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Posted by Jason Urban on February 27th, 2009 | These pics are from a recent trip to the Museum of Printing History in Houston, TX (more on that at a later date). According to Wikipedia, the Xerox 914, invented by Chester Carlson, was “the first successful commercial plain paper copier which in 1959 revolutionized the document-copying industry.” It took it’s name from the 9″x14″ paper it used. It was after the success of the 914 that the word “xerox” became synonymous with “copy”.
This thing is awesome. I’m only sorry that it didn’t appear to be up and running.
I haven’t read it myself, but if you’re inclined there’s a book that details the entire history- Copies in Seconds: How a Lone Inventor and an Unknown Company Created the Biggest Communication Breakthrough Since Gutenberg.
Continue reading Xerox 914!
Posted by RL Tillman on February 26th, 2009 | From our Edible Prints Department: Sawa Tanaka’s “series of screenprints on rice paper using only food, i.e. cream, flour, fruit juice and food colouring.”
Thanks to KVH. Please feel free to submit your own edible prints to our Edible Prints Department.
Posted by RL Tillman on February 25th, 2009 | Who doesn’t love a good tattooed-cat aquatint?
Pretty Boys, a 2005 etching by Melbourne-based Rona Green
published by Port Jackson Press, Australia
Posted by Jason Urban on February 25th, 2009 | Living in Austin has it’s perks… one of them is South by Southwest- for those who don’t know it’s a citywide music, film, and media festival that brings artists from all over the country and world to the capitol of Texas.
This year, Died Young Stayed Pretty is a film directed by Eileen Yaghoobian that is having two screenings (3/14, 3/18) during the festival. According to the design magazine Print, Helvetica paved the way for this new brand of art/design doc (Amze did a review of Helvetica a while back). Let’s hope these are just the beginning.
The film spotlights the American rock music poster subculture. From the website…
Died Young Stayed Pretty is a candid look at the underground poster culture in North America. This unique documentary examines the creative spirit that drives these indie graphic artists. They pick through the dregs of America’s schizophrenic culture and piece them back together. What you end up with is a caricature of the black and bloated heart that pulses greed through the US economy.
Here’s the trailer…
On a related note, SXSW also features Flatstock- a poster convention produced in conjunction with the American Poster Institute. Should be interesting.
(Via Luanne Stovall)
Posted by jendanderson on February 24th, 2009 | Seeing RL’s post made me think of something I saw this past weekend.
 Crate and Barrel's Alpha Coffee Table Crate and Barrel did not go to the trouble to make the letters right-reading, but it certainly has a similar feel. Coming soon to upscale suburban houses near you.
Posted by RL Tillman on February 24th, 2009 | These right-reading “replica wooden printers blocks” make my heart cry:
These are really good replicas of old-fashioned wooden printers blocks and are perfect for spelling out a message, statement, or more often than not someone’s name. These make a great alternative to the more chi-chi style one’s generally found on the market for children’s bedrooms.
A little bird told me about these (which she found here).
Posted by jendanderson on February 24th, 2009 | So if you are coming Los Angeles for CAA here’s another printmaking panel that is taking place at the conference. (Different date, so you can attend both!)
THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA PRINTMAKING: History with a Future
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2:30 PM–5:00 PM
West Hall Meeting Room 515A, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Chairs: Sylvia Solochek Walters, San Francisco State University; Barbara Foster, San Francisco State University
The Importance of Collecting Locally: California Contemporary Print Archives at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco
Karin Breuer, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco
Mission Gráfica: Consejo Gráfico and Bay Area Latino Printmaking
Juan Fuentes, independent artist, San Francisco
Printed Strata: The Lesser Known and Unknown in the Los Angeles Printmaking World
Jennifer D. Anderson
Cultivating Creativity at Kala Art Institute
Archana Horsting, Kala Art Institute
California/Asian Connections in Printmaking
Jimin Lee, University of California, Santa Cruz
Tamarind and the Birth of Print Marketing in Los Angeles
June Wayne, Brodsky Center, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University
Posted by amze on February 23rd, 2009 | I just got notice of this via the Southern Graphics email-list, for those of you not privy to this very exclusive service I’m re-posting it here. The panel is scheduled for Friday @ 12:30 p.m. in the Concourse Meeting Room 409AB, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center.
