In essence, a reproduction is a photo-copy (photographed or scanned) of an existing work. For the purpose of brevity, I’ll limit my comments to the most popular form of reproduction sold today …
“Giclee,” is a term fabricated in the early 90’s to describe a
reproduction, printed from a specific large format ink-jet printer
called an “Iris”. The term was concocted because, after all, who in
his/her right mind would pay big buck$ for a lowly ink-jet print? But a
“Giclee” … oooh, aaah … now THAT sounds like $omething $ub$tantial, does
it not?
Today, “Giclee” has come to refer to any art reproduction printed off an ink-jet printer. As a matter of fact for the purposes of proof-reading, just prior to posting this entry I printed off a Giclee of it. :)
A while back, an artist friend graciously invited me to his studio to see exactly how the process works. After scanning the original, he played with the image on his computer, deftly altering the colours, the intensity and cut and re-pasted a number of different elements into different areas of the composition. When it looked just right to him, he pressed the “print” button…
The entire process, from the start of the scan to having printed out the final product, took a grande total of about 10 minutes – most of that time, due to the fact that his printer was a bit on the slow side.
So, back to the original topic of the reproduction and, specifically, the "Giclee". For those inquiring minds who want to know, here is the bottom line according to every legitimate fine art gallery and museum in the world:
However the image was reproduced, whatever the printing substrate (paper, canvas etc), however nice-looking the final product, and even the ever-so-popular signing and limiting the of the edition DOES NOT ALTER OR ELEVATE THE ESSENCE OF THE REPRODUCTION. Because when all is said and done …
- It is not an original print.
- It is not a piece of art
- It is a (scanned or) photo-copy of a piece of art.
“Caveat emptor,” indeed!
NEXT TIME:
I’ll examine the oft-asked question of which computer program/s I use when creating my work (and that ought to be interesting ;)…
The secrets will soon be revealed!
In the interim, below is a detail of an intricate border in one the pieces, about which I’m often asked the computer program used (to give you an idea of scale, from the centre of the bird's eye to the centre of the leopard's eye is 7 cm or 2.75").
This detail image is from, “Bashert”, by the way, which can be seen in the “Klezmer Kollection” gallery, 7 pieces from the top at http://iankochberg.com/ .
Today, “Giclee” has come to refer to any art reproduction printed off an ink-jet printer. As a matter of fact for the purposes of proof-reading, just prior to posting this entry I printed off a Giclee of it. :)
A while back, an artist friend graciously invited me to his studio to see exactly how the process works. After scanning the original, he played with the image on his computer, deftly altering the colours, the intensity and cut and re-pasted a number of different elements into different areas of the composition. When it looked just right to him, he pressed the “print” button…
The entire process, from the start of the scan to having printed out the final product, took a grande total of about 10 minutes – most of that time, due to the fact that his printer was a bit on the slow side.
So, back to the original topic of the reproduction and, specifically, the "Giclee". For those inquiring minds who want to know, here is the bottom line according to every legitimate fine art gallery and museum in the world:
However the image was reproduced, whatever the printing substrate (paper, canvas etc), however nice-looking the final product, and even the ever-so-popular signing and limiting the of the edition DOES NOT ALTER OR ELEVATE THE ESSENCE OF THE REPRODUCTION. Because when all is said and done …
- It is not an original print.
- It is not a piece of art
- It is a (scanned or) photo-copy of a piece of art.
“Caveat emptor,” indeed!
NEXT TIME:
I’ll examine the oft-asked question of which computer program/s I use when creating my work (and that ought to be interesting ;)…
The secrets will soon be revealed!
In the interim, below is a detail of an intricate border in one the pieces, about which I’m often asked the computer program used (to give you an idea of scale, from the centre of the bird's eye to the centre of the leopard's eye is 7 cm or 2.75").
This detail image is from, “Bashert”, by the way, which can be seen in the “Klezmer Kollection” gallery, 7 pieces from the top at http://iankochberg.com/ .
*originally posted on Ian Kochberg's Facebook group page - December 27, 2015
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