Printmaking is fueled by the energy of collaboration between the master printer and the artist. Segura Publishing Company thrives on the dynamic of this constant reciprocity and on the intensity of on-the-spot invention. For master printer Joe Segura, printmaking is by definition hybrid and experimental. It is as much about process as the finished product—a process that pushes the boundaries of technique and challenges the confines of pragmatism, all in service to an artist’s vision.

This exhibition celebrates the achievements of Segura Publishing Company, co-founded by Segura and Lisa Sette in 1981 in Tempe and now located in Mesa. Segura Publishing Company is a mainstay of the artistic community locally and nationally. It has produced prints with luminaries such as Enrique Chagoya, Judy Chicago, Aaron Fink, Keith Haring, Luis Jimenez, Faith Ringgold, Vik Muniz, Andres Serrano, James Turrell and William Wegman.

Joe Segura and his staff honor the tradition, craftsmanship and inherent romance of printmaking—a most exacting media with a long legacy. (Printmaking in Europe dates back to the 15^th century, imported from China ca. 500 years after its invention.) Simultaneously, they are renegades. They embrace photography and update long-lost historical processes. They make conceptual sculptures. They re-create a stereo-opticon. They package a suite of prints in a red satin candy box, (pun intended). As Joe says "I don’t like to be bored."

Right to Print highlights the full range of techniques explored at Segura Publishing: monoprint, etching, intaglio, woodcut, letterpress, lithography, photolithography, photogravure, aquatint, colograph and ambrotype. It gives audiences an educational introduction to printmaking by including early states, sample printing plates and preliminary materials. A longtime faculty member at Arizona State University, Tempe, Joe Segura is a teacher at heart: his personality is a defining aspect of Segura Publishing Company. For over 25 years, the press has been strongly committed to working with artists who have a political message, which has long been part of the lineage and purpose of artist-printmakers, from Francisco Goya to Ben Shahn.

Among the highlights of the exhibition are several exquisite lithographs—as delicate as drawings—by the late Luis Jimenez, a friend, mentor and example for Joe Segura of success as a contemporary Hispanic artist. Also included are a new Palladium Process project by the internationally renowned Brazilian artist Vik Muniz (complete with a finely built, walnut stereoscopic viewer) as well as experimental objects such as William Wegman’s oversized deck of cards, featuring his famous, crowd-pleasing Weimaraner dogs.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 72-page catalog with essays by Mark Pascale, associate curator of prints and drawings, Art Institute of Chicago, and Crista Cloutier (director of Segura Publishing Company from 1998-2007), as well as an interview by Cassandra Coblentz, associate curator of SMoCA.

Luis Jimenez, Southwest Pieta,
1983, Lithograph, ed. 50, 30 x 40 inches. Courtesy of Segura Publishing Company. Photo by: Tim Lanterman. © Luis Jimenez.

September 29, 2007-
December 30, 2007

Gerard L. Cafesjian Founder's Gallery, SMoCA