The American Dream: Pop To The Present
British Museum, London Until June 18
Rating: 
This show is about American printmaking, and the British Museum has been at pains to expand its collection of contemporary American prints since its last major show, nearly ten years ago. Because of this, it contains very many fine things.
It disappoints, however, because its approach to the subject neglects its own expertise and focuses instead on politics.
I suspect we would be interested to hear what British Museum curators have to say about the practice of lithography and the techniques of screenprinting. Instead, they have decided to tell us about revolutionary politics, radical feminism and race tensions. It’s not really their subject.
Andy Warhol (1928–1987), Vote McGovern. Colour screenprint, 1972. © 2016 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York and DACS, London
The museum has decided to tell us about revolutionary politics, radical feminism and race tensions. It’s not really their subject. Above: Flags 1, 1973, by Jasper Johns
The second half of the 20th century was a rich period in American printmaking. The possibilities of commercial print techniques such as screenprint struck the first generation of pop artists powerfully.
There is sometimes an absurd paradox here – in their paintings, artists like Roy Lichtenstein reproduced with exquisite care the dots with which cheap commercial printing suggested shadow.
When reproduced in limited-edition prints, what exactly is the distinction between art and comic book?
Other movements in American art seemed a challenge to the printmaker. Abstract expressionists such as Willem de Kooning depended on the power of the brushstroke.
Minimalists like Brice Marden often derived their power from a single, exquisite gesture of purity, like a black square on canvas. Could that be turned into a print edition?
Andy Warhol was, perhaps, the artist who seemed most at home in the potential, both expressive and conceptual, of the print, and multiple repetitions of the same subject were meat and drink to him.
It is a pity that the British Museum, displaying a wall of his Marilyn prints, hasn’t taken more care – some of them aren’t flat against the wall but bulge and sag, creating shadows and colour variations where there should be total evenness.
Printing is a medium that tends to draw artists fascinated by technique, and there is often a sense of a medium being joyously rediscovered. Standard Station, 1966, by Edward Ruscha
Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008), Sky Garden from Stoned Moon. Colour lithograph and screenprint, 1969. © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation/DACS, London/VAGA, New York
The different techniques are, as ever with prints, fascinating, and as we go through the exhibition we see the difference between exquisite etchers like Kiki Smith, those who enjoy the limitations of technique implicit in woodcut or linocut (Eric Avery, Richard Bosman and Ida Applebroog), and the artists who are drawn to the mechanical perfection of screenprint and lithography.
Printing is a medium that tends to draw artists fascinated by technique, and there is often a sense of a medium being joyously rediscovered, from Jim Dine’s wonderful etchings onwards. Most overwhelming is a truly great mezzotint by Craig McPherson, of a night-time view of New York, a print of exceptional technical virtuosity.
It would be good to have some explanation of mezzotints at this point, rather than plonking this masterpiece in a room labelled ‘Photorealism’.
There are plenty of things to enjoy here, but you have to be prepared to ignore the exhibition’s intentions.
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