ANCHOR GRAPHICS
A PROGRAM OF THE ART + DESIGN DEPARTMENT AT COLUMBIA COLLEGE CHICAGO
VOLUME 4 NO. 2 WINTER 2010
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ANCHOR GRAPHICS
OUR MISSION
Anchor Graphics is a not-for-profit printshop that brings together, under professional guidance,
a diverse community of youth, emerging and established artists, and the public to advance the fine
art of printmaking by integrating education with the creation of prints.
CONTENTS
2
LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR
3
RECENT EVENTS
4
RECENT EDITIONS
5
A PARADISE OF THE ORDINARY
INDUSTRY OF THE ORDINARY
6 EL CORAZÓN DE LA OSCURIDAD
10 SLOW RELEASE
14 UPCOMING PROGRAMS
DAVID JONES
DON COLLEY
GORDON BRENNAN & JOHN BROWN
ON THE COVER:
JOHANNA MUELLER, EXPLODE (DETAIL)
RELIEF ENGRAVING WITH HAND COLORING
7” X 10”, 2010
FROM EXCHANGE 7 EXHIBIT
LEFT:
KRISTA HOEFLE
UNTITLED
SCREEN PRINT AND COLLAGE WITH HAND COLORING
12 ½” X 12 ½”
2010
SUPPORT
Funding for Anchor Graphics is provided in part by contributions from individuals, the Illinois
Arts Council-A State Agency, the Cliff Dwellers Arts Foundation, Canson Inc., Google Inc., and
the Packaging Corporation of America.
If you would like to make a donation to Anchor Graphics please contact us at 312-369-6864
or anchorgraphics@colum.edu. Donations can also be made online through our website at
colum.edu/anchorgraphics.
2
ANCHOR GRAPHICS
LETTER
FROM THE DIRECTOR
DAVID JONES, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
OF ANCHOR GRAPHICS.
Dear Friends,
Welcome to our fall 2010 newsletter. Anchor Graphics’ Artists in Residency program, Publishing, Adult
Classes, Workshops, and Internships have been keeping us busy. The range of expression of people
coming through the shop has been truly amazing. Writing about each event or program would take up
more than my allotted space, so in this issue I’m going to address our Residency program. I am really
excited by what I see happening here. From February until August of 2010 we hosted seven residents.
As per the residency agreement, we asked each artist to be available to students and to the community,
and be willing to talk about their work and process. We held very informal evening events for those
presentations. Word is getting out about these events, and with each residency more and more people
are showing up.
When Chicago-based artist Don Colley was in residence he shared his work with four Columbia classes,
and talked about his work methods, history and the career he created for himself. Visitors immersed
themselves in his numerous sketchbooks and exceptional draftsmanship. Gordon Brennan and John
Brown, our residents from the Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland, showed us how to be open to the
benefits of having a loose plan, showing up ready to work, then dealing with the limitations of the working space. They were extremely prolific and created a range of both 2D and 3D objects, prints, and
packaging in a flurry of activity. Krista Hoefle, from St. Mary’s College in Indiana, arrived with about 50
cyanotypes that she had created prior to her residency. She started to work silk-screening and collage
onto the prints, having an idea of what she wanted, but not sure how the images would look. Recently
Ms. Hoefle shared that while she absolutely loved the residency and the opportunities and challenges
it presented, the work begun here is still in flux and open to revision.
Our residents were willing to take creative risks with their projects and push towards a conclusion that
might be vague, letting the work direct them. I see this as a successful process, and a role model for
our students. The creative process isn’t necessarily about the work produced but about the journey,
the pushing and pulling of ideas, the coming together of individuals to create something whose sum
is greater than the parts. Collaboration takes many forms, and our charge is to find and bring in those
individuals who will challenge us to try new things, solve complex problems, and perhaps the most difficult, to create compelling works.
