Graphic Noise: Gig Posters from Members of the Chicago Printers Guild
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Transcript of Graphic Noise: Gig Posters from Members of the Chicago Printers Guild
© 2012 Lillstreet Art Center4401 N. Ravenswood Ave.Chicago, IL 60640
Artwork © the artists. Text © Paul SmirlPhotographs by Joe Tighe Photography.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic or mechanical means, without permission in writing from Lillstreet Art Center.
Cover: Graphic Noise show poster by Starshaped Press
Lillstreet Gallery examines the current
state of the Chicago gig poster scene
in its latest exhibition, “Graphic Noise:
Gig Posters from Members of the
Chicago Printers Guild”. Dedicated to
Screenprint and letterpress prints,
the exhibition displays fourteen local
artist-designers whose work first
promoted concerts at famed venues
such as Washington D.C.’s 9:30 Club and
Chicago favorite, The Hideout. With
aims at exploring the duel nature of the
gig poster as both commercial object
and fine art piece, “Graphic Noise”
puts forth a wide array of print styles,
spanning 1960s typography, cartoon
drawing, photographs, and patterned
abstractions.
G R A P H I C N O I S E by Paul Smirl
With the rare ability to penetrate
popular culture, street culture, and
the white cube, poster artists have
undoubtedly seen growing success in
recent years; in spite of the Internet’s
reduction of music and art to mere
digital files, contemporary bands and
fans have been drawn to gig posters
as collectible, aesthetic objects that
connect the spirit of music with an
audience far beyond the attendees of
a specific show. Yet, while gig posters’
popularity have clearly exceeded their
initial promotional purposes, their
consistency as accessible, affordable
pieces has their designers in a culturally
intriguing place as both sculptors of
popular branding and proliferators of
their own personal styles.
Examining the exhibition, one sees a
selection of markedly different posters
from artists of varied backgrounds.
With a commercial duo that has done
graphic work for Mozilla and Nike,
a multimedia artist that produces
woodcuts, etchings and rugs, a pair of
designer-painters that create textually
abstract pieces and a printing company
that works closely with Chicago music
labels, “Graphic Noise” delivers the
diversity found within the gig poster
scene.
Ultimately, music culture is the primary
influence for each poster artist, but
their individual artistic personalities
make “Graphic Noise” a wide-ranging
exhibition that twists the traditional
rock poster palette, promoting not
only concerts but art and poster
festivals as well. With elaborate story-
telling scenes displayed next to playful
childhood images, darkly graphic
works and text-focused posters,
“Graphic Noise” serves as an exemplary
introduction to the Chicago Printers
Guild’s network of printers and print-
minded people, keeping print culture
alive and visible.
Paul Smirl is a writer and artist from Waukesha, Wisconsin and currently a senior at Lawrence University. He is interning at Lillstreet this semester as a part of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest’s Chicago Program.
W O R k S A R E P I C T U R E D in alphabetical order by artist name.
See back of catalogue for biographies. To inquire about availability or
to purchase, please call 773-769-4226 or email [email protected].
Michael SchwindenhammerMicah Schnabel, Michael Dean Damron, Chad Price, 2010
Screenprint, 15 x 23 inches
The Chicago Printers Guild fosters
community within the graphic arts
by building a supportive network for
printers and print -minded people. The
CPG bridges the gap between industrial
printing and fine art printmaking and
supports the work of printers of all
backgrounds. The CPG strives to bring
awareness of print culture to the greater
Chicago area through activities such as
lectures, workshops, field trips, and art
exhibits.
The central aim of CPG is to explore
aspects of print culture at the monthly
meetings of its members. Guild members
A B O U T T H E C H I C A G O P R I N T E R S G U I L D
network and pick up tips of the trade
from fellow printers at the casual
monthly meetings, and share information
on upcoming shows, contests, and other
opportunities to promote their work.
The meetings are usually held in a Guild
member’s studio or shop, with a tour, a
demo, and a presentation of artwork.
The Chicago Printers Guild provides
opportunities to its members to share
knowledge, information, and ideas, and
works to keep Chicago’s print culture
alive and visible to the general public.
www.chicagoprintersguild.org
A RT I S T B I O G R A P H I E S
Celene Aubry has been letterpress
printing for five years, with an intent
focus on wood type and ornament, and
linoleum and wood cuts. She relishes
the never-ending process of learning an
outmoded technology and using type
and presses that are over 100 years old
to create something that carries on the
conversation of letterpress printing
into the 21st century, and greatly enjoys
the history of the trade of printing, and
advertising, and being a part of the story.
