THE COMPOUND GALLERY & STUDIOS » News

New Interdisciplinary Art Residency Program

the compound — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 22:35:25 +0000

We are pleased to announce a new Interdisciplinary Art Residency Program at The Compound Gallery & Studios!

We are offering six month residencies with complete access to all our facilities! Our goal is to provide artists with the opportunity to expand his/her art practice by providing access to a variety of equipment in an inspiring and creative environment. Click here to find out more.

The Art of Letterpress (February 11th-March 25th, 2012)

the compound — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 07:00:54 +0000

The Art of LetterPress

(February 11th-March 25th, 2012)

Opening Reception: Saturday, February 11th, 6-9pm
Closing Tea: Sunday, March 25th, 3-6pm

Featuring work by: Lisa Berman, Matt Chase, Tim Fite, Rachel Foster, Claire Kessler-Bradner, Brian Kring, Mary Laird, Studio Lorzig, Amos Paul Kennedy Jr., Rebecca Peters, Lisa Rappaport, Two Fine Chaps, and more.

Co-curated with Rebecca Peters

The Compound Gallery in Oakland, CA is pleased to present The Art of Letterpress, an exhibition celebrating the bygone era of letterpress printing. A visual panegyric in honor of this distinctive form of artistry, The Art of Letterpress features some of the finest letterpress artists in the Bay Area and beyond. Today, we text, email, and print at the touch of a button, making it easy to forget how labor intensive it was to simply make a sentence and reproduce it multiple times. In an increasing digital age, people long for something that is tangible and tactile—analog. The characteristic texture, ink, and surface of letterpressed text declares it an antiquated champion of typography.

Typography was once used to express both language and visual imagery, and the process involved in producing prints involved both craft and artistry. This exhibition features the work of artists who work in letterpress using both traditional type setting and modern polymer and magnesium plates, and was co-curated with exceptional Bay Area letterpress artist, Rebecca Peters. Although the Bay Area is home to a lively, active scene, which promotes the revival of letterpress printing, letterpress printing is often overlooked as a form of fine art.

Renowned letterpress artist Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. lives and works in Alabama and is known for his bold, boundry pushing prints. Kennedy has been commissioned by CB2 to create a series of limited edition letterpress prints for Gay Pride Month, and he is the feature of a recent documentary titled Proceed and Be Bold! Lisa Rappoport is a Bay Area artist who publishes poetry broadsides and artists’ books and has produced a series of broadsides by the poets who teach at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers; she has also printed poetry broadsides for Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights Books, Lyric Poetry Review, and many others. Tim Fite is a Brooklyn artist best known for his original music. Esquire Magazine called him, “one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most subversive renaissance men,” but he is also an amazing visual artist. His letterpress printed linocuts are playful, telling images of love and strife. In addition to a display of various letterpress prints, bins of small prints, books, and broadsides, this exhibition will feature timeworn letterpress paraphernalia, ephemera, equipment, and more.

LETTERPRESS WORKSHOP!

Our first workshop sold out. New workshop scheduled for March 11th, 1-5pm. Learn basic letterpress skills on our 1925 Chandler and Price letterpress. Taught by Rebecca Peters. Special Rate in celebration of our Art of Letterpress show! Price of workshop INCLUDES material fee. Class size is limited to 7, so please register early to get a spot. Each student will also be able to take home 10 letterpress cards made in class. Delicious Numi Tea and light snacks will be provided. Click the link below to purchase tickets.

TYPEFACE the Movie Screening

Free Screening for our Art Movie Night on Thursday, February 23rd, 2012, 9pm

Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. Print

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Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. Print

Typeface

the compound — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:41:45 +0000

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23TH, 2012
TYPEFACE

Theme: Letterpress/Printmaking

8:30pm Doors open
9:00pm Typeface

In celebration of printmaking held in conjunction with our Art of Letterpress show, we are showing the fascinating film Typeface. You can buy your own copy of Typeface HERE.
In rural Wisconsin, a lone employee waits in a cavernous old museum for visitors to come. A few individuals straggle in every few days and then, come Friday, the museum fills with life. Machines hum, presses print, artists buzz about. One weekend each month, the quiet of Two Rivers is interrupted as carloads of artisans drive in from across the Midwest. The place comes alive as printmaking workshops led by, and filled with, some of the nation’s top design talent descend on the sleepy enclave.