Anchor Graphics continues to evolve. Yes, we make prints, but it’s more than that; it’s about the art
of collaboration, the give and take of ideas, discussions of process, and a lot of trial and error. What
comes from this dialogue of ideas is an image. This for now happens to be a multiple printed on paper.
I invite you to linger a bit, enjoy the articles in this issue of the Anchor Graphics newsletter, and think
about the collaborations in your life. And I invite you to drop in to see what we are up to and take a
moment to visit with Chris Flynn and James Iannaccone or me at Anchor Graphics, a part of the Art +
Design Department at Columbia College.
Sincerely,
David Jones
Executive Director
COLUMBIA COLLEGE CHICAGO
RECENT
3
EVENTS
CRYSTAL WAGNER, MORPHOTIC I, LITHOGRAPH, 22 ½” X 29”, 2010
JOSEPH TRUPIA, GO EASY, SCREEN PRINT, 7” X 10”, 2010, FROM EXCHANGE 7 EXHIBIT
I NCI SED , B I TTE N A N D G OU G ED
2 0 1 0 ARTISTS- IN- RESID ENCE
SUSAN TA LLMA N LE CTUR E
FISH TANK E XHIBIT S
Anchor Graphics celebrated its
20th birthday with a retrospective exhibition at the Ukrainian
Institute of Modern Art. The
exhibition featured work created at Anchor through its ArtistIn-Residence and Publishing
programs along with work
from the Chicago Printmakers
Collaborative, which also celebrated its 20th anniversary this
year. Incised, Bitten and Gouged:
Anchor Graphics and the Chicago
Printmakers Collaborative, 20 Years
of Printmaking was on view July 30
– September 12, 2010 with work
by more than 40 artists in various
print media.
The end of summer saw the last
of our 2010 Artists-In-Residence.
Throughout the year seven artists
came to the shop to work on new
projects and share their wonderfully different working methods
and styles of making prints. The
2010 Artists-In-Residence were
Don Colley, Zoltan Janvary, Crystal
Wagner, Krista Hoefle, Jeanine
Coupe Ryding, and the dynamic
duo Gordon Brennan & John
Brown. Images of the work they
created and videos of the lectures
they presented can be found on
the Anchor Graphics website.
In front of a capacity crowd, Susan
Tallman, art historian and author
of the book The Contemporary
Print: from Pre-Pop to Postmodern,
discussed the work of John Baldessari. This event was cosponsored
by the Museum of Contemporary
Photography as part of their
exhibition John Baldessari: A Print
Retrospective From The Collections
Of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His
Family Foundation.
Recent displays in the Fish Tank
exhibition space located next to
Anchor Graphics studio included
Imirce, a print based installation
by Lloyd Patterson Jr. Having
moved to and from nine different
locations in the last five years,
this installation documented his
long voyage and his unsatisfied
yearning for a place to call home.
Also on view was Exchange 7,
selections from PrintZero Studios’
print exchange juried by Karla
Hackenmiller, Associate Professor
and Printmaking Program Chair at
Ohio University, Athens.
EDITIONS
RECENT
Anchor Graphics works with artists from around the country to create limited edition prints. Our master printers work in
collaboration with the artists to help realize their vision. Both the artists and Anchor Graphics benefit from these partnerships by
sharing ideas and splitting editions. Anchor’s prints are available for sale to the public, providing an important source of revenue
for Anchor’s programming. Recent editions include work by Don Colley, Onsmith, and Nicholas Sistler.
IMAGES (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT):
ONSMITH
WORKMAN’S COMP
LITHOGRAPH
PAPER SIZE: 19 1/4” X 15”
IMAGE SIZE: 15 3/4” X 10 3/4”
2010
NICHOLAS SISTLER
DOUBLE INDEMNITY
PHOTO-POLYMER INTAGLIO
PAPER SIZE: 7 ½” X 11”
IMAGE SIZE: 4” X 7”
2010
DON COLLEY
SENSE
LITHOGRAPH
19 3/4” X 14 3/4”
2010
COLUMBIA COLLEGE CHICAGO
A
PARADISE OF THE ORDINARY
H E A V E N W O U L D B E full of ordinary things; trees,
fresh air, lies and infidelities, chattering animals
and sex. What kind of place could it be if there were
no ordinary things? Or could we live forever in a
limbo of miracles and the constantly renewed fires
of the super-real?
