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CANNONBALL PRESS C U R AT E D BY A N C H O R G R A P H I C S J A N U A R Y 5 — F E B R U A R Y 1 1 , 2 0 1 2

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Mention of the World’s Columbian Expo-

sition of 1893 instantly conjures up

visions of the White City. Its great build-

ings pristinely coated in brilliant paint.

Its architecture a logical construction

of neoclassical Beaux Arts principles

based on balance and symmetry. At

night it was illuminated by hundreds of

thousands of incandescent bulbs. During the day it was

presided over by a golden Statue of the Republic while

one of the largest lakes on earth shimmered to the east.

In the 1890s the country was undergoing a traumatic

rebirth as an industrial society causing a sense of in-

stability and uncertainty among the populous. To com-

memorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Chris-

topher Columbus, the White City presented America as

a stable and timeless rival to Europe. Its magnificence

showed that the transition from agriculture to technol-

ogy was an indicator of progress and not something to

be feared. With clean streets and modern sanitation, the

White City was a prototype for an America of the future.

In comparison to the slums of Chicago, filled with urban

blight and economic depression, it was a beautiful and

comforting sight.

But on the western edge of the Exposition was a fair of

a different sort. Away from the refined classical splen-

dor, amongst hoots and hollers, the Midway Plaisance

offered less dignified forms of entertainment.

The Midway Plaisance had started off innocent enough

in the 1850s as part of a grand proposal to turn marsh-

land on Chicago’s south side into a place of relaxation

for middle and upper class city dwellers. The South Park

Commission was given the go-ahead and Frederick Law

Olmsted’s firm, which by this time had already created

New York’s famous Central Park, was hired to do the

design. The pastoral network would include Washington

Park to the west, Jackson Park to the east, and the Mid-

way Plaisance as a mile-long system of paths and canals

connecting the two. The Midway would allow boaters to

go from ponds in Washington Park to lagoons in Jackson

Park and all the way out onto the waters of Lake Michi-

gan. At least that was the plan until the Great Chicago

Fire in 1871, after which the rebuilding of the city took

priority and necessitated the funds designated for the

South Park. The area remained in a swampy state until

preparations for the Exposition began.

The fair’s management had conceived of the Midway as

a kind of department of anthropology under the stew-

ardship of Harvard professor F.W. Putnam. However, be-

cause of political cronyism and pressure from financial

investors, it was soon surrendered to the theatrical pro-

moter Sol Bloom, a protégé of P.T. Barnum. With Bloom,

the dignified and educational ethnographic exhibits were

thrown under the bus of moneymaking opportunism. The

Midway became a thoroughfare of hokum and fakes,

and a hugely successful crowd-pleaser. “Street in Cairo”

was its most popular attraction, featuring a belly dancer

named Little Egypt doing a hootchy-kootchy routine per-

formed to a tune now commonly associated with cartoon

snake charmers and the lyrics, “They don’t wear pants

on the sunny side of France.” The Midway was filled with

every kind of amusement imaginable, from the first Ferris

Wheel to a Moorish Palace furnished with funhouse mir-

rors. Its concessions brought in over $4 million dollars

and rivaled the White City for visitors’ attentions.

The entrepreneurs of the Midway were creating a whole

new branch of the entertainment industry. Gathering

sideshows, rides, theatrical attractions, games and oth-

er amusements in one location, it was the beginning of

the carnival as we know it. Subsequently, every county

fair would have a Midway, and by the turn of the century

a permanent version had opened at Coney Island. The

success of the Midway signaled a rising tension between

popular and high culture in America. Many people be-

lieved that greatness would not come through imitating

Europe, but from celebrating our own uniquely vernacu-

lar way of life.

West of the White Cityby James Iannaccone

OPPOSITE PANEL

1. MARTIN MAZORRAFOR REAL?WOODCUT ON HEAVYWEIGHT CANVAS BANNER52 X 55 INCHES

2. MIKE HOUSTONPROFESSOR STOOMVAGENWOODCUT ON HEAVYWEIGHT CANVAS BANNER52 X 55 INCHES

3. MIKE HOUSTONFUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY WOODCUT ON HEAVYWEIGHT CANVAS BANNER52 X 55 INCHES

4. MARTIN MAZORRAHORRIBLE BUT TRUEWOODCUT ON HEAVYWEIGHT CANVAS BANNER52 X 55 INCHES

5. MARTIN MAZORRAMINISCULE MARVELS FLEA CIRCUSWOODCUT ON HEAVYWEIGHT CANVAS BANNER52 X 55 INCHES

6. MIKE HOUSTONKEKAYAANWOODCUT ON HEAVYWEIGHT CANVAS BANNER52 X 55 INCHES

FRONT COVER

MIKE HOUSTONBEARDED LADYWOODCUT ON HEAVYWEIGHT CANVAS BANNER34 X 87 INCHES

MARTIN MAZORRAMONKEY OR MAN?WOODCUT ON HEAVYWEIGHT CANVAS BANNER34 X 87 INCHES

Before the gates to the White City or the Midway

started admitting visitors, the Exposition was al-

ready changing the future of American politics. Its

planning committees were made up of both state

officials and corporate leaders who wove their

own agendas into the fabric of the fair, intent on

influencing the nearly one quarter of the country’s

population who would attend. The public sector

and private enterprise had merged as midwives

for a new nation that sought to be a global leader

in technology, industry, and consumerism.

