Currently Speaking: Artist Talk with Justin Sanz and Chakaia Booker

The Current is pleased to host an Artist Talk with Justin Sanz and Chakaia Booker as part of our monthly Currently Speaking series. The talk is scheduled for October 17, 2024, at 5 pm and is open to the public free of charge, though seating is limited. RSVP here to reserve your spot.

Booker and Sanz are members of the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop (EFA RBPMW), a long-running community studio located in Brooklyn, New York, whose archives contain one of the most unique and diverse records of printmaking in the United States and reflect the various communities with which Robert Blackburn participated. The work of EFA RBPMW members, including Booker and Sanz, is currently featured in the Climate Imprints exhibition in our West Gallery. Booker’s work is also currently exhibited in Exposed and in the solo exhibition Taking Time:  a Solo Exhibition by Chakaia Booker in our Main Gallery. Together, Booker and Sanz will provide additional insight into the exhibits by discussing the history and significance of the EFA RBPMW.

The artist talk will be preceded by an artist-in-residency with Stowe Elementary School (SES). For three days, Booker and Sanz will work with over 350 youth from SES to create prints using two printmaking presses at The Current. Each student will also have a tour of the exhibitions led by the curator. In addition, Johnson Elementary School, located north of Stowe, will bus their 180 students to Stowe to hear a talk by Chakaia, watch a printmaking demonstration, and visit the exhibitions. Scholarships will be given to schools to enable these programs. The SES portion is partially supported by SES.

About Chakaia Booker

Internationally renowned multidisciplinary artist Chakaia Booker is best known for pioneering the use of recycled rubber tires as a raw material for monumental sculptural works in addition to her printmaking practice A fixture of the New York City East Village art scene since the early 1980’s, Booker has exhibited across the US, in Europe, Africa, and Asia with works included in more than 40 museum and private collections.

Booker’s work has spanned decades with an intentionality of practice and purpose. She chooses discarded tires to create beauty from detritus, and elegance from industry in a way that both simply is, and yet has strong underpinnings of social and environmental justice. Her solo exhibition at The Current, both inside and out, highlights beauty and hardship, tradition and caretaking, and dives deep into Booker’s practice, highlighting a monumental outdoor sculpture, while inside The Current, her photographs, prints, and indoor sculptures fill the galleries. The work asks the viewers to take time to listen, lean in, contemplate, heal, work, create, and be.

Booker’s signature style stems from a modular approach to building an artwork through layering regardless of media or scale. Primarily a sculptor, Booker works with rubber, bronze, and ceramics alongside a dedicated practice in painting and printmaking. “At my core I am an inventor, looking for new forms and movements to express my ideas, methods to manipulate materials and processes, and ways to connect with an ever-changing audience.” – Chakaia Booker

About Justin Sanz

Justin Sanz is a Brooklyn-based artist/printmaker who exhibits locally and internationally. His work is in the collections of the Library of Congress, The New York Public Library, the Spencer Museum, the Davis Museum, and various private collections. He currently works as an educator, Master Printer, and Studio Director at the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop.

Sanz has conducted and organized printmaking workshops with The Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Studio Museum in Harlem, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Plains Art Museum, as well as various universities, including New York Academy, Rhode Island School of Design, Cornell University, Manhattanville College, Colorado College, Hope College, and University of Tennessee Knoxville. As a Master Printer, he has collaborated on prints with countless established and emerging artists, including Chakaia Booker, Dindga McCannon, Maren Hassinger, Kenny Rivero, Raque Ford, Renee Cox, Malcolm Morley, Martin Puryear, Xenobia Bailey, Amina Robinson, Otto Neals, and Frances Jetter, among others.

About the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop

The Print Archives contain thousands of works by many of the artists who printed with Robert Blackburn and/or at The Printmaking Workshop from the 1940s until the present. Blackburn was extremely welcoming and generous, never imposed any aesthetic guidelines, and encouraged experimentation by non-printmakers in lithography, intaglio, relief, photo processes, and artists’ books. As such, The Print Archives contain one of the most unique and diverse records of printmaking in the United States and reflect the various communities with which Blackburn participated.

In 2006, The Library of Congress acquired a core selection of 2,044 works by 1,311 artists from The Printmaking Workshop, including the largest selection of Blackburn's own work represented in any institution. Still, it is estimated that at least 10,000 prints remain in the Archive, and new works are added daily. EFA RBPMW endeavors to place another set from The Print Archive with a New York institution. The archives contain over 20,000 prints by over 4,000 artists, including Elizabeth Catlett, Emma Amos, Charles White, Krishna Reddy, Faith Ringgold, and Melvin Edwards.

About Currently Speaking:

The Currently Speaking series hosts experts in various contemporary art genres and media to encourage casual discourse and meaningful interactions between our community, speakers, and the art they showcase. All series events are free to the public with a suggested donation of $10. No reservation is required, and the gallery will be open beforehand for viewing the current exhibition. Refreshments will be served.