We are fascinated by the ordinary and in just about
anything in this world and the imagined next. You
can’t turn around without tripping over the ordinary and its omnipresent power to be more than
artifice. The problem with painting is not just that
it celebrates such artifice, but that it has no ambition. A single self-conscious brush stroke, pulled
against the grain of the canvas, cannot fail to disappoint. Magnify that number into the millions and
you may resuscitate the medium, but who has the
time? The painting might be dull, but the pain in
the wrist is delightful.
We have to have faith in something. Rauschenberg
knew that if he opened his window the world would
rush in. Of course this is more beautiful than superstition. Of course it’s more tangible than god. We
don’t mind if god exists because we know the folly
of the teleological: we object to heaven.
An algorithm can provide a fascinating and absurd selection. It looks like randomness. It was
Cage’s genius to recognize this power. To him we
owe what we have become. We know this upsets
pockets of a previous generation, as well as those
younger that cradle dust, but the burden of relevance fails to weigh on the shoulders of fools and
the forgotten.
We are passing the age where sex is rewarding and
we look past ourselves in mirrors. Man has created
god in his own image and there’s no morning-after
pill for that. Lacking the appropriate contempt for
ourselves, we have invented redemption and justice. It’s time to throw the baby out too. It’s no use
just wanting to be ordinary.
Anchor Graphics is teaming up with Industry of the
Ordinary to produce a series of four-color photolithographs. Industry of the Ordinary is a collaborative team composed of Adam Brooks and Mathew
Wilson. They state that:
“Through sculpture, text, photography, video and
performance, Industry of the Ordinary are dedicated to an exploration and celebration of the customary, the everyday, and the usual. Their emphasis
is on challenging pejorative notions of the ordinary
and, in doing so, moving beyond the quotidian.”
The source material for this series of prints is the
result of image searches on Google through which
the word ‘Ordinary’ is combined with a particular
language. Pairings are produced that reflect important historical tensions or other charged relationships between speakers of these languages. The
artists take randomly selected images that result
from these searches and zoom in on a specific section. This close up is then combined with the close
up from the search of another language, creating a
diptych that will be printed using photolithography
plates. The work will be framed in shadow boxes
with the word “ordinary” in the correlating languages sandblasted on to the glass.
Stay tuned for more on this project in future newsletters.
More information on Industry of the Ordinary can be found
on their website at industryoftheordinary.com.
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ANCHOR GRAPHICS
EL
CORAZÓN DE LA OSCURIDAD
F O L L O W I N G T H E A R R I V A L of Christopher
Columbus, the Spanish empire would expand
across much of the western hemisphere, spreading through the Caribbean Islands and along the
west coasts of North and South America. When
the Spanish arrived in Alaska, only a few decades
behind the Russians, their territory would reach
from the rim of the Arctic to the edge of the Antarctic. In Mexico, the campaign against the Aztecs
would become one of the first great successes of
the Spanish colonization of the mainland. The Aztecs described the arrival of the Spanish as proceeded by seven omens including the destruction
of temples by lightning, boiling lakes, and streaks
of fire across the oceans. They would arrive from
the Gulf of Mexico and land in the kingdom of Motecuhzoma, also spelled Montezuma.
The Spanish set sail from Cuba in 1519 under the leadership of the mutinous Hernan Cortés. Cortés had been instructed to initiate trade
with the indigenous coastal tribes. However there
was a clause in his orders that enabled him to
take emergency measures without prior authorization if it would further the interests of the Spanish crown. He eagerly assembled a fleet of eleven
ships and hundreds of well-armed men intent on
conquering the mainland. The Cuban governor
had hoped to keep the glory of such an expedition for himself and revoked Cortés’ commission.
