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Gemini G.E.L., the Los Angeles print workshop founded in 1966, is marking its 60th anniversary with an exhibition drawn from its archives. Curated by Susan Dackerman and Helen Molesworth, the show focuses on how artists used the workshop to collaborate and test the boundaries of printmaking.
Gemini G.E.L., the Los Angeles print workshop founded in 1966, is marking its 60th anniversary with an exhibition tracing six decades of artists’ experiments in printmaking. Curators Susan Dackerman and Helen Molesworth assembled works from the workshop’s archives for “(Almost) Every Year: Sixty Years of Printmaking at Gemini G.E.L.,” emphasizing how artists used the studio as a place for dialogue and to work beyond their familiar practices.
Founded by Sydney B. Felsen and Stanley Grinstein, Gemini became a meeting point for artists working in different styles and from different places. Its early projects included works by New York figures Josef Albers, Man Ray, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Frank Stella and Ellsworth Kelly. The workshop also worked with Los Angeles artists including David Hockney, Ed Ruscha, Ron Davis and Bruce Nauman, reflecting the city’s growing art community.
The exhibition’s chronology highlights changes in who worked at the studio as well as what they made. Dorothea Rockburne and Vija Celmins began working at Gemini in the 1980s, followed by Susan Rothenberg and Elizabeth Murray. The source report says the curators described the workshop’s current roster as distinguished by its gender equality; it does not give a roster breakdown or figures.
Works on view also pair artists around shared formal interests: Frank Stella and Kelly’s explorations of shape and color, Rauschenberg and Johns’s use of found-object imagery, and Toba Khedoori, Julie Mehretu and Analia Saban’s attention to linear patterns. Other pieces depart from expectations associated with their makers. Joel Shapiro and Richard Tuttle, known for minimalist sculpture, used vivid colors and complex arrangements in screenprinted geometric abstractions.
How Gemini Expanded Printmaking
The anniversary show matters because it presents printmaking at Gemini as more than the production of images on paper. Artists used the workshop to bring together materials and methods, making works that test where a print ends and a sculptural or installation-like object begins. That history is visible in projects that turn printing into a process of experimentation rather than a fixed format.
Examples include Oldenburg’s 1969 “Profile Airflow,” a molded polyurethane relief over a two-color lithograph, and Johns’s image of a lightbulb printed on lead. Edward and Nancy Kienholz transformed ordinary gasoline containers into sculptures with Fresnel lens systems that resemble television sets. These works show how the workshop’s technical setting could support ideas that would be difficult to capture in a conventional flat print.
The exhibition also gives readers a way to compare artists across generations without suggesting they shared a single style. Its juxtapositions draw attention to recurring questions about color, shape, found images and line, while the artists’ different approaches remain distinct. The workshop’s six-decade record offers a view of how collaboration and access to specialist production can shape an artist’s work.
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Six Decades in the Workshop
Gemini opened in 1966, bringing established artists from outside California into a setting that also supported artists based in Los Angeles. The exhibition’s title, “(Almost) Every Year,” signals a chronological survey across the workshop’s history, though the source report does not specify which years are absent or how many objects are included.
The anniversary display draws on the workshop’s archives, but its curators did not frame it solely as a record of famous names. According to the report, Dackerman and Molesworth focused on the exchanges between visiting artists and the ways they moved outside their routines. The selection spans early collaborations and more recent projects, including Allen Ruppersberg’s 2013 work “Great Speckled Bird.”
Ruppersberg’s piece is a multicolored screenprint on a 20-foot-long perforated piano-player roll, divided into four sections. Its handwritten reproductions of old song lyrics appear on vintage motel stationery. The title refers to a traditional Southern gospel hymn recorded by Johnny Cash; the report describes the work as a nostalgic look at classic Americana.
“The workshop served as a place for dialogue among visiting artists and for experimenting beyond their usual routines and comfort zones.”
— Susan Dackerman and Helen Molesworth, as described in the exhibition report
Exhibition Details Not Provided
The source report does not state the exhibition’s opening or closing dates, attendance, the number of works on display, or which years are missing from its near-annual chronology. It also does not provide a numerical measure of gender representation at Gemini, so the curators’ description of the current roster cannot be independently quantified from the material available here.
The report describes the curators’ approach and selected works, but does not provide a full checklist or detailed information about how the archive was assembled. Further details about the exhibition’s scope and public programming are not specified.
The Anniversary Show’s Public Run
The immediate development is the presentation of “(Almost) Every Year: Sixty Years of Printmaking at Gemini G.E.L.” No exhibition dates or subsequent events are given in the source report, so its remaining run and any related programming cannot be confirmed from the available information.
Readers seeking practical details, including visiting hours and the full list of works, will need to consult Gemini G.E.L.’s exhibition information. The show’s archival scope provides the basis for a longer look at the workshop’s history, but the report does not announce further anniversary projects.
Key Questions
What is Gemini G.E.L.?
Gemini G.E.L. is a Los Angeles print workshop founded in 1966 by Sydney B. Felsen and Stanley Grinstein. It has collaborated with artists on prints and works using a range of materials.
What is the 60th-anniversary exhibition?
“(Almost) Every Year: Sixty Years of Printmaking at Gemini G.E.L.” is an archival exhibition curated by Susan Dackerman and Helen Molesworth. It surveys the workshop’s history and highlights artists’ dialogue and experimentation.
Which artists are represented?
The report names artists including Josef Albers, Man Ray, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, David Hockney, Ed Ruscha, Vija Celmins, Julie Mehretu and Allen Ruppersberg. It does not provide a complete checklist.
How did artists stretch the definition of a print?
Examples include Oldenburg’s polyurethane relief over lithography, Johns’s lightbulb image printed on lead, and a Kienholz work that transformed gasoline containers into sculpture. Ruppersberg used a long perforated piano-player roll as the surface for a screenprint.
When can visitors see the exhibition?
The source report does not give the exhibition’s dates, hours or venue details. Visitors should check Gemini G.E.L.’s current exhibition information before planning a visit.
Source: hyperallergic.com
