Dan S. Wang is a writer, artist, organizer, and printer who was born in the American Midwest in 1968 to immigrant parents. Dan’s constant concerns are the relationships between art + politics, critical reflection + social action, place + history. His research includes inquiries into the postindustrial cultural politics of the Midwest, letterpress printing as an archaeology of obsolescence, race and difference in the theater of crisis capitalism, and the cultural landscape of postsocialist China. As a print media artist he primarily uses letterpress printing and hand set typography but avails himself of other media as words and letterforms hit their limits. His drawings, prints, sculptures, and other projects have been featured in two solo exhibitions and more than twenty-five group exhibitions, but mostly exist in small circles of functional and activist settings.

Inside Proposition Press

His critical writings have been published internationally in magazines, exhibition catalogues, book collections, and embedded in larger projects. He has lectured in many places, including at The Contemporary Museum (Baltimore), Kansas City Art Institute, Salzburger Kunstverein (Salzburg, Austria), Art Institute of Chicago, Depot for Kunst and Diskussion (Vienna), Documenta 12 (Kassel, Germany), Wuhan University, and the Central Academy of Fine Arts (Beijing). Along with seven others he co-founded Mess Hall, an experimental cultural space in Chicago, and regularly collaborates with a range of art groups, activists, and researchers in creating exhibitions, publications, and events. He often works with the art/research groups Compass and Red76, and is on the steering committee of MAU. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and teaches as an adjunct member of the faculty at Columbia College Chicago. Dan is a graduate of Carleton College, the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and earned a special certificate in printmaking from the Xi’an Academy of Fine Art.

The Press occasionally hosts residents, offering instruction and full use of the shop in exchange for service work.