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“A Delicate Piece of Machinery”

You probably could have guessed that Printeresting’s favorite character from AMC’s Madmen is the Xerox 914 that makes its debut in the first episode of season two. A hard-drinkin’ and hard-smokin’ machine for a hard-drinkin’ and hard-smokin’ era! That said, a close second is Ned the Xerox Repairman. Beneath that charm and charisma lies the inky heart of a true print aficionado.

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Medium Resistance (Teaser)

The relationship of art and craft has long been a familiar minefield for printmakers. Where one ends and the other begins is a difficult line to draw and print’s exact place in the mix is highly suspect. Curatorial team of Richard Hricko, Philip Glahn, & Nick Kripal are investigating this murky area with the exhibition Medium Resistance: Revolutionary Tendencies in Print and Craft. Through a great line-up of artists (including a number of Printeresting favorites), they’ll question “the old-fashioned divisions of high art and artisanship.” Here’s a bit from the curatorial statement…

Recent discourse tends to force print and craft works into not-so-recent, even outright conservative categories: as fine art, they must be autonomous, original, and auratic; as artisanship, they must rely on tactility, skill, and apprenticeship. In both instances, crafts and printmaking are defined in defensive opposition to the forces and effects of mass culture, reproducing an old-fashioned binary in which art and artisanship provide a substitute sphere of “authentic” creative experience rather than a critical engagement with cultural production at large.

The show opens in March at the Ice Box at Crane Arts and will be on view for both the SGC conference in later March and the NSECA conference in early April. Printeresting will definitely have some pics of the show when the time comes but until then, you can check out the Medium Resistance website for a preview of what should be a strong exhibition.

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Sweethearts, Sweetprints

With just one week left until Valentine’s Day, you should get your shopping done soon! At studiocromie you can buy a set of three prints by SAM3, each of which was used to create this animation:

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The black element was screenprinted, the red was hand-drawn on each print. Is 220 Euros too much to spend on that special someone?

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A Hokusai Harvest of Graphic Horticulture

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From the UK-based Daily Mail:

Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan. But this is no alien creation – the designs have been cleverly planted. Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye. Instead, different colours of rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields. As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge.

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The crop art is made entirely out of different types of rice. Who knew?

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Read More After the Jump A Hokusai Harvest of Graphic Horticulture

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Early African American Print Culture Conference

With the SGC Philadelphia 2010 Conference just around the corner, it seemed prudent that we mention the other print conference happening in Philadelphia a week prior: The Early African American Print Culture in Theory and Practice Conference, running from March 18th – 20th.

The late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries mark both the inauguration of an African American literary tradition and the consolidation of American print culture. Yet these two most vibrant areas for American Studies scholarship are rarely considered in relation to one another. To the extent that scholars understand African American print culture at all, we do so with a dependence on critical models that assume that print is a stabilizing technology that underwrites the establishment of African American identity. But while the technology of print fixes impressions, print culture designates a world in which print both integrates with other practices and assumes a life of its own. Early African American Print Culture in Theory and Practice brings together more than a dozen distinguished and emerging scholars whose research demonstrates that the study of print culture has much to teach us about early African American literature and that early African American literature has the capacity to transform our understanding of print culture.

Sounds like an interesting conference with a scholars shedding light onto an often overlooked history of print in American culture.

These images are from the Library Company publicity for the conference.

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Fleet Street Apocalypse

This is a linocut called “Fleet Street Apocalypse,” part of a series of London Views by Stanley Donwood. London’s Fleet Street was once the center of British publishing, although as Donwood notes, “The print trade is now gone from the street. I don’t think you can even get a photocopy done there now… Fleet Street Apocalypse was printed on possibly the last remaining press in Fleet Street.”

