Edition jacob samuel

An expensive hotel always writes out its name in horizontal elegance, while a cheap hotel uses garish neon, economically fixed to the side of the building.

After decades of such visual-verbal puns and semiotic play, the prints Ruscha produced for the Edition, Blank Signs of , take the play with signs one step further. In this series of prints, the signs are road signs in the desert, a place where one would need directions; but the signs are blank.

The traveler is lost without any clues. Ed Ruscha, like another artist featured in the show, John Baldessari, is local to Los Angeles and can make prints in the city. But what makes the work of Jacob Samuel different from that of Gemini and Tamarind is that artists do not have to come to his print studio; he can travel internationally, carrying his portable studio with him. Through his portable workshop, Samuel provides the printing materials and the artist provides the inspiration and then the portable studio is packed up and the printer goes home.

A world famous artist is a busy person, Samuel states, and he respects the limited time of someone like Dan Graham, also in the show. The printmaker and the artist consult on the final result at long distance. The collaboration between the artist and the printer is that of the leader and the follower, the one who initiates and the one who carries out the instructions. Samuel insists upon being humble to not just the artist but also to the materials themselves.

The delicate relationship between the artist and printer are on view with the prints of the German artist, Rebecca Horn. For those of us in Los Angeles, our introduction to the artist was at her influential retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in The display furniture was designed to recall an elemental table, lightly washed with white paint except for the exposed plywood edges. The abundance of legs established a rhythmic density below the visual periphery of the prints on the walls.

A neutral off-white display wedge was asymmetrically placed on the table surface and topped by an acrylic box. The effect recalled the unpacking of prints from a portfolio box set on a table. On the edge of each table, an acrylic didactic label with one draped edge reiterated the indexing color tab motif and eliminated the need for any distracting wall labels. I went to art school in the Bay Area, which has a really rich tradition in that medium.

Because I was a photographer, I never thought of myself as an artist who painted or drew. When I graduated college in , I felt very uncertain about my future as a photographer because there really wasnt any such thing as fine art photography then. And I knew I wasnt going to go the commercial route. The professors at the school were combining photography and conceptual art at this time, and at the same time it wasnt so important what you photographed.

More important were the formal parameters you brought to the print. So that was my orientation. In I was offered an apprenticeship at a commercial etching shop in Santa Monica, and I took it in a heartbeat. It was a very good training ground for me because it was straight commercial work. I was doing large editions of two to three hundred prints. I learned about such issues as hairline registration, working in different colors, and quality control from beginning to end.

And at the time I became very interested in the history of printmaking in Los Angeles. I looked at the entire Tamarind Lithography Workshop archive there. Then I went to Gemini G. But what really got me was going to Cirrus Editions.

I liked what the artists were doing there, particularly Charles Christopher Hill and Joe Goode, because it was coming out of process art. Cynthia Burlingham: And when did you decide that you wanted to be a master printer? JS: In I was working with other artists, but I wasnt a master printer.

Sam was looking to have some etchings printed and asked if I would come over to the Litho Shop and meet with him. He had some old plates that had never been proofed, and he asked me to take them to the workshop where I printed in Venice and show him how they could be printed. So I printed them, and he looked at them and said, Well, they are kinda funky, but I see what youre getting at. And then he started inviting me over and telling me to bring plates.

Every time I would bring plates over, we would never work. He wanted to talk, to go out to lunch, go out for a drive. We never worked. This went on for about three years. In the meantime I was doing odd jobs for him, and I became part of the little scene at the Litho Shop.

Arturo Herrera's seven print series, Schloss, will be released in December. A new Christopher Wool photoengraving will be published in january Matthew Monahan's 10 print portfolio will be available in September. Juan Usle's 10 print portfolio will be available in October.

Currently working with Arturo Herrera on a 7 print series. Editioning Matt Monahan's 10 print series. Finished proofing Juan Usle's 10 print project. Fall release for both portfolios. Beginning Christopher Wool plate work.

Working on test plates for new Christopher Wool and Juan Usle' projects. Back from N. Josiah McElheny signed White Modernism, his 13 print portfoli0 which will be released in mid-December.

Currently proofing with Matthew Monahan. Met with Kim Dingle at Fatty's. Rita McBride is in the studio this week working on a six print series. David Musgrave came by last week to discuss working together.

He took a mezzotint plate and etching tools back to London with him. James Welling signed his edition. His portfolio, Quadrilaterals, will be released at the end of April. Matthew Monahan has begun working on plates.

Completed proofing nine halftone relief prints by Jim Welling.