The birth didn’t go so smoothly, and in the years

since the Exposition the performers, barkers, and

charlatans of the Midway have become icons of

exploitation, profiteering, political showmanship,

corruption, and all manner of social ills. In short,

their images represent the exaggerated farcical

theatre of contemporary American life. Cannon-

ball Press has adopted these miscreants, making

art with a spirit and attitude similar to Bloom’s. An

art that is at times garish and grotesque, yet al-

ways populist and unequivocally American. Can-

nonball Press has created a Midway for the White

City of fine art, offering not the idyllic but the off-

kilter, reveling in its own bizarre juices.

Based in Brooklyn, Cannonball Press is Mike

Houston and Martin Mazorra. They have em-

barked on a mission to redefine printmaking

through their own brand of collaboration, stretch-

ing the notion of what a monochromatic woodcut

can be, as well as what the traditional publishing

venture entails. They set out to make affordable

black and white prints that will reach the masses.

Houston and Mazorra are long-time advocates of

the affordable art cause, selling both their own

images and those of other artists they have edi-

tioned for only $20. Here they differ from Bloom’s

money grubbing capitalist ways but not from his

desire to present a more democratic alternative

to the high falootin’.

Cannonball soon became known for making ev-

er-larger woodcuts, combining them into quilted

“Frankenbanners.” In the neighborhood of 200

square feet, some were free hanging while oth-

ers were permanent wall installations. In the past

few years these collages have turned sculptural.

Three-dimensional pieces with a wooden struc-

ture, completely pasted over with prints to form

giant masks, a huge megaphone, a bunker with

escape hatches, a tent city, a 5-foot tall working

cash register, a 13-foot basketball playing don-

MIKE HOUSTONVLAD THE FLINGERWOODCUT ON HEAVYWEIGHT CANVAS BANNER34 X 87 INCHES

MARTIN MAZORRASWORD SWALLOWERWOODCUT ON HEAVYWEIGHT CANVAS BANNER34 X 87 INCHES

MARTIN MAZORRADEMON WRESTLINGWOODCUT ON HEAVYWEIGHT CANVAS BANNER34 X 87 INCHES

key, a 14-foot yeti, or a 60-foot parade snake comprised of

over 1000 woodcut scales.

Cannonball’s sense of humor and irreverence are clearly

visible, but the whimsy of their style belies the poignancy

of their message. Houston, a native North Carolinian, and

Mazorra, originally from West Virginia, first met at the Chau-

tauqua School of Art, then reconnected six years later dis-

covering they had a similar creative trajectory. They both

wished to pursue earnest and satirical pictures about

broad social themes including global economics, the divi-

sions of wealth and labor, wanton waste, and the gluttony

of capitalism. Houston and Mazorra often champion the

marginalized, suffering under tragic circumstances either

instigated through their own follies or by those with greater

power and wealth. They create depictions of ordinary indi-

viduals exhibiting a heroic perseverance of self-preserva-

tion. The prints’ black and white format parallel the stark-

ness of the situations, the boldness of the characters, and

the brashness of their behavior.

With simultaneous love for and disgust with our country,

Cannonball embraces contradiction while recognizing its

own place in the rich continuum of printmaking history.

There has been a long lineage of printers disseminating

graphic work with a political bent. For centuries the wood-

cut has been a direct line of communication to the plebeian

herd. Durer, Posada, and Rembrandt have all used it as an

allegorical tool to bring important issues to the forefront of

communal consciousness. Cannonball has continued this

tradition in the present.

Today, the Midway Plaisance has achieved its initial pur-

pose as parkland and even the intended educational func-

tion of the Exposition’s organizers. In a true return to refine-

ment, it was again placed before Frederick Law Olmsted

once the fair had finished, and over the ensuing decades

became part of the University of Chicago as the school

gradually grew to surround it.

Similarly, the images of Cannonball Press come full cir-

cle. They act as signposts pointing back to the White City

but also encouraging us to celebrate the crazy as we get

there. They are mirrors reinforcing our self-image, while

gently nudging us back from the precipice of complete self-

absorption. They remind us that a cannonball is not just

a solid metal missile but also a favored diving maneuver

at pool parties, and that the World’s Columbian Exposition

not only gave us the City Beautiful movement but Pabst

Blue Ribbon beer.

James Iannaccone graduated from Northwestern University with a

BA in Art History in 1999 followed by an internship with the Terra Mu-

seum of American Art and a position as a gallery assistant at the Judy A

Saslow Gallery. He served as Assistant to the Director of Anchor Graph-

ics at Columbia College Chicago from 2002–2011.

MIKE HOUSTONWIN GIANT CRAPWOODCUT ON HEAVYWEIGHT CANVAS BANNER34 X 87 INCHES

Since 1999, under the name Cannonball Press, Mike Hous-

ton and Martin Mazorra have been publishing high-quality

limited-edition twenty-dollar black and white relief cuts. They

have published work by over fifty artists from across the U.S.

Long-time champions of the affordable art cause, they show-

case the work at cannonballpress.com, as well as at numer-

ous university, gallery, and museum shows nationally and

internationally every year.

In addition to publishing the work of other artists, Mike and

Martin work independently on their own imagery, which gen-

erally takes the form of letterpress prints on paper or 4x8

foot woodcut prints on canvas. Also, together they have em-

barked on a mission to redefine printmaking for themselves,

through their own brand of collaborative “woodcutology.”

Their work has taken them to Estonia, Japan, South Africa,

Maui, Denmark and Germany, as well as numerous shows

across the continental United States. In 2009, they were

named United States Artists Ford Fellows.

Cannonball also conceived of, funds, and runs the hugely

popular affordable art fair called Prints Gone Wild in New

York every year, which brings together over a dozen of the

top affordable printmakers in the U.S. for a weekend during

New York Fine Art Print Week.

cannonballpress.com

about cannonball press

This exhibition is sponsored by the Art + Design Department at Columbia College Chicago and is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

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