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06/22/01 - When I called Reggie Cameron in the Brooklyn Museum of Art's public information office from my hotel the day after the opening of their "Digital: Printmaking Now" exhibition, he said that there had been a lot of traffic to see the show that day. "The word is out," he said matter-of-factly. He went on the tell me that there were about 1,500 at the opening I attended the night before, which was about normal for them.
About normal.
Not strange. Not odd. Nor peculiar, weird, bizarre, unacceptable, ill-favored, inadmissible, objectionable, undesirable, unwanted, or unwelcome. Just normal. Those simple words marked another watershed for digital fine art. The Brooklyn Museum of Art (BMA) is the second-largest art museum in the United States and one of the great cultural treasures of New York City. Its collection of more than 1.5 million objects representing almost every culture is presented in galleries on five floors of the 562,000-square-foot building. Digital printmaking is in good company there.
This is the BMA's 26th installment of the Print National series, a periodic survey of new developments in printmaking that has long been hailed as a benchmark for the field. The fact that the focus of this Print National show (the last one was in 1989) is on the computer's contribution to printmaking has a lot of significance for us.
Organized by Dr. Marilyn Kushner, the BMA's curator of prints and drawings, the exhibition is the most important yet to examine the use of digital technology in the art of printmaking. As Kushner says so well in the close of her catalog essay for the show, "We cannot know all the ramifications of the digital revolution while living in the midst of it. In the arts, we are still grappling with new ways of mark-making, new ways of seeing, and with developing a vocabulary for the unprecedented. Even as we preserve the accomplishments of the past, convinced that time-honored artistic methods will continue to be vital, it is clear that we are witnessing the infancy of an exciting new era in printmaking. For now, we have more questions than answers. It may take decades to sort it all out. But in the meantime, we can begin the process." Amen.
SOME PERSONAL HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE OPENING....
* I was struck by the range and breadth of the show. One way curator Kushner accomplished this was by limiting the pieces to one per artist. Each new print viewed is a surprise and different from the one before. With 84 different American artists included, the work extends from traditionally printed pieces that have been only slightly manipulated digitally to those created entirely on the computer. Another strategy was to mix art heavy-hitters including Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Dine, John Baldessari, James Turrell, Kiki Smith, Nam June Paik, and others with the less-well-known including our very own C.J. Pressma (see photo). (Kushner reportedly criss-crossed America searching out compelling work.)
* The first part of the exhibition is an introduction to the history of print technology and how to look at a print. Featuring classic work from the museum's permanent collection, including prints by Warhol, Goya, Degas and Dürer, it's a good overview and educational tool.
* Another nice touch is the laminated Glossary cards available in each exhibition room. While I can quibble with some of the terms and definitions, the glossary helps decipher the prints. Here are some of the relevant terms used, taken from a copy of one of the cards:
DIGITAL C-PRINT: a computer-generated or manipulated image (rather than one created by the camera) printed traditionally as a chromagenic print.
GICLÉE: Another term for a fine art inkjet print.
INKJET PRINT: A work made on a printer that ejects ink through a small nozzle onto paper (or any other pliable material).
IRIS PRINT: a work made on an Iris inkjet printer.
LASER PRINT: a work made on a printer that uses toner, rather than ink, to produce images through a combination of heat and pressure.
LIGHT-JET PRINT: a work in which photographic paper is exposed using lasers.
* How did I miss the limited edition cookies? The catalog describes them as "inkjet prints on cookies, 4x4x1/2 in."
* The printmaker of the moment seems to be David Adamson (Washington, D.C.). I counted no fewer than four pieces printed by him (two of which he also published) in the show. Ever wonder what a top printmaker charges? How does $400 a sheet sound?
* The opening also featured a demonstration by list members Bonny Lhotka, Karin Schminke, and Dorothy Krause of Digital Atelier (see photo). The curious crowded around the three as they explained how original digital prints are created in combination with traditional printmaking processes. After watching Schminke talking to a couple of very young artists, I pulled her aside. She told me how kids have no trouble understanding what digital is all about. "It's completely natural to them," she said. "And they are the ones who will be expecting that digital processes be included in art school curricula. They will demand it." And that's when we will finally be beyond any controversy. Our current struggles for acceptance will just be a memory.
SHOW INFO:
"Digital: Printmaking Now"
June 22 through September 2, 2001
Brooklyn Museum of Art
Brooklyn, New York USA
(718) 638-5000
www.brooklynart.org
Your faithful reporter,
Harald Johnson
Harald Johnson is the author of the book Mastering Digital Printing. He can be reached at harald@dpandi.com.
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Chuck Close's "Self-Portrait" ('99); inkjet print split on two pieces of aluminun |
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C.J. Pressma and "Ritual Site" ('99); inkjet print |
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Digital Atelier (from left): Dorothy Krause, Bonny Lhotka, Karin Schminke |
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Deena des Rioux and "Odalisk Disk 3" ('99); inkjet print |
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Ever see 1,500 people at a digital art opening? |
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Jim Dine's "Nuptials" ('99); inkjet print on canvas |
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Carroll Dunham's "Female Portraits" ('00); set of 13 lithographs |
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