Printmaking: Editions as Artworks

Author(s): Timothy Van Laar

Source: The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 14, No. 4, Special Issue: The Government,
Art, and Aesthetic Education (Oct., 1980), pp. 97-102
Published by: University of Illinois Press
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 Printmaking: Editions as Artworks

TIMOTHY VAN LAAR

For the past twenty years printmaking has grown and expanded at a
furious rate. The clearest example of this increased activity is the
dramatic change in popularity of the lithograph. Around 1960, through
the Tamarind project and the opening of Universal Limited Art Edi-
tions, lithography was successfully resuscitated into an energetic and,
currently, very lively art form.1 Because of the enormous possibilities
of experimentation with and application of new technology, print-
making has attracted many artists, even those trained in other media.
Yet, despite this burst of activity, contemporary artists have not
articulated a philosophy of printmaking. Not only have artists failed
to place this medium into current social and aesthetic context, but con-
temporary critics have also neglected to investigate thoroughly the
ontology of printmaking. Seldom does any broad critical discussion of
the nature of printmaking take place, certainly not at the level and
with the frequency of discussions on painting or sculpture. But if we
are to understand how this medium functions within the concerns and
goals of contemporary art, we must question descriptions and defini-
tions of printmaking and search for the hidden potentials of this par-
ticular set of materials. Painting, sculpture, and printmaking are not
isolated categories but only ways of thinking about and using different
materials. How, then, should one think about printmaking? What
qualities are inherent in the medium? Or more specifically, what are
editions of prints? And what is the relationship between prints and
editions?
More often than not, artists (even those engaged in printmaking),
TIMOTHY VAN LAAR is an instructor in art at Calvin College, Grand Rapids,
Michigan. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout
the Midwest.

0021-8510/80/1000-0097$00.60/0
? 1980 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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98 TIMOTHY VAN LAAR

dealers, collectors, and the viewing public think of printmaking as

merely a method of multiplying a single image. This interpretation of
printmaking can take a fairly sophisticated form. For instance, print-
making has often been promoted as one of the most democratic of
media on the grounds that one image (in the form of many qualita-
tively identical objects) is available to many people. Carl Zigrosser
writes that "the miracle of the process is that there are not one but
many originals - the incarnation of the democratic ideal."2 When this
approach to printmaking is pushed further, prints are promoted as a
way of collecting great but inexpensive art. This attitude gives print-
making an economic rationale. Prints are made to satisfy the laws of
supply and demand; if less is (costs) more, more is (costs) less. In a
statement which reveals a gross misunderstanding of printmaking, Riva
Castleman says that "prints are, indeed, a commodity exactly because
they are not unique."8 Or, to quote Zigrosser again, printmaking is
"the one medium dedicated in principle to the production of many
originals at a moderate price."' Notice that the above quotations, and
the ideas that they represent, emphasize the singleness of the individual
print. Each print in an edition is separate and original, even if mass-
produced. Printmaking is thus presented as a paradox (or miracle) -
many identical, unique originals. This unnecessary, though widely ac-
cepted, conundrum is simply due to the fact that the print is not under-
stood in relationship to the edition.
Granted, these economic and social descriptions of printmaking
contain a grain of truth, but the main problem is that economic and
social reasons are not, and should not be, the most important reasons
to make prints. Printmakers are no more democratic, altruistic, or
greedy than any other artists. And clearly the pursuit of quantity is
not an aesthetic activity. Such economic and social issues should not
even be understood as direct results of printmaking but as mere by-
products of both printmaking activity and the nature of editions. And
this emphasis on democratic ideals and cost factors has led to one con-
clusion: that the printmaker's primary concern is the making of many
individual, identical images. But then, if printmaking is not merely for
the reproduction or fruitful multiplication of images, what is it for?
The easiest and most common answer is that prints are made to
exploit the unique qualities of the materials and processes and that
these materials and processes yield unique results. Copper, ink, lime-
stone, acid, paper, silk, wood, and photographic film are only the
beginning of a long list of materials which the printmaker manipulates.

