Print Matters
We live in a world where billions of digital images are taken and shared daily.
The world of print and printed images, by comparison, has received less attention. This despite the invention of print almost unarguably helping to kick-start the modern world in its spread of:
- knowledge
- images
- the ability to contest ideas
Artists have created prints across the last half-millennium and across continents, from etchings to 3D print. How can we make sense of what print can be and do, in a relentlessly digital world?
There were two outcomes to ‘Print Matters’. One was an exhibition of 12 artists’ work in Newcastle University’s Ex Libris Gallery, curated by MA Art Museum and Gallery Studies students. The other was an accompanying 24-page booklet. The booklet explores how artists have made new forms of print, and what contribution print has made to our understanding of what art can be.
Each of the 12 students worked directly with a living artist, or else undertook research into a key work by a major artist in the field:
- William Hogarth
- Eduardo Paolozzi
- Peter Doig
Each created a new piece of writing about their work and their artist – offering a new interpretation of established artists, or a new introduction to an emerging one. The group of 12 worked in teams of three to create four micro-displays. Each devised a thematic idea:
- how we picture the character of our environment
- how art and new technologies relate
- how female artists have portrayed themselves and others
- what impact climate change is having on art production
The team explored the diversity of what can be encompassed under the term ‘print’. From digital C-types to engravings. From 3D prints to new work created for a magazine with a print run of 10,000 copies, distributed for free, and downloadable from home.
Student team: Adam Dixon, Daiyu Zheng, Hongxiang Shi, Kenny Chung, Katie Carr, Megan Tanner, Nanjie Zhao, Sujin Son, Yuting Wang, ZiHan Yu, Ziting Yang, Zoe Milburn
Module leader: Alistair Robinson
