ALL: Master Collection List
Nationality
American
Preview
Date of Work
2012
Medium
Poster press on cardboard - mounted Stonehenge paper
Height
22"
Width
17"
Collection/Provenance
Art & Design Study Collection
Status
Stored: R18
Location
UND Art Collections Repository
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
Student composed text panel:
Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. (American, b. 1948)
Untitled, 2012
Poster press on poster board. set of 3
UND Art Collections: Art & Design Study Collection
Purchased with funds from the Myers Foundations.
Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. is an African American artist from Detroit. He made a living as a computer programmer until the age of 40 when he made the transition to printing. He is trained to print digitally but chooses instead to embrace traditional printing methods by using an old-fashioned poster press. Kennedy’s work typically reflects contemporary social justice issues.
These prints were made by Kennedy to be exhibited at UND’s 2012 Arts & Culture Conference: Binary Inventions, Art & Culture in the Digital Age. In these prints, Kennedy defied the request to digitally share his work. Instead, these were created utilizing his medium of choice: the printing press. These works of art convey a message of peace for all of those on the University of North Dakota campus and beyond, by spelling the word out in various languages, symbols, and fonts.
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.
Condition
Excellent
Rights
Images are provided for educational purposes only and may not be reproduced for commercial use. Images may be protected by artist copyright. A credit line is required to be used for any public non-commercial educational purpose. The credit line must include, “Image courtesy of the University of North Dakota.”