Chasing Posada! Macabre Populism in Print

Jose Guadalupe Posada (1852 - 1913) was a popular illustrator-printmaker, who both responded to and shaped the desires of Mexico. With his Calavaras, he created a joyfully macabre iconography that depicted death while it critiqued the living. He possessed a sarcastic disposition that mingled satire with political commentary, and had a taste for the sensationalistic in visual reportage of the world he witnessed. With the work of J.G. Posada, the medium of the printed image intersects with an audience and it\u27s appetite for plebian subject matter. The prolific Posada was a craftsman-illustrator who worked in a style resulting from the spontaneous demands of popular tabloid journalism. In rapidly produced images that could be alternately clumsy or refined, with engraved lines set in high contrast, he gave his audience what they wanted—disasters, freaks of nature, social scandals, scenes of fantastical and everyday violence— which functioned both as moral lessons and as entertainment. It was a vision of an unstable and violent world but also an act of honoring the daily struggle of living. This panel invites diverse papers and presentations addressing the work of contemporary printmakers that can be viewed as descendants of the macabre populism of Posada. Artists such as Sue Coe, Manuel Ocampo and the Chapman Brothers are but a few examples of such a vision in print. This call is open to presentations by artists and scholars about artists, with an emphasis placed on black humor and populism as a strategy in print imaging. The panel will coincide with the exhibition Chasing Posada! A Macabre Populist In The City, which will be on view at the Signal-Return print shop in Eastern Market, from September 18 - October 18