What does printmaking need to take its “rightful place” among the visual arts? Or is that “rightful place” allegation just balderdash?
I think drawings and watercolours on paper and, even more so, printed multiples, have long been the poor relations at an art feast dominated by canvas paintings and assorted varieties of sculpture. In purely commercial terms, this may have a lot to do with the relatively perishable nature of paper rather than any particular aesthetic concerns. These days, however, now that recent generations of artists have achieved prominence with pieces in unlikely media – such as unmade beds or pickled sharks, to take two famous British examples – the boundaries of what is or isn’t ‘proper’ art are fast receding. I think the use of print and printing technology has already achieved mainstream acceptability in the contemporary art world, which currently seems flooded with digital/photographic/lightbox printed imagery. The subversive or commercial use of historic techniques by leading figures in the contemporary art world – such as the Chapman brothers defacing of Goya’s etchings – may inadvertently a
