EVOLUTIONARY ART -- How did printmaking expand and improve in the 20th century?
Through March 10 Picasso did for printmaking what he did for painting and sculpture: abandoning the art of seamless illusionism, he broke the medium down and put it back together, leaving all the cracks, joints and patches transparently visible.
Although prints rarely receive the public attention that paintings do, artists know that printmaking is the more technically demanding medium, one that requires serious knowledge and close collaboration.
So the idea that Rembrandt was the original democrat of subject matter — a maverick who flouted convention to follow the bidding of his muse, and who did push the boundaries of what painting (or, for that matter, printmaking) could do well beyond any contemporary conventions — is dismissed as sentimental anachronism.
The wittiest prints are those that comment on the intricate process of weaving, which involves many steps just as printmaking does.
(Johnson) Martín Gutierrez: 'Martin e)' (closes on Friday) Just a year out of Rhode Island School of Design with a bachelor of fine arts in printmaking, Martín Gutierrez is having a strong first New York show, and printmaking has nothing to do with it, though photography, video, performance, fashion, music do.
Instead it had many outstanding artists who focused with unusual unanimity on printmaking, and were encouraged to do so by art dealers, publishers and, for a while, an active art market.
Projects at the Tyler School of Art's Temple Gallery in a show organized by Sheryl Conkelton, an independent curator, do more still to stretch the definition of printmaking.
Cassatt's art dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, did not support her printmaking; she also objected to his putting her work in shows devoted to female artists.
Every record cover I've been able to do has come together as a serendipitous result of engaging in what I'm into and sharing that through printmaking, zine-making or just being there.
