Paul Ramírez Jonas, to put it lightly, was a very excentric character. His studio seemed to be scattered and un-correlated, so a natural sense of curiosity peered as it would commonly do. This artist focuses more on the aspect of making multiple copies in printmaking. He relies on removing the title of bougoise that art usually had along with it and making it accessible to the public. He relies inmensely on social interactions with his artwork, thus making his art an engaging preformance with the public (Such as 'Key to the City (2010) Where Ramírez Jonas handed a different key, that opens various sectors in the city, to various members of his public and told them to give the key to someone else. There, each interactor could do as they please with their key and location.)
I am frankly all for this, I do believe what Ramírez Jonas' form of making his artwork interactive is truely engaging and fascinating, yet disagree with the craft of it. Many of his works come from him sending an object to be re-produced elsewhere, outside his studio. I believe that, if an artist does this, part of the credit in terms of the project's craft should be awarded to said company that, for example in this section, makes keys.
Aside from that small perturbance I find with some art installations. I do admire Ramírez Jonas' creativity and significance behind each of his installations/works. He puts a great deal of thought into creating his work and places an inmense amount of importance to the meaning and concept behind his work. I especially enjoyed when Ramírez Jonas spoke of how one can never estimate the audience's reaction to a piece and thus, he has encountered people interacting with some of his installations in a more peculiar way than he plannes.
I was also surprised he was in a very well known art fair they present in Puerto Rico. I wasn't even aware that festival was known to a greater extent than nationally. Hellz yeah!
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Second studio: Axelle Editions Printshop
We arrive to another printshop that held itself in a more visually appealind section of Brooklyn, which was to gret relief in a way. After a lunch break, we all meet for out appointment in Axelle Editions.
The studio was placed up a narrow stairway inside the building. Decorating said stairway were prints which, assumingly and later proved correct, were past prints this printshop had been entrusted with in the past. Soon, right after our tour with Oliver began, he mentioned very ...particular compsoites for ink. An artist that was printing there, Russell Young, mentioned how Axelle Editions has printed blood in the past. Ho-ly Shit. That pretty much hooked me to their shop.
As the tour went on, Luther mentioned even more particular prints created with even more interesting forms of ink. Anything from chocolate (Kellie Walker did this with them and, actually, last week we saw a print of his, done with chocolate, in the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Met.), glitter, honey, etc. has been printed in this studio. He also emphasized on the importance of the print's environment to conserve it; a print with a non-traditional form of ink could be prone to deterioration over time.
Also, just like Brand X, they reproduce paintings in prints. These paintings require an exhorbitant amount of layers and it is still so captivating these specialty printshops can capture so many strokes, colors and textures within a painting with different layers of colour.
The best advice our 'master-printer' (as he jokingly presented a title he has been attributed with) Luther gave us was that he got to that knowledgable level by making all forms of mistakes and learning from them. I thought these words were wonderfully put, especially as I struggle with my own prints. The mistakes I'm making don't make me feel incompitent next to my classmates because I find a way to fix them.
Cheers!
Bettina.
I want to push back on your qualms about craft in Paul's work. Would the piece be "better" if he made all of the copies of keys himself? How many people do you think would have gotten keys if that were the case?
ReplyDeleteIt also depends on how you choose to assign value to the work. Using the key piece as an example, I would say that its value exists in the interactions, experiences, and stories that come from going to the places, and the person who gave the key to you. The actual object of the key, by comparison, means almost nothing as long as it works, so who cares how it was made?
(FYI, the key company, Medeco, was acknowledged in the printed book for the project, but as a donor of keys, not an artist.)
As for Axelle, there are a few things I feel it's only right to tell you, as a way of correction, and I hope you don't take offense to any of them:
1. The master printer's name is Luther, not Oliver.
2. Kelley Walker is male.
3. Russell Young is a total joke.
3b. Don't try printing with blood, it comes out terrible, turns brown, smears easily, and is of course not remotely archival.
Other than that, yes, Axelle is a really great shop and they do some incredible work. I think you hit on Luther's most important remark - that being a "master" really just means that you've made more mistakes than others, and have learned from them.