The De Pree Art Center and Gallery at Hope College will host the exhibition “PRINTS: Making” from Monday, Feb. 19, through Thursday, March 15.
The exhibition will examine the techniques that have established a foundation for printmaking, the baseline from which the experimental practice continues to grow. “PRINTS: Making” coincides with the exhibition “Culture, Commerce and Criticism: 500 Years of European and American Prints from the Kruizenga Art Museum Collection” at the Kruizenga Art Museum.
Artist Chakaia Booker and Justin Sanz of the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop of New York City will present a combined artists’ talk in conjunction with both exhibitions on Friday, March 9, at 4 p.m. in Cook Auditorium of the De Pree Art Center and Gallery. Blackburn produced a print by Booker that will be shown in the De Pree exhibition, and Booker and Sanz will discuss the collaborative process. The talk is this year’s David and Jane Armstrong Lecture at Hope.
A reception will follow on Monday, March 9, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at both the De Pree Art Center and Gallery and the Kruizenga Art Museum.
The public is invited to the exhibitions, lecture and reception. Admission is free.
“PRINTS: Making” will display 45 relief, intaglio and planographic prints divided into their respective categories to reveal the fundamental differences in each approach. The exhibition will consist 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.
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.
Justin 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. Her work has been exhibited widely both nationally and internationally, and is included in the collections of a variety of institutions, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“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.