Black Church Print Studio presents Satellite Salon, a group exhibition curated by Colin Martin at The Library Project, Temple Bar. The exhibition brings together two primary conceptual ideas: the print studio as a dynamic site of collective artistic production, and the salon as a forum for inclusive presentation.
The print studio as a site of artistic production is one that facilitates and supports modes of production in printmaking. Print studios are factorial communal spaces that are both inclusive and accessible. They are sustaining spaces that are hands-on and haptic and filled with specialist materials and technical knowledge. Printmakers and artists orbit these spaces supported by their gravitational pull and benefit from the mutual support and opportunity that arises.
The term Salone derives from the French term for a reception space. These spaces contradictorily create an elite space for specialism, while simultaneously creating a bounded inclusivity within that envelope. The salon typically created a formal device to create commonality between disparate elements. Inevitably hierarchies between genres developed, the humility of still lives were skyed while history paintings were hung on the privileged eye level. On balance the salon space is an egalitarian one that corresponds to the social nature of spaces such as the Black Church Print Studio. The leveling nature of the print studio is both an intergenerational workspace that accommodates artists working at various levels of experience in a specialist field.
Satellite Salon is conceived as the inaugural pilot in a series of biennials focused exclusively on printmaking, this exhibition highlights the essential medium and core discipline underpinning the Black Church Print Studio members’ diverse artistic practices.
