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newsletter - spring 2004
Highway 17 Express: Multiple Runs was a landmark printmaking exhibit at Works.
It was aptly named, since the Highway 17 Express bus links two great campuses—the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) and San José State University (SJSU)—the two campuses from which curators Brenda Berg and Carla Turturici chose 25 exhibiting printmakers (hence the pun, multiple runs) to be featured in this show.
The 25 printmakers included Muriel Appelbaum, Colleen Arakaki, Brenda Berg, Stephanie Bystedt, Susan Castner-Paine, Roberta Faust, Erin Goodwin-Guerrero, Julia Gualtieri, Gabriel Guerriero, Dana Hemenway, Katie Kawaoka, Andrew Kirsch, Mary Kitaji, Linda Levy, Kathryn Metz, Darien Payne, Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs, Paul Rangell, Patrick Surgalski, Susana Terrell, Carla Turturici, Virginia Uhl, Christina Velázquez, Mary Warshaw, and Richard Wohlfeiler.
The exhibition was curated by Brenda Berg and Carla Turturici. Turturici commented that although many of the techniques are centuries old, this exhibition showed that “a lot of new, exciting things are happening with printmaking.” She went on to note that although digital printmaking has often been disdained by purists, she believes it will offer “new vistas,” without displacing traditional forms of printmaking. Berg was excited by this show’s validation of printmaking as an option for contemporary cross-media artists to explore.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a lecture was held at SJSU hosted by Jo Farb-Hernandez, School of Art and Design Gallery Director. Speakers included renowned printmakers Erin Goodwin-Guerrero and Patrick Surgalski, both currently teaching at SJSU, together with Paul Rangell and Richard Wohlfeiler, professors at UCSC. This lecture covered aspects of historical printmaking techniques, postmodern “anything goes” trends, and the future of digital printmaking and cyberspace.
Paul Rangell reviewed key historical aspects of printmaking, explaining how printmaking was once the main type of mass communication—“a form of TV” to address the world. He cited famous printmakers such as Delacroix, Goya, Daumier, Guadalupe-Posada, Toulouse-Lautrec, Munch, and Nolde.
Edwin Goodwin-Guerrero quickly reviewed some of her influences, including Francisco Toledo, a contemporary Mexican printmaker, and Manuel Ocampo, before focusing on her work, which, she explained, often consists of “images that relate to the spiritual.”
Patrick Surgalski talked about admiring Picasso’s and Goya’s lithographs, and noted that some of his monotypes came about in response to his firsthand experiencing of Goya in Spain. He also mentioned how California’s vast landscapes influenced his sense of space and how he enjoyed collaborating with poets to create his work.
Richard Wohlfeiler had a chance to wax rhapsodic about digital printmaking, wherein computers are used to make images, some of which are appropriated. He noted how Rangell once described Wohlfeiler’s early work, which was printed on an injket printer, as ending up with something on a piece of typing paper—and how that was no longer true, now that digital printmaking had evolved into more sophisticated production and printing techniques. Rangell and Wohlfeiler eventually worked together for over a year (using the computer for photoplates, hand drawn plates and lithographic stone), a collaboration that resulted in a variable edition of 48 prints, each one different from the others. Wohlfeiler emphasized his love of digital printmaking as a sort of “documentation” process, albeit manipulated for narrative impact.
This exhibit, along with the lecture at SJSU, provided an expanded landscape of the vast possibilities and alternatives available for printmaking—an art form often considered by the public to be a rather traditional process.
Hundreds of people visited the highly touted California Society of Printmakers’ 90th Annual Member Exhibit, January 6 through 31, 2004.
Printmaking has a long tradition, harking back to the 15th century, when it was first used as an inexpensive means to produce and distribute large numbers of copies of images and text. In this exhibit, more than 100 artists from the society’s approximately 300 members displayed an amazing array of work, comprising an eclectic range of subject matter and printmaking processes. The society, first founded as the California Etching Society, is primarily a Bay Area non-profit organization, but also includes printmakers from other parts of California as well as out-of-state. Although artists must submit a portfolio of their work to be juried into membership, all members get a chance to exhibit their work at the annual show.
This very popular exhibit featured a sophisticated mix of printmaking techniques including relief printing—where the surface to be printed is raised as in woodblocks, intaglio—where images are carved out of a printing plate, such as in etchings, serigraphy—where the image is pressed through another medium, such as in silk-screening, and monotype lithography. Some pieces combined techniques, as for example in “Gatekeeper,” by Yuji Hiratsuka, which used both intaglio and relief.
A diverse array of formats were represented in the exhibition. “Egg,” by Seiko Tachibana, was an elegant handmade book with loose prints, while Fernando Reyes’ “Five Feet I” was an impressively large woodblock in muted browns, greens, and yellows designed to layer and hide a variety of figures. A wide range of subject matter emerged, from Society President Laura Lengvel’s “Monotype Monopressing,” in which a pregnant model had been “inked and pressed” onto paper, to Peter Leone McCormick’s tribute to Jackson Pollock, to works protesting the Iraq war, such as Janet Mackaig’s “It Breaks My Heart,” featuring a soldier tending a wounded infant.
This exhibit was a testament to the California Society of Printmakers’ current strength and lasting legacy—a decade away from its centennial celebration.
Nora Raggio
works/san josé
451 south 1st street • san josé,
california 95112• 408.286.6800
hours: t,w,f,sat 12pm - 4pm and th 12pm - 7pm
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