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Posted by PRINTERESTING on March 29th, 2010 |  Printmaking or Contemporary Art? A Curatorial Perspective was the provocatively-titled final panel of the 2010 SGC conference. This discussion about the curatorial philosophy behind Philagrafika 2010 was anticipated eagerly by attendees (like Printeresting) who believed that these exhibits were the most compelling component of this year’s conference. 
John Caperton opened the discussion with a history of the Print Center. At times his comic tone bordered on vaudevillian, and was greeted warmly by a receptive audience. (Especially when he joked “I don’t think the artist made it” to the opening of an exhibit of Dürer prints). Caperton described how the Print Center, as a medium-specific institution, has evolved toward a mission that challenges but also preserves the traditional conventions of printmaking.
Caperton was followed by MoMA Department of Prints and Illustrated Books’ Gretchen Wagner, who discussed the Museum’s 2008 acquisition of a major FLUXUS archive. Wagner’s talk was very interesting but somewhat divergent from the part of the dialogue most relevant to our readers, so we won’t describe it in detail.
 Jose Roca, pictured here camouflaged in black against a black backdrop.
The main event: José Roca gave as dynamic and engaging a presentation as one could hope to see at an academic conference. His opener raised a few eyebrows: “I would like to publicly acknowledge that I don’t like prints.” He then proceeded to list all the other media he “doesn’t like,” a list that included, essentially, all of them. Roca made a compelling case against medium specificity, noting that “mediums are means that are often mistaken for ends…This is especially true in printmaking.”
He bolstered his case with citations from Luis Camnitzer’s tour de force essay Printmaking: A Colony of the Arts, with the important disclaimer that Camnitzer wrote the essay not as a contemptuous outsider, but as a true believer offering a vital critique. Frankly, Camnitzer’s critique is borne out by the very nature of the SGC Conference itself.
After citing Felix Gonzales-Torres as a model for the contemporary print artist, Roca described the Philagrafika curatorial team’s criteria for deciding if work fit the exhibition theme of “the graphic unconscious.” The nature of “the graphic” boiled down to a matrix, a transfer medium, and a receiving surface. These are not especially groundbreaking criteria, but they are useful parameters for the broad definition of “print” favored by contemporary practitioners.
Perhaps in an effort to woo a surly audience of printmakers who regularly scrape grease from under their fingernails, Roca then cleverly flipped the script. He convincingly declared: “I would like to publicly acknowledge that I like prints.” At this point he made a compelling case for medium specificity, citing the examples of the Münster Sculpture Project and The Drawing Center in New York. He remarked that print is poised to become what photography was in the 1980s, or what drawing has become in the last decade. Roca concluded his remarks with a compelling argument that medium specificity forces curators to be more creative in their decision-making process.
When Philadelphia artist Richard Torchia questioned Roca about the future direction of Philagrafika, the curator noted persuasively that this initial event had “made the point” and that subsequent curators might be able to curate Philagrafika events in a more thematic way, freed of the imperative to shatter the boundaries.
The future of the Philagrafika Festival may parallel the future of SGC conferences. The identity of this year’s conference was largely informed by Philagrafika, and the unprecedented scope of this event is about the potential of print and the unknown future. The game has been changed, and future conferences should not revert to the usual way of doing things. Conference organizers may not have the resources to generate exhibitions of this breadth, but it’s worth our while as a community to maintain the spirit of inquiry demonstrated by Philagrafika 2010. If we do, we have much to look forward to.
Posted by A FRIEND OF PRINTERESTING on March 28th, 2010 | The following is a transcript of Leslie Mutchler’s contribution to the The Incomplete Printmaker panel organized by Jon Swindler for SGC Philadelphia. Also included are a selection of images from her powerpoint. Due to unforseen circumstances, Mutchler was unable to complete her portion of the panel and asked Printeresting to share it with our readers and friends at Southern Graphics.
A Masters Degree in PRINT + MAKING by Leslie Mutchler
My own work is a fine example of the breakdown of traditional print processes taught, acquired, and then shed, over years of practice and personal mediation. I myself, graduated with two printmaking degrees, was thoroughly taught and somewhat well practiced in the bulk of such processes.
