Writing on the Wall at Printworks

Gallery Spotlights are posts about randomly selected* art venues in Chicago

Susan Baron

River North’s Printworks Gallery has long been established as the foremost in representing the printmaking genre within Chicago’s art community. It is a physically small operation, in a sense quiet and composed upon entering, with the interior lined with shelves and cases of drawers, and (currently) small works of Susan Barron displayed salon-style on the free-standing walls. Though with this description, it may sound and seem like the viewing space is limited and cramped. But on the contrary, there is just enough; this space is not, like its district neighbors, devoted to the display, viewing and selling of paintings and sculptures, rather it is perfectly adapted to the ideal fashion in which to view works on paper. The free-standing walls, placed closely together, guide the viewer through the space, while also encouraging a closer and more intimate viewing.

Evoking instead of the empty white cube, Printworks reminds one of someplace more like a library: full yet orderly, clean and archival. Unlike a painting gallery, the drawers of inventory can be seen right there in the exhibition space; all one has to do is ask to see them, and the prints can be viewed right then and there. In fact, the whole place encourages an intimacy, through the square footage and layout, but also the size of works themselves, their content and right down to the two distinguished gentlemen (the gallery directors Sidney Block and Bob Hiebert) seated across from one another at a tiny desk, just in the manner I had read that they would.

Though the description above may sound sweet and bookish, do not be mistaken; Printworks is a space with a serious reputation for impeccable work and incredible artists. And what especially remarkable in regards to the projects and exhibitions of this gallery is the level of collaboration that happens among Printworks, its gallery artists and its curators. Past projects have included the 2000 exhibition “The Exquisite Corpse” in which artists such as Jim Nutt, Pamela Barrie, Kerry James Marshall and Gladys Nilsson (among many others) participated in the Surrealist game, with each artist contributing blindly to one of three parts composing a figure. Another such project of collaboration was the 2005 exhibition “The Art of the Bookplate” curated by Audrey Niffenegger in honor of the 25th anniversary of the gallery. In this exhibition, artists were asked to contribute a work according to the theme, which was to create a bookplate in honor of someone who has influenced the artists’ lives. Richard Hull chose W.H. Auden; Michiko Itatani honored Haruki Murakami; Bruce Thayer contributed Diego Rivera; Edgar Allen Poe was commemorated by Karl Wirsum.

What Printworks Gallery does is provide a home for prints and works on paper, one in which they don’t merely have to exist secondary to the traditional notion of painting’s authority, or as gestures that are smaller, or less complete as two-dimensional media; they’re not sketches or mini paintings, but powerful, fully realized works of their own. The prints in Printworks Gallery are things to come close to and examine, with their own unique processes and history.

On display currently is “Writing on the Wall: New Works on Paper” by Susan Baron, May 21- July 3, 2010. In the works is the Summer Exhibition, scheduled for July 9- August 21. Printworks Gallery is located at 311 West Superior Street, suite 105, Chicago.

*Gallery spotlights are chosen based on a lottery, which we document by videotape, in order to be transparent and truly random. 10 were chosen out of a pool of 350.