What is an edition, anyway?

Enrique Chagoya (b. 1953) is a San Francisco-based visual artist working in a range of media including painting, drawing, printmaking, and multiples. In his artworks he juxtaposes secular, popular, and religious symbols in order to address the ongoing cultural clash between the United States and Latin America and to examine recurring themes of colonialism and oppression worldwide. Chagoya’s work can be found in the collections of the British Museum, London; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Smithsonian Museum, Washington D.C., among other institutions. He is the recipient of many awards, including two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Chagoya is the subject of the monograph Aliens (Berkeley: Kelly’s Cove Press, 2019). He received his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and MFA from the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently Professor of Art Practice in the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University.

Daniel Clowes (b. 1961) is a cartoonist, illustrator, and screenwriter whose works include the comic book series Eightball and the graphic novels David Boring, The Death-Ray, Ghost World, Ice Haven, Mr. Wonderful, Patience, and Wilson. He is the screenwriter of Art School Confidential, Wilson, and Ghost World, for which he earned an Academy Award nomination along with the film’s co-writer and director Terry Zwigoff. Clowes is the subject of the monograph The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist (Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2012), published in conjunction with a major retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the Oakland Museum of California. He is the recipient of many awards, including the PEN Literary Award and numerous Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz comics industry awards. Clowes received his BFA from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. He lives and works in Oakland, California.

The Collection of Thomas Cvikota includes objects, books, music, video and printed contemporary art from the late twentieth century accumulated over Cvikota’s decades long career in fine art publishing. The Collection formed the core of the original iteration of What is an edition, anyway? which he co-organized at Mana Contemporary, Chicago with art historian and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Art in Print, Susan Tallman. Cvikota is the owner of ETC Industries/C.Editions and sits on the board of the Art in Print. Most recently, he authored a book, Landfall Press: Five Decades (Santa Fe: Landfall Press, 2019) and co-curated its forthcoming exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee.

Ala Ebtekar (b. 1978) is a visual artist who works primarily in painting, drawing, photography, and installation between his native San Francisco Bay Area and Tehran, Iran. Born to Iranian activist/artist parents, he developed an interest in various notions of in-betweenness, which has led him to explore the juncture between history, myth, and culture. Ebtekar’s works are included in the collections of BAMPFA, Berkeley; Devi Art Foundation, Gurgaon, India; de Young Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among other institutions. He teaches in Stanford University’s Department of Art & Art History, Institute for Diversity in the Arts, and the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies, where he leads the Art, Social Space, and Public Discourse Initiative.

Jonn Herschend (b. 1967) is an interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and conceptual publisher. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; SITE Santa Fe; the Telluride Film Festival; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. He is a winner of the Fleishhacker Eureka Fellowship, three Golden Gate Awards from the SFFILM Festival, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art SECA Art Award. He is co-founder and co-editor, along with Will Rogan, of the experimental publication THE THING Quarterly. Herschend received his MFA from the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught at California College of the Arts, San Francisco State University, Stanford University, and UC Berkeley. He currently teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute. He lives and works in San Francisco, California.

Stephanie Syjuco (b. 1974) is a conceptual artist and educator who creates large-scale spectacles of collected cultural objects, cumulative archives, and temporary vending installations, which often incorporate an active public component that invites viewers to directly participate as producers or distributors. Her work has been exhibited widely, including at The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and ZKM Center for Art and Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship Award and a Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Award. Syjuco received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and MFA from Stanford University. She is Assistant Professor in Sculpture at the University of California, Berkeley.

Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976) is a conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to perspective, identity, commodity, media, and popular culture. His work is included in numerous public collections, including The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Thomas’ permanent public artwork Love Over Rules, 2017 can be found in the Jessie Street Garage in San Francisco. His monument to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, The Embrace, will be unveiled in Boston in 2020. He is a recipient of the Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, and the AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize. He is a member of the New York City Public Design Commission. Thomas received his BFA from New York University and both an MA and an MFA from California College of the Arts. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.