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 PRINTMAKING 99

And these result in textures, values, and lines which can be created
in no other way. The unique qualities of an engraved line or a litho-
graphic tusche wash are impossible to imitate with other materials.
Odilon Redon's lithographs prompted Degas to exclaim, "His blacks!
oh! his blacks... ."5
Furthermore, the printmaking processes emphasize an indirect ap-
proach to the making of art. The development of an artwork through
long and indirect procedures demands a distinctive manner of think-
ing. Actions do not have immediate effects; surfaces are built in layers;
evaluation and reconsideration are done in a leisurely fashion. Print-
makers become very sensitive to and appreciative of all the mysteries
of their materials. The print is created through the interaction of
surfaces, plate against paper. And the print comes into existence in a
secret action, hidden from their eyes.
The attraction of and fascination with these unique qualities of
printmaking, however, have been a mixed blessing. The techniques are
so seductive that they become ends in themselves. This attitude pro-
motes technique for technique's sake and reaches its final state in a
printshop mentality where technique is all. Furthermore, this materials-
and-process orientation fails to provide a reason for making more than
one print from each plate. Why make editions?
I think that printmakers should accept the following basic assump-
tion: that printmaking is much more than a means of reproducing
images or of producing many original, identical images. The mere re-
production or multiplication of images has little to do with art; the
important fact that prints come in editions, however, has much to do
with art. In what follows, I would like to consider what an edition
really is.
One could argue that editions are made because the potential for
them is present in the printmaking process. But this argument does
not provide a better motive than that of climbing a mountain "because
it is there." Is there, then, any reason to print an edition other than
the fact that it can be done and that in so doing the printmaker can
make money, save collectors money, and reach wide audiences? I be-
lieve that there is.
An edition must be understood as a spatially discontinuous object,
and the parts of such an object are never completely unrelated, inde-
pendent objects. A spatially discontinuous object is an object consisting
of parts separated by space. Thus an edition should not be thought of as
a collection or set of individual objects or individual by-products of

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100 TIMOTHY VAN LAAR

activity; the edition itself is an artwork of which the individual print

is an integral part. An edition of prints is an unusual sort of artwork,
existing in space in a way which is different from most other kinds of
art and having its own spatial properties.
At least two kinds of spatially discontinuous objects can be differen-
tiated. The first kind is a scattered object in which the parts are not all
alike. Objects of this nature abound in contemporary art, especially in
sculpture. Prime examples of works which consist of varying, spatially
separated parts are Henry Moore's Three-Piece Reclining Figure
(1961-1962), Eva Hesse's Repetition Nineteen III (1968), and Nancy
Grave's Variability of Similar Forms, 36 Parts (1970). Another kind
of spatially discontinuous object, however, is that in which the parts
are qualitatively identical. This sort of object is the result of interest
in serialization and modular structure. Some works of Donald Judd,
Carl Andre, and Robert Smithson are particularly good examples; the
untitled, repeated cubes and rectangular solids of Judd are among
the most obvious. An edition of prints is a spatially discontinuous ob-
ject of this second variety. It is a scattered object in which each spa-
tially discrete part is a token of the same type. (It is important to note,
however, that although these sculptures are as spatially discontinuous
as are prints, the sculptures differ from prints in several significant
ways. For example, the sculptures are visually continuous, but a dis-
persed edition of prints is not.)
One way in which prints operate in an unusual manner, then, is that
since the type is exemplified in each of the tokens, a print's type can be
viewed completely and simultaneously in many places. Thus the same
image can be viewed at the same time in several locations, yet it is only
one image.
This idea comes close to Zigrosser's view of printmaking as demo-
cratic embodiment. But there is a subtle and very important difference
in emphasis. He views only the individual print as an art object (or
commodity); a democracy is a unity of equal individuals. But if the
individual print is most important, I see no strong reason to make
more than one in the first place. I consider the edition itself to be an
artwork. The individual print is part of a spatial structure, the edition,
and this spatial structure is most important. All spatially discontinuous
objects physically (but not always visually) define and structure
space.
In his discussion of unity, Bernard of Clairvaux mentions, among
others, two forms of unity which clearly fit these different conceptions

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 PRINTMAKING 101

of the edition. Most people view an edition of prints as merely a col-

lective unity where, in Bernard's words, "many stones make one pile."e
A more correct understanding of prints depends on what Bernard calls
constitutive unity "where many members make up one body or many
parts make some kind of whole."' A primary function of printmaking
is to create flexible, constantly changing spatial structures, unified
structures which exist through the necessary repetition of a visual idea.
Each print in an edition is part of the overall structure which is an
edition.

