Syracuse University Art Galleries SYMBOLS OF CHANGE: British Prints of the Last Two Decades November 14, 1982 - February 20, 1983 Joe and Emily Lowe Art Gallery School of Art College of Visual and Performing Arts Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The first-year graduate museology class in We also thank the following people for their practicum included the following students contributions to the exhibition and the who participated in the exhibition and in catalog. the research and writing of this catalog. Joseph A. Scala, Director of the Joe and Leslie Arduser Selwyn Garraway Emily Lowe Art Gallery Samsudin Brahman Patricia Gould, Alfred T. Collette, Director of the (industrial design editor Syracuse University Art Collections major) Karen Novak Rodger Mack, Director of the School of Syracuse University MargaretArt Chambers Galleries Michael Skalka Art, College of Visual and Performing Deborah Freeman Carol Tyler Arts Louis Fritz (painting major) Ruth Ann Appelhof, Curator of Velvet Wildermuth Exhibitions and practicum professor Domenic J. Iacono, Curator of Collections Special gratitude is given to Donald M. Leonard C. Eichler, Preparator Lantzy, Dean of the College of Visual and Cynthia Martenson, Office Coordinator Performing Arts, for his generous and con­ Robert Kinsley, Adjunct Instructor, tinuing support of the museology program. English Department We wish to thank THE MARTIN S. ACKERMAN FOUNDATION for providing generous financial support to the publication "Copyright 1983 of this catalog. by the Joe and Emily Lowe Art Gallery School of Art College of Visual and Performing Arts Syracuse University Syracuse, New York 13210 Joseph A. Scala, Director 500 copies of this catalog were printed by Syracuse University Printing Services Syracuse, New York Cover - Peter Phillips, ,Hunter, 1975 styles, realizing that advertising had this movement. Much of his inspiration revitalization of printmaking as a viable and came from his fascination with American powerful art form. The art market in developed into a highly sophisticated art SYMBOLS cultural oddities; its computers, atomic reac­ Europe and America was expanding as a form in its own right with a complex tors, sexual-based advertising, and comic newly affluent younger generation, eager to language of signs and symbols. Ironically, OF CHANGE: book characters. On his visits to the United obtain quali1;y artwork, sought prints as an several artistic interpretations illustrated in these prints were subsequently borrowed by States, he preferred to visit Stanford Univer­ affordable alternative to paintings and sity's nuclear accelerator, Hollywood film British Pri nts sculpture.4 Galleries and printing studios the advertising industry.8 studios, and Disneyland rather than art were realizing the print's potential as a In addition to exploiting advertising styles, many of these artists assembled ready-made museums. 12 Paolozzi's montages, incor­ of the Last Two Decades salable commodity and supported talented porating advertisements, dehumanized artists. images abstracted from the media, utilizing traditional methods as well as the most re­ forms, and cartoon figures, characterize his from the Syracuse University For the most part these artists' ideas development from dada to pop, and place translated easily into prints, yet many artists cent innovations. In light of this wholesale him as an innovator on the British art scene had to take an active approach in develop­ interpolation of popular ready-made im­ Art Collections. agery, the movement came to be known as of the 1960s. ing the medium to suit their creative expres­ 9 sions. Often, these artists lacked the skills neo-dada or, more commonly, pop art. In 1957, Richard Hamilton, whose in­ necessary to achieve the printed images they Recalling the bizarre juxtapositions of dada sightful writing influenced the ascent of pop, As the 1960s brought social and artistic and surrealist artists Kurt Schwitters, Max upheaval to both sides of the Atlantic, the desired; they needed the technical expertise defined pop art as /lpopular, transient, ex­ only printing studios could provide. By col­ Ernst, and Marcel Duchamp, pop art pendable, low cost, mass produced, young, effect upon British culture was evident. Its flourished as a commercialized style which young people became increasingly disillu­ laborating with the master printer of a pro­ witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and big fessional studio, an artist with limited typified a youthful generation immersed in business./l 13 Hamilton's early career as an sioned with the inequities and impersonal material culture. "The pop movement nature of the established power structure, knowledge of advanced methods could industrial designer imbued his work with an utilize the new technologies available, often sought its inspiration not in the mysteries of orderly, disciplined approach. His diligence paralleling the social revolution that occur­ Nature, but in the cliches of man­ red in the United States. 