Interventions: Re-framing the Printed Image

Looking back in time, print has always been a way to communicate and document.  From the first construction of books, documentation of plants and animals used for scientific purposes to modern day newspapers and magazines, printmaking itself is hard to define because of its rich history and its ability to be applied across many paths. Contemporary printmakers often seem inspired to create from this abundant past reusing imagery and ideas from previous documents. The exhibition Interventions: Re-framing the Printed Image, at the 21c museum in Louisville, embodies that idea. The exhibit contains prints by artists that have appropriated imagery from many different sources such as magazines, maps and old movie posters and have incorporated them in their contemporary prints. The group of prints curated by printmaker, Susanna Crum, is brilliant and bold. The viewer is guided around the room by the possibility that they have seen some of these elements in the images before.

Alexis Smith’s Twentieth Century #15 silkscreen collage print embodies the idea of “familiar”. This 1983 print implies to be a movie poster from the fifties. An attractive woman laying on a bed with collaged elements, like quoted text and images of the actors and scenes from the movie, are overlapped. Though the image seems familiar, the movie the poster is depicting is not well known or a favorite of that time. The color palette is red, blue and dull white. The woman lying on the bed in the poster, though seemingly happy is introduced on the poster as “Sensual Sabina” and the collaged scenes and elements infer otherwise. Smith’s screenprinted bold quotes in a font choice that seems of the movie poster’s era. The bold quotes  read sentences such as “CONFIDENTIAL!”, “I’ve died so often”, “made love so much”, and “I’ve lost track of what’s real” become confusing throughout the piece because of below elements. These factors imply to be intentional with the theme of the elements in the  piece.  Another collage element on top of this poster in dark blue is the same girl upside down making a gesture as though she is falling.  This piece seems to speak out about women and how they are viewed, especially in film and suggests that this is incorrect and not what “Sabina” is wanting.

The exhibition at 21c also includes Stephen Irwin’s Tracing the Delicate Outline of Our Time Together Over and Over. This large print, made in 2007, is a unique pigment print, this is a process commonly known as monotype. In this process, the printmaker makes painterly gestures with ink on their plate creating their image. Many of the other pieces in the exhibition are busy and full to the brim with information and imagery. Irwin’s print stands out in this space because of its simplicity and contrast. The piece seems familiar because of its painterly nature, as if the imagery was taken from a famous painting. The piece is of two realistic hands holding and coming out of a simple white space. The imagery that was reframed, or appropriated, in this piece comes from vintage pornography, which isn’t apparent in the first glance. Taking the hands out of the original space and printing with the muted colors makes them seem delicate and alluring though the content is otherwise. Once the viewer looks at the piece a little longer they can see that the hands are holding the silhouette of a woman’s body. This print takes what to some people is inappropriate and vile and makes it surreal and beautiful.

The clever theme of Interventions: Re-framing the Printed Image not only makes space for a viewer to search and find familiar elements which draws them around the room beautifully but educates the viewer about print and its timeless nature. These images and the others included in the exhibition display the abundant history of print and how the images are everlasting. The prints show where print has been and where print can and will be going.