Sub-Rural #43, Katie Geha at Tandem

Tandem Press at the University of Wisconsin, Madison is one of the premier art presses in a nation full of outstanding art presses, with or without academic affiliations.  Founded in 1987 by the indefatigable faculty printmaker William Weege, it grew to prominence during the 30 plus year tenure of the internationally recognized arts administrator Paula Panczenko. Tandem has remained an immensely attractive venue for innovative graphic artists, many who became prominent in the steady growth of collaborative printmaking.

The press invites a half a dozen emerging and established artists to produce work each year. The gallery program regularly shows the newest work along with selections from their vast archive. A cavernous 2^nd floor viewing room, allows the public and art professionals to study work from the less formal perspective of the collection.

The U.S. defined the world of collaborative art presses ever since World War II. Prior to then, artists generally turned over the keys to skilled crafters who made their prints while artists had tea, as was the European tradition. Collaborative projects in general became a hallmark of late-modern and contemporary art but in art presses it’s a primary and unique characterization that’s no longer just absorbed with BFK, litho, and etching. Editions today may include low relief images, figurative sculpture, and digital hybrids. Master printers provide a range of guidance in a highly sensitive, constantly improving technology. Their work with client artists in resolving formal, stress-producing, sometimes feral, graphic complexes is critical. Think analyst and analysand.

Print presses lead the way in art production where studio centers in materials like clay, glass, and fibers have advanced craft into highly prized zones where object and subject meet labor-intensive cross disciplinary artworld networks. Print production has fertilized new forms and space to redeploy its former perimeter status. It has yet to be altogether theorized.

Art presses are not just an academic-light division of art programs. Presses vary by the relationship they have to universities, museums, collectors, and commercial establishments. They manage and define their own economy where artists and artist/hybrids produce a vital, parallel art history, education, market, and critical identity.

Curator and Art historian Katie Geha, just became the third Director of Tandem. She arrived in Madison from her position as Gallery Director and Chief Curator at the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia at Athens. Geha is an experienced curator with a PhD in Art History and a specialization in Contemporary Art from the University of Texas at Austin and undergraduate degrees at the University of  Iowa and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her credentials are notable because administrators often do not also have scholarly backgrounds and curators mostly lack terminal degrees in art history. This provides her with more opportunities to produce critical contexts that correspond to the institution’s research achievements and expectations. Though located in an academic setting with a nationally recognized art department and the Chasen Museum of Art’s significant holdings and exhibitions, Tandem Press is independent from either entity. This provides a uniquely progressive opportunity for a director to develop independent programming that suits the history of the press, responds to the community and region, evaluate and drive critical trends in the discipline. Understandably, Dr. Geha is enthusiastic about contributing to Tandem’s legacy.

A tour of the facilities confirms the impression that contemporary printmaking and presses like Tandem, which are select but comprehensive, are one of the best ways to appreciate a more profound and collective nature of artmaking. Tandem’s extraordinary space reinforces that printmaking was the first medium to tame and effectively adapt digital technologies for traditional mediums, not just for paper but common materials, language, and processes with flexible asymmetric platforms and directions. Tandem strikes one as a museum with a perpetual and renewable art project. It’s embryonic structure invites multiple audiences in a radical, but harmoniously focused endeavor for episodic appreciation of craft and the avant-garde.

Current featured artists include Alison Saar, Jeffrey Gibson, Leslie Dill, Judy Pfaff, Derrick Adams, Susan Caporael, and Cameron Martin.

Tandem curators are Sona Pastel-Daneshgar and J. Myszka Lewis. Seth Klekamp is Preparater. Rachael Griffin is Administrative Manager. Joe Freye, Jason Ruhl and Patrick Smyczek are Collaborative Printmakers.