06 May 2013

International Centre of Graphic Arts - Catalogue of Password: Printmaking

Accompanying the exhibition Password: Printmaking – open from April 17 to May 26 2013 at the International Centre of Graphic Arts – and as a part of the EU project Password: Printmaking, Travelling Exhibition and Art Residencies (2012–2014) has been published the catalogue:

Password: Printmaking
Travelling Exhibition and Art Residencies (2012–2014)
English, 144 pages, published by MGLC, price 8 eur

Printmaking is as a medium tied to time-consuming process, which requires familiarity with various kinds of mechanical and chemical knowledge and skills. However, it still co-exists with other forms of contemporary artistic expression. But how much power to influence the way we see and think about things – which is the essence – does actually hold? This question is the reason that brought together six Europe-based institutions that have traditionally dealt with research, promotion, collection and/or production of modern and contemporary fine art print making and art publications to the EU-founded project Password: Printmaking, Travelling Exhibition and Art Residencies.The project is coordinated by the International Centre of Graphic Arts (Ljubljana, Slovenia), while its other partners are: Hablar en arte (Madrid, Spain), the Frans Masereel Centrum (Kasterlee, Belgium), the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Rijeka, Croatia), the Foundation Tallinn Print Triennial (Tallinn, Estonia), and the International Print Triennial Society (Krakow, Poland).

As an important part of the project, the curators from the collaborating institutions have co-designed a catalogue that discloses their thoughts on and the relationship towards actual questions about the contemporary graphic art.
What exactly is contemporary printmaking, asks Sofie Dederen the Belgium curator in her article A New Composition. It is a printing technique, or a printmaking practice that creates different possibilities, explores the world of digital printing, experiments with cross-overtechniques, clarifies the causal relationship with digital printmedia, questions itself, and starts from a concept and not from a technique? But contemporary printmaking can also be serene: something that is individual and that exists for itself and by itself.
The current situation is explained by Diana Glavočić, the Croatian curator like this: Today's pace of lifeforces us to obtainresults as quickly as possible; thus, artists tend increasingly to multiply prints bymeans of digital technology, which makes it much easier to obtain print results or at least their simulation. How do weembrace the new while still remaining with in the framework of the old, the framework of the tradition and craft of printmaking?
The concept of the curator from Estonia Jaanus Samma is Literacy – Illiteracy. This is a 'project in progress', an art project, a set of game-like situations that symbolically starts from the 'artist–text' platform that was modelled a long time ago. A text may be written, but in the broader context, it is a recycling relationship, in which pictorial material and various visuals can also be 'recycled' through interpretation.
Password: Printmaking – R U kidding me? No, I'm deadly serious! - That is the title of the article written by Marta Anna Raczek-Karcz, curator of the Polish selection. When we speak about the work's interactive potential, we should be aware that a new generation is now in town. This generation is familiar with all those ready-to-use tools, like Paint, Photoshop, and film editing software, and is well aware of the immersive world of video games; especially as they wait for the debut of Microsoft's IllumiRoom, this generation more and more expects to see something completely different.
Božidar Zrinski, curator of Slovene artists on the exhibition, has noticed that in the process of developing the exhibition, the desire for dialogue and for unifying our curatorial positions brought to light the particular concerns of the individual curators, the selected artists, and their local environments. Thus, from a single exhibition has unavoidably emerged a number of smaller artistic standpoints, each complete in itself, which despite the variety of the messages have only intensified a notion of plurality of autonomous perspectives and positions.
Life Must Be Changedis the title of the last article in the catalogue, written by the Spanish curator Javier Martín-Jiménez. Selection of works is taken deliberately from artists who do not customarily address political issues. The four chosen projects are able to enter into dialogue with each other, and relate to the work of other international artists, because their interests and concerns are global. These four proposals offer different views of the issues involved in our current situation.
The project manager and the editor of the catalouge Breda Škrjanec (International Centre of Graphic Arts) has written for the introduction of the catalouge how at the last decades of the twentieth century art production experienced a radical change, and as a result, printmaking, especially in its traditional form, lost its former role and significance in the contemporary art world. At first glance it appears that one part of printmaking today is focused more on decoration and the marketing mechanisms of commercial galleries and art fairs; another part seems to be inspired only by technological innovations; while a third part develops its messages alongside contemporary art events and the expressive possibilities of the new media, which have totally altered the real ontological nature of the print.

Both, theoretical and practical aspects on the issues of the contemporary printmaking will be confronted on the international conference, which will take place during the 30th Biennial of Graphic Arts.

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Participating artists:
Belgium: bolwerK, Paul Hendrikse, Damien De Lepeleire, Lieven Segers
Croatia: Kristina Restović, Emanuela Santini, Celestina Vicević, Iva Gobić Vitolović
Estonia: Joonmeedia, Triin Tamm, Anna-Stina Treumund, Anu Vahtra & Nam Kim
Poland: Marta Kubiak, Paweł Kwiatkowski, Marcin Pazera, Rafał Śliwczyński
Slovenia: Boštjan Čadež, Jon Derganc, Tanja Vujinović, Klemen Zupanc
Spain: Pedro Luiz Cembranos, Angela Cuadra, Angel Masip, Javier Pividal



This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
With the support of: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, City of Ljubljana
Media sponsor: Radio Študent

Additional info:
Project manager: mag. Breda Škrjanec, t. 01 2413 805, breda.skrjanec@mglc-lj.si
www.facebook.com/PasswordPrintmaking#!/PasswordPrintmaking