graphic noise: gig posters from members of the chicago printers guild

Celene AubryAmos Kennedy Visits Lillstreet, 2011

Letterpress , 12 x 19 inches

Juried by Sandy Simon

© 2012 Lillstreet Art Center4401 N. Ravenswood Ave.Chicago, IL 60640

Artwork © the artists. Text © Paul SmirlPhotographs by Joe Tighe Photography.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic or mechanical means, without permission in writing from Lillstreet Art Center.

Cover: Graphic Noise show poster by Starshaped Press

Lillstreet Gallery examines the current

state of the Chicago gig poster scene

in its latest exhibition, “Graphic Noise:

Gig Posters from Members of the

Chicago Printers Guild”. Dedicated to

Screenprint and letterpress prints,

the exhibition displays fourteen local

artist-designers whose work first

promoted concerts at famed venues

such as Washington D.C.’s 9:30 Club and

Chicago favorite, The Hideout. With

aims at exploring the duel nature of the

gig poster as both commercial object

and fine art piece, “Graphic Noise”

puts forth a wide array of print styles,

spanning 1960s typography, cartoon

drawing, photographs, and patterned

abstractions.

G R A P H I C N O I S E by Paul Smirl

With the rare ability to penetrate

popular culture, street culture, and

the white cube, poster artists have

undoubtedly seen growing success in

recent years; in spite of the Internet’s

reduction of music and art to mere

digital files, contemporary bands and

fans have been drawn to gig posters

as collectible, aesthetic objects that

connect the spirit of music with an

audience far beyond the attendees of

a specific show. Yet, while gig posters’

popularity have clearly exceeded their

initial promotional purposes, their

consistency as accessible, affordable

pieces has their designers in a culturally

intriguing place as both sculptors of

popular branding and proliferators of

their own personal styles.

Examining the exhibition, one sees a

selection of markedly different posters

from artists of varied backgrounds.

With a commercial duo that has done

graphic work for Mozilla and Nike,

a multimedia artist that produces

woodcuts, etchings and rugs, a pair of

designer-painters that create textually

abstract pieces and a printing company

that works closely with Chicago music

labels, “Graphic Noise” delivers the

diversity found within the gig poster

scene.

Ultimately, music culture is the primary

influence for each poster artist, but

their individual artistic personalities

make “Graphic Noise” a wide-ranging

exhibition that twists the traditional

rock poster palette, promoting not

only concerts but art and poster

festivals as well. With elaborate story-

telling scenes displayed next to playful

childhood images, darkly graphic

works and text-focused posters,

“Graphic Noise” serves as an exemplary

introduction to the Chicago Printers

Guild’s network of printers and print-

minded people, keeping print culture

alive and visible.

Paul Smirl is a writer and artist from Waukesha, Wisconsin and currently a senior at Lawrence University. He is interning at Lillstreet this semester as a part of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest’s Chicago Program.

W O R k S A R E P I C T U R E D in alphabetical order by artist name.

See back of catalogue for biographies. To inquire about availability or

to purchase, please call 773-769-4226 or email [email protected].

