serpent’s whose jaws disgorge the artists to collaborate with the TGP. Gráfica Popular and the Mexican Politi- cal Print” advanced the Art Institute of Chicago’s longstanding commitment to collecting and exhibiting the modern art of Mexico. AIC curators in the 1930s and ’40s discerned the historical importance as well as aesthetic value of socially con- scious printmaking coming out of Mex- ico, launching major exhibitions in the mid-40s that introduced the TGP to an American audience. The AIC boasts one of the most significant TGP collections in the United States, a rich repository expertly organized by Diane Miliotes, guest curator of the exhibition, extend- ing her work on the museum’s 2006–2007 Leopoldo Méndez, Posada in His Workshop (Homage to Posada) (1953), linocut in black on cream two-part exhibition, “José Guadalupe wove paper, image 35.5 x 79.3 cm, sheet 49.8 x 87 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago. Prints and Posada and the Mexican Broadside.” Drawings Purchase Fund. ©2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SOMAAP, Mexico City.

50 Art in Print November – December 2014 Coen and Kahn’s presence in Mexico is a reminder of the magnetism of the country for leftist artists in the 1930s, drawn into the orbit of the “Big Three” (Diego Rivera, and José Clemente Orozco) and excited by the aesthetic and political possibilities of mural painting and print media. African-American art- ists Elizabeth Catlett and John Wilson likewise made indelible images during their tenures with the TGP, images that addressed racial violence using an expres- sive social realism consistent with the TGP’s approach. The bilingual wall texts, labels and catalogue highlighted the museum’s ongoing engagement with Chicago’s Spanish-speaking community, progress- ing beyond the “cultural diplomacy” of the ’40s (in which Mexico was a “good neighbor”) to active collaboration with local institutions such as the National Museum of and the Mexican consulate. The eloquent and accessible catalogue masterfully distills the history of the TGP—a tall order considering the workshop’s complex engagement with geopolitical events in the years before and after World War II. The galleries offered a broad survey of persistent TGP themes: Mexican life, nationality and history; caricature, satire and the press; antifasism and war. These are complicated issues to parse in a lim- ited space, but “What May Come” was thematically ambitious—appropriate to the reach and sweep of the TGP in its two-decade heyday. The result was a thought-provoking survey of one of the most influential workshops in the 20th century, as well as a testament to the cre- ative vitality and political urgency of mid-century printmaking in Mexico.

John Murphy is a PhD candidate in Art History at Northwestern University. His dissertation investi- gates early 20th-century American Arts & Crafts communities.

Notes: 1. The TGP’s Declaration of Principles is included in the appendix of Art in Latin America: The Mod- Leopoldo Méndez, What May Come (Mexico, 1945) (1945), wood engraving in black on grayish-ivory ern Era, 1820–1980, ed. Dawn Ades (New Haven, China paper, image 30.3 x 17.6 cm, sheet 42.1 x 32.6 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago. ©2014 Artists CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 326. Rights Society (ARS), New York / SOMAAP, Mexico City.

Read the latest installment of Sarah Kirk Hanley’s Ink Blog at www.artinprint.org/index.php/ink.

Art in Print November – December 2014 51 EXHIBITION REVIEW Lingen, Melby, Miller By Elleree Erdos

“Proof: Lingen —Melby—Miller” Planthouse, New York 27 June – 22 August 2014

year after taking root in a vacant A flower shop on West 28th Street in New York City, Planthouse has become a home to daring exhibitions by emerg- ing artists as well as a supportive venue for prints. “Proof” was the gallery’s first project to include the work of eminent artists such as Chuck Close, Joel Shapiro and . The exhibition’s focus, however, was not these “big names” but the critical contribution of three New York–based master printers: Ruth Lin- gen, Jennifer Melby and Leslie Miller. Each has been running a press with a distinct area of expertise since the 1980s. As the director of the Brooklyn studio Pace Paper, Lingen works closely with art- ists of Pace Prints on papermaking, let- terpress and artists’ books; Melby works in intaglio and publishes through Jenni- fer Melby Editions; and Miller’s Grenfell Press publishes artists’ books and prints in woodcut, linocut and pochoir. Plant- house founders Brad Ewing and Katie Michel culled 41 works from the presses’ flat files—etchings, woodcuts, reduction linocuts, handmade paper and extrava- gant explorations of mixed processes. Though the show’s theme was clearly Vija Celmins, detail of Wood Engraving, No Title (1995), wood engraving,16 x 14 inches. Edition of 47. stated in the press release and title, on the walls the prints were allowed to speak for the space: the large skull in Jim Dine’s commonplace object, resituated as art. themselves. The checklist did not explain Head from Darker River (1998, printed But in the context of “Proof” the physical which prints came from which presses, by Lingen) fixed its grinning gaze on differences between an actual appoint- though techniques and specialties could the scrupulously modeled features of ment card and the Gober (made with be matched; the added detective work a Chuck Close reduction linoleum cut wood engraving, lead type and polymer encouraged viewers to pay attention to self-portrait, S.P. II (1997, Lingen also), engraving) demanded recognition. process and aspects of connoisseurship whose deliberate grid echoed the repeti- In another project printed by Lingen, in a way that rarely happens in galleries. tive marks of Celmins’ Wood Engraving, Jessica Stockholder and poet Jeremy Sti- In the “Cooler” (the back room that once No Title (1995, printed by Miller). Bring- gler collaborated on Led Almost by my served as a flower refrigerator), prints ing the printer’s role to the fore, “Proof” Tie (2006), a book combining letterpress, were densely hung, salon style, but in the asked that the viewer consider something lithography, digital and collage affixed to two main spaces, each of the 24 works like Dine’s skull not simply as an aes- balsa wood, set within a sculptural wall on view was treated as a masterpiece, theticized, metaphor-laden sign, but also unit. Stockholder drew the lithographs elegantly framed and given ample breath- as a masterpiece of its peculiar medium: and Lingen did the typography and print- ing room. Streamlined wood tables by the cardboard relief etching. ing onto papers, mylars and other plas- sculptor Grayson Cox served as pedestals ’s unsettling doctor’s tics, including shower curtain material, for the artists’ books. appointment card, Urology Appointment resulting in a work with components Arranged in chronological group- (2007, Lingen), is usually considered from by both the artists’ hands as well as the ings, the prints engaged each other in a conceptual standpoint—a play on the printer’s. Two etchings printed by Melby,

52 Art in Print November – December 2014 Above left: Robert Gober, Urology Appoint- ment (2007), wood engraving, lead type, and polymer engraving, 2 x 3 1/2 inches. Unique image. Above right: Robert Ryman, Second Conversation (2013), relief from linoleum and rubber, 16 x 12 inches. Edition of 28. Below right: Installation view of “Proof: Ruth Lingen— Jennifer Melby—Leslie Miller.”