Cortés hurriedly set sail anyway. Faced with imprisonment or death for defying the governor,
Cortés’ only course of action was to succeed at
his enterprise and hope it would redeem him in
the eyes of the Spanish king. Once they reached
shore Cortés scuttled all but one of his ships to
prevent any of his men from trying to return to
Cuba. The remaining boat was used to carry plundered gold that would buy the king’s forgiveness.
Cortés allied himself with the Tlaxcalans,
who after nearly a century of conflict with the
Aztecs knew it was only a matter of time before
their fellow Mesoamericans would conquer them
once and for all. With their aid, Cortés marched
on Cholula, the most sacred city in the Aztec empire. Because it was a holy site, it was guarded by
only a small army that relied more on deities than
weapons for protection. The people were massacred and the city was burned. The tale of Cholula
had a chilling effect thoughout the Aztec empire,
causing other cities to submit to Cortés’ demands
rather than risk the same fate.
Three months later Cortés arrived at the outskirts of Tenochtitlan. Set on an island in Lake
Texcoco, Tenochtitlan was the center of the Aztec empire and one of the largest cities in the
world, rivaling Constantinople in population. It is
said that Motecuhzoma warmly welcomed Cortés
and his army. As reciprocity for his hospitality Motecuhzoma was taken prisoner. Soon after Cortés
would receive news that another Spanish expedition from Cuba had landed on the coast with orders to hijack his conquest and bring him to trial.
Cortés mobilized against the new invaders. Taking a small force, he surprised and defeated his
fellow Spaniards, subsequently recruiting many
to his side by telling them the Aztec capital was a
city made of gold.
Returning to Tenochtitlan, Cortés found that
the locals had risen up against the men he left
behind. He ordered Motecuhzoma to speak to
his people and persuade them to let the Spanish leave peacefully. Angered by his submissiveness, the Aztecs would stone Motecuhzoma, inflicting fatal injuries. The Spanish and their allies
were forced to flee, suffering heavy casualties in
their retreat.
DON COLLEY
LOTERÍA
LITHOGRAPH
15” X 20”
2010
COLUMBIA COLLEGE CHICAGO
7
8
ANCHOR GRAPHICS
IMAGES FROM MANO/MUNDO/CORAZÓN: ARTISTS INTERPRET LA LOTERÍA EXHIBIT (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT):
CHRIS FLYNN
EL COTORRO
DRAWING, DIGITAL
PRINT,
AND COLLAGE
9 ½” X 12 ½”
2010
Many of Cortés’ soldiers were captured for
sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli, the god of war. Human sacrifice was central to many Mesoamerican cultures. The Aztecs believed that the gods
had sacrificed themselves so that mankind could
live. Everything in the cosmos sprang from their
blood and severed body parts. The Aztecs sought
to repay their debt to the gods through on-going
sacrifices, which would help sustain the universe.
Human sacrifice was the highest form of offering
and frequently practiced by extracting the victim’s heart. The Aztecs saw the heart as a fragment of the Sun’s heat trapped within the body.
Heart-extraction was viewed as a means of liberating the fragment and reuniting it with the Sun.
A soldier would be placed on a sacrificial stone
while a priest would cut through his abdomen
with an obsidian blade. The heart would be torn
out still beating, held towards the sky, and then
cremated. The rest of the body would be given to
the warrior who had initially taken it prisoner. It
would be cut into pieces that were used for ritual
cannibalism or sent to important community
members as tribute.
Cortés and his remaining men regrouped
in Tlaxcala. When fully healed they would once
again prove to be a formidable fighting force.
One by one they conquered all of the cities of the
Aztec empire before laying siege to Tenochtitlan.
