Pressing Matters: Prints and Political Activism in the 20th and 21st Centuries
You’re invited
On April 29, 2023, LACMA and the Association of Print Scholars are thrilled to invite you to attend the public event Pressing Matters: Prints and Political Activism in the 20th and 21st Centuries at the Charles White Elementary School Gallery. Organized in conjunction with LACMA’s exhibition Pressing Politics: Revolutionary Graphics from Mexico and Germany, this one-day symposium will explore the role of the graphic arts during periods of political transformation. Speakers will consider how prints have been used to support—and oppose—political movements worldwide, and how they have contributed to the exchange of ideas and the development of a visual language of activism from the 20th century to the present.
The event is free and open to the public; to RSVP for in-person attendance, please register here.
The symposium will also be live-streamed, but not recorded; to RSVP for the live-stream, please register here.
Program
9–9:30 AM: COFFEE AND CHECK-IN
9:30–11:30 AM: MORNING SESSION, WITH RESPONSE BY NANCY PERLOFF, CURATOR, MODERN & CONTEMPORARY COLLECTIONS, GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
- – Shannon Connelly, Assistant Dean of the Graduate School, The University of Texas at El Paso: “Sleepwalker Revolution: Karl Hubbuch on Paper”
- – Robin Owen Joyce, Getty Paper Project Fellow, The Baltimore Museum of Art: “‘Until the Whole World Falls’: Circulating Portraits of Tom Mooney”
- – Sonja Kelley, Associate Professor, Maryland Institute College of Art: “Carving Out a New Society: Woodcuts and Nation-building in the People’s Republic of China”
11:30 AM–1 PM: BREAK
1–3 PM: AFTERNOON SESSION, WITH RESPONSE BY TATIANA REINOZA, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ART HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME
- – Marisol Villela Balderrama, PhD Candidate, University of Pittsburgh: “Committed Prints and Poems by José Venturelli and Pablo Neruda, in Chile and in the World”
- – Abigail Lapin Dardashti, Assistant Professor, University of California, Irvine: “Printing Afro-Brazilian Migration: The Modernist Monotypes and Collages of Yêdemaria Correia de Oliveira”
- – David W. Norman, Forsyth Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Michigan: “Primary Colors for the Fourth World: Graphic Media and Indigenous Sovereignty in 1970s Scandinavia”
3–4 PM: CURATOR LED WALK-THROUGH OF THE EXHIBITION
(Please note all times are in PDT)
About the Exhibition
Pressing Politics: Revolutionary Graphics from Mexico and Germany explores the shared subjects and visual strategies of two key moments in 20th-century political printmaking: the revival of German Expressionist graphics in response to a nationwide revolution in 1918, and the formation of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (People’s Print Workshop) in Mexico City in the late 1930s. Although rooted in distinct social and historical contexts, artists in both countries responded to their respective upheavals in print to communicate to a mass audience in forceful visual terms.
Examining direct and indirect points of exchange, Pressing Politics considers the iconographic precedents for these artists’ political imagery, the range of printed works they produced, and the conditions that gave rise to their art. Drawn primarily from LACMA’s collection, the exhibition underscores the enduring power of the printed image and highlights the contributions of Mexican and German artists to a global iconography of political graphics.
Pressing Politics: Revolutionary Graphics from Mexico and Germany is on view from October 29, 2022 through July 22, 2023, at Charles White Elementary School Gallery, LACMA’s satellite gallery. Public hours: open Saturdays, 1–4 pm.
Image Credit: Leopoldo Méndez, Protest (La protesta), 1937, published 1943, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of Jules and Gloria Heller, © Estate of Leopoldo Méndez, authorized by Pablo Méndez Hernández, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA
Where to Go
Charles White Elementary School Gallery
2401 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90057
Validated parking is free at the 611 S. Carondelet St. parking garage next to Charles White Elementary School. Please bring your parking ticket and the security officer on duty in the gallery will validate it.
Pressing Matters: Prints and Political Activism in the 20th and 21st Centuries is co-organized by LACMA with APS, with additional support provided by the IFPDA Foundation and the Robert Gore Rifkind Foundation. The exhibition Pressing Politics is made possible with support from the Getty Foundation through The Paper Project initiative.
