Press & Pull: Two Decades at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop
Aug 26, 2025 – Nov 14, 2025
Curated by Shameekia Shantel Johnson
Artists
Haig Aivazian, Xenobia Bailey, Chakaia Booker, Robert Blackburn, Romare Bearden, Betty Blayton, Camille Billops, Elizabeth Catlett, Ed Clark, Renee Cox, Lizania Cruz, Devraj Dakoji, Ayana Evans, Raque Ford, Michele Godwin, Maren Hassinger, Baseera Khan, Seung-Min Lee, Tsedaye Makonnen, Glendalys Medina, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Dindga McCannon, Otto Neals, Ademola Olugebefola, Stephanie Santana, Krishna Reddy, Shellyne Rodriguez, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Kenny Rivero, Elliott Jamal Robbins, Faith Ringgold, Charles White, and Michael Kelly Williams
About the exhibition
Press & Pull: Two Decades at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop is a survey exhibition marking 20 years since the historic printmaking studio became a program of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. Opening at the CUNY Graduate Center’s James Gallery on September 9, 2025, the exhibition honors the legacy of artist, educator, and master printer Robert Blackburn (1920–2003), whose vision of access, equity, and collaboration remains central to the Workshop’s mission, as the oldest continuously operating cooperative printshop in the United States.
The Printmaking Workshop (PMW) was founded in 1947, during an era of racial segregation with limited opportunities for artists of color. The PMW became a vital collaborative space for historically marginalized artists, such as ethnic minorities and women, whose contributions to art history are now recognized and indisputably central to the formation of our contemporary cultural landscape.
Clearly indebted to institutions such as the WPA, the YMCA, and the many artistic and educational organizations in which Blackburn participated during his formative years in artist-led spaces in Harlem, the PMW can be seen as a link between the WPA’s ideals and the proliferation of contemporary, funded, non-profit workspaces. In the six decades Blackburn ran the PMW, an incredible atmosphere of tolerance, artistic freedom and mutual support was fostered. As a result of this, the PMW became a site of considerable innovation, pioneering printmaking techniques such as viscosity printing, for example, which allows an artist to print a multi-colored image from a single printing plate.
Blackburn’s dedication to his art and his community, his willingness to collaborate and to teach artists regardless of their background, education, and skill level paint the portrait of a beloved man and mentor for whom art and life was inextricable. The PMW was, during Blackburn’s lifetime, not just a printmaking workshop but the incubator for generations of artists whose radical, transgressive practices reflect the environment that shaped them. It is this legacy that the exhibition honors, that the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop (RBPMW) strives to maintain today for contemporary artists seeking to engage with this rich and generous history.
International and multiracial, the artists who knew Blackburn during his lifetime recall a man who often sacrificed his own career for the good of his community—for this reason, a selection of Blackburn’s own prints will be exhibited. Curated by Shameekia Shantel Johnson and developed with Jazmine Catasús and Essye Klempner from RBPMW, the exhibition features over 35 original prints, archival ephemera, and video.
Accompanying Blackburn’s own artworks, other artists on view range in political sensibilities, age, and background. All share an important sense of curiosity and unbounded experimentation that the PMW has always championed. Landmark members of the Black Arts Movement: Faith Ringgold, Ademola Olugebefola and Dindga McCannon; community leaders, such as Romare Bearden and Betty Blayton; and technical innovators, including Krishna Reddy and Michael Kelly Williams, are staged in conversation with contemporary voices, like Xenobia Bailey and Baseera Khan, whose continued engagement with Blackburn’s legacy brings it into the contemporary moment.
The exhibition includes an interactive educational platform supported by the Dedalus Foundation of photographs and video excerpts from The Only Thing That Lasts, an oral history film documenting the lived experiences of the PMW’s multigenerational community. Produced by Camille Crain Drummond and funded by the Hauser & Wirth Institute, the oral history includes narratives from artists and cultural workers such as robin holder, Dindga McCannon, Eleanor Magid, Nitza Tuiño, and Richard Powell.
Following its presentation at the James Gallery – CUNY Graduate Center, Press & Pull will travel to the MassArt Art Museum (MAAM) in Boston, opening in early 2026. This second venue extends the reach of the exhibition and its mission to celebrate Blackburn’s enduring influence on contemporary printmaking and community-based art practice.
About the curator
Shameekia Shantel Johnson is a writer, curator, and researcher of Afro-Caribbean ancestry from New York City. Working from the critical framework of social architecture, she considers the multidimensional relationship between people, politics, narrative, and environment.
Acknowledgments
This exhibition is made possible through the support from the Terra Foundation for American Art, with additional support from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Dedalus Foundation, Hauser & Wirth Institute and Speedball Art Products. These partners have supported the development of the exhibition, public programming, and the broader efforts to preserve and share the Workshop’s artistic and cultural legacy.