Quick Thoughts on Mechanical Reproduction

So one of the things that I learned at SubZERO Festival over the weekend was that I really had a hard time trying to initially explain that the pieces in the One Thousand Thousand project were all original works of art. I kind of always assumed that 'original' meant the same thing as 'done by the hand of the artist' and not some sort of copy. Easy enough. But that's not the case right now for sure. With the increasing popularity of mechanical reproduction and even production it becomes challenging to define your work.

I was frequently asked if the pieces were prints or originals. And I'd say that they were each original and that would still not be clarification enough. "So these are prints of the paintings you made, then?" Nope. No prints. Each of these are done by me with my own fingers touching that same exact piece of board that you see there. You can see the thick contour of the paint in places. Fingerprints. Smudges. [On and on.]

And that brings to the whole giclee phenomenon again. [Sorry.] But instead of ranting on like I sometimes tend to do on the subject and ending up feeling like I've made no sense at all in explaining how I feel on the subject, I'll offer someone else's point of view instead.

I found this really nice bit by chance at after reading through an article titled Lies, Damn Lies, and Giclée Prints by David over at art-without-artifice.com.

I'm not sure what authenticity means, but a giclee is in some way different from a traditional print, let's say an engraving or a lithograph. An engraving or a lithograph was usually designed to be an engraving or a lithograph, even if based on a painting. Every stage in its creation demands the personal skill, work, and involvement of a human being. If an artist sells a signed and numbered lithograph which he has pulled himself, the signature and number represent something aside from an artificial attempt to boost the price. Among other things, it represents a personal relationship among the artist, the buyer, and the viewer. This relationship is important in determining the viewer's response to the artwork. The viewer feels differently toward the work, and toward the depiction, as he sees himself the successor or the opponent of the artist, or of the original patron or purchaser. (His new relationship with the long-dead model is often just as important, but it's not relevant here.)

Even a print of a photograph was intended from the instant of exposure to be the print of a photograph; the printing process is something the artist has done for the purchaser and subsequent viewers, and the signature and number, if present, symbolize the artist's consciousness of and intent towards his audience.

A giclee starts out as a photograph of another artwork; that photograph is designed to be as mechanical a copy as possible. Some more machines, a computer and a printer, then turn it into a giclee. The machines can be run by the artist or not; what difference does it make? The artist can then sign and number it, but this has nothing to do with art; it's purely a question of marketing. In what way is a digital photographic print of your own painting, which print you now own only because you have paid for it, and because the law in some places says you own the rights to it, different from a stock photograph of the Venus of Cnidos which one can download from the Internet? Would the stock photograph be more (or less) of an artwork if we could get Praxiteles to sign and number it? Does he have any connection with the print made in 2003, or would the sculptor just be cheapening himself by signing a commercial product which someone else made, or someone else might just as well have made, from his work? I wouldn't blame him if he did it for the money, but I wouldn't be surprised if he eventually blamed himself.

Despite appearances, by the way, I am still not 'against' giclees. A mechanical process does not necessarily prevent an artwork from being an artwork, or a good, pleasant, and satisfying one. My little art nouveau lady is still a pretty girl. But before we buy or sell a giclee as an 'original', we ought to think about what the word means.

I agree with so much of what he says in this.

[End transmission.]