Variations in Print: 15 Tamarind Collaborations celebrates Tamarind Institute’s groundbreaking collaborative printmaking and training program. Highlighting collaborations between Tamarind Institute and fifteen artists, Variations in Print draws upon Tamarind’s extensive archive of prints and archival materials from the past sixty years and provides a comprehensive portrait of the workshop that changed the course of contemporary printmaking.
Founded in 1960 in Los Angeles by June Wayne, Tamarind Institute is recognized internationally for its contributions to the growth of contemporary printmaking. Relocated in 1970 to the University of New Mexico by co-founders Garo Antreasian and Clinton Adams, Tamarind continues its primary educational mission to train master printers and introduce contemporary artists to the possibilities of lithography.
Tamarind is known for upholding the highest standards of printing and documentation, while advancing lithography—the most technically challenging of all print media—through research and experimentation. This exhibition explores the essential relationship of artist and printer during the collaborative process, and how discoveries are made. The exhibition is comprised of forty-nine prints by fifteen artists engaged over Tamarind’s sixty years: Garo Antreasian, José Bedia, Nick Cave, Willie Cole, Lesley Dill, Jim Dine, Hung Liu, Nicola López, Linn Meyers, Rashaad Newsome, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Liliana Porter, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Michelle Stuart, and Judy Tuwaletstiwa.
Through identifying several key printers who trained at Tamarind—many who went on to establish their own workshops around the world—the history of printmaking is expanded by incorporating the printers and their achievements into the narrative. The exhibition explores the intergenerational dedication to the handcrafted object and the slow medium of lithography through short video profiles (available for educational materials) of Tamarind’s student printers and master printers, the so-called #lithocrew generation.
Tracing several projects as case studies of collaboration at Tamarind, this exhibition explores the defining role of the Master Printer, who runs the workshop and sets the tone for the artist collaborations. The exhibition will explore the bold collaboration and mentoring style of Tamarind’s current Master Printer and Workshop Manager, Valpuri Remling (who trained at Tamarind and started as the head of the workshop in 2015). She represents a new generation of printers and extends the role of women printers pioneered by Judith Solodkin, Tamarind’s first woman master printer (TMP 1975).
Utilizing archival material housed at the Center for Southwest Research, a narrative that incorporates the printers’ voices, and a broad selection of Tamarind lithographs, the exhibition explores the pivotal markers of the workshop’s sixty-year history and the art of lithography that continues to thrive in the digital age.
The exhibition scheduled to begin its tour in June 2020. Special discounts on the first year of the exhibition’s tour are available to members of AAMG.
For more information, visit eusa.org/exhibition/tamarind/
Categories: Traveling Exhibitions