Taller Tupac Amaru: A Decade of Radical Printmaking
March 17–April 16, 2013
Artist Panel with Jesus Barraza, Melanie Cervantes and Favianna Rodriguez
Monday, March 25, 2:30-3:30 p.m., McLaren 250
A reception will follow in the gallery
Final Thursday Chamber Ensemble
Thursday, March 28, 12-12:40 p.m., Thacher Gallery
Bring your lunch and enjoy live chamber music by USF student musicians
Hands-on Screen Printing Demonstration
Monday, April 15, 10 a.m.-12 p.m., Thacher Gallery
Learn the process of screen printing with USF student artists
All around us, artists are forming the vanguard of social change by harnessing their vision and design-thinking skills to formulate their own solutions to social problems—pushing the boundaries of the ways creative sensibilities can function in the community. Art and design continue to be used to inform, organize, influence public opinion, protect and restore the environment as well as advocate for human rights of all people.
In "A Decade of Radical Printmaking," Taller Tupac Amaru, an Oakland-based collective of Xican@ artists including Jesus Barraza, Melanie Cervantes, and Favianna Rodriguez, reveals the social and political power of art. Founded in 2003 and named after the last indigenous monarch in Latin America, the collective's mission is "to create and distribute screen printed political posters and to foster a resurgence in the screen printing medium as a tool for social change." The exhibited prints honor the collective's ten-year collaboration and their work with social justice and community organizations in the Bay Area and beyond.
Representing their distinctive aesthetics, these revolutionary artworks demonstrate the ability screen and digital printing have in leveraging a sense of humanity in order to inspire others and produce change. The vibrant prints by Barraza, Cervantes and Rodriguez feature bold portraiture and assertive phrases like “migration is a human right” and “we will not comply” that inform and instruct as much as please the eye. These works represent how artists use this medium to make political statements, protest social injustice and condemn civil rights inequalities in order to fashion a more humane and just world. From portraits of musicians to civil rights leaders, from Indigenous-inspired iconography to direct protest announcements, these works embody cultural pride, activism and a call to action.
—Stacy Asher, Instructor, Design and Social Change
Links
The exhibition and events are co-sponsored by USF’s CELASA and Chican@-Latin@ Studies among others. Check into Facebook for additional campus activities around the exhibit.