An edition of prints, then, goes far beyond traditional ideas of two-

and three-dimensional art. At this point we can admire Zigrosser's
sensitivity to the social implications and overtones of printmaking. We
can discuss the print in social terms because the space in which the
edition exists is very much a social space. It is a space structured by
the edition through the constant interaction of people. These properties
and possibilities of printmaking are very different from those of paint-
ing or sculpture, and these properties and possibilities allow the print-
maker to establish a larger structure, a community.
But this understanding of an edition of prints yields a number of
significant consequences and questions. For instance, how should prints
be exhibited? If the edition is an artwork, how can one be aware of the
whole object? How can the whole object be perceived? It is usually
impossible to see and contemplate an edition completely at one time.
But many other artworks have this same characteristic, especially archi-
tecture and large sculpture. In fact, any artwork which covers a large
area of space also demands a correspondingly large amount of both
time and movement to perceive it. Consider, for example, the differ-
ences involved in viewing a small portrait by Jan van Eyck and view-
ing Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes. Furthermore, I see no
reason why visual artworks must be visually continuous. Some print-
makers, however, have tried to emphasize and clarify the spatial char-
acteristics of an edition by showing more than one print from the same
edition within the same general space; although I believe this is unnec-
essary and perhaps artificial, it does bring about a certain closure. For
example, in 1976 D. K. Semivan exhibited lithographs and etchings
in a Detroit gallery; many of the prints were repeated several times
within the exhibition space. The rhythmic repetition of his video-
derived images emphatically demonstrated the space-structuring char-
acter of prints.s
Still another question deals with the size and alteration of editions.

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102 TIMOTHY VAN LAAR

Clearly, if the edition is an artwork, then the size of an edition is im-

portant for more than economic reasons. The printmaker should not
thoughtlessly or arbitrarily limit the edition any more than a painter
would thoughtlessly limit the size of a canvas. But this understanding
of the edition as an artwork has another consequence; if one print is
destroyed, the whole artwork has been changed. If the environment
of the edition--i.e., the space defined by the edition - is changed,
the artwork has changed. But this is also true of any visual artwork -
a change in environment changes an artwork's appearance.
In summary, then, it is a mistake to place all emphasis on the indi-
vidual print as an artwork. The edition itself is a single, unique, and
original work. Its quality or aesthetic excellence is dependent on its
parts, each of which can be an artwork, and on the spatial relation-
ships formed by these parts. An edition of prints probably involves sev-
eral artworks of different ontological status. Yet an edition of prints
is a whole object, an object with shape, location, and meaning.
Prints must be understood as having a very special relationship to
their environment, a relationship much different from that of most
painting or sculpture. And thus social and economic issues can and
should be discussed in relationship to prints, but only as a result of
understanding the special nature of the edition as an artwork. Editions
structure and define space. People interact with that structure, that
definition.

Notes

1. Gene Baro, 30 Years of American Printmaking (New York: Brooklyn

Museum, 1976), pp. 10-11.
2. Carl Zigrosser, The Book of Fine Prints (New York: Crown, 1956),
p. 20.
3. Riva Castleman, Prints of the Twentieth Century: A History (New
York: Museum of Modern Art, 1976), p. 206.
4. Zigrosser, Book of Fine Prints, p. 1.
5. John Rewald, "Odilon Redon," in Odilon Redon, Gustav Moreau,
Rodolphe Bresdin (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1961), p. 33.
6. Bernard of Clairvaux, Five Books on Consideration, trans. John D.
Anderson and Elizabeth T. Kennan (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications,
1976), p. 163.
7. Ibid.
8. The Willis Gallery, Detroit, October 1976.

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