After eight months of cannon fire, starvation, and
smallpox the city was at last surrendered. The
smoldering ruins would provide the foundations
for what would become Mexico City.
By the 1700s the Spanish were well rooted
in the region. Spanish immigrants to the New
World would bring much of their home culture
with them, including a game called lotería. It is
a game of chance that came to be used as a way
to encourage the natives to acquire the Spanish
language, European customs, and the Catholic
religion. Despite its foreign origin lotería has become a deeply entrenched cultural force in modern day Mexico, frequently played at festivals and
celebrations of all kinds.
Similar to Bingo, lotería uses a deck of 54
cards, each with an image, name, and number.
Players have at least one tabla with randomly selected pictures from the deck arranged in a 4 x 4
grid. The cantor selects a card from the deck and
announces it to the players, often using a riddle
or humorous poem. Such phrases, like the pictures on the cards, have numerous regional varia-
HUGH MERRILL
LA SANDIA
9 ½” X 12 ½”
2010
tions and often play with the associations of the
image. Thus, the rooster can be announced as “I
sing for St Peter”, the sun as a “coat for the poor”,
and the devil becomes the “sweet Virgin Mary”.
The players, with a matching pictogram on their
board, mark it with a chip, small rock, or pinto
bean. The first player with four images marked in
a specified pattern is the winner.
As is likely to happen with games of chance,
lotería became a form of gambling for Mexico’s
wealthier upper classes. Players competed for a
pot of money accumulated by charging a fee for
each tabla and by covering the images on the
game cards with extra bets. In the practice of
gambling a player hopes to be lucky and needs to
have faith. This often leads to superstitions, which
can then be projected onto the cards themselves.
Accordingly it is believed that lotería decks can be
used for fortune telling and divination much like
tarot cards. Ripe with cultural heritage and symbolism the cards’ iconographic images can easily
be made to correspond to values, attributes, or
relationships found in man, nature, or society.
As cards are pulled these attributes and relationships begin to reveal one’s destiny.
The same symbolism that endows lotería
cards with mystic abilities also makes them incredibly attractive to artists. Several artists who
have made work based on the game have been included in the exhibition “Mano/Mundo/Corazón:
Artists Interpret La Lotería” at the Center for Book
and Paper Arts through December 10, 2010. The
exhibition features a culturally and geographically diverse group working in film, photography,
installation and painting. Newly commissioned
works on paper based on individual cards plus a
series of lotería inspired prints from Aardvark Letterpress are also on display. In conjunction with
the exhibit Anchor Graphics set to work with Chicago artist Don Colley to create a lithograph that
will act as a frontispiece. The lithograph derives
its imagery from the show’s title depicting a hand,
globe and heart.
In the background is a representation of a
paper cutout know as papel picado. This traditional folk art is found throughout Mexico and
like lotería is often present during holidays and
celebration in the form of brightly colored strings
of cut tissue paper hanging across streets and
adorning buildings. Papel picado is a synthesis
of Asian, European, and Pre-Columbian artistic
traditions. The Moors, who occupied Spain begin-
FRED STONEHOUSE
LA CALAVERA
PAINTING ON PAPER
9 ½” X 12 ½”
2010
JAVIER CARMONA
LA MANO
9 ½” X 12 ½”
2010
ning in the 8th century, introduced the art of paper cutting to the Iberian Peninsula through trade
routes with China. In the centuries that followed
it would spread to the rest of Europe, becoming
known as scherenschnitte in Germany, wycinanki
in Poland, and silhouettes in France. The Spanish
brought the art form to Mexico where it combined
with an indigenous tradition of paper cutting. The
Aztecs produced a type of paper, known today as
amate, by mashing pulp made from the bark of fig
and mulberry trees between rocks. Once dry the
paper was cut with knives to form ceremonial images of gods and goddesses. Both the Old World
and New World traditions fused to form papel picado, which continues to evolve as a living folk art.
