Postgraduate Printmaking in London 2010

About

This is the 15 year of Clifford Chance's Postgraduate Printmaking survey exhibition and each year brings fresh discoveries, innovation and insight. Since our first show in 1996, the means of printmaking have changed beyond recognition: the growth and consolidation of digital technologies; the adoption of new media; film; installation, 3-d printing. All add to the armoury of traditional printmaking techniques, etching, lithography, screenprint, that are available in today's art schools. Against this background of expansion, it is worth recalling the conceptual foundations of the medium. The ontology of the graphic act, as Jose Roca, Artistic Director of Philagrafika 2010, has noted, is to leave an imprint on a support, one that can be reproduced at will. The print, he argues, implies generosity through multiplication, accessibility and collaboration, and presupposes a desire to disseminate knowledge in order to reach a wider audience. All these attributes that come naturally to print seem to be a major preoccupation today across the board of artistic practice, and not just in the field of what can be conventionally termed ‘printmaking'. Printmaking, he concludes, is the new Drawing!