Pressing Politics: Revolutionary Graphics from Mexico and Germany

Pressing Politics: Revolutionary Graphics from Mexico and Germany explores the shared subjects and visual strategies of two key moments in 20th-century political printmaking: the revival of German Expressionist graphics in response to a nationwide revolution in 1918, and the formation of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (People’s Print Workshop) in Mexico City in the late 1930s. Although rooted in distinct social and historical contexts, artists in both countries responded to their respective upheavals in print to communicate to a mass audience in forceful visual terms.

Examining direct and indirect points of exchange, Pressing Politics considers the iconographic precedents for these artists’ political imagery, the range of printed works they produced, and the conditions that gave rise to their art. Drawn primarily from LACMA’s collection, the exhibition underscores the enduring power of the printed image and highlights the contributions of Mexican and German artists to a global iconography of political graphics.