The hand, globe, and heart found on Don
Colley’s print adopt the color schemes and dot
patterns of mid 20th century Mexican advertising. Following the Mexican Revolution, the social
engineers of the newly formed government were
attempting to forge a national identity from a
fragmented and ethnically diverse Mexico. At the
same time increasing numbers of the rural population were heading towards the cities, forming a
new consumer class. Companies in both Mexico
and the U.S. were trying to sell them items such
as cigarettes, liquor, and soda pop by reproducing paintings of the products, often accompanied
by beautiful women and Aztec kings. Such advertising art reflected the changing image Mexicans
had of themselves. Increasingly patriotic and
filled with cultural pride, they embraced a nostalgic sense of national identity. Reclaiming and
empowering a pre-Spanish heritage, they depicted the creation of Mexico as an idyllic time, with
powerful warriors wearing feathered headdresses and rich jewelry, standing guard over a vibrant
land with beautiful princesses at their feet. The
youthful bodies of these figures and the bounty
that surrounded them portrayed Mexico as a
strong country ready to take its place in the world.
Don Colley shows regularly in galleries across the
country and has been exhibited at the Philadelphia
Museum of Art and the Austin Museum of Art. More
information and images are available on his website
at buttnekkiddoodles.com. The print he created for
the Mano/Mundo/Corazón exhibit is available for sale
through Anchor Graphics.
COLUMBIA COLLEGE CHICAGO
SLOW
RELEASE
G O R D O N B R E N N A N & J O H N B R O W N were
S D : When I look at the box set with the toys, the
artists-in-residence at Anchor Graphics in August
2010. At the end of their residency they were interviewed by Sibel Duzenli, a summer intern and
exchange student from Emily Carr University of
Art and Design. The following are excerpts from
their conversation.
postcards, the tickets and you as international
artists, it makes me think of travel and of travel
as a leisure activity. Do you think that travel has
brought something to this work?
S I B E L D U Z E N L I : You are working collabora-
tively on a project based on the Chicago World’s
Fair of?
J O H N B R O W N : 1933–1934. Loosely based on.
SD: How did that come about? Why was that the
theme?
G O R D O N B R E N N A N : We came to Chicago two
years ago, had two weeks to make a show and
present it. We used the idea or the spirit of the
’33–’34 World’s Fair, a temporary event that took
a long time to make and was only on for a short
period of time. The two weeks were spent primarily with a little bit of research and lots of production. The show opened for one day and closed.
The following year we came back and, like the
World’s Fair where the ephemera and the memorabilia lasted longer than the actual event, we
made another show based on the memorabilia
and the ephemera from the first show. So that
was the two years prior to this residency. What
we are trying to do now is condense all of these
elements into one box set of ephemera.
J B : I think you’re right. For all the projects we’ve
done we haven’t brought any stuff with us. It’s
literally underpants and socks. Everything is
bought here or the imagery is here. It’s like the
idea of the immigrant coming just with a suitcase.
G B : It’s also being away from our own environment. You remove yourself from the way you are
and see things differently. That’s an important
aspect of it. The box is like the Duchamp Valise,
which is a summing up. Component parts or previous bodies of work come together. It’s not an
exact reproduction of these things but it catches
the spirit of these previous works.
J B : I think what you grow up playing with creates
your aesthetic. It’s built in. You can’t get rid of it.
When you look at boxed sets of toys there is an
aesthetic there, a look or feeling. It’s the mixture
of the flat printed thing and the real object, the
fact that you can lift things out and move them
around. It’s not one static image. It’s a whole
world that’s got possibilities of imagination.
