Last Friday the traditionally traditional Washington Printmakers Gallery hosted a reception for its current show, “Meet Your Printmaker.” All the work on display was made in printshops showcased on the excellent blog of the same name (which is edited by occasional Printeresting contributor Kevin O’Neill). The exhibit is a salon-style extravaganza of contemporary work by professional printers.
The honor roll of exhibiting print shops includes:
DWRI Letterpress, Dirty Hands Serigraphie, Bleu Acier, The Little Friends of Printmaking, Sycamore Street Press, Dieu Donné, Deep Wood Press, Standard Deluxe, Patent Pending, Outlaw Print Co., Erika Ebert Press, Cannonball Press, Atlanta Printmakers Studio, Common Press, Stumptown Printers, Slugfest Printmaking Workshop, Extrapool, Squid Ink Kollective, Tugboat Printshop, Lunalux, Purgatory Pie Press, The Firecracker Press, Thomas-Printers, Aesthetic Apparatus, The Lower East Side Printshop, Iskra Print Collective, Halo Halo Screen Printing, AS220 Community Printshop, Proyecto´ace, Elshopo, Low Rider Tee Shirt, Starshaped Press, Pinball Publishing, Uhrgalo, Sonnenzimmer, Punk Rock Payroll, Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions, Polluted Eyeball, Spudnik Press, Bob Eight Pop.
This is a broad survey, and the exhibit deserves praise for its inclusive curatorial vision. It’s all here, from the trivial to the sublime, and the presswork alternates between delicate and brutalist. While the work is not universally excellent, it’s all representative of some important current in contemporary printmaking. Kudos to the WPG for putting up this show, which may be a bit outside the Gallery’s usual comfort zone.
All in all, it was a Jolly Good Show! For information visit meetyourprintmaker; for images visit this Flickr set posted by the gallery. A few views of the exhibit follow the jump…
Kevin O’Neill, at right, is clearly baffled by the majesty of printmaking
Free stuff is always a plus.
Check out this work by the Iskra Print collective
From the Lower East Side Printshop
Like
This looks like a great show.
Indeed! It was.