similar in size and refinement, use the medium to quite different ends. William Bailey’s serene, black-and-white etch- ing, Still Life (c. 1983), is abstracted from reality and drawn from memory. Certain details—impossible overlaps and improb- able shadows—reveal the fiction and prompt the viewer to wonder what actu- ally existed as the image source. Mark Tansey’s small color etching Interview II (1983) hung nearby. A punning homage to Elihu Vedder’s The Questioner of the Sphinx (1863), Tansey’s print affects the look of a historical photograph but the the wall. Ryman’s work acquires meaning tions, overlooking the technical intrica- microphone the young man holds up to from the walls and space around it. Here cies and numerous choices that lead to the mouth of the sphinx turns the situ- the placement of the nails—aesthetically their creation. “Proof” invited a conversa- ation into a New Yorker-style cartoon. spare and practical in purpose—begs us tion about process—the logistics, materi- (The year after the etching, Tansey made to question the boundaries of the work of als, skills, interactions and decisions that a related oil painting, Secret of the Sphinx art. Two faint arrows at the top left and underlie any body of work. Acknowledg- (Homage to Elihu Vedder)). top middle punctuate this inquiry and ing the printer’s role opens up the discus- Robert Ryman’s linoleum and rubber dictate the orientation of the work (the sion and elucidates some, if not all, of that relief print, Second Conversation (2013), is sideways signature is potentially con- mysterious shroud. first and foremost a conceptual object— fusing). The inclusion of such a visually a flat, off-white field. A faint strip of text austere object in this process-focused running sideways down the center func- exhibition encouraged a deeper consid- Elleree Erdos is a New York-based writer and tions as Ryman’s signature: “Ryman 03.” eration of the methods and materials of print scholar. At the top, the work is editioned: “PP” creation. (for “printer’s proof”) appears above the As Michel noted, “prints can be Roman numeral III. Finally, two nails shrouded in mystery.” Too often we view interrupt the work’s center and pin it to objects simply as images or representa-

Art in Print November – December 2014 53 54 Art in Print November – December 2014 Mark Brandenburg, Untitled (2014) News of the Suite of 12 photo etching and aquatints, image 52.5 x 46 cm each, sheet 54.5 x 48 cm each. Edition Print World of 12. Printed by Kristof Baranski at Städtische Galerie, Wolfsburg, Germany. Published by Gal- erie Sabine Knust, Munich. €9,500. Selected New Editions

Radcliffe Bailey, Eshu’s Ghost (2014) Archival pigment print, collagraph, monotype Tom Burckhardt, Incognito (2014). and chine collé, 64 x 41 inches (paper cut to shape of image). Variable edition of 8. Printed by Tom Reed, St. Louis, MO. Published by Island Press, Taiko Chandler, Untitled (2014) St. Louis. $8,000. Solar plate etching, 22 1/2 x 18 inches. Edition of 9. Printed and published by Oehme Graphics, Steamboat Springs, CO. $400.

Mark Brandenburg, Untitled (2014).

John Buck, The Yarn (2014) Woodcut and relief print, 56 x 37 inches. Edi- tion of 15. Printed and published by Shark’s Ink, Lyons, CO. $3,600. Radcliffe Bailey, Eshu’s Ghost (2014). Taiko Chandler, Untitled (2014). Georg Baselitz, Fare Well Bill (2014) Set of ten aquatint and line etchings, nine images 85.1 x 64.9 cm, one image 103.8 x 76.5 cm. Edition Chuck Close, Phil (2014) of 15. Printed by Mette Ulstrup at Niels Borch Watercolor pigment print on Awagami hand- Jensen, Copenhagen. Published by Galerie Sabine made paper, hand-coated, image 48 x 38 1/4 Knust, Munich. €28,000. inches, sheet 55 1/2 x 44 inches. Edition of 10. Printed by Nicholas Price and Tallulah Terryl, Oakland, CA. Published by Magnolia Editions, Oakland. Price on request.

John Buck, The Yarn (2014).

Katherine Bull, Treading Soft Ground (2014) Series of ten soft ground etchings, 35.6 x 63.5 cm each. Edition of 3. Printed and published by War- Georg Baselitz, Fare Well Bill (2014). ren Editions, Cape Town, South Africa. Individ- ual prints R9,900, series R90,000. Louisiana Bendolph, As I Leave Shall I Return, Look Underneath, Doorway to a Dream and Housetop Block At My Mother’s Knees (2014) Chuck Close, Phil (2014). Color soft ground etchings with aquatint, second two with spitbite aquatint, 34 x 26 1/2 inches, 37 x 32 inches, 28 1/2 x 32 1/2 inches, 23 x 32 inches. Edi- Brian D. Cohen, Pierrot Lunaire (2014) tion of 50 each. Printed and published by Paulson Etching, letterpress, and sheet aluminum (23 Bott Press, Berkeley, CA. $2,500 and $2,000. pages), 15 x 22 x 1 inches. Edition of 21. Printed by Dan Carr and Julia Ferrari of Golgonooza Letter- press, Ashuelot, NH. Published by Bridge Press, Westminster Station, Vermont. $2100. Katherine Bull, Treading Soft Ground (2014).

Tom Burckhardt, Incognito (2014) Seven-color lithograph, 24 x 32 inches. Edition of 20. Printed and published by Shark’s Ink, Lyons, CO. $1,800. Louisiana Bendolph, Housetop Block At My Mother’s Knees (2014). Brian D. Cohen, from Pierrot Lunaire (2014).

Art in Print November – December 2014 55 Suzi Davidoff, Garden Suite–May 4 (2014) Gillian Gelzer, Take Five I-V (2014) Series of monotypes, 31 x 44 inches each. Unique Series of five lithographs, 90 x 63 cm. Edition of images. Printed by Tracy Mayrello and Corde- 14. Printed and published by Michael Woolworth lia Blanchard, Austin, TX. Published by Flatbed Publications, Paris, France. €600 each. Press, Austin. $2,800.

Jaz Graf, from Graffiti Series (2014). Suzi Davidoff, Garden Suite–May 4 (2014). Annalise Gratovich, The Hunter, The Mariner and The Gambler from Villagers Carrying Things Didier Demozay, DD III (2014) From Home (2014) Monotype, 76 x 56 cm. Unique image. Printed Chine collé woodcuts, 73 x 41 inches. Edition and published by Michael Woolworth Publica- of 7. Printed by Tracy Mayrello and Cordelia tions, Paris. €1,200. Blanchard, Austin, TX. Published by Flatbed Gillian Gelzer, Take Five IV (2014). Press, Austin, TX. $2,400.