G B : It’s like the idea of a collection. It’s not just
one thing. It’s the component parts put together
and the possibilities within these component
GORDON BRENNAN
POSTCARD FROM BOX-A-RAMA
RELIEF PRINT, 6” X 9”
2010
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ANCHOR GRAPHICS
parts. It’s not meant to be an accurate representation of one particular thing. We make things
that we can’t actually find. That’s why we make
them. That’s why we make art, because it doesn’t
exist. The thing you want doesn’t exist so you’ve
got to try and make it.
the research you did and there were some visits.
version of it. We have put a filtering process between the source and the things for the World’s
Fair, those loads of ephemera and souvenirs. The
thing was on for two years and the stuff that was
given away has lasted a hell of a lot longer than
any of the events. The idea that an object will
spark off a memory, an association, so it again
becomes about experience and not just information, that’s the best bit.
J B : To Uncle Fun? [Uncle Fun is a toy store in
S D : Even inside a small seemingly insignificant
Chicago]
object?
S D : Yes. Tell us about the research you did for
G B : It’s the detritus. It’s the small things. It’s the
things in between the big things that are important and that’s what you remember, not necessarily the big events. You remember these little
things that spark off something for you.
S D : I remember talking with you a little bit about
this project.
G B : Obviously there are different kinds of research. There’s a research which is about gathering information and there’s a research which
is about experience. It’s not necessarily the kind
of serious research at a desk where you look
things up. It’s about coming across something
and bringing your own sensibilities to it. Uncle
Fun was all the crap in the world in one place. It’s
almost too good, so we’ve tried to make our own
S D : It seems like you were working towards a certain aesthetic of the disposable object, the kind of
tourist ephemeral stuff.
J B : And trying to make people think a little bit
about packaging, or the packaging vs. the ob-
COLUMBIA COLLEGE CHICAGO
13
JOHN BROWN
NEW WORLD
PHOTO PLATE LITHOGRAPH
IMAGE SIZE: 9” X 6”
PAPER SIZE: 13” X 10 ¼”
2010
ject within. But in terms of how we worked on it,
it has been a case of problem solving. Finding
the box, printing the box, finding out how things
work and fit within the box. It almost feels like a
sketch. It’s like we have been at the forefront of
trying to invent with this thing. It’s not a case of
making something to a plan. It’s being made as
we are thinking about it. Yesterday we saw some
blueprints from the World’s Fair so we’re going to
make a postcard that’s a photocopy of a sketchbook page that’s a blue print for this project. So
things are coming in. As our trip builds the box
builds as well.
J B : It’s perfect for this. Exactly what we wanted
to do. We’re not pure printmakers by any means.
So we’ve learned a heck of a lot. It got us thinking
on our feet.
G B : It’s also using the processes, using the language of printmaking. If you are making a painting it has to be about the image obviously but it
also has to be about the act of making a painting. When you’re making a print it has to be about
making a print as much as it is about the image.
S D : I think you really took advantage of print
it. We’ve got two or three lives from this body of
work. There is the potential to do more with these
things. It is ongoing. The end of this process is the
beginning of the next one. I don’t know what the
next one will be yet but I feel there is something
to come.
J B : I was thinking last night and looking through
my sketchbooks from the first week. It’s amazing
the first things you see or think about are what
comes back into it. It’s first thought, best thought.
When you arrive somewhere new your eyeballs
are bouncing around. That’s usually what you
use visually. There is something about that kind
of freshness. We can only do this here with these
people and it’s not something we can go away
and do again in Edinburgh. It’s something now.
collaboratively removes you from your own way
of working. You have to think collectively rather
than independently. It’s removing your ego to try
and produce this thing that has the sensibilities
of both of us and not just a little bit of mine and a
little bit of John’s.
methods when you were working on labels and
trying to get that aesthetic of packaging. Talk a
little bit about the process you went through. It
wasn’t simply I’m going to make a print and it’s
going to look like this. There was a translation of
original drawing into another kind of information.
S D : When you work together on a project and
J B : Four-color plate litho, the way it separates the
then go back to your studio, does it make it easier
to work as an individual?
S D : It seems like a perfect type of collaborative
dot, makes it more hazy. You can’t reproduce it
through painting. I can’t do that with painting.