Celene AubryAmos kennedy Visits Lillstreet, 2011

Letterpress, 12 x 19 inches

Baker PrintsGeorgia Peach, 2010

Screenprint, 18 x 22 inches

Baker PrintsMoonshine Residency, 2009Screenprint, 18 x 22 inches

Baker PrintsTodd Snider 11-11-11, 2011


Baker PrintsWinter Rock Gig, 2011


Baker PrintsFarmfest 4, 2012


CrosshairThe Cairo Gang, 2012

Screenprint, 17.5 x 23 inches

CrosshairLucero, Chicago, 2012


CrosshairGoose Island Block Party, Chicago, 2012


Crosshair and SonnenzimmerCodeine, Chicago, 2012


CrosshairCodeine, Barcelona, 2012

Screenprint, 23 x 17.5 inches

Dan GrzecaAndrew Bird, 2012


Dan GrzecaSwans, 2011


Dan GrzecaTrampled by Turtles, 2012Screenprint, 18 x 24 inches

Dan GrzecaMelvins, 2012


Dan GrzecaJeff Tweedy, 2011


Delicious Design LeaguePart II, 2012


Delicious Design LeagueRashomon, 2012


Delicious Design LeagueSnow White, 2012


Delicious Design LeagueChicago Style, 2011


Delicious Design LeagueDDL Lion, 2012


Fugscreens StudioM. Ward, 2012


Fugscreens StudioPeter, Bjorn & John, 2011


Fugscreens StudioRabble Rabble, 2012


Fugscreens StudioDinosaur Jr., 2012


Fugscreens StudioYonder, 2012


Matthew GinsbergWhite Mystery Dark Foe, 2012

Screenprint on Vinyl Record , 12 inch diam-eter

Matthew GinsbergChicago Psych Fest 3, 2011Screenprint, 18 x 24 inches

kathleen JudgeHideout Block Party, 2012Screenprint, 24 x 18 inches

kathleen JudgeHideout Block Party, 2011


kathleen JudgeOut of Range, 2012


kathleen JudgeNeko Case, 2011


kathleen JudgeSharon Van Etten, 2012


Angee Lennard with Colin Palombi Thomas Comerford, 2011Screenprint, 12 x 17 inches

Angee LennardJonas Friddle & the Majority, 2012


Angee Lennard5th Battle of the Jug Bands, 2012


Angee LennardJugapalooza, 2012


Justin SantoraTony Lucca, 2012


Justin SantoraRise Against, 2012


Justin SantoraBeth Orton, 2012


Justin SantoraWill Hoge, 2012


Michael SchwindenhammerJoey Cape, Tony Sly, Jon Snodgrass, 2010


Michael SchwindenhammerDave Hause, Cory Branan, 2011


Michael SchwindenhammerChuck Ragan, 2011


Michael SchwindenhammerTwo Cow Garage, 2012


Michael SchwindenhammerMicah Schnabel, Michael Dean Damron, Chad Price, 2010


Michael SchwindenhammerDrag the River, 2009


SonnenzimmerEdward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, 2012

Screenprint Diptych, 18 x 24 inches each

SonnenzimmerFischerspooner, 2009


Sonnenzimmerkraftwerk, 2012


SonnenzimmerAphex Twin, 2012


Starshaped PressButterwolf ‘12, 2012


Starshaped PressPaper Arrows, 2011


Starshaped PressConcert for Carlos, 2011


Starshaped PressMidnight Oil, 2010


Starshaped PressMission of Burma, 2009


Starshaped PressWells Next the Sea, 2010Letterpress, 12 x 19 inches

Megan Sterling & Duffy O’ConnorImagine, 2010


Megan Sterling & Duffy O’ConnorImagine, 2012


The Chicago Printers Guild fosters

community within the graphic arts

by building a supportive network for

printers and print -minded people. The

CPG bridges the gap between industrial

printing and fine art printmaking and

supports the work of printers of all

backgrounds. The CPG strives to bring

awareness of print culture to the greater

Chicago area through activities such as

lectures, workshops, field trips, and art

exhibits.

The central aim of CPG is to explore

aspects of print culture at the monthly

meetings of its members. Guild members

A B O U T T H E C H I C A G O P R I N T E R S G U I L D

network and pick up tips of the trade

from fellow printers at the casual

monthly meetings, and share information

on upcoming shows, contests, and other

opportunities to promote their work.

The meetings are usually held in a Guild

member’s studio or shop, with a tour, a

demo, and a presentation of artwork.

The Chicago Printers Guild provides

opportunities to its members to share

knowledge, information, and ideas, and

works to keep Chicago’s print culture

alive and visible to the general public.

www.chicagoprintersguild.org

A RT I S T B I O G R A P H I E S

Celene Aubry has been letterpress

printing for five years, with an intent

focus on wood type and ornament, and

linoleum and wood cuts. She relishes

the never-ending process of learning an

outmoded technology and using type

and presses that are over 100 years old

to create something that carries on the

conversation of letterpress printing

into the 21st century, and greatly enjoys

the history of the trade of printing, and

advertising, and being a part of the story.

Celene currently works at Hatch Show

Print in Nashville, Tennessee.

Kyle Baker (Baker Prints) has been

working as a creative full time since

graduating college in 2005. After 3+ highly

successful years doing print and web

design in-house at a small multi-national

electronics company, he quit his job to

pursue freelance opportunities which

were popping up more and more. That

December, in 2008, he took Steve Walters’

Screwball Academy screen printing crash-

course. It was a transformative experience

that stands as the single most influential

event of his young career. Since that time

kyle has been breaking his ass in half trying

to produce great work for his clients,

whether they’re rock stars or workaday

musicians, massive corporations or scrappy

start-ups, big ad agencies or fellow

solopreneurs. He prides himself on being

trustworthy and honest, and providing

conscientious and responsive service.

