John Baldessari
John Baldessari was a Los Angeles based conceptual artist known for using found imagery that he recomposes by carefully selecting pictures, sometimes pairing them with text and often overlaying them with large dots and swaths of color, to mask or bring attention to areas of detail. By reimagining and dislocating images, Baldessari raises questions of how we exchange and understand information. Taking this interest in issues of context and cultural specificity further, the new Emoji Series reevaluates the ubiquitous, seemingly innocuous images that we use in everyday conversation. Related to a series of animal emoji paintings from 2017, Baldessari had matched nine food emojis with unexpected words and short phrases for his last Emoji Series at Gemini. Some of the text is ironic and suggestive, while some seems completely random, thus challenging the viewer to make sense out of the pairings. Through the efforts of Master screenprinters Richard Kaz and Jeff McMane, the emojis retain their brilliant colors and pixelated texture.
David HoCkney
Hockney experimented with printmaking as early as a lithograph Self-Portrait in 1954 and worked in etchings during his time at RCA. In 1965, the print workshop Gemini G.E.L. approached him to create a series of lithographs with a Los Angeles theme. Hockney responded by creating The Hollywood Collection, a series of lithographs recreating the art collection of a Hollywood star, each piece depicting an imagined work of art within a frame. Hockney went on to produce many other portfolios with Gemini G.E.L. including Friends, The Weather Series, and Some New Prints. During the 1960s he produced several series of prints he thought of as 'graphic tales', including A Rake's Progress (1961–63)after Hogarth, Illustrations for Fourteen Poems from C.P. Cavafy (1966)and Illustrations for Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm (1969).
In 1973 Hockney began a fruitful collaboration with Aldo Crommelynck, Picasso's preferred printer. In his atelier, he adopted Crommelynck's trademark sugar lift, as well as a system of the master's own devising of imposing a wooden frame onto the plate to ensure colour separation. Their early work together included Artist and Model (1973–74) and Contrejour in the French Style (1974). In 1976–77 Hockney created The Blue Guitar, a suite of 20 etchings, each utilising Crommelynck's techniques and filled with references to Picasso. The frontispiece to the suite mentions Hockney's dual inspiration; "The Blue Guitar: Etchings By David Hockney Who Was Inspired By Wallace Stevens Who Was Inspired By Pablo Picasso".The etchings refer to themes in a poem by Wallace Stevens, The Man with the Blue Guitar. It was published by Petersburg Press in October 1977. That year, Petersburg also published a book in which the images were accompanied by the poem's text.
In the summer of 1978, David Hockney stayed for six weeks with his friend the printer Ken Tyler at Tyler's studio in New York, Tyler Graphics Ltd. Tyler invited Hockney to try a new technique with liquid paper. The process is painting with the paper itself, so the artist had to do it himself by hand. Each image becomes a unique work between printmaking and painting. In six weeks, Hockney created a total of 29 artworks with a series of 17 sunflowers and swimming pools. Many of the works are very similar, differentiated by changes in colour choice and application of the colour. Some are solely coloured using paper pulp, while some use spray paint to achieve certain details.
Some of Hockney's other print portfolios include Home Made Prints (1986), Recent Etchings (1998) and Moving Focus (1984–1986), which contains lithographs related to A Walk Around the Hotel Courtyard, Acatlan. A retrospective of his prints, including 'computer drawings' printed on fax machines and inkjet printers, was exhibited at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London 5 February – 11 May 2014 and Bowes Museum, County Durham 7 June – 28 September 2014, with an accompanying publication, Hockney, Printmaker, by Richard Lloyd.
