Rob Swainton '06 Featured in Show at Petzel Gallery

Alumnus Rob Swainston ‘06 is featured in the show Doomscrolling at Petzel Gallery in New York City. This show, featuring woodblock prints by Swainston and fellow artist Zorawar Sudhu, will remain on view until February 12, 2022. 

This show’s title relates to the recent phenomenon of doomscrolling. Recently added to the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, the term is defined as “referring to the tendency to continue to surf or scroll through bad news, even though that news is saddening, disheartening, or depressing. Many people are finding themselves continuously reading bad news about COVID-19 without the ability to stop or step back.” 

In the press release Swainston recounts how at the start of the pandemic he went out every morning, “photographing Manhattan, but it was empty…We were just like everyone else, obsessed by consuming images of it. All of a sudden, plywood went up on buildings around the city and then I realized the potential of it: Letting something that happened in 2020 be carved onto the plywood used to cover up Manhattan.” Swainston and Suhdu contacted various storefronts and several allowed them to come and take their plywood. All in all, the two artists collected approximately 120 sheets of plywood. 

The show features woodblocks made on this plywood that depict historical moments between May 24, 2020 and January 6, 2021, the day of the insurrection at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. From the racialized murder of George Floyd, to Kyle Rittenhouse shooting three people during a protest in Kenosha Wisconson, this show addresses our current political moment head on. 

By displaying one woodblock print after another, the show functions as a montage, giving the eerie feeling that one is scrolling through a computer screen or mobile device.  Each piece responds to the ones before and after it, showing the continuity of the political moment, insisting on the links between these seemingly disparate events. Sidhu and Swainston also place their work within a long history of woodblock prints with rays of light evoking Albrecht Dürer and hands reminiscent of Käthe Kollwitz’s work. Woodblock prints are historically a voice of the people. They are one of the oldest means of visual mass communication and have fueled many anti-authoritarian movements.

Rob Swainston was born in 1970 in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania and currently lives and works in New York City.  His work is informed by a dual academic background in political science and art. He is an Associate Professor at Purchase College and co-founder and Master Printer for Prints of Darkness. Rob has been awarded numerous residencies including Skowhegan, Marie Walsh Sharpe, and the Fine Arts Work Center. Solo and group exhibitions include Marginal Utility, David Krut Projects, Bravin Lee Programs, Socrates Sculpture Park, Smack Mellon, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, IPCNY, Canada Gallery, Queens Museum, and the Bronx Museum. Rob was most recently the Ludwig Foundation Professor for Printmaking at the Weissensee Kunsthochschule Berlin for 2020–21.