Print was always first and foremost, about multiplicity for me. The multiple. The modular. As I began in my practice, dealing and thinking about the complicated and palimpsestic nature of memory- accumulation seemed key. Accumulative memories, collected bits and fragments of ephemeral, layers upon layers of information. And oddly enough, that information always presented itself to me in physical forms: stacks and piles of papers. It only seemed fitting that print- with its proverbial foot wedged in the door of the multiple and of process- would be my preferred way of working.
I knew even in undergraduate school, that print was more about process and accumulation than image for me. I collected my own thoughts and memories and simultaneously, I collected all the detritus from the process- the evidence of the print. Raw. Unscripted. Typically forgotten. As I too wanted to commemorate it’s memory. I mean, what are we, if nothing but the trail of ephemera we leave behind? Continue reading The Incomplete Printmaker Completed
Posted by amze on March 8th, 2010 | 
Who Doesn’t love bound printed stuff? The Print Center sponsored Open Book as a way to model ideas addressed in their Philagrafika 2010: The Graphic Unconscious exhibition. Needless to say most attendees walked away with a stack of books and Temporary Services (above) did their best to make sure no one walked away empty handed.
The Print Center describes the event:
This event will bring together the artist collectives Space 1026 and Temporary Services, who will be joined by the artists’ bookstore Printed Matter. Each will give presentations on their publications and how they relate to their artistic practice. It will be a wonderful opportunity to collect books, meet the artists and have them personally inscribe their books.
Continue reading Philagrafika 2010: Open Book
Posted by RL Tillman on February 20th, 2010 | Somehow it became Fashion Week here at Printeresting, so I’ll share this advice from Quality in Print: Wear Neutrals in the Print Shop!
 RIGHT
 WRONG
Gordon Pritchard writes: “The color of what is worn gets reflected into the press sheet color…Unfortunately, the red or blue outfits in the above examples will distort the hues of the color in the presswork and may lead to incorrect color adjustments.”
You may prefer a Day-Glo wardrobe to match your Day-Glo posters, but according to the experts you’re doing it wrong!
Posted by Jason Urban on February 18th, 2010 | (Thanks for the tip, Kathleen Hudspeth!)
Printeresting fashion news… Cynthia Rowley produces knock-offs of her own designs for Gagosian. The reproductions are quite literally photographic representations of the front and back of her runway designs which are then sewn together as a wearable garment. They are also available as unsewn bolts of fabric for a slightly lower price. This is a bizarre and fascinating exploration of authenticity. Limited edition multiples, photographic approximations of the original, being sold by a renown art world insider for a fraction of the cost of the actual garment with the consent of the fashion designer.
Is it art or fashion? Is it real or fake? Did Rowley and Gagosian cook up this idea while walking through the New Museum’s Urs Fischer show? Is it just a publicity stunt to get a post on Printeresting.org? Hmmm… all valid questions that will likely go unanswered.
 Cynthia Rowley for Gagosian, Silk and Feather Tufted Dress, 2010
Photographic representation of runway style printed on garment and sewn into a dress, One size, Edition of 100, $320.00
 Here is the completed garment a photo of the front and a photo of the back sewn together.
If you’re interested in this story, you can read more at Style.com. Here’s a quick excerpt…
“The product of a runway show is really a photograph,” Cynthia Rowley remarked last night at the launch of her new capsule collection for gallerist Larry Gagosian’s Gagosian Shop. “Yes, it’s great to experience the show in person, but what you’re left with is an image, with a front and a back. And within hours, those images are public. I thought, why should people wait six months to buy this? I’ll make it available now.” So she took a page from Duchamp and Warhol and appropriated herself. Using photographs of the fronts and backs of her highly textured Fall 2010 designs, presented only hours earlier, Rowley created her own reproductions—literally printed, cut out, sewn together again, and ready to purchase. Even bags were re-created as printed totes. “I am really eager to see what else we can re-create as a print,” says Rowley. “Jewelry? Underwear? Shoes, even? Why not in the future?”