Celene currently works at Hatch Show
Print in Nashville, Tennessee.
Kyle Baker (Baker Prints) has been
working as a creative full time since
graduating college in 2005. After 3+ highly
successful years doing print and web
design in-house at a small multi-national
electronics company, he quit his job to
pursue freelance opportunities which
were popping up more and more. That
December, in 2008, he took Steve Walters’
Screwball Academy screen printing crash-
course. It was a transformative experience
that stands as the single most influential
event of his young career. Since that time
kyle has been breaking his ass in half trying
to produce great work for his clients,
whether they’re rock stars or workaday
musicians, massive corporations or scrappy
start-ups, big ad agencies or fellow
solopreneurs. He prides himself on being
trustworthy and honest, and providing
conscientious and responsive service.
Dan MacAdam (Crosshair) has been
screenprinting in Chicago since 1996,
operating under the nom-de-guerre
Crosshair. Crosshair is most widely
known as a creator and printer of
screen-printed concert posters, but also
produces fine art prints, record covers
and custom packaging, both as an artist-
printer and as a printer of others’ work.
Dan’s most recognizable work uses his
original photography as the basis for
heavily layered and intricately detailed
silkscreen prints. His prints frequently
present man-made structures in contrast
or consonance with their landscapes, in
decay or in defiance of disintegration.
He has produced artworks for bands and
musicians ranging from international
superstars, to the underground and
obscure. His prints have appeared in
numerous publications and have been
exhibited widely in the USA and Europe.
Dan sits on the Board of Directors of
the American Poster Institute, and is
an organizer of API’s Flatstock series of
international music poster exhibitions.
Dan Grzeca is a Chicago-born
illustrator and printmaker (b 1968).
He has been screenprinting since
the mid-nineties, contributing to the
nascent and then burgeoning roster
of Chicago Poster makers by creating
a visual documentation of the Free
and Improvised music being made by
ken Vandermark, The Peter Brötzmann
Chicago Tentet,and Caffeine among
others. He has gone on to make work
for big, famous bands, but still gets the
most satisfaction out of making work
that ties into music produced by talented
friends. His idiosyncratic style is achieved
using pencil and scratchboard drawing
techniques which are then transferred to
screens. Dan spends a lot of time thinking
about the screenprinting process in
both a painterly and stripped down way;
attempting to achieve aesthetic freedom
by limiting choices in the composition
process. Success to him is measured by
visual boldness, stark imagery, subtle
color layers, and ink-stained clothing.
Delicious Design League was started in
2006 by two friends; Jason Teegarden-
Downs and Billy Baumann; in Chicago
Illinois. With over ten years of experience
in the design and ad biz they started
Delicious simply as a rock poster design/
screenprinting hobby but by 2008 it had
quickly grown into a full-time design and
illustration studio. Over that span they had
gone from designing rock posters for bands
you’ve never heard of for lunch money to
designing and illustrating for some of the
most recognizable brands in the world.
Zissou Tasseff-Elenkoff (Fugscreens
Studio) was born in San Francisco but
lived most of his life in Paris and London.
He attended Central St. Martens for
a year before moving to Chicago in
September of 2003. He finished his
B.F.A. in Printmaking at the School of
the Art Institute of Chicago, where he
also studied photography and video.
He opened FugScreens Studios in 2009,
now functioning as a premiere silkscreen
studio specializing in gig posters and fine
art prints. Tasseff-Elenkoff has printed
for a wide array of clients, including
Dinosaur Jr., Clear Channel, Overcoat
Management, and Corona.
Matthew Ginsberg is a Chicago artist,
musician, and voice over actor who has
been teaching at Lillstreet Art Center
for more than five years. Whether he is
creating his own print works or pulling
silk screened editions for fellow artists,
Ginsberg approaches art making with
good humor and a friendly attitude.
That certainly shows in his work, which
tends to be vibrant, colorful, and quirky.
In addition to poster and design work,
Ginsberg has created a series of works on
scratched LPs which were displayed at his
solo Saki Records show in 2011.
