John Caperton is the Curator of Prints and Photographs at The Print Center, Philadelphia. He wrote this essay as an introduction to Hester Stinnett’s exhibition Transcriptions at the Kelly & Weber Fine Art Gallery in March/April 2008. Her work presented the scribbled notes of Joseph Conrad alongside the calligraphy of her ailing mother - a compelling pairing which Caperton describes with insight. Hester Stinnett is currently Professor of Printmaking at the Tyler School of Art of Temple University.

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Johanna Drucker is internationally recognized for her academic expertise as well as her innovative work as a book artist. She specializes in the theory and practice of typography, visual as well as concrete poetry, and modern art history.

The following essay is a summary of the remarks Johanna Drucker made during the featured panel discussion “Command Print” at the Southern Graphics Council Conference in March 2008. By analyzing the valued systems of production, conception, distribution, agency, and critical discourse that surround printmaking, Drucker argues that the advent of digital media transforms and expands not only the definitions of what constitutes printmaking, but also a general understanding of its cultural and artistic significance.

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Luis Camnitzer was born in Lübeck, Germany in 1937, but was raised in Uruguay, where he studied sculpture and architecture. He moved to New York in 1964 and a year later he founded the New York Graphic Workshop with Liliana Porter and José Guillermo Castillo. Besides his career as an artist (he represented Uruguay at the Venice Biennale in 1988, and was included in the Whitney Biennial in 2000, and Documenta 11, 2002), he is also widely recognized as a writer and art historian. His texts have appeared in Art Nexus, Third Text and Art in America and he is the author of New Art From Cuba (University of Texas Press, 1994/2004). He was the curator for the Viewing Program at the Drawing Center in New York from 1999 to 2006 and was a co-curator for the VI Mercosul Biennial in Portoalegre, Brazil in 2007. Camnitzer lives and works in New York.

The following text, provocatively titled Printmaking: a Colony of the Arts, questions the segregation that printmakers often inflict onto themselves, taking Colonization as a metaphor. - J. Roca.

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Learn more about the work of Colombian artist, Óscar Muñoz in this article and accompanying slideshow. This document by José Roca is based on a presentation Roca did for The University of the Arts community in July 2007, entitled Imprints for a Fleeting Memorial. This presentation looked at an important body of work the artist developed exploring the status of the image in relation to memory.

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The following is a selection of critical theory and primary sources that address the role of printmaking in contemporary art. Common themes among the texts represented in this bibliography include (re-)definintions of printmaking as a medium, considerations of the interdisciplinary nature of printmaking, and the future of the art form.

By no means is this an all encompassing bibliography: it is a work in progress, and we welcome submissions or suggestions of additional materials for the bibliography to cperkins@philagrafika.org.

     Part I: Critical Theory
     Theoretical considerations of the field of printmaking, including its effects on visual      culture, its place within the artworld, its education, its value, etc.

     Part II: Reviews
     Reviews of individual artists, exhibits, galleries, museums, and shows

     Part III: Primary Sources
     Speeches, interviews, statements, etc.

     Part IV: Exhibit and Museum Catalogues and Notices

     Part V: Historical Scholarly Writings, Biographies, etc.
     Essays resulting from research within the field, retrospectives on the history of prints and      printmaking, art historical texts, and artist biographies.

     Part VI: Additional Resources
     Other online print-related bibliographies

     Part VII: Further Reading
     Non-annotated, recommended texts