These works were not produced from outside fascination with graffiti culture, but from within the language itself.
The Writer in Print – Vol. 1 presents a focused selection of screen prints produced through Burlesque of North America between 2012–2016, drawn from within the studio archive and created in collaboration with Stephen Powers (ESPO), MAST, SEVER, VIZIE, and George Thompson (EWOK). Together, these works reflect a moment when graffiti writing, printmaking, typography, and contemporary image culture increasingly began collapsing into one another through the language of the edition.
Founded in Minneapolis and emerging directly from the graffiti publication Life Sucks Die, Burlesque occupies a unique position within contemporary printmaking. These collaborations were not produced from outside fascination with graffiti culture, but from inside the language itself. Over two decades, the studio has worked with some of the most significant writers and image-makers of their generation, producing editions that now occupy an important place within the evolving history of post-graffiti image-making and contemporary print culture.
This presentation grows out of sustained collaboration with the studio through exhibitions, print production, and direct engagement with the archive itself. Rather than functioning simply as reproductions, these prints document the movement of language from the street into the print studio, where repetition, circulation, layering, and typography become formal structures capable of carrying memory, identity, humor, resistance, and abstraction simultaneously.
All works included in The Writer in Print – Vol. 1 were produced in Minneapolis through Burlesque of North America.