G B : There’s also the situation where working
project having all of these offshoots that all come
together. Do you think that working on several
smaller things in a collaborative way is easier
than working as an individual on the same type
of thing?
J B : It’s double the brainpower.
G B : When you are working collaboratively you
ask so many more questions because you are
partly responsible for somebody else’s work.
I suppose it also relates back to when we are
teaching. We still teach in a place where the
studio culture is important and working with
other people is important. Even if you are not
working collaboratively you are working next
door to somebody and that passing comment
over a cup of coffee can make a big difference.
S D : In printmaking studios there is always collaboration. Do find that being in this particular
type of environment propelled you forward? Was
printmaking a good process for this project?
G B : It’s about trying to remain true to the process
as well as the idea.
S D : Do you think that the experience in the studio affected the way you think about print media
in the fine art world?
J B : I never thought in the end there would be
bagged items. As a fine art installation that might
look quite interesting with a hundred of those on
a wall. Gordon had his pieces up in the studio last
night and it looked great just as an installation.
So it’s got more than one life.
G B : I think that’s always something we try to do.
When you have an exhibition it’s an event like
the World’s Fair. When you’re making an exhibition you struggle for a year in the studio. You put
the work on the wall. It’s up for a few weeks and
it goes. So what’s the aftermath? Is there a slow
release from that, an extra life? With the idea
of ephemera you can build that longevity into
GB: I think it gives you confidence. Thinking of
some of the other things we have done, I certainly made work I never would have made and
it gave me a freedom when I went back to doing
stuff on my own. I had this body of work behind
me, a momentum behind me that I could then
go back and plunder and build on. You need that
catalyst sometimes.
Audio of the complete interview can be heard on
our website, colum.edu/anchorgraphics, along
with more images of the work created, and video
of a lecture presented by Gordon and John.
ANCHOR GRAPHICS
A PROGRAM OF THE ART + DESIGN DEPARTMENT AT COLUMBIA COLLEGE CHICAGO
UPCOMING PROGRAMS
623 S. Wabash Ave., Room 201
Chicago, IL 60605
312 369 6864
anchorgraphics@colum.edu
colum.edu/anchorgraphics
WHEN AFTER COMES BEFORE
JANUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 12, 2011
at the Averill and Bernard Leviton A + D Gallery
619 South Wabash Avenue, Chicago
Opening Reception: January 27, 2011, 5–8 p.m.
Artists Lectures: January 27, 2011, 6:30 p.m.
According to art historian Wu Hung any artifact of the past has to exist in the present.
In the work of Phillip Chen and Thomas Vu the opposite is also true. Their artifacts of
the present exist in the past. Their prints collapse time creating an incongruous space
where linear knowledge is replaced by a state of simultaneity. Drawing from personal
experiences, memories and written history their work incorporates both long departed
and surviving traditions, beliefs, objects and landscapes, positioning all firmly within a
contemporary context. The push and pull of yesterday and today is encompassed in the
very materiality of the work, constructed using computer-controlled technologies such
as laser cutters combined with old-school hand printmaking. Their work is at once a
documentation and a schematic diagram of the present as seen through the past and
the past as seen through the present. As such their work takes on a cosmological appearance. With his Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein proved that the passage of time
is dependant on one’s frame of reference and this is certainly the case with the work of
Phillip Chen and Thomas Vu.
ANCHOR GRAPHICS
AT SGCI CONFERENCE
MARCH 16 – 19, 2011
Anchor Graphics staff will be at the newly renamed Southern Graphics Council International
Conference in St. Louis presenting demos, a panel discussion, and exhibiting work at the publishers fair. Anchor’s master printer Chris Flynn will
be demonstrating photopolymer intaglio plates,
administrative assistant James Iannaccone will
chair a panel on how to make a business out
of screen printing posters for rock bands, and
director David Jones will be displaying some of
our latest creations at our publishers table.