The process of printmaking has been an integral part of art in the latter part of the 20th century. Originally made famous by Andy Warhol's
repetitious use of Marilyn Monroe's image in a series of silkscreen prints, printmaking has become a popular manner of image-production. This show, at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, showcases 20 years of printmaking art from around the country, and goes back even further with art from the Los Angeles area. Eve
n a cursory glance at these pieces reveals that the process of printmaking deals with a multitude of different mediums, which skilled artists often combine in interesting ways. Because this manner of mixed-media production highlights the way in which these pieces are produced,
and much of our discussions in class have been about art which focuses on modes of production, I will focus on a few pieces from the show which are self-reflexive in their blending of different mediums. While not all of these artists satisfy the requirements of a critical post-modern art, their pieces can be placed within the trajectory of art in the late 20th century that we have been studying.
The first artist which incorporates a self-reflexivity in their printmaking is Jeremy Lund, whose piece "Migration (Midst)" is featured below. The piece featured below is a screenprint made from various photos that Lund has taken of birds in mid-flight. The action of taking a series of images of single birds and combining them to create the illusion of an entire migratory flock reveals a focus on image-production as part of the art. Lund himself states, "Our representations of the ecosystem have brought me to a place of reworking schematic images to create an artwork that reflects the elusive nature of life. Obscured objects, ghosts images, and unfathomable numbers of living organisms that have captivated my imagination, are combined with the very literal schematic representations found in books and photography. the combination of printing techniques, bookbinding, photography, and drawing has created a final artwork that is not simply schematic, but a work that is the convergence of the known/unknown, literal/metaphorical and the real/fictional". In this way, Lund consciously chooses his medium in which to call attention to the way in which images are produced, similar to the "Pictures" generation of post-modern photographers, or painters such as Richter.
The next artist is a man named Phillip Dvorak, and his piece "La Pensador" utilizes three mediums: etching, gouache, and watercolor. While Dvorak's vision is a strange amalgamation of the grotesque, macabre, and sexual, his approach to printmaking resembles that of the neo-impressionists in that he supports aesthetically pleasing art simply because the process of art-making is pleasing to him. Dvorak says of this piece: it "is very much about the pure and sensual pleasures of looking a drawing". What this piece lacks in a critical statement it makes up in its surreal combination of lines and figures, which function together with the combination of mediums that Dvorak has chosen. Therefore, it fits into the history of modern art which we have been discussing as an example of a neo-expressionist approach to experimenting with different mediums.
The final piece which I want to discuss from this show is by a man named Bobby Rosenstock, and I selected it because I believe it relates to art from the early 90s: an emphasis on an individual story told with bold text, something which was absent from much of the art from the 70s and 80s. The title of the piece, a mixed medium of woodcut and letter press, is "19th and Walnut". Rosenstock says of this piece, "The subject matter of my current work is how stories and art can elevate ordinary people and events into fantastical tales and myths.
The LAMAG 20th National Exhibition has literally hundred of pieces by artists who use multitudes of different printmaking mediums, and there is something for everyone who is even slightly interested in the process. There are so many mediums represented in this show that one cannot come away from it without a respect for the depth of the printmaking process, and those who choose to produce art with it. I highly recommend a trip to this show, even if these three pieces do not strike your fancy.
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