Rebellious Integration
Dissidents in a World of Assimilation
A print portfolio exchange organized by Megan Sterling and Katarzyna Cepek
It is suggested in the description of SGC’s [Southern Graphics Council] 2009 Global Implications theme that, “As our world becomes increasingly interdependent, local practices are at once threatened, celebrated, worthy of preservation and dangerously divisive. As printmakers, our medium is likewise evolving, its borders increasingly permeable. Our traditions are a source of strength, but also a source of isolation.”
In that vein, Rebellious Integration is a portfolio exchange that toys with the contradiction of a printmaker’s continuing subsistence in contemporary art culture and the mores of our society. Although many printmakers work to integrate themselves into the social ranks—working mainstream jobs, teaching in academia, etc.—we at the same time continually find ways to be subversive, to challenge the rubric of each institution that we labor so hard to pervade.
Participants were asked to rebelliously integrate themselves into this exchange—that is, there were specifications that must be followed, ie size, edition size, etc., but they were then encouraged to rebel in any creative way they liked, be it in their subject matter, mediums, three-dimensionality, shape, materials used, etc.
The portfolio was exhibited at Chicago Printmakers Collaborative from March 14 to April 25, 2009 as a part of the 2009 Southern Graphics Conference in Chicago. A special thank you to Deborah Maris Lader for hosting the portfolio at the CPC.
