The theme of Revolution unites the group of artists currently exhibiting at Sideshow Gallery. From our present day political climate are the satirical prints of Richard Mock. From the Mexican Revolution is a collection of prints from renowned Mexican engraver and illustrator Jose Guadalupe Posada, and prints from members of the Taller de Grafica Popular (Workshop of the People’s Graphics), a movement founded in 1937.

Richard Mock describes himself as an editoral printmaker. He is best known for hundreds of linoleum cuts which he made to accompany articles in the Op Ed pages of the New York Times from 1978 to 1996 and now worldwide through the Cartoonists and Writers Syndicate. Mock said of his series: "When the Supreme Court gave the election to Bush…I knew this was going to be a political illustrator's paradise, so much so [that] I find it hard to keep up with the catastrophic climate." For Richard Mock, the prints selected for this exhibition are limited to those produced after 9/11. They chronicle the single event that was destined to become emblematic of terrorism and the attempts of a conflicted nation and its leaders to come to grips with it.

A political satirist and inspiration to the Taller group, circa 1910, Jose Guadalupe Posada was best known for his images of skeletons performing the rituals and pleasures of everyday life. His images functioned as records and satirical commentary on events of his time and could therefore be easily understood by all.

The Taller de Grafica Popular was founded by Leopoldo Mendez in Mexico in 1937. The Taller, comprised of 16 artists including the renowned Raul Angiano, Angel Brach and Alfred Zalce, published work in newspapers and produced posters and broadsides that had the same widespread exposure as murals in public buildings. Their printing techniques were primarily etchings and lithographs which contained imagery that functioned as satirical commentary concerning politics and the common people. Prints and actual newspapers from the time are displayed in the gallery.

Etchings, lithographs, and linocuts share the possibility of creating bold images in black and white in which the stark duality lends itself to urgent and expressive images. Such is the deadly urgency underlying the caricature and satire in the prints contained in this exhibition. As the German Expressionist Max Beckmann put it, "all these things come to me in black and white like virtue and crime."

When Gallery owner Richard Timperio was asked why he had chosen this exhibition, he explained: "It's about the political climate today and how the government is forcing its opinion on ordinary people. It’s about making art at the point of a bayonet, and it's about two matching points in history."