Saturday, March 10, 2007

Printmaking Today - International magazine of contemporary graphic art

hello my friends, I am currently in Montreal and I found an interesting Printmaking magazine, but even more interesting is the Editorial right on the first page.

"Genuine limited edition prints are conceived as prints and do not exist in any other form. A painting exists in its own genuine original form that may be reproduced - perhaps as a poster - and much of our understanding of art history is based on such reproductions. However, to market these as 'limited edition prints', signed and numbered within the fine art convention, is to prey on the naive buyer. The intention appears to be to persuade buyers that the reproduction is intrinsically valuable, when it may be virtually worthless.
Dismayed to read, recently, that an artist 'has now produced limited edition prints of his paintings', I protested to the newspaper's editor. He replied, albeit sympathetically, that he couldn't publish my email in case he was sued! Eventually , a modified version was published, which did not identify artist or gallery. I had a shocked response from a collector who had assumed that the signature and edition numbers were guarantees of authenticity. The question is whether the painter deliberately intended to deceive the public... " - Hilary Paynter ( "The great limited edition deception")

Ok I did an internship with a printmaker - monotype artist and she was very much into reproducing her work as giclée - digital reproduction. This was the first time I was introduced to this process, and I did not quite know how I felt about it.
The more I got involved in printmaking the angrier it makes me when painters or monotype artists giclee their work and then number and sign it as limited edition. It would be different if it was marked as reproduction or giclées. Unfortunately more and more artists "confuse" the interest buyers with limited editions that are really not limited editions at all.
I have to say I agree with Hilary Paynter very much and I think there should be a different system on how to sign... if at all sign those prints.

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