Jolt Country

Yo,

Wish me luck on a conference trip to the semi-pseudo-great but-not-really city of Lincoln, NE for a 4 day conference of artists in the fine arts field of printmaking. The last one I went to was at Rutgers in NJ/NYC 6 months ago with about 1,500 people. I had a guy there ask me just out of grand central station for 5 dollars for some disposable underwear. I look forward to such things as amazing art, vastly overinflated hotel prices, and various (and also amazing) amounts of BS.

Brandon

Printmaking in what way? What kind of prints? Does this have any graphic design crossover?

Vitriola wrote:Printmaking in what way? What kind of prints? Does this have any graphic design crossover?

Printmaking was the technical means of graphic design until the mid 20th century (much like the computer is today). Lithography was used to print and illustrate newspapers, just as the letterpress was a hundred or so years earlier. Contemporary printmaking in the fine arts spans a wide variety of media. Here's a few:

Lithography -- drawing on limestone, aluminum, or plastic plates. Based on the repelling characteristics of grease and water.
Intaglio -- creating an image on a copper, steel, zinc or plastic plate. Includes engraving, etching and mezzotint.
Relief -- removing areas of wood or plastic from a block and printing those that remain. Woodcut, wood engraving, letterpress.
Silkscreen -- creating an image on silk (or similiar substance) through the use of stencils and various blockout methods. Many t-shirts are printed this way. Popularized by FDR's WPA in the 30's.

Unlike other fine arts, printmaking allows the production of multiples. Prints are usually editioned and the printing elements thereafter destroyed. The very fact that many prints could be pulled of an image relegated printmaking to a secondary role in the fine arts until the late 19th century (people didn't consider it fine art, but more a publishing method). That began to change with the invention of photography, which removed many of the practical aspects of printmaking. A few famous printmakers in history:

Rembrandt -- etching.
Durer -- engraving, etching, wood engraving.
Daumier -- lithography.
Whistler -- etching.
Munch -- woodcut, etching.
Piranisi -- etching.

The work of contemporary printmakers can be seen at
http://www.frogmans.net/Represented%20Artists.htm

I hope this provides a somewhat clear explanation of what printmaking is.

Christ, almighty, all these replies. I'm inundated with inquiries about printmaking. Make it stop.

Maybe there will be a printmaking revival in popular culture soon. I DO know that my 17 year old bought hisself a print of some sailing ship. It's a reproduction from some 15th century picture. He wants to frame it and pet it and call it george. Actually, it's pretty cool, number 47 out of 250. I never thought he would have such taste in stuff like that. Listens to godawful music, tho. The print will add a touch of class to his otherwise tornado-victim bedroom.

THE
CLEAN YOUR ROOM
GET A JOB
DO YOUR HOMEWORK
FRAME YOUR LITHOGRAPH
AARDVARK

It's a strike, and a strike of a strike (a strike is a destroying of the plate when it was printed) of a digital repo, and obviously not an actual part of the edition from the 17th century.. lol.. (err.. the latter is pretty rare, unless your lad is a bit cash-sufficient).. then, well.. it's a photographic reproduction, or a digital one.. printmaking has been corrupted in the past 30 years by people producing editions through photographic or later digital methods and signing them as "original" prints.. reproduction work that comes off of commercial presses has low quality inks in terms of mixing and density and .. it would be very difficult to match the original.. ergo, er.. well, have you ever seen for example, a van gogh in person, and compared the color to a textbook? noticeable difference; granted the textbook is usually faded.

I've noticed of the late 20th century, that commericial processes will be used to produce basically aesthetically worthless lithographs (but commericially viable) (ie, to sell in furniture stores or whatnot) but they won't usually be signed by the artist in editions above 50. If they are, they're only valuable if the artist 1. signs them and 2. imprints them with his studio chop and 3. the the printing studio imbosses their own chop. Furthermore, any purchased print should include paperwork on the back detailing the author, date, amount in the edition, and especially the media. blah blah blah etc..

I spend alot of time explaining to people how commerically printed lithographs (thin ink/bad paper britney spears stuff.. ie, bullshit in the mall-rack.. but even more than that) is different from fine art work. Some assholes will have their paintings "editioned", which is bullshit. (IE thomas kinkaide, terry redlin) They're only reproduced commerically). An edition is made only from an original plate and hand printed (that's the key). For example, if you asked Rembrandt to edition one of his paintings, he'd want to Marselles Wallace you.

However, back in the day, (19th century) hand-printed color lithographs were cheap. Now they're still relatively cheap on on ebay because there were so many printed as commericial operations (cigar boxes, TaLouse Latrec Theatre Posters, WPA Posters, etc), but true lithography in terms of commercial printing died in the late 30's. Photographic techniques replaced it. So after 1940 or so.. any litho you buy can be distinguised by a contemporary "dot matrix pattern" or whatever you want to call it... when you look at the print up close, it will have either a digitally separated or photographically filtered system of color or line. If you look at a true color print (such as Daumier or even a B/W as Goya) the distiguishing feature will be the complete irregularity of line and placement. Also the removal and replacement of various elements which can be seen in the ghosts of the image, which can be seen in the actual hand-produced editions, but not in the photographically made or digitally reproduced copies.

Nothing against that technology, I abhorrently still use 35 mm slides and digital photos to enter art shows... but even a very high quality digital photo of a renaissance painting doesn't do justice to the original.

My point is basically that printmaking has been taken advantage of by corporations and subsequently mall craftsmen who "print" editions of shite in the hundreds by commericially printing them and printing the signitures as well in a graphite gray (professional term.. senefelder's grey) .. but it's not really hand printed..

hand printed traditionally means one individual did all the work, maintained the craftsmanship.. and thereafter signed the print.. you can ID it nowadways in printmaking by a double printers chop and a pencil signature.

off I go.

That whole viewpoint was a rant from my professional and thus very narrow viewpoint, and a bit distant from the layman's perspective, maybe. Anyway, please don't, as ICJ says, prison bitch me.