Internationally acclaimed artist Chakaia Booker and master printer Justin Sanz of the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop will present a combined artists’ talk at Hope College on Friday, March 9, at 4 p.m. in Cook Auditorium of the De Pree Art Center and Gallery as this year’s David and Jane Armstrong Lecture.

The public is invited.  Admission is free.

The talk is being presented in tandem with two related exhibitions at the college:  “PRINTS: Making,” at the De Pree Art Center and Gallery; and “Culture, Commerce and Criticism: 500 Years of European and American Prints from the Kruizenga Art Museum Collection,” at the Kruizenga Art Museum.  A reception at both venues will follow from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop produced a 2011 print by Booker that is among the works featured in “PRINTS” Making.”  The untitled woodcut and chine collé print is from the college’s permanent collection.

“I thought it would tie in beautifully to have Chakaia and Justin come to Hope to talk about the collaborative process between a master printer and an artist,” said Dr. Heidi Kraus, who is an assistant professor of art history at the college as well as director of the gallery of the De Pree Art Center and Gallery.  During the presentation, Booker will also discuss her artistic practice.

In addition to the lecture, Booker and Sanz will spend time with Hope art students, leading a collaborative, one-day workshop on their chine collé process and critiquing work by senior studio-art majors.

Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop is a co-operative printmaking workspace that provides professional-quality printmaking facilities to artists and printmakers of every skill level.  A program of The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, the workshop seeks to improve the overall quality of fine art printmaking by providing low-cost, unfettered access to printers, equipment and education.  The workshop is committed to inspiring and fostering a racially, ethnically and culturally diverse community dedicated to the making of fine art prints in an environment that embraces technical and aesthetic exploration, innovation and collaboration.

Sanz has been the workshop manager since 2010.  He has been involved with EFA RBPMW since its inception in 2005 and has held various other positions as well, including instructor, monitor, 2009 SIP Fellow and Printer without a Press.

Booker has been collaborating with the workshop since 2009 and has created more than 100 unique prints to date.  Best known for her large sculptural works made from discarded tires which are cut, looped, layered and reassembled, she explores similar ideas of recombination and transformation in her prints through analogous printmaking processes.

She was selected for the Whitney Biennial in 2000, awarded the Pollock-Krasner Grant in 2002 and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005, and her work has been exhibited widely both nationally and internationally Select solo exhibitions include The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Milwaukee Art Museum, The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Queens Museum of Art, Katonah Museum of Art and Storm King Arts Center. She has been included in group exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Art and Design, Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, among others. Her work is the collections of institutions including the Bronx Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art the Newark Museum and the Snite Museum of Art.

“PRINTS: Making” examines the techniques that have established a foundation for printmaking, the baseline from which the experimental practice continues to grow.  It includes 45 relief, intaglio and planographic prints divided into their respective categories to reveal the fundamental differences in each approach.  The exhibition consists of a collection of prints from the Print Club of New York as well as a selection from the college’s permanent collection.  It has been curated by Kathleen Kooiker, who graduated from Hope in 2017 with a studio-art major and is the visitor services coordinator intern with the Kruizenga Art Museum.  The exhibition opened on Monday, Feb. 19, and is continuing through Thursday, March 15.

“Culture, Commerce and Criticism: 500 Years of European and American Prints from the Kruizenga Art Museum Collection” explores how artists in Western culture have used prints over the past five centuries as vehicles to transmit knowledge, generate income and critique current events. The exhibition features 50 works of art ranging in date from the early 1500s to the early 2000s and includes works by many notable artists, including Albrecht Durer, Rembrandt van Rijn, William Hogarth, Francisco Goya, James McNeil Whistler, Kathe Kollwitz, Salvador Dali, Helen Frankenthaler, Barbara Kruger and Kara Walker. It opened on Friday, Jan. 12, and is continuing through Saturday, May 19.

The De Pree Art Center and Gallery is located at 275 Columbia Ave., between 10th and 13th streets.  The gallery is open Mondays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The Kruizenga Art Museum is located at 271 Columbia Ave., between 10th and 13th streets.  The museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.