Black Rock Editions

Zane Bennett Contemporary Art | February 2022

Black Rock Editions is a two-year-old Santa Fe print house, but its roots stretch back fifty years and across the nation. Zane Bennett Contemporary Art presents this special print showcase celebrating Black Rock’s founding, with a nod to the 50-year legacy of its forebear, Landfall Press.

Works on paper from Black Rock’s roster of BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and women artists commingle with historical Landfall prints by legendary artists such as Christo and James Drake. Special programs throughout the show, held at the gallery and at Black Rock’s remarkable headquarters, highlight the nascent print house’s intersectional vision for the future of printmaking.

“Chris and Steve were deeply engaged in the curatorial process for the show, which enriched the storytelling in so many ways.” says Gallery Director Jordan Eddy. “We’re recreating the experience of entering Black Rock’s workshop, opening their flat files, and marveling at their plates and prints.”

Though they established Black Rock in January 2020 just before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the Campbells started with a solid foundation. They’re both veteran employees of Landfall Press, a 50-year-old print shop founded by Jack Lemon in Chicago and moved to Santa Fe in 2004. When Lemon generously gifted Landfall’s space and equipment to the Campbells, they shifted their focus to include up-and-coming artists from communities that have often been ignored by other print houses and the larger contemporary art establishment.

The exhibition features artwork by Jordan Craig (Cheyenne), Diego Romero (Cochiti Pueblo), Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), Dan Namingha (Hopi), and Mexican-born artist Sergio Sánchez Santamaría. Works by seasoned printmakers Peregrine Honig and Jeanette Pasin Sloan appear beside editions by self-taught artists Fatima Ronquillo and Timothy Cummings.

Also on view from the gallery’s archives are works on paper from Landfall by internationally renowned artists Judy Chicago, Christo, Lesley Dill, James Drake, Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh, and Jiha Moon. South Korea-born and Georgia-based multidisciplinary artist Moon is one of the only artists who has worked with both Landfall and Black Rock, a symbolic torch hand-off. “The exhibition examines the community of printmakers who were — and are — central to elevating and evolving the printmaking medium as a dynamic means of investigation, expression and community engagement,” Eddy says.

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