Wayne Gonzales, Crowd (2014) Five copper plate etchings, image 8 x 8 inches each, sheet 18 x 14 inches each. Edition of 40. Printed by Greg Burnet, New York. Published by Graphic Matter, Antwerp, Belgium. $8,500.

Didier Demozay, DD III (2014).

Nancy Doniger, Circus I (2014) Photopolymer intaglio with monoprint, 16 1/2 x 7 5/8 inches. Unique image. Printed by the artist Wayne Gonzales, Crowd (2014). at Zea Mays Printmaking Studio, Florence, MA. Annalise Gratovich, The Mariner (2014). Published by the artist, Brooklyn, NY. $400. Richard Gorman, The Hanko series (2013) Monotypes, 65 x 50 cm each. Unique image. Grace Graupe-Pillard, Grace in Clover Leaf Printed and published by Michael Woolworth Gown/James from Delving into Art series (2014) Publications, Paris. €800. Archival pigment print, 30 x 20 inches. Edition of 10. Printed and published Solo Impression, New York. $1,500.

Nancy Doniger, Circus I (2014).

Blaise Drummond, The Union Trust Company (2014) Lithograph, woodcut, photgravure and collage, 63 x 90 cm. Edition of 30. Printed and published by Michael Woolworth Publications, Paris. €950.

Richard Gorman, from The Hanko series (2013).

Jaz Graf, Graffiti Series (2014) Grace Graupe-Pillard, Grace in Clover Leaf Monotype, image 8 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches, sheet 11 Gown/James from Delving into Art series (2014). x 14 inches. Unique image. Printed by the artist at Manhattan Graphics Center, New York. Pub- Ann Hamilton, poche (2014) lished by the artist, New York. $60. Abaca paper, raw sheep wool, silk, linen thread, Blaise Drummond, The Union Trust Company 24 x 18 inches each panel. Edition of 15. Published (2014). by Dieu Donné, New York. $7,500.

56 Art in Print November – December 2014 Dominique Labauvie, Four Sculptures for a Gar- den, Suspended Time, Tabellas and Fragrantica (2014) Set of four drypoints with gampi chine collé, image 5 x 3 1/2 and 4 3/8 x 2 3/4 inches each, sheet 10 x 7 1/2 inches each. Edition of 10. Printed and published by Bleu Acier, Tampa, FL. $500 each, $1,800 for the set.

Ann Hamilton, poche (2014). Sidney Hurwitz, Chelsea View (2014).

Ellen Heck, Inoculation (2014) Siobhan Hyde, My Sleeping Protector (2014) Woodcut, drypoint and aquatint, image 9 x 14 Aquatint etching, image 15 x 15 cm, sheet 35 x 31 inches, sheet 15 x 22 inches. Edition of 9. Printed cm. Edition of 20. Printed and published by the and published by Ellen Heck at the Kala Art Graphic Studio Dublin, North Circular Road, Institute, Berkeley, CA. Available from the Wally Dublin. €120. Workman Gallery, Austin, TX. $800.

Dominique Labauvie, Four Sculptures for a Garden (2014).

Judy Ledgerwood, Untitled (2014) Series of five monotypes, 22 x 30 inches each. Unique images. Printed and published by Man- neken Press, Bloomington, IL. $4,200 each.

Siobhan Hyde, My Sleeping Protector (2014).

Mary Judge, Two Silver Skies (2014) Relief on handmade paper, 46 x 96 inches. Edition of 8. Printed by Maryanne Ellison Sim- Judy Ledgerwood, Untitled (2014). Ellen Heck, Inoculation (2014). mons, St. Louis, MO. Published by Wildwood Press LLC, St. Louis. Price on request. Channing Lefebvre, The Mystery of Numbers (2014) Mildred Howard, The Other Side of the Coin (2014) Burin cut copperplate engraving with hand col- Pigmented inkjet and acrylic on Awagami oring, 9 inches round. Edition of 22. Printed and Japanese paper, 30 x 22 inches. Variable edition of published by the artist, Latham, New York. Price 10. Printed by Nicholas Price and Tallulah Terryl, on request. Oakland, CA. Published by Magnolia Editions, Oakland. $3,000.

Mary Judge, Two Silver Skies (2014).

Michael Krueger, Rapids and Needles (2014) Six-color letterpress , 21 1/2 x 15 1/8 inches each. Edition of 30 each. Printed by Brad Ewing, Brooklyn, NY. Co-published by Forth Estate and Marginal Editions, Brooklyn. $600 each. Channing Lefebvre, The Mystery of Numbers (2014).

Pat Lipsky, Contrast and Context (2014) Twenty-eight color relief prints on Sekishu paper applied to Magnani Incisioni paper using chine collé, image 18 x 29 1/4 each, sheet 18 5/8 x 29 3/4 inches. Edition of 20. Printed and published by Jen- Mildred Howard, The Other Side of the Coin nifer Mahlman, Ribuoli Digital, New York. $5,000. (2014).

Sidney Hurwitz, Chelsea View (2014) Etching and aquatint, 21 x 27 inches. Edition of 15. Printed by Robert Townsend, Georgetown, MA. Published by the artist, Newton, MA. Avail- able from Stewart & Stewart, Bloomfield Hills, Michael Krueger, Rapids (2014). MI. $900.

Pat Lipsky, from Contrast and Context (2014).

Art in Print November – December 2014 57 Katherine Marmaras, ...blooming (red) (2014) Enoc Perez, Fontainebleau, Miami (2014) Mel Ramos, and (2014) Water-based woodcut, 28 x 38 cm. Unique image. Screenprint on mirrored paper, 22 1/2 x 29 3/4 Woodcuts with acrylic, image 37 x 26 3/4 inches Printed and published by the artist, Melbourne, inches. Edition of 50. Printed by Erik Hougen and each, sheet 44 x 30 inches each. Edition of 3 each. Victoria, Australia. $300AUD. Keigo Takahashi, New York. Published by Lower Printed by Nicholas Price and Tallulah Terryl, East Side Printshop, New York. $2,000. Oakland, CA. Published by Magnolia Editions, Oakland. Price on request.

Katherine Marmaras, …blooming (red) (2014). Enoc Perez, Fontainebleau, Miami (2014). Judy Mensch, Land (2014) Seven-color photolithograph, image 5 1/4 x 7 Hayal Pozanti, A Soft Machine inches, sheet 11 x 12 inches. Edition of 10. Printed and A Sacred Canopy (2014) by the artist at Manhattan Graphics Center, New Eight- and nine-color lithographs, 22 1/2 x 22 inches York. Published by the artist, New York. $250. each. Edition of 30 each. Printed and published by Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, NM. $1,600 each.

