Master Printmakers on view at TANA Woodland
La Huella Magistral: Homage to Master Printmakers at Taller Arte del Nuevo Amanecer, or TANA, in Woodland, opened March 9 and runs through May. The exhibition of prints from around the country includes work by Malaquias Montoya, professor emeritus and TANA co-founder, and artist-in-residence Jaime Montiel.
TANA travels to New York
TANA also has a traveling exhibition of posters in Syracuse, New York, at the Community Folk Art Center, Transformacion: Posters from Taller Arte del Nuevo Amanecer. The New York show runs through March 20.
The description of the exhibition reads: “keeping with the theme of ‘Art in the Age of Protest’ … Montoya is credited by historians as one of the founders of the social serigraphy movement in the San Francisco Bay area in the mid 1960's.” The show also features work by Drucella Anne Miranda, a UC Davis graduate and Central Valley resident.
Transformación marks TANA’s first out-of-state exhibition, said Jose Arenas, associate director of TANA. “While numerous community-based printmaking shows have taken place at TANA's local home in Woodland, the work is built upon the transnational Taller tradition of cultural printmaking for social and political protest and transformation,” he said. The work reflects various social themes such as immigration, policing, and feminist movements. It features silkscreen posters by professional artists, high school students, and the UC Davis student interns.
Arenas said the relationship with Syracuse came about when Imagining America’s headquarters moved to UC Davis from Syracuse. The relationship between the two universities was a natural, and the exhibit spaces at each university have similar goals.
“This recent opportunity has heightened our objective to exhibit TANA prints on a national level,” he said. We continue to build valuable relationships with other institutions across the country in an effort to highlight TANA’s mission and establish a national following and presence.”
This exhibition brings together eight years of posters made by TANA artists, interns, and workshop participants, often under the guidance of master printers and co-founders Montoya and Carlos Francisco Jackson. The prints included in this show represent a wide range of social and aesthetic issues.
About TANA: Taller Arte del Nuevo Amanecer, or TANA, is a collaborative partnership between the Chicana/o Studies Department at the University of California, Davis and the nearby community of Woodland, California. TANA offers a fully functioning silkscreen studio, Chicano/Latino Arts exhibition space, and a teaching center for the arts. Through exhibiting, printing, and teaching, TANA seeks to cultivate the cultural and artistic life of the surrounding community, embracing the idea that the arts are essential to a community's development and well-being.
Jose Arenas of TANA contributed to this story.
Manuel Neri’s rugged sculpture on view at Yale
Some of the work of Manuel Neri, a first-generation art faculty member, is on display at Yale University Art Gallery. The show, not surprisingly, is curated by Yale art curator and UC Davis graduate Jock Reynolds, who has often referred to Neri as his mentor.
The exhibit is Manuel Neri: The Human Figure in Plaster and on Paper.
The Yale Daily News, speaking of Reynolds’ personal link, said: “Manuel Neri was his teacher and mentor at the UC Davis. The exhibit is clearly deeply personal for Reynolds, who says in the gallery notes that the exhibit is: ‘my own ode to a great artist and teacher whom I have known and admired for almost 50 years.’ Jock Reynolds announced his retirement, effective at the end of this academic year. He has worked as the Director of the Yale University Art Gallery for two decades.”
Because I couldn’t attend the exhibit myself, I recommend you read the Yale article here, which gives a vivid description of the exhibition. Sounds like its worth a visit for anyone visiting Yale for a conference or other event. The show runs through July 8.
The UC Davis Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art holds more than 150 works by Neri in its collections that are shown at special exhibitions. Right now at the museum (through May) you’ll find the work of Neri’s close colleague and friend, Wayne Thiebaud, another member of the original art faculty, is occupying much of the exhibition space in: Wayne Thiebaud: 1958-1968.