Dan MacAdam (Crosshair) has been

screenprinting in Chicago since 1996,

operating under the nom-de-guerre

Crosshair. Crosshair is most widely

known as a creator and printer of

screen-printed concert posters, but also

produces fine art prints, record covers

and custom packaging, both as an artist-

printer and as a printer of others’ work.

Dan’s most recognizable work uses his

original photography as the basis for

heavily layered and intricately detailed

silkscreen prints. His prints frequently

present man-made structures in contrast

or consonance with their landscapes, in

decay or in defiance of disintegration.

He has produced artworks for bands and

musicians ranging from international

superstars, to the underground and

obscure. His prints have appeared in

numerous publications and have been

exhibited widely in the USA and Europe.

Dan sits on the Board of Directors of

the American Poster Institute, and is

an organizer of API’s Flatstock series of

international music poster exhibitions.

Dan Grzeca is a Chicago-born

illustrator and printmaker (b 1968).

He has been screenprinting since

the mid-nineties, contributing to the

nascent and then burgeoning roster

of Chicago Poster makers by creating

a visual documentation of the Free

and Improvised music being made by

ken Vandermark, The Peter Brötzmann

Chicago Tentet,and Caffeine among

others. He has gone on to make work

for big, famous bands, but still gets the

most satisfaction out of making work

that ties into music produced by talented

friends. His idiosyncratic style is achieved

using pencil and scratchboard drawing

techniques which are then transferred to

screens. Dan spends a lot of time thinking

about the screenprinting process in

both a painterly and stripped down way;

attempting to achieve aesthetic freedom

by limiting choices in the composition

process. Success to him is measured by

visual boldness, stark imagery, subtle

color layers, and ink-stained clothing.

Delicious Design League was started in

2006 by two friends; Jason Teegarden-

Downs and Billy Baumann; in Chicago

Illinois. With over ten years of experience

in the design and ad biz they started

Delicious simply as a rock poster design/

screenprinting hobby but by 2008 it had

quickly grown into a full-time design and

illustration studio. Over that span they had

gone from designing rock posters for bands

you’ve never heard of for lunch money to

designing and illustrating for some of the

most recognizable brands in the world.

Zissou Tasseff-Elenkoff (Fugscreens

Studio) was born in San Francisco but

lived most of his life in Paris and London.

He attended Central St. Martens for

a year before moving to Chicago in

September of 2003. He finished his

B.F.A. in Printmaking at the School of

the Art Institute of Chicago, where he

also studied photography and video.

He opened FugScreens Studios in 2009,

now functioning as a premiere silkscreen

studio specializing in gig posters and fine

art prints. Tasseff-Elenkoff has printed

for a wide array of clients, including

Dinosaur Jr., Clear Channel, Overcoat

Management, and Corona.

Matthew Ginsberg is a Chicago artist,

musician, and voice over actor who has

been teaching at Lillstreet Art Center

for more than five years. Whether he is

creating his own print works or pulling

silk screened editions for fellow artists,

Ginsberg approaches art making with

good humor and a friendly attitude.

That certainly shows in his work, which

tends to be vibrant, colorful, and quirky.

In addition to poster and design work,

Ginsberg has created a series of works on

scratched LPs which were displayed at his

solo Saki Records show in 2011.

Kathleen Judge (Judgewworks) was born

and raised in the Midwest and has been

deeply influenced and inspired by living

in the Great Lakes states. Judge studied

painting and animation at The Rhode

Island School of Design and has worked

in the fields of animation, illustration and

printmaking since 1990. In 2000, Judge

began working in silkscreen and over

the past twelve years she has created

screen-printed posters for many bands

and venues around the world. In 2008,

Judge returned to animation and video

and spent two years creating and mixing

live video projections for the Neko

Case touring band. Recently, Judge has

been experimenting with members of

the Chicago performance art group,

Opera-Matic, creating a video projection

sculpture to be used in a mobile street

performance. Over the past few years,

Judge has also been developing video

and theater work in collaboration with

artists Susan Hall and Jason Creps within

their Chicago-based company, One

Degree Off.

