Today from our partners at Art Practical, we bring you John Zarobell’s review of Print Public at Kala Art Institute and Gallery in Berkeley, California. The author notes, “[the exhibition] augurs not merely new developments in the neighborhood, but novel and innovative approaches to print.” This article was originally published on June 18, 2015.

Susan O’Malley. Less Internet More Love, from the series Advice From My 80-Year-Old Self, 2015; mural at Bob McGee’s Machining Co., Inc., 2735 San Pablo Ave, Berkeley. Courtesy of Kala Art Institute. Photo: Bob McGee’s Machining Co., Inc.

The medium of print has a long history of expanding art into the public realm, and Print Public at Kala Art Institute has boldly pushed the envelope of the role of print in the urban context via a highly inventive series of public workshops and interactions that led up to the current gallery presentation. Kala presents this project not only as a gallery show but as a long-term collaboration with its neighbors and UC Berkeley: “Print Public was conceived in collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley’s Department of City & Regional Planning as an arts-integrated approach to urban planning and community activation.” Because the project was developed and elaborated over a two-year period, the involved artists had ample opportunity to design innovative ways to integrate the local community into their projects. Most devised a public dimension designed to bring attention and visitors to West Berkeley, where Kala is located, and then collaborated with residents to produce interactive, or at least locally informed, works. The exhibition organizers call this a “place-making initiative.” Such terminology can have many meanings, but the intent in this case was for the assets of the neighborhood to be explored by the artists and then reflected back to give residents a sense of their own community. Perhaps it is not so much place making as place finding.

Read the full article here.