Detroit Institute of Arts presents Printmaking in the Twenty-First CenturyAn exhibition celebrating contemporary printmakers, from the year 2000 to 2022
(Detroit) The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) presents Printmaking in the Twenty-First Century, an exhibition that celebrates the range and ingenuity of artwork by contemporary printmakers. On view October 21, 2022 through April 9, 2023, this exhibition features works using the latest digital tools, techniques used in the fifteenth century, and a combination of these methods that speaks to our current times.
Included in this exhibition are more than 60 prints, posters, and artists’ books by diverse local, national and international artists, such as Hernan Bas, Susan Goethel Campbell, Enrique Chagoya, Marc Dion, Nicole Eisenman, Walton Ford, Chitra Ganesh, Rashid Johnson, Julie Mehretu, Michael Menchaca, Ryan Standfest, Katia Santibañez, James Siena, Dyani White Hawk, Ai Weiwei and more. Printers and publishers include Crown Point Press, San Francisco; Durham Press, Durham, Pennsylvania; Gemini GEL, Los Angeles, California; Harlan & Weaver, New York, New York; Highpoint Editions, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Signal-Return, Detroit, Michigan; Stewart & Stewart, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
This exhibition includes the full set of twenty-four posters in the On Press Project: Prints for Nonprofits, 2018-22, printed and published by Signal-Return. The project highlights 24 Detroit-area artists including: Mark Arminski, Ouizi (Louise Jones), Sabrina Nelson, Renata Palubinskas, Pat Perry, Vito Valdez, W. C. Bevan, Olyamai Dabls, Andy Krieger, Nicole MacDonald, Azucena Nava-Morena, Renee Rials, Tyanna Buie, Sue Carman-Vian, Mary Fortuna, Charles McGee, Hubert Massey, Ryan Standfest, Jide Aje, Carole Harris, Kathy Leisen, Yvette Rock, Tylonn Sawyer and Clinton Snider. The Detroit nonprofit letterpress printshop, Signal-Return, continues the history of letterpress and relief printing as a way of making affordable works of art for everyone.
Clare Rogan, the DIA’s Curator of Prints & Drawings, Department of Prints, Drawings and Photographs and exhibition curator explains, “this exhibition celebrates the incredible range of contemporary prints being made today. From the most ambitious, large, and technically complex series to smaller, witty comments.” Rogan continues “the artists bring their diverse experiences and identities (Black, Latinx, Native American, white, female, male, LGBTQ) to create work that responds to life today.”
The exhibition also features new acquisitions, including:
Takes Care of Them, 2019, Dyani White Hawk, Sičangu Lakota, set of four screen prints. Detroit Institute of Arts.
The four screenprints represent traditional dentalium dresses, printed in more than 18 layers of screen print and metal foil. White Hawk explains that the set honors Indigenous women and “the ways the women in our lives stand guard, protect, and nurture our well-being.”
Untitled (Anxious Crowd), 2018, Rashid Johnson, American, soft ground etching. Detroit Institute of Arts.
Rashid Johnson expressed his anxiety as a Black man and father of a Black son. He drew the energetic line with soft-ground etching to express the anxiety of being in public as a Black man.
Printmaking in the Twenty-First Century is free with museum admission which is always free for residents of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties.
For more information on Printmaking in the Twenty-First Century, visit www.dia.org/printmaking21st.