Proof of Potential

If printmaking still suffers a lesser status in the art world’s pecking order, the Los Angeles Printmaking Society has done more than its fair share to even the score.

Its efforts are especially visible in the San Fernando Valley, where the organization has presented numerous impressive shows at its home base, the Lankershim Arts Center. Its sprawling annual exhibition in the Brand Library Art Galleries, curated by John Greco, offers a sampler plate of what printmaking is about.

Diversity of outlook and technique defines the agenda with 66 works culled from around the country.

Dennis Revitzky’s “Dreamy Sequence: Night in the City� shows three scenes of urban density and the unique ability of this medium to put its subjects in a different, almost mythic light.

Kathryn Jacobi’s “The Juggler� employs a rough, choppy style to portray its subject. Ruth Leaf’s color woodcut, “A Colorful Sound,� is a festive, abstract invention that illustrates its title nicely.

S.L. Dickey’s “Heroes Shed No Tears,� a triptych, is a pulpy melange with quirky twists. We encounter fedora-hatted lurkers, saloon-bound lovers, a boat engine and the words “Cream Corn� on a fence. It celebrates both an aura of American mystique and delightful absurdity.

If much of this show follows a course of little resistance or tension, there are notable exceptions, with works exploring darker psychic or artistic territory. Patrick Merrill’s “Resistance Diptych, #2� depicts two nearly life-size figures stuffed into repressive boxes with inset images of the World Trade Center towers and church spires.

“Holy White Wash,� Albert Fins’ photo etching, extends the artist’s questioning of religious ideology. Jochen Stucke’s “Fin de Siecle� is a simple, evocative drypoint drawing of a trash heap by a fence. The contrasts continue throughout the Brand’s Atrium and Skylight galleries.

Joseph Palmer’s “Woodpecker� is a color woodcut, all goofy, elemental charm; but Cosette Dudley evokes a darker theme with her “Executive Order 9066: Betty Wearing Award Ribbon,� with three photos of Chinese girls, identical except for the last image in which the girl has been ominously erased.

What we take away from the exhibition has less to do with impressions of individual pieces than a sense of the wide-open options of the printmaker’s art. One possible advantage of existing on the fringes of the art scene is a potentially freer attitude in a medium more multifaceted and less tradition-bound than painting and sculpture.

BE THERE

L.A. Printmaking Society Juried Membership Exhibition 2000, through July 7 at Brand Library Art Galleries, 1601 W. Mountain St., Glendale. Gallery hours: Tuesday and Thursday, 1-9 p.m.; Wednesday, 1-6 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 1-5 p.m. Call (818) 548-2051.