Art and impression:
two closely-related worlds
Art and printing are two closely related concepts. Apart from its commercial and practical use, printing can also be perceived as a means of artistic expression and production. And conversely, more than one artist has been inspired by the world of graphic arts.
As you may already know, Graphispag, which is one of the most important international technology and innovation event of the year in the field of visual communication, will soon take place in Barcelona. Nearly 200 exhibitors, specialised in printing on all kinds of materials will be present at this event to introduce you to their art. The art of printing will be explored in its practical and commercial aspect as well as its entertaining aspect.
When we talk about art and printing, we are also talking about colours, pigments, shades,… The oldest printing technique, called “the stencil technique”, used pigments to create simple motifs. One would put pigments on something (one’s hand, tree leaves, or any other object) and then transfer it to a wall. These works can be found in caves or prehistoric sites.
Art allows a more subtle, non-verbal form of self-expression, leaving room for everyone’s imagination and interpretation.
To express their creativity, many artists use printing to put their work on a visual medium.
Over the last few decades, art has evolved considerably, and like many fields, has also emerged in the digital field. Digital art includes not only audiovisual arts, but also digital photography, digital printmaking, digital scrapbooking, computer graphics and the latest of all: 3D printing.
But in the field of digital arts, we also have to consider another art that we use in our companies and find in our daily lives: Marketing.
Indeed, even though it has a profit-making purpose, the design used in the creation of marketing products also aims to convey a message by affecting the sensitivity of the spectator and to intrigue the customer by the use of certain colours or a certain aesthetic.
Art and printing: Venice Biennale 2013
During the 2013 Biennale Arte Exhibition, two artists were particularly striking for us and distinguished themselves by their choice of materials that we use in our daily lives: books, and coloured pigments.
Our first crush was Sonia Falcone, a Bolivian artist whose works express life, colors, and awaken all our senses. During the 2013 Arte Biennale, she recreated her work Campo de color, Fields of color in english, made with a multitude of spices from all over the world. She used cocoa, cayenne pepper, turmeric, cinnamon, thyme and curry, it captivated her audience both visually and olfactively.
For the artist, this artwork expresses the landscape of the new world, which results from the union between the old and the new world. This multiplicity of colours would represent a new mapping combining East and West in order to create a unified world.
She chose to display exactly 88 recipients at the event, a metaphorical number reminding us of eternity and sometimes interpreted as a symbol of abundance.
Other pieces have particularly fascinated us. Books, encyclopedias and textbooks have been diverted from their original form and transformed into art objects whose appearance is difficult to describe. This is the creation of the Brazilian artist Odires Mlászho entitled Altered Books. Passionate about reading and poetry, his focus is on the functional aspect of the book, but not only. Through his art, he wants to go further than the simple categorization of the object by proposing various perspectives of the same object, by destroying it, transforming it, etc., thus breaking the fixed idea “a book is a book” by making a sculpture, out of time and classical precepts. However, some of these works are not well appreciated, such as the Manual of International Law, which has been made unreadable and twisted in every way. The limits of art have always been very obscure and many artists are misunderstood!
But the big winner of the 2013 Biennial is an artist representing Angola: Edson Chagas.
His work is not only exceptional because it is composed of prints such as those found in printing companies, representing various products stacked on pallets, but also because of its place of exhibition. Indeed, it is located in a palace where it sits in the center of a room, with walls a few meters high, surrounded by much more classical paintings.
It depicts photos of everyday objects, old shoes, broken furniture,…. scattered throughout Angola’s capital, Luanda.
Its author, photographer and journalist, is passionate about the subject of consumer society. He wishes to highlight the incoherence and paradoxical aspect of large cities, where high-tech buildings are found in front of slums, parks and landfills,….
His work has allowed the Angolan pavilion of the Biennial to win the prestigious Golden Lion.
If you want to discover all the technological innovations of the printing world, do not hesitate to go to the Graphispag on March 16 – 29 at the Fira Gran Via!
Contact with PCG
If you need a personalised quotation or would like our team to provide you with assessment for your projects, please feel free to contact us. We are a team of professionals from the sector that will look after your project from beginning to end.