MoMA: Print/Out February 19–May 14, 2012

February 19–May 14, 2012

Ellen Gallagher. Black Combs from DeLuxe (detail). 2004–05. Photogravure, chine collé, oil, laser cutting, plasticine, and toy eyeballs, from a portfolio of 60 mixed media works, composition and sheet: 13 x 10" (33 x 25.4 cm). Publisher and printer: Two Palms Press, New York. Edition: 20. Acquired through the generosity of The Friends of Education of The Museum of Modern Art and The Speyer Family Foundation, Inc., with additional support from the General Print Fund. © 2012 Ellen Gallagher and Two Palms Press

Print/Out looks at how artists have changed the way a print is made and the way we look at prints. The idea of a print has changed dramatically over the last 20 years. No longer confined to a piece of paper rolled through a press, the print is a medium where artists have can play with mediums such as digitization, appropriation from other sources, and blur what is the original and what is the fake. Artists now alter images into other images using digital technology to make “new originals.” 

Print/Out, is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Printin’. Printin’ begins with 60 works by Gallagher (American, b. 1965). Gallagher pushes the idea of what is a print and uses mediums not usually associated with prints such as pomade and ice. The exhibit shows 50 other artists that begin with the 17th century to present day. Print/Out is an exhibit that brings together drawings, films, books, sculptures, videos, and comic strips. The exhibition features such artists as Vija Celmins, David Hammons, George Herriman, Robert Rauschenberg, and Martha Rosler. 

Over the past two decades, the art world has broadened its geographic reach and opened itself to new continents, allowing for a significant crosspollination of post-conceptual strategies and vernacular modes. Printed materials, both in innovative and traditional forms, have played a key role in this exchange of ideas and sources. This catalogue, published in conjunction with an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, examines the evolution of artistic practices related to prints, from the resurgence of ancient printmaking techniques often used alongside digital technologies to the worldwide proliferation of self-published artists books and ephemera. Print/Out features focused sections on ten artists and publishers, including Ai Weiwei, Ellen Gallagher, Martin Kippenberger, Lucy McKenzie, Museum in Progress, Superflex and Rirkrit Tiravanija, as well as rich illustrations of additional printed projects from the last twenty years by major artists such as Trisha Donnelly, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Thomas Schütte, and Kelley Walker. An introductory essay by Christophe Cherix, Chief Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books at MoMA, offers an overview of this period with particular attention to new directions and strategies within an expanded field of printmaking.

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1169