Announcing Print Workshop Central
Print Workshop Central is a one-year-old World Printmakers initiative designed to offer a series of services and resources to fine-art printmaking workshops around the world. Read the rest of this entry »
“Who will say that Hockney’s (digital) prints are not “original” prints?” Not us, certainly.
Print Workshop Central received an interesting comment from Julia Matcham the other day and I think it’s important enough to bring out to the first page and address it. Here’s Julia’s comment:
“I just thought I would draw people’s attention to the fact that David Hockney has just had an exhibition in London of inkjet prints entirely drawn into the computer using a graphics pad (as I do these days). As he says in the introduction to his catalogue (Annely Juda Gallery) ‘the computer is just a tool’. It is as good as you are.”
Autumn Leaves” by David Hockney
Who will say that Hockney’s prints are not ‘original prints’? I think the hand-print brigade are on a sticky wicket here! Not that I don’t appreciate that there are differences; just that definitions other than ‘ this print does not exist in any other form’ are out-of-date.”
Julia, I think at this late date most of the “hand-print brigade” are prepared to concede that original images created in a computer by artists themselves can be considered fine-art prints. This is a posture we adopted nearly 10 years ago at World Printmakers, where you will find lots of “digital prints” made by serious, honest printmakers who use computers and the inkjet printers “just as tools” in the printmaking process.
What most of us in the fine-print world do object to are people who take images from other media (oil paintings, water colors, etc.) photograph them, print them on inkjet printers and sell them as “giclee prints,” “fine art prints” or “art prints” or even “prints” when, in fact, they are not prints in the fine-art sense of the term. They are mere reproductions and should be labelled–and priced!–as such.
So, it’s not new tools for printmaking which bother us. It’s fraud.
There’s an excellent illustrated article on Hockney’s recent exhibit on the Art Observed website.
Art Reproducers Bite Back
British printmaker, Julia Matcham, sent us this link the other day and it gave me a shiver. Though it’s old news–it dates from 1984–it could very well be a portent of things to come. The article in question, written by London arts lawyer and activist, Henry Lydiate, tells the story of what happened in Windsor, Ontario, when an art-reproductions tempest in a municipal-museum teapot got out of hand.
Here’s the link to the story: http://www.artquest.org.uk/artlaw/contracts/caveat-emptor.htm.
A Surprise Visitor from London’s Art Workers Guild
The phone rang the other morning and it was Monica Grose-Hodge from the Art Workers Guild in London. She wasn’t in London, though; she was here in Granada doing three days of interviews with local artists and craftspeople. She found me through my Granada Studio Visits display at her hotel, and wanted to know if she could come out for a visit and an interview. Yes, of course. Read the rest of this entry »
“Life’s Too Short for Nuance” – New Etcher’s Book with Nice Bite
When was the last time we had the satisfaction of discovering an authentic new voice? This is one of them. And it comes accompanied by a withering eye and a brilliant hand. Life’s Too Short for Nuance, Louis Netter’s new book of satirical drawings, surprises and delights us with a combination of bluntly honest comment and ruggedly refined acid-etched illustrations. I use the term “acid etched” advisedly, as Netter’s images are not only figuratively corrosive, they’re actually acid etchings.
After decades of seeing innocent Americans being cynically manipulated, dumbed down, and distracted by politicians, preachers, the military-industrial complex and the mass media on behalf of the same old vested interests, it’s refreshing to come across a young man with a clean, uncomplicated vision, the talent to express it and, most importantly, the courage to publish it. Read the rest of this entry »
A Question About Curwen Studio
We received an emailed invitation this morning from the Curwen Studio to visit their stand at the Cambridgeshire Art Fair in June, and I was prompted to visit their website. After spending a quarter of an hour browsing around the site I couldn’t figure out what these people make. Their terminology is so garbled (intentionally so, it seems) that it’s difficult to discern exactly what they’re up to. Do they make hand-pulled fine-art prints? Do they make reproductions? Do they make both? Could anybody clear this up for me?
Studio Survey I – Results
Here at Last
Here, at last, are the results of Print Workshop Central’s Studio Survey I. In all, 23 studios replied to the questionnaire, a mediocre turnout at best. Print studios are busy, it seems. After asking respondents to identify themselves, we invited them to tell us about the services their studios provided. No surprises here. The most generalized services are workshops/classes. And most studios offer a variety of other print-related services. The “other” comment at the end is “press repair.” Nice service. Here’s the breakdown.
MoMA’s Delightful What-Is-a-Print Animation
I had forgotten about this wonderful little animation of printmaking techniques published by the MoMA a few years ago, but Ferenc Keresi reminded me of it this morning when I followed a link from his email announcing next spring’s ex libris exhibition in Debrecen (Hungary). Here are Ferenc’s ex libris site and his blog: www.exlibris.lap.hu and www.keresi.blog.hu. Some of you may want to participate in this Hungarian exhibit.
P.S. And if you’re in NY, don’t miss the smashing Ensor show, on at the MoMA until September 21, 2009.
We’re Not the Only Ones Concerned with Definitions
An Invitation from the International Print Biennial of Seoul, Korea
This invitation to participate in a print-definition survey arrived this morning by email. I find it relevant to our own discussion, and interesting that it should come from Korea. So I’m posting it here, both the introductory email and the questionnaire, should anyone like to fill it out and send it back to them. Read the rest of this entry »
Art Prints: The Michigan Art Multiples Sales Act
You might like to have a look at expert Skip Natzmer’s comments on this Michigan law dealing with art prints. It includes this paragraph:
This clause forces the seller of ‘‘limited edition’’ ‘‘giclee’’ prints, now the most common form of reproduction, to disclose that they are not original prints. ‘‘Giclee’’ is simply a French word for ‘‘ink spray,’’ or another term for the ink jet printer. The fraud and misrepresentation in marketing these reproductions is surpassing the earlier abuses described above. To make a giclee print one merely scans the existing artwork, or a photo of it, into a computer and then prints it. Next, it is signed and numbered on the margin. Giclees are also being printed on canvas to resemble paintings. The creative input of the artist is limited to perhaps altering some colors, then pushing the print button. Discussing these prints one author states: ‘‘But these are not ‘prints’ in the way anyone in the professional art community would define them. These are reproductions—nothing more than fancy photocopies.’’ ‘‘The signed-reproduction market is a ruse,’’ says Toronto art dealer Donald Robinson, ‘‘and the problem is convincing the uninformed art buyer that these are not original prints.’’17 At prices often exceeding $1,000 per print, it is an expensive ruse.
Cut the Gallery Out of the Picture
This is a Mutual Help Article, Not an Advertisement
Have you ever exhibited in a gallery? Have you ever wished there were other ways to market your artwork? If the answer is, “Well, frankly, yes…” please read on.
We think a lot of visual artists would like to discover alternate ways to market their work without going the gallery route. But just what are the alternatives? We have some ideas, but we’re admittedly not experts on the subject. So we’ve created a new site called–you guessed it–Cut the Gallery Out of the Picture, located at http://cutthegalleryoutofthepicture.com.