Mel Ramos, Batman (2014).

Rosalyn Richards, Veiled (2014) Etching, 12 x 10 inches. Edition of 10. Printed and published by the artist, Lewisburg, PA. Available from Corners Gallery, Ithaca, NY. $400.

Judy Mensch, Land (2014).

Hayal Pozanti, A Sacred Canopy (2014). Lynn Newcomb, Iliad, Battlefield, Nestor’s Horses (2014) Mary Prince, The Flying Place (2014) Lithograph, 38 x 26 inches. Edition of 16. Printed Eight-block, 42-color woodcut, 25 1/2 x 20 1/4 at Muskat Studios, Somerville, MA. Published by inches. Edition of 30. Printed by the artist and the artist, Worcester, VT. $500. Anthony Kirk, New York. Published by the art- ist, New York. Available from Stewart & Stewart, Bloomfield Hills, MI. $1,650.

Rosalyn Richards, Veiled (2014).

Ed Ruscha, Cash for Tools 1–2, Dead End 1–3 and For Sale from Rusty Signs (2014) Mixografía® prints on handmade paper, 24 x 24 Lynn Newcomb, Iliad, Battlefield, inches each. Edition of 50 (Cash for Tools, Dead Nestor’s Horses (2014). End) and 85 (For Sale) each. Printed and published by Mixografia, Los Angeles. Price on request. Richard Pasquarelli, New Amsterdam No. 1–3 (2014) Hand-painted aquatints, image 12 x 12 inches Mary Prince, The Flying Place (2014). each, sheet 21 x 19 3/4 inches each. Edition of 20. Printed by Marjorie Van Dyke, New York. Tal R, Pigeon Man (2014) Co-published by VanDeb Editions and the artist, Woodcut, image 80 x 61 cm, sheet 97 x 75 cm. New York. $800. Edition of 56. Printed and published by Niels Borch Jensen, Copenhagen. €800.

Ed Ruscha, Cash for Tools I from Rusty Signs (2014).

Richard Ryan, Bird in Tree (2014) Woodcut, image 56 x 36 inches, sheet 64 x 43 inches. Edition of 35. Printed and published by James Stroud at Center Street Studio, Milton Vil- Richard Pasquarelli, New Amersterdam lage, MA. $4,000 (prepublication price). No. 1 (2014). Tal R, Pigeon Man (2014).

58 Art in Print November – December 2014 Matt Saunders, Brigitte in the Reeds Senso Shabangu, Siyaya ePitoli (2014) from Menschen am Sonntag (2014) Linocut with hand painting, 44 x 30 inches. Edi- Soft ground, open bite, spite bite aquatint, soap tion of 10. Printed by David Krut Workshop, ground aquatint and polishing (from a series Johannesburg, South Africa. Published by the of six) image 49 x 39.5 cm, sheet 78.5 x 53.5 cm. artist, Johannesburg. Available from David Krut Edition of 12. Printed by Mette Ulstrup, Copen- Projects, New York. $1,200. hagen. Published by Niels Borch Jensen, Copen- hagen. €1,000.

Richard Ryan, Bird in Tree (2014).

Analia Saban, Three Stripe Hand Towel (with Stain) (2014) Mixografía® print on handmade paper with artist hand-stained addition, 28 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches. Edi- Senzo Shabangu, Siyaya e Pitoli (2014). tion of 18. Printed and published by Mixografia, Matt Saunders, Bigitte in the Reeds Los Angeles. $2,200. from Menschen am Sonntag (2014). Yasu Shibata, 3 White Squares and 6 White Squares (2014) Tomas Saraceno, Outer space seems not so Sets of three and six Japanese woodcuts, 11 x 11 unfamiliar (working title) (2014) inches each. Edition of 10 and 12. Printed and Photogravure, 88.5 x 62 cm. Edition of 18. Printed published by the artist, New York. Available from by Julie Dam, Copenhagen. Published by Niels Aspinwall Editions, New York. $800 for the set of Borch Jensen, Copenhagen. €3,000. three, $1,600 for the set of six.

Yasu Shibata, 6 White Square (2014). Analia Saban, Three Stripe Hand Towel (with Stain) (2014). Linda Simmel, Lake Hofoavatn/Black Sun (2014) Alison Saar, Shorn (2014) Photopolymer intaglio, 5 1/2 x 4 3/4 inches. Woodcut, 32 x 19 inches. Edition of 30. Printed Edition of 15. Printed and published by the artist. by Bruce Crownover, Madison, WI. Published by Tomas Saraceno, Outer space seems Available from Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA. Tandem Press, Madison. $1,500. not so unfamiliar (2014). $425.

Paula Schuette Kraemer, A Game and Bravo! (2014) Drypoint and soft ground etching, drypoint and watercolor drypoint, 22 7/8 x 22 7/8 inches each. Edition of 10 each. Printed and published by Open Gate Press, Madison, WI. $400 each.

Linda Simmel, Lake Hofoavatn/Black Sun (2014). Alison Saar, Shorn (2014).

Paula Schuette Kraemer, Bravo! (2014).

Art in Print November – December 2014 59 Hunt Slonem, Bird Wing–A (2014) Monoprint, archival pigment print with hand painting and diamond dust, 28 1/2 x 41 inches. Unique image. Printed and published by Stewart & Stewart, Bloomfield Hills, MI. $3,500.

Charline Von Heyl, L’Étranger (2014).

Hunt Slonem, Bird Wing-A (2014). Aaron Spangler, Wholeness and George Whitman, Untitled (landscape III) (2014) Well Being (2014). Etching with chine collé, image 22 x 28 inches, Justine Smith, Blow (2014) sheet 30 x 35 inches. Edition of 35. Printed and Embossed archival inkjet print, 60 x 40 cm. Edi- published by James Stroud and Ryder Stroud at Yanko Tihov, Europe 1960s–Cold War (2014) Center Street Studio, Milton Village, MA. $1,200. tion of 90. Printed at Coriander Studios, Middle- Archival inkjet print hand gilded with 23 carat sex, UK. Co-published by TAG Fine Arts and the gold and silver shell, 61 x 83.7 cm. Edition of 30. artist, London. £350. Printed by the artist in London. Co-published by TAG Fine Arts and the artist, London. £1,200.

George Whitman, Untitled (landscape III) (2014).

