Nationality
American
Preview
Date of Work
2012
Medium
Poster press on cardboard - mounted Stonehenge paper
Edition #
2/30
Collection/Provenance
Art & Design Study Collection
Status
Displayed
Location
Ireland Hall
Artist Bio
Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., who is African American from Detroit and has described himself as "a humble Negro printer," once worked as a computer programmer and lived a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. Then. at age 40, he quit his corporate job to become a journeyman letterpress printer in the small rural town of Gordo, Alabama. His works range from letterpress posters to art books, installations, and calligraphy. Unlike other artists whose prints are exhibited here, Kennedy challenges the ascendancy of digital technology- even though he was trained to use it. An advertisement for his printing business boasts: "We are on the cutting edge of 19th century technology!".
Additional Information
The original print exhibited in the area surrounding the Scale-Up Classroom was created in conjunction with UND’s 2012 Arts & Culture Conference: Binary Inventions, Art & Culture in the Digital Age.
The print relates to a campus-wide plan called the “Living Art Museum.” The concept behind this plan stresses the idea of “relevancy” in regard to what is selected for display—as it relates to the concerns of people who are normally present in spaces where the art is placed. With this concept in mind, the artwork relates to the issue of recent digital technologies that are available to “scale up” processes utilized in contemporary printmaking.
Sundog Multiples was a printmaking venture created by Art & Design Professor Kim Fink, in conjunction with UND Art Collections, and generously funded by the Myers Foundations.