Angee Lennard is the founder of Spudnik

Press Cooperative, and currently serves

as the Executive Director. Establishing

the space in 2007, she built the press

from the ground up, initially utilizing

her apartment to create a live/work

space. The following year, the press

moved to a dedicated studio space,

and programming expanded to include

a residency program, keyholder

memberships, consignment printing,

and collaborative projects. She has

participated in group shows at Green

Lantern, Heaven Gallery, Butcher Show,

Beverly Art Center, and Chicago Urban

Art Space. She has been an Artist in

Residence at AS220 in Providence, RI.

She currently teaches at Marwen, CAPE,

and Spudnik Press, and has previously

taught at Rumble Arts and Paper Source.

She has been a panelist at Zygote Press’

Collective INk and moderated the panel

“Printmaker as Distributor, Collaborator,

and Facilitator” at DePaul University

Museum through Nomadic Studios. She

is a member of the Chicago Printers

Guild and Southern Graphics Council.

She received her BFA with an emphasis is

Print Media from The School of the Art

Institute of Chicago in 2005.

Justin Santora grew up in the greater

Chicagoland area and graduated from

Northeastern Illinois University with

a degree in studio art and secondary

education. Unenthused with the

prospect of a career as a high school art

teacher, Santora took a cue from some

of Chicago’s well-known rock poster

artists and began working as a freelance

illustrator and screen printer. Justin has

been producing handmade posters, screen

printed art, and paintings professionally

since 2009. Much of Santora’s work is

focused around images of quiet rural

or suburban settings, construction,

architecture, and large open spaces. His

approach is also informed by an interest

in social justice, egalitarianism, and animal

rights, as well as a lifelong passion for

skateboarding and punk rock. Santora

has exhibited work in various cities in the

United States, Canada, and Europe. He

currently lives in Chicago with his girlfriend

and cat and enjoys riding his bike to the

studio every day to draw and print.

Michael Schwindenhammer designs

his posters with the same sense of

proportions and composition that he

learned while studying architecture. His

designs tend to reflect both his clean

and uncluttered sensibilities as well as

his attachment for the landscapes of the

Midwest.

Sonnenzimmer is a Chicago-based

art and screen print studio owned

and operated by Nadine Nakanishi

and Nick Butcher. The couple merges

backgrounds in typography, printmaking,

graphic design and fine art to create

hand-crafted posters, books, and music

packaging for a wide array of projects and

clients. Working closely with Chicago’s

bustling free jazz and improvised music

community, Sonnenzimmer has found

a place where experimentation and

abstraction are not only respected, they

are demanded. This freedom has allowed

them both to work through countless

ideas and styles of execution, helping to

shape their visual language, one that is

simultaneously quiet and bold.

Jennifer Farrell (Starshaped Press) has

been at this letterpress thing since

1999. She cut her teeth working at the

venerable Fireproof Press right here in

the Windy City and struck out on her

own after that, armed with the ideals of a

Luddite and ridiculous notions of keeping

letterpress as old school as possible.

She hates when presses are incorrectly

called ‘letterpresses’ or ‘printers’, when

stationery is spelled incorrectly and when

two spaces are used after each sentence

in digital typesetting. She dreams of being

interviewed by Steve Edwards someday.

Duffy O’Connor and Megan Sterling

have collaborated with each other for

the past several years having formed a

friendship in 2006. Their work celebrates

drawing, the contrast present in

juxtaposing the Sweet and the Sinister as

well as the simultaneously competetive

and sympathetic nature of collaboration.

This is played out in these posters

created for Imagine, Harrington College

of Design’s annual art exhibiiton and

charity auction. In the first (2010), rabbits

and bombs compete for attention in

a bleak landscape, the small mammals

act as a ballast against industrial and

dangerous manmade objects. This

contrast is presented with a more overtly

hopeful message in the second poster

(2012). Animals in need receive aid from

the sky in the form of an air drop.

This contrast explores the innate tension

between the natural world and human

civilization but also creates a link

between the two.

graphic noise: gig posters from members of the chicago printers guild

Documents

graphic noise

chicago gig poster scene

poster artists

graphic works

poster festivals

midwests chicago

chicago favorite

chicago music labels