Kathleen Judge (Judgewworks) was born
and raised in the Midwest and has been
deeply influenced and inspired by living
in the Great Lakes states. Judge studied
painting and animation at The Rhode
Island School of Design and has worked
in the fields of animation, illustration and
printmaking since 1990. In 2000, Judge
began working in silkscreen and over
the past twelve years she has created
screen-printed posters for many bands
and venues around the world. In 2008,
Judge returned to animation and video
and spent two years creating and mixing
live video projections for the Neko
Case touring band. Recently, Judge has
been experimenting with members of
the Chicago performance art group,
Opera-Matic, creating a video projection
sculpture to be used in a mobile street
performance. Over the past few years,
Judge has also been developing video
and theater work in collaboration with
artists Susan Hall and Jason Creps within
their Chicago-based company, One
Degree Off.
Angee Lennard is the founder of Spudnik
Press Cooperative, and currently serves
as the Executive Director. Establishing
the space in 2007, she built the press
from the ground up, initially utilizing
her apartment to create a live/work
space. The following year, the press
moved to a dedicated studio space,
and programming expanded to include
a residency program, keyholder
memberships, consignment printing,
and collaborative projects. She has
participated in group shows at Green
Lantern, Heaven Gallery, Butcher Show,
Beverly Art Center, and Chicago Urban
Art Space. She has been an Artist in
Residence at AS220 in Providence, RI.
She currently teaches at Marwen, CAPE,
and Spudnik Press, and has previously
taught at Rumble Arts and Paper Source.
She has been a panelist at Zygote Press’
Collective INk and moderated the panel
“Printmaker as Distributor, Collaborator,
and Facilitator” at DePaul University
Museum through Nomadic Studios. She
is a member of the Chicago Printers
Guild and Southern Graphics Council.
She received her BFA with an emphasis is
Print Media from The School of the Art
Institute of Chicago in 2005.
Justin Santora grew up in the greater
Chicagoland area and graduated from
Northeastern Illinois University with
a degree in studio art and secondary
education. Unenthused with the
prospect of a career as a high school art
teacher, Santora took a cue from some
of Chicago’s well-known rock poster
artists and began working as a freelance
illustrator and screen printer. Justin has
been producing handmade posters, screen
printed art, and paintings professionally
since 2009. Much of Santora’s work is
focused around images of quiet rural
or suburban settings, construction,
architecture, and large open spaces. His
approach is also informed by an interest
in social justice, egalitarianism, and animal
rights, as well as a lifelong passion for
skateboarding and punk rock. Santora
has exhibited work in various cities in the
United States, Canada, and Europe. He
currently lives in Chicago with his girlfriend
and cat and enjoys riding his bike to the
studio every day to draw and print.
Michael Schwindenhammer designs
his posters with the same sense of
proportions and composition that he
learned while studying architecture. His
designs tend to reflect both his clean
and uncluttered sensibilities as well as
his attachment for the landscapes of the
Midwest.
Sonnenzimmer is a Chicago-based
art and screen print studio owned
and operated by Nadine Nakanishi
and Nick Butcher. The couple merges
backgrounds in typography, printmaking,
graphic design and fine art to create
hand-crafted posters, books, and music
packaging for a wide array of projects and
clients. Working closely with Chicago’s
bustling free jazz and improvised music
community, Sonnenzimmer has found
a place where experimentation and
abstraction are not only respected, they
are demanded. This freedom has allowed
them both to work through countless
ideas and styles of execution, helping to
shape their visual language, one that is
simultaneously quiet and bold.
Jennifer Farrell (Starshaped Press) has
been at this letterpress thing since
1999. She cut her teeth working at the
venerable Fireproof Press right here in
the Windy City and struck out on her
own after that, armed with the ideals of a
Luddite and ridiculous notions of keeping
letterpress as old school as possible.
She hates when presses are incorrectly
called ‘letterpresses’ or ‘printers’, when
stationery is spelled incorrectly and when
two spaces are used after each sentence
in digital typesetting. She dreams of being
interviewed by Steve Edwards someday.
Duffy O’Connor and Megan Sterling
have collaborated with each other for
the past several years having formed a
friendship in 2006. Their work celebrates
drawing, the contrast present in
juxtaposing the Sweet and the Sinister as
well as the simultaneously competetive
and sympathetic nature of collaboration.
This is played out in these posters
created for Imagine, Harrington College
of Design’s annual art exhibiiton and
charity auction. In the first (2010), rabbits
and bombs compete for attention in
a bleak landscape, the small mammals
act as a ballast against industrial and
dangerous manmade objects. This
contrast is presented with a more overtly
hopeful message in the second poster
(2012). Animals in need receive aid from
the sky in the form of an air drop.
This contrast explores the innate tension
between the natural world and human
civilization but also creates a link
between the two.