Quinten Williams, Choke Point (2014) Chine collé, hard ground, sugarlift aquatint, 14 Yanko Tihov, Europe 1960s-Cold War (2014). x 14 3/4 inches. Edition of 20. Printed and pub- lished by David Krut Workshop, Johannesburg, Diane Victor, The Rhino Who Looks at the Sky South Africa. Available from David Krut Projects, (2014) New York. Price on request. Justine Smith, Blow (2014). Etching and embossing, 51 1/2 x 37 inches. Edition of 21. Printed and published by David Linda Soberman, Conversation/Paris 1 (2014) Krut Workshop, Johannesburg, South Africa. Lithograph, 30 x 18 1/2 inches. Edition of 10. From Available from David Krut Projects, New York. a series of related editions published by the art- Price on request. ist and printed by Ron Pokrasso, Santa Fe, NM. Available from Stewart & Stewart, Bloomfield Hills, MI. $900.

Quinten Williams, Choke Point (2014).

Ken Wood, Written Words Fly II-b (2014) Relief and collagraph, 44 x 40 inches. Edition of 4. Printed by Amanda Verbeck, St. Louis, MO. Published by Pele Prints, St. Louis. $1,500.

Diane Victor, The Rhino Who Looks at the Sky (2014).

Charline Von Heyl, Snoopy (Black V), L’Étranger, Linda Soberman, Conversation/Paris 1 (2014). Schatzi and Schmutzi (2014) Color spit bite aquatint and/or soft ground etch- Aaron Spangler, Wholeness and Well Being (2014) ings on gampi paper chine collé, image 24 x 19 Woodcut, 34 1/2 x 25 inches. Variable edition of inches each, sheet 31 x 25 inches each. Edition of 8. Printed and published by Highpoint Editions, 20. Printed and published by Crown Point Press, , MN. $1,250. San Francisco. Price on request. Ken Wood, Written Words Fly II-b (2014).

60 Art in Print November – December 2014 Exhibitions of Note http://www.nielsborchjensen.com/ This exhibition presents a series of intimate pho- togravure portraits, capturing the early moments French painter ALBUQUERQUE of the close friendship that developed between Marc Desgrandchamps “The Making of Landscapes: the two artists. Monotypes by Jacqui Lewnes” takes on 7 – 29 November 2014 CHICAGO New Grounds Print Workshop & Gallery “Ghosts and Demons in Japanese Prints” Pliny the Elder in http://www.newgroundsgallery.com/ 11 October 2014 – 4 January 2015 Lewnes’ monotypes are dream-like representa- his new artist’s book, Art Institute of Chicago tions of New Mexico landscapes, inspired by long http://www.artic.edu/exhibition/ghosts-and- motorcycle rides. Fragments, demons-japanese-prints Drawn from the Clarence Buckingham Collec- at Michael Woolworth ALPIRSBACH, GERMANY tion of Japanese Prints, the exhibition includes “The Palace at 3 a.m. (Ordo Inversus)” work such as Hokusai’s One Hundred Stories Publications, Paris. 12 October 2014 – 1 February 2015 (Hyaku monogatari). Monastery Alpirsbach First glance at E/AB Fair A site-specific installation of woodcuts by Chris- DES MOINES, IA toph M. Loos. in New York City or on “From Icon to Abstraction: Goncharova, Kruchenykh + Rozanova and The Great War” michaelwoolworth.com AUSTIN, TX 26 September 2014 – 15 February 2015 “QR/PR” Second glance in Paris on 7 November – 3 December 2014 http://www.desmoinesartcenter.org/exhibitions/ December 4th 2014. 02 Gallery FROM-ICON-TO-ABSTRACTIONnew.aspx http://www.flatbedpress.com/ This exhibition compares these avant-garde Rus- Elaborate color woodcuts, lithographs and sian artists’ Modernist visions of war. monotypes by Veronica Ceci, master printer at Flatbed Press. GARRISON, NY “New Editions and Monotypes” “The Hudson River Portfolio: Stewart & Stewart 6 October 2014 – 10 February 2015 A Beginning for the ” www.StewartStewart.com Flatbed Press 3 August – 30 November 2014 http://flatbedpress.com/ Boscobel House & Gardens Fine Screenprint Editions Since 1980 Work by Ricky Armendariz, Alice Leora Briggs, http://www.boscobel.org/events-and-exhibitions/ Ann Conner, Suzi Davidoff, Annalise Gratovich, special-exhibitions/ Richard Bosman John Greer, Jules Buck Jones, Sharon Kopriva, A suite of aquatints made between 1821 and 1825 Vanessa Paschakarnis, Larry Scholder and Frank by John Hill from watercolors by William G. Wall. Janet Fish X. Tolbert 2. Sondra Freckelton HUNTINGTON, PA Jane E. Goldman BERLIN “Philagrafika: 10 Years of John Himmelfarb “Jean-Michel Basquiat Innovative Printmaking” Yvonne Jacquette Through Nicholas Taylor” 25 September – 1 November 2014 13 September – 8 November 2014 Juanita College Museum of Art Catherine Kernan Niels Borch Jensen Gallery & Editions http://www.juniata.edu/services/museum/1415/ Hunt Slonem Philagrafika.html Steven Sorman Prints by Alice Oh, Virgil Marti, Dennis Lo, and and others Candy DePew, and others.

2014 IFPDA Print Fair • NYC • 5-9 November LIVERPOOL “Transmitting ” 7 November 2014 – 8 February 2015 Tate Liverpool http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/ exhibition/transmitting-andy-warhol More than 100 works, including television com- mercials, films, prints and the entire print run Interview magazine, are assembled to show how Warhol combined making, marketing, publicity and distribution within his art.

LONDON “Howard Hodgkin, Green Thoughts” 11 October – 15 November 2014 Alan Cristea Gallery http://www.alancristea.com/schedule.php Nineteen new editions by one of Britain’s most eminent artists.

“The Print Show” 12 November 2014 – 3 January 2015 In London: “The Print Show,” through 3 January Flowers Gallery 2015. Glen Baxter, Clandestine Meetings of http://www.flowersgallery.com/ the Jane Austen Society Were Held Every Featuring work by Glen Baxter, Bernard Cohen, Other Thursday (2014), two-plate copper photo Tom Hammick, Nicola Hicks, Lucy Jones, Freya etching, 75 x 57 cm. Edition of 38. ©Glen Baxter. Payne, Carol Robertson, Michael Sandle, Richard Courtesy Flowers Gallery, London and New York. Smith and Tai-Shan Schierenberg.

Art in Print November – December 2014 61 In New York: “Sturtevant: Double Trouble,” through 22 February 2015. Sturtevant, Warhol Diptych (1973/2004), synthetic polymer screenprint and acrylic on canvas, 213 × 322 cm. Pinault Collection. Photo: Axel Schneider, Frankfurt am Main. ©Estate Sturtevant, Paris.