In a time when people can carry computers in their pockets and watch TV while walking down the street, Typeface dares to explore the twilight of an analog craft that is freshly inspiring artists in a digital age. The Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, WI personifies cultural preservation, rural re-birth and the lineage of American graphic design. At Hamilton, international artisans meet retired craftsmen and together navigate the convergence of modern design and traditional technique. But the Museum’s days are numbered. What is the responsibility of artists and historians to preserve a dying craft? How can rural towns survive in a shifting industrial marketplace where big-box retailers are king

For more info, see our Art Movie Night Page.

The Art in a Box Campaign!

the compound — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:34:33 +0000

The Art in a Box Great Trans-American Art Campaign has begun! Our new campaign to get a subscriber in every state of the USA is going strong. Check out our campaign page HERE. Art in a Box makes the perfect holiday gift! We also have some fun giveaways and prizes to be included in December and January boxes. Be on the lookout for our promotional items and posters, posters, stickers, etc.!

Letterpress Workshop with Rebecca Peters

the compound — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:14:35 +0000

LETTERPRESS WORKSHOP! Our first workshop sold out. New workshop scheduled for March 11th, 1-5pm. Learn basic letterpress skills on our 1925 Chandler and Price letterpress. Taught by Rebecca Peters. Special Rate in celebration of our Art of Letterpress show! Price of workshop INCLUDES material fee. Class size is limited to 7, so please register early to get a spot. Each student will also be able to take home 10 letterpress cards made in class. Delicious Numi Tea and light snacks will be provided. Click the link below to purchase tickets.

Martin Webb in the Special Collection & Print Lounge

the compound — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:56:10 +0000

Just in….Travel with Martin Webb to far away lands at the Compound Gallery’s Special Collection & Print Lounge. Goats, domiciles, paper airplanes, and small wooden boats adorn the walls. Martin is an avid traveler. Stop by and share in his travels.

Holiday Special-FREE Shipping through 2011

the compound — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 02:28:09 +0000

We are offering FREE shipping on all orders in our online Art Shoppe through the end of the year!

Just enter code HOHOHO at checkout! New items are updated frequently.

“Ex-Corpse” in the Artists Gallery….. (October 15th-December 4th, 2011)

the compound — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 04:58:13 +0000

Come see a collaborative mural created by Compound Artists. It is created in the tradition of “Exquisite Corpse,” an art-making game that originated among the surrealists. For many artists, the creative process is monastic in nature. Even at a communal art space such as the Compound, we work in separate “cells”, turning inward. Ex-Corpse disrupts this tendency and celebrates the absurdist spirit that inspired it. It takes the aura of comraderie that draws many of us to the Compound’s working environment and brings the studio, er, out of the studio. For one week, 18 artists work directly on the project room walls, working simultaneously and in tandem to create: what? The final multi-wall composition in the project room at the Compound will be on view through the end of the year. Curated and organized by Alison O.K. Frost.

WHO GETS TO CALL IT ART? Screening Thursday, October 27th, 2011 9pm

the compound — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 21:08:12 +0000

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27TH, 2011

Who Gets to Call it Art?

CURATED BY: Theo Auer
THEME: Curators and Art

8:30pm Doors open
9:00pm Who Gets To Call it Art?

Henry Geldzahler was one of the most important figures in 20th Century American art, even though he was not an artist himself. Geldzahler was a collector and historian who helped establish the role of artists such as Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, George Segal, and Roy Lichtenstein within the canon of contemporary art with “New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940-1970,” a groundbreaking show at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art which made the case for pop art while the gallery establishment was still favoring the more accepted but less accessible abstract expressionists. A passionate man who was a friend, confidante, and collaborator to many of the painters and sculptors he championed, Geldzahler assembled the “New York Painting and Sculpture” show himself, and while it caused no small amount of controversy at the time (especially among his colleagues at the MoMA), it established a consensus that the pop movement and its leading figures were here to stay, and Geldzahler continued to be a mover and shaker in the world of contemporary art until his death in 1994 at the age of 59. Who Gets to Call it Art? is a documentary which celebrates and chronicles Geldzahler’s life and career and features interviews with a number of his friends and associates, including Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Jasper

Johns, Jonas Mekas, Larry Poons, John Chamberlain, and many more. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

78 Mins | Not Rated

More information can be found on our Art Movie Night Page

Artist Talk with Adrian Van Allen

the compound — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 04:47:45 +0000

We had a wonderful time during the Closing Tea & Artist Talk with Adrian Van Allen on October 9th, 2011. Adrian enlightened us about her studies in art-anthropology-design. Adrian was a Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome, 2011.

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