The 16th National Biennial Exhibition of the Los Angeles Printmaking Society

Laband Art Gallery

Loyola Marymount University

Los Angeles, CA

310-338-2880

http://www.lmu.edu/colleges/cfa/art/laband/

16th National Biennial Exhibition of the Los Angeles Printmaking Society

The 16th National Biennial Exhibition of the Los Angeles Printmaking Society will open on Jan. 17, 2001 at the Laband Art Gallery, Loyola Marymount University and run through Feb. 24, 2001. The Los Angeles Printmaking Society will host a reception for the artists, participating presses and publishers at the Laband Art Gallery on Saturday, Jan. 20, from 3 to 5 p.m. The public is invited. (left: Gronk, My Keys de Façade #4, 2000, color lithograph)

David Rodes, director of the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at UCLA's Hammer Museum, juried the 16th National, surveying 1500 slide entries submitted by U.S. and Canadian artists, selecting 75 works by 60 artists for the exhibition. Among the artists featured in the 16th National are Sandow Birk, Jonathan Borofsky, Scott Grieger, Robert Rauschenberg, Don Suggs, Allen Ruppersberg and Richard Serra. In addition to numerous artists from throughout the, U.S. and Canada, local representation for Los Angeles publishers includes, Cirrus, El Nopai Press, Gemini GEL, Grand Central Press, Hamilton Editions, Josephine Press, Mixografia Workshop, Muse [X] Editions and Self-Help Graphics. (left: Endi Poskovic, Rhino in Gray (Homage to Dürer), 1999, color woodcut)

Since its inception in the early 1970s, the National Biennial Exhibition of the Los Angeles Printmaking Society has been the only regular survey of the evolving field of printmaking presented in California. An illustrated catalogue with an essay by juror David Rodes accompanies the exhibition and is produced in CD-ROM format. (left: Jonathan Borofsky, Male/Female (Purple Center-Small), 1999, color lithograph and screenprint)

Janice Ledgerwood, coordinator of the 16th National, notes that "the public museums of Southern California have acquired works from past LAPS Biennials to add to their collections of works on paper. In the 15th National, 32 works were acquired by private collections and public institutions including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, UCLA/ Armand Hammer's Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, the Orange County Museum of Art and the University Art Museum at Cal. State Long Beach."

In addition, Ledgerwood says she is pleased with the growing number of individual and corporate collectors who donate cash for awards or make purchases from the National. Most of the work in the exhibition is available for purchase through the Laband Art Gallery. (left: Joel Peck, Personal Collection, 2000, etching)

The 16th National is also part of "Southern California Perspectives in Printmaking," a collaborative presentation of print exhibitions in 19 galleries in Los Angeles and Orange counties during January and February and organized by the Los Angeles Printmaking Society. For information, visit the society web site.

About David Rodes

David Rodes has held Fulbright, Woodrow Wilson, and Danforth graduate fellowships and in 1968 received a Ph. D. from Stanford University in English Literature. He has taught Shakespeare and 16-18th Century Theater in UCLA's Department of English since 1966 and has been a consultant for various international stage, film, and television projects on classical theater. In 1994 he and A. R. Braunmuller completed an influential interactive CD-ROM project on Shakespeare's "Macbeth." (left: David Rodes)

Since 1989 Rodes has been the director of UCLA's prestigious collection of fine art prints, drawings, and photographs, the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, located at the UCLA Hammer Museum. The Grunwald Center's 40,000 works of art on paper include notable old master works, landscape prints and drawings, 19th-century caricature, French modernist prints and artists' books, and German Expressionist drawings, prints, and books. Under Rodes's directorship--and guided by the Center's associate director and senior curator Cynthia Burlingham--the Center has produced such notable exhibitions and catalogues as "Moonlight Theater: Prints and Related Works by Carlos Almaraz" (1991); "The French Renaissance In Prints" (1994); and "Picturing Childhood: Illustrated Childrens' Books, 1550-1990" (1997). The Center is currently organizing a major exhibition and catalogue called "The World from Here: Treasures of Research Libraries of Los Angeles" (opening October 2001).

In 1972 Rodes received the University's Distinguished Teaching Award, and in 1995 he was decorated by the French government for his contributions to French intellectual activities.

rev. 1/8/01

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This page was originally published in 2000 in Resource Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for more information.