The print is included in an elaborate installation called Red Maze, currently on view at the Schunk* culture center in Heerlen, The Netherlands. The installation was inspired partly by Piranesi’s jumbled prisons, and partly by the myth of the Minotaur:

From several points within Heerlen begins a red line; a painted representation of the red thread given by Ariadne to Theseus, the thread that enables him to find his way to the heart of the Minoan maze, slay the Minotaur and make his escape. This red thread leads to Schunk, down to the cellar. Several entranceways loom darkly from the wall, beckoning the visitor into the Red Maze… Pasted to the red wall are many printed images; they show fragments of mysterious pictures, or large wood-block printed words, such as VIRUS, SLOTH, GREED, VIDEO, DUSK, ULTRA, READY, BINGE and many more.

Also to be found lurking within the labyrinth is a printing press. According to Creative Review, visitors can pull their own prints during the run of the show.

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Philagrafika 2010: Duke Riley at the Historical Society of Philadelphia

Guest Post by Jena Osman.

Last night Philagrafika officially initiated its Out of Print component with a reception for Duke Riley and his project Reclaiming the Lost Kingdom of Laird. The Out of Print series has commissioned artists who are deeply engaged with history to work with research documents found in one of five amazing archival repositories in Philadelphia. The research for Riley’s project came from print materials housed in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and focused on Petty’s Island—a little known island situated between Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey in the middle of the Delaware River. The island is not open to the public (it’s owned by Citgo and is populated by fuel storage tanks), but that didn’t stop Riley from investigating the landscape firsthand.

In his historical research he discovered that in the mid-19th century, the island was inhabited by caretaker and pig farmer Ralston Laird, his wife, and ten children. Laird and his family were eventually forced to leave, and it is this fact that inspired Riley’s project. In Riley’s interpretation, Laird was the victim of foul play, exiled from his lawful kingdom. Riley takes it upon himself to pay homage to “the royal ancestors of the Laird kingdom” and to document a massive intervention created by the Laird Kingdom Liberation Army.

Read More After the Jump Philagrafika 2010: Duke Riley at the Historical Society

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Philagrafika 2010: The Print Center

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Post co-written by guest-contributor, Gillian Pokalo.
Last weekend presented too many great exhibitions to sort through the experience at once, hence this delayed posting about The Print Center’s opening event. As a Graphic Unconscious site for Philagrafika 2010. The Print Center chose to focus on Print in the Public Sphere. From the curatorial statement on the Philagrafika 2010 description:

The exhibition will include three major newly commissioned works. One is a dramatic reorganization of The Print Center’s three gallery spaces by the Philadelphia-based collective Space 1026. Their installation will create modular systems for viewing and reading printed works, as well as places to meet and hold programs. There will also be an onsite printing project incorporating images chosen by the public by Mexican artist Erick Beltrán. Texas-based artist Eric Avery will be creating a printed installation in The Print Center’s restroom, which will offer information on emerging infectious diseases. The exhibition will also include new works and programs by Bitterkomix, Sue Coe, Julius Deutschbauer, Dexter Sinister, Dispatch, Drive By Press, Eloísa Cartonera, Art Hazelwood, Jenny Schmid, Self Help Graphics & Art, Temporary Services, and others.

Read More After the Jump Philagrafika 2010: The Print Center

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Vampire Weekend

Please say it’s not too late for Printeresting to get in on The Vampire Craze of 2008!

Tom Messenger linocut

J. Cazotte wood engraving

Printable vampire papercraft

Dennis McNett linocut

Tyler Stout screenprint

woodcut of Vlad the Impaler

Brian Biggs screenprint in progress

Bill Fick linocut

Edward Munch lithograph/woodcut

Joshua Norton woodcut

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(Belated) Groundhog Day

Too busy yesterday to get this online but a day late is better than not at all. Punxsutawney Phil had a grim forecast for us… six more weeks of winter. I can’t speak for the whole country, but Austin has been cold and rainy- a far cry from Spring. This drawing from tiny blog seems to sum up this Goundhog Day perfectly… not as grim as last year’s Groundhog Day post but still a little under the weather.

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