2021 Conference
The American Printing History Associationʼs 46th annual fall conference will be hosted online through the Grolier Club of New York, from October 22–23, 2021. “Impresos: Printing Across Latin American and Caribbean Cultures” will explore common themes promoted by our organizations, with a focus on the study of printing history and practices of peoples and cultures related to Latin America and the Caribbean. The conference will be available with bilingual captioning in English and Spanish.
Registrarse ~ Register | Presentaciones ~ Presentations | Oradores ~ Speakers | Patrocinadores ~ Sponsors | Creditos
Presentaciones ~ Presentations
Keynote Presentation, October 22, 2021
Juan Villanueva, Typefaces as Cultural Objects
Latin America is a place where the field of type is currently booming with talent, creativity, drive, and a growing vibrant community. Typefaces As Cultural Objects is a collection of typefaces and letterforms that illustrate the wide range of voices, complex history, and many cultures that help shape our visual landscape and our Latin American identity. This talk will go over the inspiration and motivations behind this project and how it can be a resource for students, educators, and practicing designers to explore the common threads that unite us and hopefully inspire us to reflect on the past and present to envision a better, more collaborative future. Follow us on social media, @typelatam.
Keynote Presentation, October 23, 2021
Nicole Cecilia Delgado, La Impresora, Puerto Rico
La Impresora is an artist-led studio dedicated to small-scale editorial work and allocating resources to support independent publishing, directed by the Puerto Rican poets Nicole Cecilia Delgado and Amanda Hernández.
Multilingual Writing in Artists’ Books
Artists’ books, as objects containing a multiplicity of sensorial elements, are appropriate for experimentation with language and non-traditional communication methods. In this talk, I will give some examples with books written in two or more languages, and books that experiment with other ways of writing like music notation.
Details from El purgatorio artístico en el que yacen las calaveras de los artistas y los artesanos, 1904. (New York Public Library)
Las meras meras calaveras de Posada: The Skeleton Caricatures of Posada
Paloma Celis Carbajal and Charles Cuykendall Carter
The New York Public Library is home to one of the largest and most comprehensive collections outside Mexico of original printed material illustrated by the celebrated Mexican printmakers José Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913) and Manuel Manilla (1830-1895?). The entire collection of over 500 prints and pamphlets was recently digitized, and it is now available to all, for free, through New York Public Library Digital Collections. To mark the advent of this incredible resource, the Library presents a digital exhibition and an accompanying in-person display at the 42nd Street landmark building, both titled “Las meras meras calaveras de Posada: The Skeleton Caricatures of Posada” and co-curated by Paloma Celis Carbajal and Charles Cuykendall Carter.
1) Bosse, Abraham, 1602–1676. Tratado da gravura a agua forte, e a buril, e em madeira negra com o modo de construir as prensas modernas, e de imprimir em talho doce. Lisboa : Typographia Chalcographica, Typoplastica e Litteraria do Arco do Cego, 1801. 2) Escudo [Coat of Arms] del Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. Primera parte de los commentarios reales, que tratan del origen de los Yncas. Lisboa: Pedro Craesbeeck, 1609. (The John Carter Brown Library) 3) V. de Féréal, Los misterios de la inquisición y otras sociedades secretas de España. Mexico City: Imprenta de V. García Torres, á cargo de L. Vidaurri, 1850.
Panel: Uncovering Presses in Unexpected Places, Latin America in Print from Lisbon to Trinidad
Neil Safier, Cristina Soriano, Rachel Stein, Corinna Zeltsman; Conclusion by Roger Chartier
Latin American print culture has from its inception been transnational and multilingual. From the earliest works at the Cromberger press in Mexico to the case studies presented in this panel, the histories of print in and about Latin America have always carried with them unique stories about ambitious, transcultural actors working across social, political, and linguistic divides. But these stories have still not circulated widely in the broader world of print history. This panel seeks to bring to light some of these lesser-known but fascinating histories of Latin American print culture. It ranges from the early seventeenth century to the middle of the nineteenth, from Madrid and Lisbon to Trinidad, Rio de Janeiro, and Mexico City. The aim of this panoramic approach is to emphasize the diverse motivations and groups who gathered together to tell the story of Latin America in print: whether at a Lisbon printing-house that produced the first printed work of a mestizo Peruvian historian to the radical work of liberal journalists who circulated critical translations in a newly independent Mexico.
Printing Across the Atlantic: A Comment
This presentation will be a commentary of the four papers presented by Rachel Stein, Neil Safier, Cristina Soriano, and Corinna Zeltsman and it will focus on comparisons between publishing strategies, the circulation of printed materials, censorial practices, and political appropriation.
Los Primeros Libros de las Américas: Digital Collaboration for the study of 16th Century print history
Anton duPlessis, Albert A. Palacios, Iván Pérez Pineda, & Mercedes I. Salomon Salazar
“Los Primeros Libros de las Américas” is a digital collection of 16th Century Mexican & Peruvian imprints. It was created as an inter-institutional collaboration with the aim of facilitating its study as well as serving as support in teaching. By gathering copies of all the existing copies in the world, it now constitutes a digital heritage available to everyone.