“Fredun Shapur: Playing with Design” A selection of war posters produced during “Treasure Island” 9 October – 15 November 2014 World War I by Canada, France, Germany, Eng- 1 October – 9 November 2014 Kemistry Gallery land and the United States. Lower East Side Printshop http://kemistrygallery.co.uk/ http://www.printshop.org/web/Collect/Exhibitions/ Like Bruno Munari or Charles Eames, Fredun NEW YORK index.html Shapur has produced a wide-ranging body of “Thinking in Print: New Works on Paper” Guest curated by NYC/DC-based curator and work that also engages children. 4 September 2014 – 4 January 2015 writer Julie Chae, this exhibition alludes to the Art and Picture Collections at Mid-Manhattan Library era of maritime exploration from the Enlighten- “Jane Hammond: Works on Paper” http://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/mary-judge- ment through . 16 October – 7 November 2014 thinking-print-art-wall-third-exhibition-series Sims Reed Gallery A site-specific exhibition of unique relief prints “Bartholomeus Spranger: http://gallery.simsreed.com/ on handmade paper produced by artist Mary Splendor and Eroticism in Imperial The artist’s first solo exhibition in London sur- Judge in collaboration with Wildwood Press. Prague” veys works on paper from the past decade. 4 November 2014 – 1 February 2015 “Pat Keck: Color Woodcuts” Metropolitan Museum of Art MIAMI 1 – 15 November 2014 http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/list- “Beatriz Milhazes: Jardim Botânico” G. W. Einstein Company, Inc. ings/2014/bartholomeus-spranger 19 September 2014 – 11 January 2015 http://www.gweinsteincompany.com/ The first major exhibition devoted to Bar- Pérez Art Museum Miami A survey of the last 20 years of Pat Keck’s color tholomeus Spranger (1546–1611), who served a http://www.pamm.org/ woodcuts, printed by the artist. cardinal, a pope, and two Holy Roman Emperors. The first major US survey of the work of Beatriz Milhazes, this exhibition covers three decades of “New Projects” “Sturtevant: Double Trouble” her production, including more than 50 large- 30 October – 6 December 2014 9 November 2014 – 22 February 2015 scale paintings, screenprints and collages. Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl Museum of Modern Art http://www.joniweyl.com/ http://www.moma.org/visit/exhibitions MONTREAL New editions by John Baldessari, Richard Serra, Sturtevant began “repeating” the works of her “Warhol Mania” and Richard Tuttle. contemporaries in 1964, using some of the most 5 November 2014 – 15 March 2015 iconic artworks of her generation as a source and A collection of original posters by Andy Warhol. “New Prints 2014/Autumn” catalyst for an exploration of originality, author- 25 October – 13 December 2014 ship, and the interior structures of art and image “The Patriotism of Death: International Print Center New York culture. This exhibition is the first comprehen- Propaganda Posters from World War I” http://www.ipcny.org/ sive survey in America of Sturtevant’s 50-year 11 November 2014 – 8 February 2015 The 49th iteration of IPCNY’s New Prints Pro- career, and the only institutional presentation of Montreal Museum of Fine Arts gram, a series of juried exhibitions featuring her work organized in the United States since her https://www.mbam.qc.ca/en/ prints made within the past twelve months. solo show at the Everson Museum of Art in 1973.

62 Art in Print November – December 2014 “40° 42’ N / 37° 48’ S” The Art Gallery at the College of Staten Island 26 October – 8 November 2014 http://www.csi.cuny.edu/artgallery/ National Arts Club Thirty prints assembled to raise funds for a col- http://www.nysetchers.org/events_list.php lection of New York modern art that eventually A joint exhibition of intaglio prints by artists became part of the permanent collection of the from New York and Melbourne, Australia. Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1973. “Sublime: The Prints by J.W.M. Turner “Print Facets: Five Centuries BLEU ACIER and Thomas Moran” of Printmakers” 17 October 2014 – 15 February 2015 12 September – 25 October 2014 New York Public Library The Curator Gallery http://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/sublime- http://www.thecuratorgallery.com/ prints-j-m-w-turner-and-thomas-moran-1 From the 17th-century mezzotint printers whose Shown in adjoining galleries, the two artists, techniques pulled light out of darkness, to the EDITIONS/ARTIST’S from two sides of the Atlantic, offer complemen- inventions of sugar lift and spit bite methods, tary and sometimes divergent views of nature. this exhibition explores the rich and complex BOOK FAIR 2014 medium of print art. “Kenny Scharf Monoprints” 10 October – 8 November 2014 “Dürer, Rembrandt, Tiepolo: NOVEMBER 6-9 Pace Prints The Jansma Print Collection from the NEW YORK CITY http://www.paceprints.com/exhibitions Grand Rapids Art Museum” Scharf’s surrealistic, pop style work deals with 17 October – 18 January 2015 BLEU ACIER | BOOTH 9 earth and space, the natural and the artificial. Museum of Biblical Art http://mobia.org/exhibitions/durer-rembrandt-tiepolo “Jacob Kainen: Very Large Monotypes” Spanning five centuries of printmaking, the 3 November – 14 December 2014 Jansma Collection includes work by Albrecht Pia Gallo with Conrad Graeber Fine Art Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Giovanni Domenico http://www.piagallo.com/?v=exhibitions Tiepolo, Édouard Manet, and Max Pechstein, as Kainen combined his painting skills with print- well as 21 engravings by William Blake. making processes learned during his time work- ing for the WPA Federal Arts Project to create “The Floral Ghost” these works. 24 October – 12 December 2014 Planthouse “InkSplash 2014” http://planthouse.net/exhibitions/ 25 October – 16 November 2014 Along with writer Susan Orlean, artists Simryn Rockaway Artists Alliance Studio 7 Gallery Gill, Florian Meisenberg, Katia Santibañez, Philip http://www.rockawayartistsalliance.org/ Taaffe, Fred Tomaselli and Anton ürthW consider A juried exhibition of original prints, including plants and the perpetually changing nature of the intaglio, monoprint, original experimental tech- city. nique, and traditional photo printing.

“The New York Collection for Stockholm: NORWALK, CT A Print Portfolio from the “Clare Romano and John Ross: Newark Public Library” 70 Years of Printmaking” 8 October – 8 November 2014 14 September – 10 December 2014 Center for Contemporary Printmaking http://www.contemprints.org/index.php/exhibitions A selection of works by two prolific printmakers who were artists, educators, world travelers and authors of several publications.

