Page 57 - Studio International - June 1968

Italian commentary

Prints, multiples and 'object-books'
In Milan, the two principal graphics workshops other hand, is calculatedly ambiguous in its use of `newsposter' ; others as 'poster-traps', 'signal
are Giorgio Upiglio's GRAPHICA UNO and the work- techniques now employed in printing and silk- posters', 'project-posters', 'event-posters'—in one
shop of RENATO VOLPINI, who formerly studied at screening: silk-screened in gesso on black opaque the purchaser removes a black surface to reveal a
Italy's best graphics school, the Scuola del Libro at sheets of paper, the prints are reminiscent of black- woman making love. If a poster, as a page, puts
Urbino. Upiglio remains faithful to the established boards, and their symbols have the maximum itself forward as a form of communication, and
tradition of the prints—their quality as drawing. possible graphic value. The area of play is that instant communication in comparison with a
(In his time, William Blake expressed a consensus between the direct sign, a kind of illegible hand- book's highly mediated form of communication,
of opinion when he said: 'Painting is drawing on writing, and the technique of reproduction that then the 'object-book' is the bad conscience of the
canvas, and engraving is drawing on copper, and fixes the colour not according to the drawing or its book as an object. The still unsurpassed examples
nothing else, and he who pretends to be either emotional tone, but on a purely technical basis. are the MAT MOT editions.
painter or engraver without drawing is an Posters, though sharing many of the character- In these 'object-books' a functionally communica-
impostor'.) Nevertheless Upiglio likes to make use istics of prints, can constitute a cultural approach tive use is given to those constituent elements
of modern printing procedures, basing himself, for related to—yet antithetical to—the book, opposing normally considered part and parcel of a book's
example, on the interplay of negative and positive, the linearity and disjunctive perceptual quality of production and a reader's understanding of it.
white and black, full and empty, in analogies of books and standing midway between the literari- Thus in a book by Alviani (EDIZIONI DEL NAVIGLIO)
the photographic procedures which, together with ness of books, the visuality of painting, and the Milan) the succession of pages becomes a non-
lithography, have given the medium its element of mass circulation of newspapers. Of course, I'm not explicative filmic sequence that does, however,
autonomy. talking here of psychedelic posters and suchlike, make visual an idea. In these projects, the block-
It seems to me that only today, with mechanical whose decorative aims are more consonant with shaped binding can be transformed into a con-
reproductive processes freeing him from the need silk-screening: I'm thinking instead of posters such tainer: inside is a series of plastic reliefs by Del
to imitate, is it possible for the craftsman to work as those put out by ED912, a Milanese publishing Pezzo, or an enormous windscreen by Lichten-
once more in a spirit of freedom and play, and to company. ED912 is trying to invent new forms and stein (EDITORS MAZZOTTA, Milan) ; again, the
manipulate techniques outside the context of genres of cultural communication. Of the fifty or so folded pages turn into a physical object when the
material aims. Essentially, Upiglio is a collaborator posters so far published by them, practically all are book is opened, a kind of alchemic theatre, as in
who furnishes the artist with materials for a the result of first mixing genres, then reconstituting the case of Simonetti's projects. From being over-
bricolage of elements unified by the printing press. them and redefining them. A work by George sized, gigantic, the book suddenly contracts and
The graphic works he has published—Scahavino, Brecht, for example, can be described as a 'poster- functions within a limited space.
Vedova, Rossello, Peverelli—testify to a process happening', where the poster articulates an action; The alternatives are projects in an immaterial
based on cautious choice of papers and water- one by Gianni Simonetti as a 'poster-auto- medium—microfilm—or an ephemeral one—
markings, relief and collage, visualization of the biography'; Richard Hamilton's poster chronicling posters—or a new kind of communication that
symbol at the level of gesture, substituting graphic the arrest of Mick Jagger and Robert Fraser as a reaches out towards three-dimensional com-
for mechanical patterns (as is the case with Burri).
This approach puts the individual to the test and
may commit him to a creative intervention
Renato Volpini Untitled 1967, serigraph on paper and cellophane, edition of 123, Publisher: Ed 912
characteristic of the peculiarities of his working
methods. Silk-screening, in Italy the province, in
the main, of Volpini, is a more uncompromisingly
mechanical process, an end product which does
not necessarily imply the hand of the artist and (at
least in the way Volpini uses it) relates dialectically
to other printing techniques, both textural and
otherwise. By virtue of their coloured borders,
wide colour range, brilliance, transparency, and
even the material thickness of their colours, they
seem more involved with colouring and with
printing techniques. They can be printed on any
materials. Volpini uses glass, plexiglass, cello-
phane—all of them materials whose qualities are
related to the formal economy and technical rigour
of the machine.
Recently, GALLERIA MILANO, exhibited a big
range of Editions Alecto screen prints. One of the
most absorbing editions shown was the Paolozzi
series, the high cost of which is justified by the cost-
liness and inherent 'redundance' of the un-
economic use of silk-screen processes involving a
highly-variegated chromatic fabric and an enor-
mous number of printings (silk-screening requires a
separate printing for each colour). This subjective
use of the machine—ironically enough used for a
series produced according to a mathematical
programme—reminds one of William Morris'
misunderstanding of manufacture in the sense that
both of them concentrate on what the machine
can't do but the craftsman can. The piece that
Sergio Tosi has realized for Cy Twombly, on the