This summer, one Ohio art gallery is going to be covered floor to ceiling with the work of queer-identifying printmakers for a group show titled, “We’re Here, We’re Queer!”
The free exhibit will celebrate work made by artists from across the country and Canada, all united by the centuries old craft of letterpress printing. Reflecting the turbulence of the times we now live in — particularly for queer individuals — this exhibition also pays tribute to queer activists and poster and printmakers of the past.
The show opens on July 14 at Zygote Gallery, located at 1410 East 30th Street in Cleveland.
The Buckeye Flame spoke with exhibit co-organizers Brittany Hudak and Brittany Gorelick to learn more about the show and the rich connection between printmaking and activism. Click play directly below to listen to our chat or read our conversation underneath.
Two Brittanys!
Brittany Hudak: Thanks for having us. I know it’s pretty confusing to have two Brittanys. I’m Brittany Hudak and I’m the senior programming manager and exhibition coordinator at Zygote Press.
Brittany Gorelick: I’m Brittany Gorelick, a recent MFA [graduate] in printmaking from Kent State University and about to be an assistant professor at Fort Hayes State University in Kansas.
Then I’m going to put you then on the spot, Brittany Gorelick, because this should all be fresh in your mind from your MFA. Could you briefly describe letterpress printing to people like me whose art knowledge is maybe less than complete?
Brittany Gorelick: When we think about the most basic forms of printing, we think of the mass distribution of the Bible, right? That was the first major way that we had a lot of type and text distributed. And that was letterpress.
It’s all different letters, like the alphabet and all of the various punctuation. But while that may be one of the places where it started and got really popular, letterpress has been [widely] adopted and evolved. Obviously newspapers used letterpress. At its most core form, letterpress is using type letters, fonts and typography as a way of distributing media, content, ideas, artwork, et cetera.
Brittany Hudak, how did Zygote ultimately decide to host a show called “We’re Here, We’re Queer!”? How did this come together?
Brittany Hudak: It actually came together last year when Brittany Gorelick was a resident artist here at Zygote Press.
Zygote Press is a nonprofit printmaking collaborative and gallery. We’ve been around for 28 years here in Cleveland giving an accessible space for artists who want to work in printmaking. Printmaking requires some tools that are very big, very heavy and very expensive. Letterpress is one of them. But Zygote has a pretty hefty letterpress studio. We have two Vandercook letterpresses, a Chandler and Price and some small letterpresses too.
When Brittany Gorelick was working here last summer, we realized that we have the same name, our work also is very similar, we’re both queer and we both make art out of letterpress using movable type — primarily wood movable type from early 19th and 20th century — to promote modern messaging. We’re also both advocates for many social causes, including queer and trans rights and reproductive rights. So we thought, if there’s two of us and we have the same name, then there must be others. What if we organized a show?
I happen to be the gallery coordinator at Zygote, so that was an easy get to have this show in the gallery. But also, Zygote is very much dedicated to giving space to queer artists. This year we’re having our second annual Queer Print and Zine Fair. Last year we had the Queer Hanky Project. Zygote is committed to bringing more queer content, not just in our gallery, but giving access and instruction to queer-identifying artists.
We are horrified by the Ohio state legislature. What’s going on in Ohio right now is not okay. Zygote is a safe space and politically we slant very much to supporting these causes.
Brittany Gorelick: I was here literally at this time last year and making work about the stripping back of the protections of Roe v. Wade. So it was all very much at the forefront of our minds about reproductive justice and LGBTQ+ justice. Both of us actually made artwork to fund national and local abortion funds. So we were just very much on the same page right away.
Reading about this show, one of my favorite parts is the intersection of art and activism. Can you talk about that extraordinarily rich relationship between printmaking and activism?
Brittany Hudak: Printmaking is perhaps the most democratic art form. And it has this centuries long history. But the whole point of printmaking is to make multiples quickly.
In the old days, if you had a printing press, you were able to distribute your message quickly. You can go back to the founding of America when the revolutionary groups were printing pamphlets quickly. They were doing them in letterpress and getting them out as fast as possible. And when the oppressors wanted to silence them, they would actually physically destroy the press because that ended their ability to get the message out. So yes, printmaking and activism are very much tied together and have been since Martin Luther started printing Bibles.
If you have the power of print, you have a voice. And I think that’s what attracts queer letterpress makers to the medium because it’s not just something that you see on social media that disappears. It’s a physical object that you can keep, that you can carry into a protest. You can’t imagine someone carrying their phone open to an image. That doesn’t really work. You need something large, something that gets the message across quickly. And I think that’s why letterpress is such a great medium for protests still to this day.
We should confirm: there are artists who are not named Brittany featured in the exhibit, correct?
Brittany Gorelick: [laughs] Yeah, there’s plenty. Although there are two Quinns, two Brittneys and two Erins.
This is like the queer Noah’s Ark of printmaking. For both of you, what do you want people to walk away with after they see the show?
Brittany Gorelick: A year ago, we felt a sense of community and we felt camaraderie, because we were fighting for the same things. We were advocating for the same things and we had our own built-in community. Printmaking itself is such a community-based art. You are working in a studio most of the time with other artists because of how large the equipment is, how expensive it is, how inaccessible it is for a lot of people. This is why Zygote is such a great space because we were able to establish that community here ourselves.
[This exhibit] can show people that we have community, we have sense of camaraderie, a sense a of safety, and a sense of, “We are here, we are queer, we’re not going anywhere.” This really affirms that the artwork that we make matters, that the things that we say matter and that our existence matters.
Brittany Hudak: Being an art historian, I have to say that people will also walk away seeing the range of work that is being made in this medium that is so old that people might think it’s a dead medium. It is not. It is very much alive. It is very much thriving.
People think of letterpress as maybe an embossed wedding invitation. And that’s great. But you will walk away from this show with an entirely new vision of what is possible when you use these old techniques, what kind of longevity they have and the impact of the physical object in an increasingly digital world. I hope people walk away thinking about that as well as the community that we have created. 🔥
Ignite Action
- “We’re Here, We’re Queer!” Letterpress Group Show will run from Friday, July 14th to Saturday, September 2nd at Zygote Gallery, located at 1410 East 30th Street in Cleveland. There will be an Artist Appreciation Day held on Saturday, August 26th from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM which will be concurrent with the Queer Print and Zine Fair. To learn more, visit the Zygote Press website.
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