OXFORD, UK “William Blake: Apprentice and Master” 4 December 2014 – 1 March 2015 Ashmolean Museum dominique labauvie, “great minds intertwined” from the artist book “rock wood water earth” http://www.ashmolean.org/ photogravure + woodcut | 2011 | 15”x11” | ed. of 10 Including more than 90 of Blake’s most cele- brated works, this exhibition examines the three key phases in the life and work of one of Britain’s most influential and original artists.

PARIS “Muntundas: ...Et avec cela?” 7 November – 17 December 2014 The artist’s work concerns mass media, hyper- consumption and modern technologies used as tools for perception and manipulation.

“Print Party Revelation” [email protected] 19 December 2014–3 January 2015 BLEUACIER.COM The real names of the artists who made the 16 In Washington, DC: “From Neoclassicism to prints that were presented under a pseudonym www.eabfair.org Futurism: Italian Prints and Drawings, 1800– during the Print Party held last March will finally 1925,” through 1 February 2015. Luigi Sabatelli I, be revealed to the public. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1809– mfc-michèle didier gallery 1810), etching. Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund. http://www.micheledidier.com/

Art in Print November – December 2014 63 PORTLAND WASHINGTON, DC “Semblant Geometries” “From Neoclassicism to Futurism: 17 October – 15 November 2014 Italian Prints and Drawings, 1800–1925” Photo & Print Gallery, Pacific Northwest College of Art 1 September 2014 – 1 February 2015 http://www.pnca.edu/ National Gallery of Art New works on paper by Portland-based artist http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/exhibitions.html Heather Lee Birdsong that explore the question, An introduction to this little-known period of “Where do math and metaphor meet?” Italian art through some 70 prints, drawings, and illustrated books. PURCHASE, NY “Antonio Frasconi: WICHITA, KS Stand Up and Be Counted” “Bruce Conner: Somebody Else’s Prints” 29 September – 19 November 2014 5 September – 14 December 2014 Selected Works School of Art + Design, Purchase College Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University november 1 - December 12 2014 http://www.purchase.edu/Departments/Aca- http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=ulrichmuseum&p=/Art/ demicPrograms/Arts/ArtDesign/ Exhibitions/Bruce_Conner/ Dickinson Roundell Inc 19 East 66th Street Antonio Frasconi (1919-2013) was committed to The first major exhibition of Conner’s work in a New York, NY 10065 social and political issues in his artistic practice, decade includes rarely seen work from the Con- as well as experimentation with the printed page. ner Family Trust and private collections. Gallery hours: Monday - Friday 10-6pm Weekends by appointment ROME, ITALY t: (212) 772 8083 e: [email protected] “Tobias Rehberger: Wrap it up” Conferences w: www.simondickinson.com dickinson 19 September 2014 – 11 January 2015 Contemporary Art Museum of Rome NEW YORK http://www.museomacro.org/it/tobias-rehberger- “Beyond Connoisseurship: wrap-it Rethinking Prints from the Belle Épreuve An overview of the artist’s works on paper, (1875) to the Present” including drawings, collages and prints. 7 November 2014 JJ ad.indd 3 01/10/2014 17:22 Martin E. Segal Theatre, The Graduate Center, SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO City University of New York “The IV Poly/Graphic San Juan Triennial: http://rethinkingprints.commons.gc.cuny.edu/ Latin American and the Caribbean” This conference will present talks by emerging 24 October 2015 – 27 February 2016 and established curators and academics who are http://www.icp.gobierno.pr/ applying innovative methodologies to the study This Triennial will examine the formal and of printmaking (from ca. 1875 to the present) and conceptual displacements of the graphic image connecting it to broader art historical trends. between different fields, media, backgrounds, senses, and especially, its exit to the three-dimen- sional space, with emphasis on installations. Fairs

SEATTLE BROOKLYN “M.C. Escher: Selected Prints” “Prints Gone Wild” 3 October – 14 November 2014 7 November 2014 Davidson Galleries Littlefield http://www.davidsongalleries.com/home.php http://www.cannonballpress.com/

SOUTH HADLEY, MA NEW YORK “Plant Lithographs by “IFPDA Print Fair” Ellsworth Kelly, 1964-66” 5 November 2014 – 9 November 2014 30 August – 14 December 2014 Park Avenue Armory Mount Holyoke College Art Museum http://www.ifpda.org/content/print-fair https://www.mtholyoke.edu/artmuseum/plant-lith- ographs-ellsworth-kelly-1964-66 “Editions/Artists’ Books Fair” Kelly’s botanical prints, made at Maeght Editions 6 November 2014 – 9 November 2014 in Paris. Art Beam Building http://eabfair.org/ SYDNEY “Chuck Close: Prints, Process, “New York Satellite Print Fair” Collaboration” 7 November 2014 – 9 November 2014 20 November 2014 – 8 March 2015 Bohemian National Hall Museum of Contemporary Art Australia http://www.nysatellite-printfair.com/ http://www.mca.com.au The largest survey of Close’s art to be presented in MIAMI Australia. Blurring the boundaries between pho- “Ink Miami” tography and printmaking, Close has employed 3 – 7 December 2014 a wide range of techniques from mezzotint to Suites of Dorchester mokuhanga woodcut. http://www.inkartfair.com/ WILLIAM KENTRIDGE TOLEDO, OH SEOUL UNIVERSAL ARCHIVE “Looks Good on Paper: “Art Edition” davidkrut.com | [email protected] Masterworks and Favorites” 13 November 2014 – 16 November 2014 10 October 2014 – 11 January 2015 Hangaram Art Museum of Seoul Arts Center Toledo Museum of Art http://www.artedition.kr/ http://www.toledomuseum.org/exhibitions/looks-good/ Approximately 100 prints, drawings, watercolors, pastels, books and photographs.

64 Art in Print November – December 2014 ART IN PRINT AD - NOV-DEC 2014.indd 1 10/8/14 3:26:24 PM New Books H.M. Queen Sonja Art Foundation and ULAE, includes a residency at ULAE and a cash prize of NOK 50,000 for expenses. The foundation board El Lugar Donde Todos Conviven will select the recipient. (The Place Where We All Live Together) The new award complements the existing Lorena Villablanca Queen Sonja Print Award, which consists of a Unpaginated cash prize of NOK 400,000 and a one-week resi- Purchase Published by Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, dency at Atelje Larsen in Helsingborg, Sweden. Santiago, Chile, 2014 While previously been reserved for Nordic art- ists, the Queen Sonja Print Award will now be Back Issues Goya: Order & Disorder open to nominees from around the world. Text by Stephanie Loeb Stepanek, Frederick Ilch- man, Janis A. Tomlinson, Clifford S. Ackley, Jane E. Highpoint Center Announces Recipients of of Art in Print. Braun, Manuela B. Mena Marqués, Gudrun Mau- rer, Elisabetta Polidori, Sue W. Reed, Benjamin Jerome Emerging Printmakers Residency Highpoint Center for Printmaking has Weiss and Juliet Wilson-Bareau announced the recipients of the 12th Jerome 400 pages, 260 color illustrations Emerging Printmakers Residency: Kieran Riley Published by Published by MFA Publications, Abbott, Christopher Alday and Drew Peterson. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2014 Each artist will receive nine months of access to $65. the printshop as well as technical support, cri- tiques and a stipend. The residency is open to emerging printmakers.

