¡Printing the revolution!

de E. Carmen Ramos, Tatiana Reinoza, Terecita Romo, Claudia E. Zapata

In the 1960s, activist Chicano artists forged a history of printmaking that remains vital today. Many artists came of age during the civil rights, labor, anti-war, feminist and LGBTQ+ movements and channeled the period's social activism into statements that announced a new political and cultural consciousness among people of Mexican descent in the United States. ¡Printing the Revolution! explores the rise of Chicano graphics within these early social movements and the ways in which Chicanx artists since then have advanced printmaking practices attuned to social justice. More than reflecting the need for social change, the works featured in the catalogue and exhibition project and revise notions of Chicanx identity, spur political activism, and school viewers in new understandings of U.S. and international history. By employing diverse visual and artistic modes from satire, to portraiture, to appropriation, conceptualism, and politicized pop, the artists in this exhibition build a graphic tradition that has yet to be fully integrated into the history of U.S. printmaking. This exhibition is the first to unite historic civil rights-era prints alongside works by contemporary printmakers, including several that embrace expanded graphics that exist beyond the paper substrate. While the dominant mode of printmaking among Chicanx artists remains screenprinting, the installation features works in a wide range of techniques and presentation strategies, from installation art to public interventions, augmented reality, and shareable graphics that circulate in the digital realm. The exhibition is also the first to consider how Chicanx mentors, print centers, and networks nurtured other artists, including several who drew inspiration from the example of Chicanx printmaking. Featured artists and collectives include Rupert García, Malaquias Montoya, Ester Hernández, the Royal Chicano Air Force, David Avalos, Elizabeth Sisco, Louis Hock, Sandra Fernández, Juan de Dios Mora, the Dominican York Proyecto Grafíca, Enrique Chagoya, René Castro, Juan Fuentes, and Linda Lucero, among others. ¡Printing the Revolution! features more than 100 works drawn from the Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection of Latinx art. The Museum's Chicanx graphics holdings rose significantly with a gift in 1995 from the renowned scholar Tomás Ybarra-Frausto. Since then, other major donations and an ambitious acquisition program have built one of the largest museum collections of Chicanx graphics on the East Coast.