Multiply and Vanish: Influenced and Inspired by the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Moderator: Mark Franchino
Panelists: Virgil Marti, Adriane Herman, Kate Bingaman-Burt
Continue reading Headed for CAA? Don’t Miss This Panel
Posted by Jason Urban on February 23rd, 2009 | This post shares its title with an installation/sculpture/printwork by Stephanie Syjuco currently on view (sorry- the show ended yesterday) at the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston, TX. Towards a New Theory of Color Reading is part of Syjuco’s solo exhibition, Total Fabrication. The piece consists of three offset “newspapers” in editions of 2000 displayed on palettes and free for museum visitors to take. Each of the three papers is based upon local Houston journals that cater to particular ethnic constituencies… El Dia (Spanish-Language), the Houston Forward Times (African-American), and the Manila Headline (Filipino-American).
Syjuco was inspired by the election of Barack Obama, America’s first bi-racial president, to translate newpapers geared to limited audiences into a more common language, in this case the language of color. Each newspaper was reduced to four colors: Black (newspaper info like headlines and pagination), Yellow (text), Blue (photos), and Red (advertisements). Syjuco’s color system was applied to the election day editions of each of the three papers.
Syjuco was born in the Philippines and lives and works in San Francisco, CA. According to the exhibition didactic, re-occurring themes in her work include mistranslation and misidentification, minimalist aesthetics, important historical moments, and the conventions of communication and museums.
This piece was really impressive in person- like a some kind of Bauhaus propaganda storage room. Gropius would be proud. Quite relevant and timely on any number of levels. It speaks to a hopeful impulse that communication can flourish despite cultural differences.
CAM doesn’t allow visitors to take photos (?!?) so the picture of the installation is from Syjuco’s website; the rest of the pics are from my take-home copies of the newspapers. See more of the beautiful page spreads after the jump.
Continue reading Towards a New Theory of Color Reading
Posted by amze on February 22nd, 2009 | 
You might recall CRG gallery’s publishing wing, CRG Editions had a strong showing at the Editions/Artists Book Fair. In keeping with their brand of smart work that mates strong conceptual work with eye-catching imagery, their recent edition by the Artist, Colby Bird left my brain a tingle. From the press release:
The first in an ongoing series, the print is a reproduction of a cheap poster featuring Tupac Shakur that has been spraypainted over and is hanging on a painted wall. The spraypainted lines are reproduced using silkscreen over an archival inkjet printed poster mounted to museum board painted in acrylic to mimic the painted wall.
Subsequent prints in the series will feature other posters with variations of spray painted lines that reference specific minimalist and Ab Ex painters. The lines on this piece are referencing the work of Sol Lewitt. Colby talks about the series as a way to both acknowledge and deny his desire for these adolescent items (dorm room posters) by re-presenting the posters in heavy-handed art historical terms. The conversation speaks about the masculinity of minimalist and Ab Ex painters and the masculinity of middle-class/frat-culture. There will be 4 prints total in the series.
You had me from, incredibly labor intensive means to reproduce cheap printed ephemera. Pairing the cheap inspirational poster memorializing Tupac with a minimalist grid seems like a weirdly generative collage that forces the viewer to start making connections between the constraints of 90’s rap and 60’s minimalism.
Having said that, I’m not sure I totally buy the piece performing masculinity with the surgical precision intended by the artist. Maybe there too many ways that this strange poster of a poster quotes masculinity, who can say? Didn’t Sol himself once manifest, “Once it is out of his hand the artist has no control over the way a viewer will perceive the work. Different people will understand the same thing in a different way.”
Image: Colby Bird
Framed Poster
edition of 35, 2009
archival pigment print, silkscreen, and acrylic on museum board
45 X 33 inches
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