Organized in conjunction with the exhibition Print/Out, Printin’ takes as its starting point DeLuxe (2005), a tour de force portfolio of 60 works by Ellen Gallagher (American, b. 1965) that challenged traditional ideas of what a print could be. This technically complex work employs a veritable riot of mediums, unorthodox tools, and elements, from slicks of greasy pomade to plastic ice cubes. DeLuxe also offers a multivalent constellation of ideas, touching on such issues as portraiture, identity, history, advertising, commodity, and the disruption, translation, and recasting of space. Proposing a kind of technical dissection and conceptual unpacking of this portfolio, Printin’ brings together work by more than 50 artists from multiple disciplines in a sweeping chronology that extends from the 17th century to the present day, to propose a free-flowing yet incisive web of associations that are reflected in DeLuxe. Encompassing prints, drawings, films, books, photographs, sculptures, videos, and comic strips, the exhibition features such artists as Vija Celmins, David Hammons, George Herriman, Robert Rauschenberg, Martha Rosler, and many others, forming a dense network of formal, technical, and conceptual connections and intersections.
Organized by Ellen Gallagher and Sarah Suzuki, Associate Curator, Department of Prints and Illustrated Books.
