When Andy Warhol initially branching out into silkscreen painting, the technology was primarily in use for signage. He had already painted by hand Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962) and had thought of signs outside supermarkets that could advertise these were for sale. His first silkscreens, however, were coinage. In his epic biography Warhol, Blake Gopnik points out that this may have been inspired by a senior professor at the Carnegie Institute of Technology who “talked about the US dollar bill, with Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washingtonlike a work of art we all carry in our pockets.”
“Deep Cuts: Block Printing Across Cultures,” a new exhibit at LACMA’s Resnick Pavilion, tries to make a similar argument about one of the oldest and most democratic ways of making a photograph. Curator Erin Maynes has drawn more than 200 objects, most from the museum’s own collection, and arranged them not by geography or the usual century, but by the four things a block can do: transmission, pattern, processing, and expression. These four goals allow for a wide medium range, from a Japanese prayer scroll printed around 764 to contemporary wall works. Throw some Albrecht Dürer, Indian chintz and a Manifesto by the German Expressionist Brücke (1906) so rare that only five survive, and you will see that this exhibition demonstrates the breadth that comes from a medium that is so cheap to produce.
The resulting work tends to satisfy in an instinctive way. Take it Carl Otto CzeschkaS ‘ Textile fragment, “Valdidyll” (Forest idyll) (1910-11), a block-printed linen piece showing two crouching deer in an overgrown forest scene. The Jugendstil style treats the forest as a pure ornament, cutting a black wildness. The medium feels in the mirrored nature of the design and the fact that the twisted leaves take up every inch of the design – the empty space is a waste of block! A photograph from 1916 shows Gustav Klimt wearing a cloak made from this fabric at an artist festival and one sees how he would feel with this Dan Flashes-level intricacy.
That work was about the “model” and in the “process” we have press (1934) by Paul Landacre. The process really goes back and forth in this work, because the press depicted was found rusting in the ghost town of Bodie in 1929 and restored by Landacre, who insisted that the hand press overpowered the presses because of the pressure he felt when pulling the lever. It’s hard to argue with the results. His wood carving features deep textures, almost as if he needs to feel this wonderful machine, because otherwise it is so mysterious to him.
Alison SaarS ‘ High Cotton II (2018) shows that after so many years the medium still rewards innovation. The title refers to better times, the lucky era, but takes on a different meaning for the woman depicted. How better to demonstrate this disconnection than the wild contrasts between the fluffy, antique texture of the cotton and the taut tension within her skin?
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