Pressing Onward in The Bahamas: Poinciana Paper Press
I build upon a fierce history of self-publishing and micro-presses in the country and align myself with a few other key publishers of Caribbean art and literature who choose to do this critical but challenging work within this geographical space, Poinciana Paper Press sets itself apart by operating within an active, collective, and collaborative ecology and using a range of techniques, materials, and forms to “publish” its narratives. In this presentation, I will share the vision, mission, strategy, purpose, and core values of Poinciana Paper Press, shaped by its history, context, cultural ecology, and geographical location. Detailing key projects and collaborations from over a decade, I will present my current victories, challenges, and requirements to meet this goal of building a creative, collaborative, accessible, and inclusive space to share stories that center the complex lived experience of the Caribbean person.
Vignette of the title page of the anonymously published satirical short print Oracion funebre que en las solemnes exequias de la medalla lupina […], Lima: imprenta de los huérfanos: por D. Bernardino Ruiz [1813]. Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library.
Casting Types, Print Production, and the Freedom of the Press in Colonial Lima, 1811–1814
This paper will address the history of local typefounding in Spanish America, focusing on an alleged invention of matrix-making in late-colonial Lima. As soon as the circumstances allowed, with the Freedom of the Press which had reached Lima in 1811, production rose drastically, proving the restraining effects of colonial legislation which affected the printing industry in Peru until Independence.
Hacia una cartografía de las muestras tipográficas de América Latina. Algunos ejemplos de los siglos XVIII al XX
El estudio de especímenes tipográficos es un campo poco inexplorado en América Latina. En la presente ponencia se ofrecerán ejemplos, varios de ellos inéditos, localizados en diversas bibliotecas internacionales, cuyos ejemplos más tempranos datan del periodo colonial. La naturaleza de los ejemplos y su distribución geográfica contribuirá a un conocimiento de la historia de la imprenta y la tipografía que no se tenía a la fecha.
“Los Angeles, El Rock, La Frontera y Otros Rollos” (Los Angeles, Rock [Music], The Border, and Other Matters) Top cover of the Los Angeles based ‘zine La Banda Elástica. November 1992 Issue. By: La Banda Elástica Magazine.
Thinking and Writing for Ourselves: 1990s Immigrant Los Angeles and Latin American Intellectual and Publishing Traditions
This presentation will discuss the emergence of “underground” Spanish-language publications in Southern California by Latina/o/x youth during the 1990s and into the 2000s. These ‘zines were the intellectual toolbox for Latinx immigrants to understand themselves as part of the urban American metropolis and remain connected with Latin America’s cultural expressions.
Poster designed and printed by Juan Carlos Romero, Imprenta Enlace. (Belinda Ugalde Mellado)
Imprenta Enlace. A Live Tradition of Mexican Letterpress
The Romero family´s press shop has developed whimsical and colorful posters, faithful to a century-old printing practice, with an aesthetic feed by the Mexican vision so richly engrained in cultural, political, and social events. Their prolific production is part of the visual landscape in the state of Veracruz.
The Periodical Press in the Rio de la Plata in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions, c. 1780–1830
This presentation will explore the history of the periodical press in the independence of the Rio de la Plata (present-day Argentina) from the Spanish empire in the early 19th century, and its relationship to changes in the political culture of the region.
María de Sansoric: A Printer beyond the Archive
This paper seeks to complicate María de Sansoric, the second woman printer in colonial Mexico and her printed works in and beyond the archive, by placing her within a multifaceted and layered encounter between the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica, the African diaspora, and the Spanish crown’s imperial and cosmological project in the New World.
Corridos Visuales and the Power of the Multiple
Joseph Velasquez will share how he has designed and used Printmaking activism as a tool for both education diversity and community engagement. The power of the multiple and the ability to share techniques and their histories are significant parts of his practice with Drive-By press mobile printmaking studio. He has designed programs based on his travels across the US and in the Caribbean to bring printmakers and their communities together. He recently developed a program to raise $17,000 for hurricane relief in San Juan to purchase a new press for the University of Puerto Rico. He also created community engagement activities for groups and organizations to assist in membership diversity and recruitment. This Spring, Velasquez curated a LatinX Printmaking exhibition CORRIDOS VISUALES—LatinX Visual Narratives in Printmaking about culture clash, struggle, and perseverance. He invited artists from across the US and Latin America: Cuba, Puerto Rico, Peru, Nicaragua, Mexico, California, Texas, and Florida. He will also share work from the “Let’s Leave a Press” campaign, community engagement and education programs, and opportunities and engagements for printshops and the public.
Latin American Connections in the Grolier Club Library: A Conversation with meghan constantinou and Faride Mereb
The Grolier Club of New York was founded in 1884 as a society for bibliophiles and enthusiasts in the graphic arts. The club maintains a public research library dedicated to the art and history of the book, with an emphasis on the literature of collecting, the book trade, and the history of printing. In this session, Grolier Club Librarian, Meghan Constantinou, will show items from the collection that represent intersections between Grolier Club history and Latin American printing and typography. Her presentation will be followed by a response from Faride Mereb, who will consider recent library acquisitions of contemporary Latin American printing in a wider context.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (San Miguel Nepantla, México, 1651-Ciudad de México, 1695) Villancicos / qve se cantaron en la santa / Iglesia Cathedral de Mexico, á los Maytines del Gloriosissimo Principe de la / Iglesia, el Señor, San [P]edro… México: Viuda de Bernardo Calderón, 1677
The Hispanic Society of America and its Latin American Collection
Dr. O’Neill will discuss the Hispanic Society in general and its Latin American holdings.
Patrocinadores ~ Sponsors
Grolier Club of New York
Creditos ~ Credits
Coordinator: Amelia Fontanel
Conference logo design by Isabella Madeira. Typefaces: “Archivio” and “Rosario” from Omnibus-Type.