THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART EXPLORES THE ROLE OF CONTEMPORARY PRINTED ART
Thinking Print: Books to Billboards, 1980–95
June 20–September 10, 1996
Printed art created during the past decade and a half is the subject of a
wide-ranging survey opening at The Museum of Modern Art on June 20, 1996.
Thinking Print: Books to Billboards, 1980–95 features artists, ideas, and
techniques that emerged during the 1980s and 1990s, as well as works by
long-established printmakers. New formats such as billboards, matchbook covers,
subway posters, and T-shirts are seen together with more traditional wood and
linoleum cuts, etchings, and deluxe illustrated books. In addition, the
exhibition explores important thematic issues of language, photography,
politics, and the body that were at the forefront during this period. While
focusing on the diversity of American printed art, the exhibition also presents
a wide range of works produced by European artists.
Organized by Deborah Wye, Chief Curator, Department of Prints and Illustrated
Books, who also wrote the accompanying catalogue, Thinking Print comprises 235
works by 147 artists drawn primarily from the Museum's extensive holdings of
new prints and illustrated books acquired since 1980. The exhibition builds on
the Museum's tradition of exploring developments in printed art, following the
surveys Printed Art: A View of Two Decades (1980) and Contemporary Painters and
Sculptors as Printmakers (1964). In conjunction with Thinking Print, the Museum
has commissioned prints by Barbara Kruger, which will be tail-mounted on 40
Manhattan buses, and by Jean-Charles Blais, which will be seen on 15 telephone
kiosks during July; a T-shirt created by Kruger will be for sale in The MoMA
Book and Design Stores. In addition, the Museum is installing a billboard by
Félix González-Torres on the inbound side of the Williamsburg
Bridge (on view from June 15 to September 30).
The exhibition, which remains on view through September 10, 1996, is made
possible by grants from the Lannan Foundation and the Contemporary Exhibition
Fund of The Museum of Modern Art, established with gifts from Lily Auchincloss,
Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, and Mr. and Mrs. Ronald S. Lauder. Additional
support is provided by TDI, Appleton Papers, the National Endowment for the
Arts, and The Contemporary Arts Council and The Junior Associates of The Museum
of Modern Art.
Deborah Wye commented, "The last fifteen years have been a remarkably prolific
and important period for printmaking. The traditional boundaries of printed art
are not as clear as they once were, and political and social issues have pushed
artists to devise printing formats that communicate directly with the public."
She continued, "Prints and illustrated books have reached a new level of
maturity. A new generation is building on the achievements of earlier
printmakers through experimentation with traditional techniques, while other
artists have introduced radical innovations. This exhibition explores a broad
range of these works, presenting them within contexts that hopefully encourage
interpretation and discussion."
The Exhibition
Thinking Print is organized into three sections, an interpretive framework
designed to encourage a greater understanding of the wide range of styles and
themes that emerged during the period.
Section I: New Printmakers concentrates on artists who are new to the art
form and whose works either communicate directly with the public through
commercial techniques or expand upon traditional techniques. Among the artists
in this section are Félix González-Torres, represented by a
nine-inch stack of photolithographed sheets that are distributed to the public
and continually replenished, and Barbara Kruger, represented by a range of
works that mimic mass advertising. Jenny Holzer and Jean-Charles Blais are also
seen in works that deal with public address. Other artists in this section,
such as Francesco Clemente, Elizabeth Murray, Susan Rothenberg, and Terry
Winters, carry over the concerns of their painting into traditional techniques
such as woodcut, lithography, screenprint, and intaglio, created in workshop
settings. Kiki Smith's works range from lithography to tatoo transfers.
Section II: Techniques and Formats explores in depth some of the processes
found abundantly in the contemporary period. Traditional techniques such as
woodcut and linoleum cut, and the intaglio processes that comprise etching,
drypoint, aquatint, and mezzotint, are represented by a range of artists
including Georg Baselitz, Richard Bosman, Anselm Kiefer, and Joan Snyder
working in the former techniques, and Luis Cruz Azaceta, Lucian Freud, and
Brice Marden working in the latter. A particularly pervasive format during the
last fifteen years was the multipart project, a series of prints linked by a
common theme and published as a group. Among such works in the exhibition are
those by Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, and Rosemarie Trockel. Examples of
multiples, which lie somewhere between sculpture and the editioned print,
include a variety of unusual objects, from Peggy Diggs's milk containers
containing messages about domestic violence to Rirkrit Tiravanija's apron
featuring a recipe for sausage.
Section III: Themes examines several of the most significant issues treated
in printmaking and in contemporary art generally over the last fifteen years.
Language serves as subject matter in a wide range of prints and illustrated
books in the exhibition. It is used for its compositional structure by Ashley
Bickerton; for its declarative power by the Guerrilla Girls and Allen
Ruppersberg; for its evocative and poetic quality by K.O.S., Richard Long, Tim
Rollins, and Edward Ruscha. The related mediums of photography and printmaking
have been combined in many recent projects for a variety of artistic purposes.
John Baldessari's appropriation of mass-media photographs and Sherrie Levine's
second-hand reproductions of Degas paintings address the ubiquity of the
photographic image in our world; Yong Soon Min and Christian Boltanski use
snapshots to relay personal or commemorative history. Social and political
issues that took on primary importance during this period—apartheid, race and
ethnicity, and especially AIDS—were treated extensively through print mediums,
which in many instances offered a way to bring art out of the galleries and
into the public realm. Among the artists in the exhibition whose work
communicates a strong social message are Elizabeth Catlett, Sue Coe, General
Idea, Keith Haring, and Juan Sánchez. The body became the focus of
increased attention in contemporary printmaking, both in the Neo-Expressionist
figuration of A. R. Penck and Susan Rothenberg and in the unromantic
investigations of Louise Bourgeois and Annette Messager.
Publication
Thinking Print: Books to Billboards, 1980–95, by Deborah Wye, offers a
lucid guide to the contemporary printmaking scene, with concise descriptions of
the basic techniques, and discussions of the print market, the master
printmakers and workshops, and the role of series, artist's books, and
multiples. Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, it contains 160
pages and 152 illustrations, including 88 in full color. Paper-over-board
cover, designed by Barbara Kruger. $35.00. Distributed in the United States and
Canada by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, and available in the MoMA Book
Store. This publication is supported by Mr. and Mrs. Perry R. Bass.
Special Programs
A variety of public and family programs are being held in conjunction with this
exhibition, including the symposium Books to Billboards: Issues in
Contemporary Printmaking(Saturday, June 22, 10:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.),
which is made possible by a grant from The International Fine Print Dealers
Association (IFPDA). [see separate Press Release].
For further information or photographic materials, contact Uri Perrin,
Department of Communications, 212/708–9757.
