About the Symposium on April 29
Pressing Matters: Prints and Political Activism in the 20th and 21st Centuries

Organized in conjunction with Pressing Politics, 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. This event is free and open to the public. Presented in person at Charles White Elementary School. RSVP Required.
Agenda

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”
Elizabeth C. DeRose, Independent Scholar: “Activating the Spectator: Luis Camnitzer's Print Environment, Masacre de Puerto Montt, as Political Critique”
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

Pressing Matters: Prints and Political Activism in the 20th and 21st Centuries is co-organized with APS with additional support provided by the IFPDA Foundation. This exhibition is made possible with support from the Getty Foundation through The Paper Project initiative.
_ _ _ _
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 will be on view from October 29, 2022–July 22, 2023. Public hours: open Saturdays, 1–4 pm.
_ _ _ _

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.