November 11, 2006 through February 25, 2007
At The Fogg Art Museum (more about the Fogg)

Ben Shahn (American, 1898–1969), Stop H-Bomb Tests, 1961. Screen print; printed in red, blue, and black, 110.17 x 75.25 cm. Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums. Stephen Lee Taller Ben Shahn Archive, Gift of Dolores S. Taller, M25461. Photo: Photographic Services © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Prints are an ideal medium for oppositional expression. Because creating prints is inexpensive and expeditious, thousands of like images can be made promptly in response to an event or action. And because their production is uncomplicated, requiring only a printing press, matrix, and paper, prints can be produced inconspicuously and, if necessary, clandestinely.

DISSENT! presents a historical survey of printed images that express resistance to religious, political, and social systems and, in doing so, demonstrates the role of printmaking in the dissemination of dissonant opinions. The exhibition also examines the role that celebrated artists such as Edouard Manet, Pablo Picasso, Jenny Holzer, and Richard Serra have played in the promulgation of politically subversive prints. In their most politicized mode, prints have publicized acts of tyranny and repression and called for change: prints such as Francisco Goya's Los Caprichos criticized the suppression of Enlightenment ideas in Spain at the turn of the 19th century while Serra's Stop BS condemned the recent scandals at Abu Ghraib prison.

Organized by Susan Dackerman, Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Curator of Prints. Funding for the exhibition was provided by the Anthony and Celeste Meier Exhibitions Fund. Funding for the brochure was provided by an anonymous donor.

Press Release