1 The mass media presenting major challenges to the master in pursuing minute details and supervising printer. The results of these collaborations particularly popular imagery serving the the completion of his prints resulted in high emphasized the public protest enacted by broadest public./110 The images ranged from groups who confronted issues of great emo­ were enriched by the printer's technical quality works that reflect precise translations political heroes of the New Left to adver­ 14 tion. The majority of protesters were young ability, the artist's approach, and the sym­ of his original concepts. Influenced by the biotic relationship that developed between tisements for the latest conveniences in the slick, glossy style of American advertising, adults, products of the postwar population home and the blatant amplification of sex­ explosion, who rallied in support of their them. he meticulously chose a variety of elements Two printing studios, initially significant in uality which reflected the exploitation by for his compositions and analyzed the in­ new heroes and questioned preexisting manufacturers determined to sell their pro­ ideologies. This cultural revolution was a the development of modern printmaking in dividual implications in relation to the Britain, were the Curwen Studio (a sub­ ducts. The juxtaposition of reproductions, in­ overall scheme. Relishing the symbolism time when all social values were reapprais­ cluding dog food advertisements and printed ed, especially the traditional modes of sexual Syracusesidiary of the Curwel). Press), Universityand the Kelpra Art Galleries woven into the fabric of the work, Hamilton circuit boards, addressed an age of rapidly conduct and expression. It was also a time Studio. Curwen Press, established in the challenges the viewer to discern the mean­ 1840s, had a long history of working with advancing social and economic mobility. ing of images removed from their original when world-wide political oppression was A pivotal figure in the emergence of new exposed and when American media played artists, principally through the lithographic contexts, and in so doing, conveys a sense printing of book illustrations. In 1958, aesthetic ideals was Eduardo Paolozzi, of humor and/or irony. a central role in highlighting radical whose primary medium was sculpture. In activities. Robert Erskine encouraged Timothy Simon Hamilton's operations focus on the pro­ and Stanley Jones to establish a separate the late 1940s he began to create collages British artists of the 1960s and 1970s were composed of popular imagery which he ducts of technology, to which his hand is intrigued with American culture, which studio at Curwen Press, specifically designed subservient. 15 I'm Dreaming of a Black for artists to make their own lithographs.5 showed at an informal slide lecture to the represented the epitome of technological ad­ first meeting of the Independent Group in Christmas, a print that uses a film cell ex­ vancement. As Britain was bombarded with The Kelpra Studio was established in the London in 1952. The I.G. was an organiza­ tracted from a motion picture, is a product American media, artists began to look early 1960s by Christopher Prater, a com­ tion formed for younger British artists under of the film medium and· an expression of closely at the quality of twentieth-century mercial screen printer who began col­ the auspices of the Institute of Contem­ cultural mass media. As a print that incor­ life, and the material objects and habits of laborating on fine art prints with artists such porary Art. At this presentation, Paolozzi porates the precepts of pop art, it is also an the American consumer as portrayed and as Gordon House, Richard Hamilton, Eduar­ suggested that a combination of multi-media outstanding example of the application of exaggerated on television and in magazines.2 do Paolozzi, and R.B. Kitaj.6 By commission­ images had aesthetic significance and that the ready-made, and illustrates Hamilton's These artists absorbed and interpreted ing prints for public sale, publishing houses /I ••• true art was to be found outside the art close study of the extraordinary strategies of media-hyped images into works that are and galleries also aided in the print's galleries ... /I, reminiscent of the dada Marcel Duchamp.16 The isolated forms, both critical and sympathetic. This exhibi­ popularity. St. George's Gallery, founded by tradition.ll The beauty he saw in such severed from their original contexts, are tion illustrates the impact