MAPC Show at the Carnegie Center

This is a print themed show at the Carnegie Center for Art & History. On the Carnegie Center’s website it is described as a “Revival of Print Media” and indeed, there were many processes of printmaking present from intaglio, to screen-printing, lithography, mixed print media and digital monotypes. The conference was meant to share some of the advancements people make in their studios by bringing them to the public because the whole idea is to show that printmaking is not a dead art.

            When you first walk in, the large-scale moth sculptures pull your attention to the left side of the gallery, which is an indication to start there. Over all, the exhibition is split into two sections, the left and the right. Though there was no exhibition statement made to determine a theme, it was curated to taste and similar prints in content and style were placed close to each other.  On the left, many pieces were arranged in a more deliberate adjacency to each other; many were stacked one on top of the other that had similar themes but the arrangement had a salon style feel to it. To the right, there are three pedestals that failed to catch your attention until the end of the walk through, unlike the hanging sculptures to the left.

            There appeared to be a disparity between the professionalism of the artists and the poor methods in which they were framed. Perhaps it would suit the curator to include in the information that all pieces be framed in a certain style, using a particular dimension of frame, ironed flat prints and signed pieces. It was more unimpressive knowing that the judge himself is a stickler about presentation yet so many badly presented pieces made it in. A print is graded not only on its content and composition, but its technical skill and craftsmanship. After all, a print is a commodity; meant to be exchanged and sold. Many of the prints were cleanly registered however if you look closely you might have noticed a few were presented with white out like ink covering what could only be finger prints and ink smears outside of the borders of some that was less than impressive. There were a few that you might wonder about but perhaps it was the choice of the judge to include the prints for the content of the image.

            A piece that stood out was the figurative piece by Susan Grable entitled Confluence.  The work is a mixed media collage piece that is taken out of the traditional borders of a print, and instead is presented as a free-form figurative work. The piece is printed on what looks like an eastern paper that transition from a light tan to a darker umber color. Being an eastern paper, its translucency causes a blending of color from one piece in the collage to another.

            The use of rhythm creates a convincing narrative of motion, as all the figures have a slightly different orientation. The shifting figure has very vague features, only the middle briefly captures a gestural face that is missing in the figures that follow. The blurred focus to the face could be drawing the focus away from the idea that the figure is a real person, emphasizing that the point of the piece is to see each figure by themselves, and then all of them as a whole.

            This piece best represents the point of the show. It satisfies the idea of a print or printmaking media, but takes out the traditional elements like borders of the paper and pushes beyond what could be considered a fine art print.

            The exhibition as a whole did not satisfy a craving for a new direction in printmaking. Of course there was an interesting mix of medias, styles and techniques, but that is not what you would call “Redefining” printmaking. Printmakers mix medias constantly.