Kelley Walker Text by Robert Hobbs 116 pages, 233 color illustrations Published by Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2014 $60.

In Minneapolis: Recipients of the Jerome Emerging Printmakers Residency. Left to Right: Kieran Riley Abbott, Christopher Alday and Drew Peterson. Did you know you can purchase any issue of Riva Castleman, MoMA Curator, Dies at 84 Art in Print? Riva Castleman, an important champion of printmaking in the decades when it became cen- tral to contemporary art, passed away in Bridge- Miss the New Editions issue? water, CT, on 4 September. Castleman joined the Museum of Modern Art’s department of prints Need the Stanley William and illustrated books in 1963 and headed it from from 1976 to 1995. In that position she helped Hayter issue for your Women and Print: A Contemporary View illuminate the critical role that prints played in library? Edited by Mary Davis MacNaughton; texts by the thinking of important contemporary artists. Sienna Brown, Margaret Mathews-Berenson, and She oversaw a significant expansion of the collec- Mary Davis MacNaughton tion and organized more than 21 exhibitions. Her Want to give the Renaissance 120 pages, fully illustrated in color many publications include Contemporary Prints issue to a friend? Published by Scripps College, (1973), Prints of the Twentieth Century: A History Claremont, CA, 2014 (1976), Printed Art: A View of Two Decades (1980), $25 Jasper Johns: A Print Retrospective (1987) and Amer- All 15 issues of Art in Print ican Impressions: Prints Since Pollock (1994). are available on MagCloud Other News at www.magcloud.com/user/ established-2011. Norway Announces New Printmaking Award At the beginning of October, Queen Sonja of Norway and master printer Bill Goldston of Uni- If you have any questions, versal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) introduced please contact us at the Kjell Nupen Memorial Grant, which will be Please submit announcements of awarded to emerging graphic artists from the exhibitions, publications and [email protected]. Nordic countries. The award will be presented other events to every second year in commemoration of Norwe- gian artist Kjell Nupen, who passed away earlier [email protected]. this year. The grant, a collaboration between the

Art in Print November – December 2014 65 Judith

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Art in Print November – December 2014 69 10TH BIENNIAL International Miniature Print Exhibition 2015 June 7 – August 30, 2015

ENTRY DEADLINE: JUROR: March 14, 2015 (Postmark) Lyle Williams, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

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78 Art in Print November – December 2014 Contributors to this Issue

Christina Aube is a curatorial assistant at the Getty Research Institute. She received her Ph.D. in art history at the University of Delaware in 2013. Her dissertation, “Michel de Marolles and the Rise of Printmaking in the Grand Siècle,” examined the writings of the 17th-century print collector Michel de Marolles.

Julia Beaumont-Jones specializes in 19th-century to contemporary works on paper. From 2005–13 she served as Manager of the Prints and Drawings Rooms, Tate Britain, London.

Calvin Brown is associate curator of prints and drawings at the Princeton University Art Museum, with over 35 years of experience in museum print rooms. He is coauthor with Alistair Wright of the exhibition catalogue Gauguin’s Paradise Remembered: The Noa Noa Prints, Princeton University Art Museum, 2010.

Robert J. Del Bontà is an independent scholar of South Asian art and culture. Since receiving his PhD (University of Michigan, 1978), he has curated many shows on Indian art and European art on India. “Strange and Wondrous” at the Sackler Gallery in Washington, DC, highlighted other aspects Hayal Pozanti of European engravings relating to India from his collection.

Elleree Erdos is a graduate student at and works at Craig F. Starr Gallery in New York. A graduate of Williams College, she has worked in the print departments at The Museum of Modern Art and the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, as well as in the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Faye Hirsch is Editor at Large at Art in America, and teaches in the MFA program at SUNY Purchase.

Laurie Hurwitz is a curator at the Maison européenne de la photographie in Paris, France. She has written on art and design for Art & Auction, frieze, Metropolis, Aperture, Sculpture, Revue Dada and Connaissance des arts. She is Paris correspondent for ARTnews magazine.

Jaclyn Jacunski is an artist and is the Research Associate for the Shapiro Center for Research and Collaboration at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She earned her MFA from SAIC and BFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She has been an artist in residence at Spudnik Press, A Soft Machine, 2014. Eight-color lithograph. Director of the Chicago Printer’s Guild and worked as an assistant to master printers at Tandem Press. 505.277.3901 [email protected] Evelyn Lincoln is Professor of the History of Art & Architecture and Italian Studies at Brown University. She writes about the history of printmaking and the book in the early modern period and is the author of Brilliant Discourse: Pictures and Readers in Early Modern Rome (Yale University Press, 2014), and The Invention of the Italian Renaissance Printmaker (Yale University Press, 2000).

John Murphy is a PhD candidate in Art History at Northwestern University. His dissertation investigates early 20th-century American Arts & Crafts communities. A Mary & Leigh Block Museum Fellow in 2012-13, he curated “Blacklisted: William Gropper’s Capriccios” in the spring of 2013 and “The Left Front: Radical Art in the ‘Red Decade’” in 2014.

Carlos Navarrete is a visual artist and art critic based in Santiago, Chile. His work has been included in the São Paulo Biennale (2008) and the Poly-Graphic Triennial in San Juan, Puerto Rico (2009). He has written regularly for magazines and catalogues since 1990.

Andrew Saluti is the Assistant Director of the Syracuse University Art Galleries and is a faculty member of the Graduate Program in Museum Studies. His curatorial focus is the art of the print.

Zoe Whitley holds curatorial positions at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Previously she was a curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum and co-curated the Afrofuturist exhibition “The Shadows Took Shape” at the Studio Museum in Harlem. She is co-author of In Black and White: Prints from Africa and the Diaspora.

Susan Tallman is the Editor-in-Chief of Art in Print. She has written extensively about prints, issues of multiplicity and authenticity, and other aspects of contemporary art.

Art in Print November – December 2014 79 Back Issues of Art in Print

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BAROQUE TIME MACHINE 1, 2014, Woodblock Monoprint on Handmade Japanese Paper, 79 x 79 inches (200 x 200 cm) POLLY APFELBAUM

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