Wood Type, Evolved: Experimental Letterpress & Relief Printing in the 21 Century

When one goes to an art show they should leave with a strong feeling.  A person could come out of an art show with a new perspective on life or angrily talking to their companion how pointless they thought the art was at that show.  No matter what the feeling the artwork needs to leave an impact.  The worst art show is the one that leaves the viewer with nothing, because then it wouldn’t have mattered if they ever went at all.  And sadly Wood Type, Evolved: Experimental Letterpress & Relief Printing in the 21 Century left me with nothing. 

                I have had experience with people experimenting with letter art.  Interesting things have happened; like a meaningful message put in a downward spiral, the art of typography, and word that have been warped to form pictures.  So I will admit to having somewhat high expectations.  Sadly what I saw was just paper with different sized letters on it.  And while this may be appealing at first one gets bored after seeing it over ten times.  The artists also put their letterpresses in a glass case under their work so you can see what they used.  And while I’d admit that it was nice to see the materials they used, it does nothing to lessen the boredom of seeing similar pieces repeating.    

                The show also had a few more features that draw your attention.  One being a timeline of sorts that explained the history of letterpresses.  However, for an art show it was done rather mundanely.  The timeline in question was plain with only words, and for a show set on lettering the type itself was rather dull and didn’t seem to have any artistic aspects to it.  It was a bit like being in a history class and the teacher just putting up a timeline on the overhead to talk about.  There were three other pieces that where videos, and they were the best part of the show.  To see the letters and numbers come across the screen was attention-grabbing.  

However though these where visually stimulating pieces I didn’t know what the artist where trying to say.  I didn’t know what any of the artist where trying to say.  Where they just trying to push the boundaries of text being only used for writing papers?  Where they trying to comment on some sort of social issue?  Was I missing something vital in understanding this show and its art?  Or was there really nothing to see?

I don’t have the answers to these questions, or any of the others that I thought of as I was headed to the door.  All I know was that I wasn’t moved.  I couldn’t tell you how I felt about the show, because I had no feelings at all.  And sadly by the time I had reached the crosswalk outside the building where it had been held, the show was completely out of my mind.