Posted by amze on February 5th, 2010 | 
With the SGC Philadelphia 2010 Conference just around the corner, it seemed prudent that we mention the other print conference happening in Philadelphia a week prior: The Early African American Print Culture in Theory and Practice Conference, running from March 18th – 20th.
The late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries mark both the inauguration of an African American literary tradition and the consolidation of American print culture. Yet these two most vibrant areas for American Studies scholarship are rarely considered in relation to one another. To the extent that scholars understand African American print culture at all, we do so with a dependence on critical models that assume that print is a stabilizing technology that underwrites the establishment of African American identity. But while the technology of print fixes impressions, print culture designates a world in which print both integrates with other practices and assumes a life of its own. Early African American Print Culture in Theory and Practice brings together more than a dozen distinguished and emerging scholars whose research demonstrates that the study of print culture has much to teach us about early African American literature and that early African American literature has the capacity to transform our understanding of print culture.
Sounds like an interesting conference with a scholars shedding light onto an often overlooked history of print in American culture.
These images are from the Library Company publicity for the conference.
Posted by RL Tillman on January 19th, 2010 |  A while back The Oatmeal published an online comic strip about desktop printers called “Why I Believe Printers Were Sent From Hell To Make Us Miserable.”
At the time I didn’t mention it because, with all due respect to The Oatmeal, I think the home printer is a pretty easy target. After all, who among us has not felt the temporary madness of Printer Rage?
Anne Stewart at the Hotcards blog has responded to the comic with a provocative question: Is Desktop Printing a Hopeless Technology? SPOILER ALERT: Hotcards is a commercial printer, so the opinions expressed are not favorable to the home printer.
For a long time, there’s been a building sense of animosity towards the desktop printer. And while the rest of the infuriating things about technology seem to be improving, slowly but surely, it’s as if home printing technology hasn’t moved a step. It’s gotten more complex, yes, but it hasn’t gotten any more usable, or functional…
As the years tick by, and most technologies evolve, consumers are becoming more and more frustrated with the options available to them. And whether or not the desktop printing industry wants to hear it, it’s true: printing technology may be too complex for the desktop.
Stewart’s article is not entirely about the quality of printers but also the necessity of printing at home; she includes a link to Terry White’s Tech Blog post entitled Is home printing becoming obsolete? This seems unlikely. There’s tremendous potential in mobile digital devices, and also in outsourced printing, but sometimes you just want to print out that recipe.
I’m the last person to defend the desktop printer. My crappy HP scanner/inkjet is a frequent source of frustration. But when it works, it actually makes decent images. And printers may not be much more reliable or efficient than they were fifteen years ago, but they are more accessible. My local pharmacy sells three different kinds of printers, and they are dirt cheap. Talk about the Age of Mechanical Reproduction!
Posted by RL Tillman on January 13th, 2010 | Recently The Free Art and Technology Lab released GML, “a new XML file type specifically designed for archiving graffiti tags…a new digital standard for tomorrow’s vandals.”
GML-archived tags are a sort of data-matrix with a wide array of possibilities for execution. Robotagger was quickly developed to allow an industrial robot-arm to do the writing:
In 2008, we documented the Robot Bible-Scribe. The RoboTagger produces cruder results, but (at least theoretically) it also offers more flexible input options. This is smarter than a massive auto-pen.
From my perspective, this is a species of printing. But it’s difficult to contextualize the role of the various components. Above, I described the archived tags as a data-matrix, but that’s not quite right, is it? I welcome thoughts from our readers on the theoretical role of robot printers.
Posted by RL Tillman on January 10th, 2010 | The prophetic media-theorist Egon Spengler:
Posted by RL Tillman on December 2nd, 2009 | 
From Orson Squire Fowler’s pseudo-scientific Phrenological Almanac:
“Nature’s Printing Press is Man. Her types are Signs, her books are Actions.”
Now that’s a head-scratcher!
(image via)
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