The 56th California International Antiquarian Book Fair (Feb. 9-11, 2024) will feature several presentations from leading experts from around the Golden State.
Saturday, February 10, 2024
1:00pm Liberation Through Duplication: Press Power of the Long 1960s
Lincoln Cushing | Independent archivist and historian, Docs Populi | Instructor, University of California, Berkeley
This presentation explores a marginalized segment of the printed ephemera world during the 1960s and 1970s - politically motivated propaganda. Activists who’d never before even touched a press or a squeegee learned how to print as a means to an end. Much of this material was rough around the edges but full of spirit and style.
Lincoln Cushing has at various times been a printer, artist, archivist, author, and academic librarian at the University of California. He is committed to documenting, cataloging, and disseminating oppositional political culture of the late 20th century. His books include Revolucion! Cuban Poster Art (2003), Visions of Peace & Justice: 30 Years of Political Posters from the Archives of Inkworks Press (2007) and Agitate! Educate! Organize! - American Labor Posters (2009). He curated the 2012 exhibition All Of Us Or None — Poster Art of the San Francisco Bay Area at the Oakland Museum of California and is the author of its catalog.
2:30pm Typographic Jazz, The Monoprints of Jack Stauffacher
Rob Saunders | Executive Director and Curator, Letterform Archive
Based on the exhibit currently at the Letterform Archive, this talk focuses on the most improvisational work of the San Francisco master printer Jack Stauffacher, using wood type as form without semantic meaning.
Rob Saunders, Executive Director and Curator, (he/him), is a designer, teacher, publisher, and management consultant, who has collected graphic design and letterforms for over 40 years. Rob began his career teaching at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Tufts University, while serving freelance clients and agencies, before founding a book publishing enterprise that included Alphabet Press (graphic design), Picture Book Studio (children’s books), and Rabbit Ears Books (book/audio packages), which was eventually acquired by Simon & Schuster. Prior to founding Letterform Archive he served as a creative and marketing consultant with clients in the hospitality, technology, and financial industries.
Letterform Archive is a nonprofit center for inspiration, education, publishing, and community. Its mission is to share the joy of letters with design-curious people. It was founded as a place to share his private collection with the public. The Archive opened to visitors in February 2015 and now offers hands-on access to a curated collection of over 100,000 items related to lettering, typography, calligraphy, and graphic design, spanning thousands of years of history. The Archive is located on Ramaytush Ohlone land in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco.
4:00pm Copier Art as a Catalyst for Community Building in the Bay Area
Maymanah Farhat | Writer; Curator; Lecturer at Fresno State University
Artists began using copy technology in the Bay Area as early as the 1960s, yet it wasn’t until the late 1970s that the arrival of Xerox machines at places like the San Francisco Art Institute and Galeria de la Raza in the San Francisco’s Mission District that copier art began to provide creative outlets for education, community building, and collaboration. This presentation will look at copier art that was created at these two hubs, focusing on how the availability of Xerox machines in San Francisco allowed local artistic communities to expand individual and collective creative practices. Artists whose works will be highlighted include Rene Yanez, Yolanda Lopez, and Enrique Chagoya in addition to Jay DeFeo, Bruce Conner, and Fred Martin.
Maymanah Farhat is an arts writer, an award-winning curator, and a university lecturer. Her writing and scholarship focus on overlooked artists and forgotten art scenes. She is a frequent contributor to the Brooklyn Rail's Art Book section and teaches at Fresno State University. Farhat is the curator of A Radical Alteration: Women's Studio Workshop as a Sustainable Model for Art Making, which will be on view at the San Francisco Center for the Book January 20 - March 31, 2024.
5:30pm Latinos and Spanish-Language Printing in Nineteenth-Century California
Kirsten Silva Gruesz | Professor of Literature, University of California-Santa Cruz
Californiana is often highly sought after, and early California imprints are even rarer due to the fires that destroyed entire collections following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Although the first press in the state served its Mexican population, histories of US Latino print culture rarely connect the East Coast and the West. Starting with the arrival of the Zamorano press to Monterey in 1826, this talk highlights examples of Spanish and bilingual California printing through the 1920s.
Kirsten Silva Gruesz has authored dozens of essays on early US Latinx print culture in Spanish and English. Her most recent book, Cotton Mather’s Spanish Lessons: A Story of Language, Race, and Belonging in the Early Americas (Harvard, 2022), has won multiple prizes including the Albert J. Beveridge Award from the American Historical Association and the annual Best Book in the History of the Book Award from SHARP. She is an elected member of the American Antiquarian Society.
All presentations take place in the Seminar Area on the second floor at Pier 27.
The 56th California International Antiquarian Book Fair takes place February 9-11, 2024 at Pier 27 in San Francisco, California. To learn more details or buy tickets, visit https://www.abaa.org/cabookfair...
