Jonathan Higgins and Manneken Press.
Critic Paul Krainak has written a short and insightful piece on Jonathan Higgins and Manneken Press. The article is an installment of Inland Art, a monthly column Krainak contributes to The Community Word, a Peoria newspaper.
Jonathan Higgins is an artist, master printer and the co-founder of Manneken Press. A native of California, Higgins has lived in the American Midwest since 2002. View Jonathan Higgins’ prints and drawings here.
About Paul Krainak
Paul Krainak is an artist, critic and the founder of the Inland Visual Studies Center at Bradley University. Krainak founded the center in 2008 with a mission to draw attention to the significance of Illinois and the Midwest as a critical hub of American art that has been under-identified in the broader art culture. In his Inland Art columns, Krainak discusses American visual narratives that originated from Illinois and the Midwest as they are re-presented today. He is most interested in the production of art that asserts rural as well as urban themes and practices. Krainak’s writing has been published by Indiana University Press, Afterimage, New Art Examiner, Dialogue, Sculpture Magazine and Art Papers where he is the St. Louis Editor.
“The idea of rural America, or for that matter suburbia, being a place of cultural progress has been too long disregarded, not just in contemporary art, but in the dichotomous reporting of popular media, with their misleading tropes such as “rural vs. urban,” and “red state/blue state.” Nonetheless, advanced inland art production is active, and it perceptively influences a broader discussion on our nation’s cultural identity.”
