Carolina Jozami | WCPF24
The potential of collective creation: printmaking experiences from the global south
In recent years, international art institutions and exhibition programmes have shifted towards perspectives that are decidedly critical of colonial processes and their effects and consequences within the global art system. Curatorial narratives seek to broaden and consolidate the representation of those artists and collectives which have historically been relegated in the construction of exhibition histories and, therefore, of Art History.
Big events such as international art biennials acknowledge and lead this turn, and it is worth commenting briefly on the place of printmaking in these events, understanding that it is a practice that has historically developed and enabled collective experiences, and aimed to create a more democratic scene in terms of the circulation of artworks and images. Some examples of Latin American creators who have recently participated in these international exhibitions can be illustrative in order to reflect on these processes.
Experiences such as the latest documenta Kassel (2022) and the São Paulo Biennial (2023) provide us with some examples in order to think about the current development and scope of the field, based on creators from the global south, from diverse backgrounds and generations, but with a common objective.
One of the initiatives of the documenta 15th, under the Artistic Direction of the ruangrupa contemporary art collective based in Jakarta, was the ‘Lumbung of Publishers’, an invitation by the organisation to 20 independent publishers from different parts of the world, to come together, and create a new network, based on the principles of solidarity and knowledge sharing.
This was also related to the ‘Lumbung printing press project’, in which printing machines were available to be used by all those artists invited to that edition of documenta, but also for anyone who came along spontaneously. The transmission of knowledge was a key part of this project, in which a group of printing technicians instructed all those who signed up to participate in the handling of the machines, aiming to generate autonomy when it came to creating printed material, publishing it, and circulating information widely. Some of the Latin American guests organisations in these projects was the Uruguayan publishing house microutopias, whose practice focuses on graphic resources and collaborative works for building up new dissident narratives from the South. The studio publishes art books and fanzines, risopress oriented around sociopolitical artistic works. Other Latin American projects such as Cooperativa Cráter Invertido (Mexico), La Impresora (Puerto Rico), Proyecto Relámpago (Colombia), and HAMBRE HAMBRE HAMBRE (Chile) also participated in the conformation of this network.
For the latest São Paulo Biennial (2023), the curatorial team comprised of Grada Kilomba, Hélio Menezes, Manuel Borja-Villel and Diane Lima, incorporated a considerable number of printmakers in their line-up. One of the pieces included was the installation Papalotes de los desaparecidos (2014) by the Mexican artist Francisco Toledo (1940-2019). This work is part of a series made by the artist commemorating the 43 students from Ayotzinapa, who were murdered and disappeared in Iguala in 2014.
The piece consists of an installation of 43 kites, each one carrying the engraved portrait of each of the students. The work is the result of the collaboration between the artist and the primary school students participating in the Arte y Papel workshop in San Agustín Etla, Mexico. Once the kites were created, Toledo invited the neighbours of Oaxaca and the children taking part in the workshop to fly the kites.
The Biennial also included fundamental pieces and artists from the Latin American printmaking field, such as the works and experiences of the early 1970s, as the posters by Jesús Ruiz Durand (1940-2004) to disseminate and publicise the agrarian reform in Peru; the prints resulting from the Colombian collective Taller 4 rojo (1970-1978), following the creation of a popular school linking peasant, indigenous communities and trade unions; the collective experiences of the Mexican Taller de Gráfica Popular, or the Carpeta Negra (1988) by the Peruvian art collective Taller NN (c.1987 - c.1989).
The re-examination and exhibition of these key experiences of the last century, as well as the promotion of current projects that focus on the aspects of collective creation, the democratisation of knowledge, the circulation of information and access to images and artworks, demonstrate the relevance and importance of printmaking on the map of contemporary art.
The longstanding origins of printmaking and the profuse number of techniques it involves, place the process aspect of artistic endeavour in a central place. The radical nature of the practice of printmaking lies in its power to communicate and enable a democratic massive flow of information and images. The fact that the major curatorial narratives are focusing on ‘other’ latitudes also implies turning our gaze towards techniques and poetics that have long been neglected.
Carolina Jozami | Curator at Whitechapel Gallery
11/11/2024
