Oaxaca Central: Contemporary Mexican Printmaking at The Chrysler Museum (Norfolk)

Featuring approximately one hundred works drawn from the Chrysler Museum of Art’s collection, many of which have never been on view before, Oaxaca Central: Contemporary Mexican Printmaking offers a glimpse of the exciting and diverse art scene in Oaxaca de Juárez. Known simply as Oaxaca, the city a rich history as a center for the arts that encompasses a variety of historic and contemporary practices.

The results are visible to anyone walking the streets of Oaxaca’s city center, where printmaking talleres, or workshops, dot many of the city’s blocks. They range from formal workshops producing portfolios of fine art prints to spaces mass producing prints for tourist consumption. The artists work in a variety of printmaking methods, including woodcut, engraving, etching, lithography, and serigraphy, sometimes combing multiple techniques to create innovative new approaches. While for some, the exploration of the material potential of printmaking supersedes the work’s subject or content, for others the medium is only the vehicle to touch upon themes of urban culture, the natural world, or contemporary politics. Regardless, Oaxacan printmakers’ reputation for technical mastery and innovation has attracted foreign artists from across the globe, who’ve flocked to Oaxaca’s talleres to learn and collaborate with local artists.