Tongue In Cheek: Irreverence in Print

The Chicago Printmakers Collaborative is pleased to present an exhibition dedicated to work which revels in irreverence, featuring printed matter which indulges in crass humor, vulgarity, and all things lowbrow. Due to its penchant for mass production, affordability, and wide dissemination, printmaking presents artists an opportunity to engage the masses in a unique way. Historically, this has given printmakers tremendous freedom to depict subject matters outside the stuffy confines of “high art”, employing humor, lewdness, profanity, and shock-value to entice viewers and illustrate issues unpalatable to polite society.

This exhibition explores the ways contemporary printmakers continue this tradition– rejecting the “serious” in favor of the bawdy, the flippant, the obscene, and the absurd. Through resolutely refusing to respect that which is generally taken seriously, irreverence holds an untapped potential for critique, reclamation of power, and celebration of self and community.

Curated by Jack Spector-Bishop, Ian Ruppenthal, and Carl Voss

Eric Wilson                                                                                          Beauvais Lyons

Kyle Peets                                                                                          Lya Finston

             Emily Harter

   Oli Watt

Chris Williford                                                                                                            Jolynn Reigeluth

Morgan Price

               Rosabel Rosalind

  Brandon Oswalt                                                                                          Emilien Maricot

                                                              Breanne Trammell                                                             

    Tyler Krasowski 

    Daniel Luedtke