Marginal Short Artist and educator Frances Myers, from the University of Wisconsin, organized the panel, Are

Printmakers the Quislings of The Art World? at the 1993 College Art Association Conference. She was concerned with the validity of a disciplinary educational system focused on the craft of printmaking to educate young artists. She was concerned that such an education might hamper young artists in achieving critical and career success in todays cross-disciplinary mainstream. Myers questioned why so many students educated in printmaking denied their background as printmakers. Had they in fact become Quislings? Much of the Quislings panel discussion focused on redefining the medium so as to take full advantage of printmakings crossdisciplinary nature. The discussion divorced printmaking from the aesthetics of paintings sinking ship, and sought to place the student in an advantageous position. Printmaking taught as a component of the expanded field of creative possibilities seemed to offer a solution to the doldrums of modernist-based teaching. The solution to printmakings marginal status lies in expanding the territory the discipline had traditionally covered. It was noted by several panelists that print was not marginal and that printmaking issues and processes were often at the center of the most interesting work currently being made in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. The solution presented was to claim this territory and move the educational system into a cross-disciplinary arena. These issues were again raised at the 24th annual Southern Graphics Council Conference sponsored by the University of West Virginia. Frances Myers re-visited and updated the Quislings panel in her presentation to the conference with co-panelist Beauvais Lyons. She pointed out that postmodern works which stem from print practices are seldom credited for their relationship to printmaking. She pointed out that the same problems which generated the original panel, though somewhat elevated, still exist and the questions remain unresolved today. Printmaking continues to be marginalized both in its relation to the mainstream and educationally.

Marginalization When we speak of the marginalization of printmaking we are speaking of the critical neglect of print by mainstream institutions including galleries, publications, and museums. The marginalization of printmaking has broader cultural connotations than disregard for one group of artists and one creative discipline. Marginalization is based on how artworks are transformed from disciplinary criterion to become accessible to a mass audience. Marginalization is marked by the evaluator criterion moving from issues of artistic content to quantitative factors that place the artwork and artist in the realm of popular culture. Marginalization is the movement from qualitative criterion to quantitative amplification. All disciplines whose qualitative standards are based on internal criterion are marginalized when they intersect with the mainstream. At its most extreme, mainstream critical criterion are replaced by the mechanisms of popular culture. The process is marked by the amplification of the image to the broadest possible audience. Criterion is exchanged for mass recognition. Celebrity is the final reward and its rules of judgment are based on amplification and viewer interest. The louder the projection the better and the broader the response. Dennis Rodman is one of the countrys most significant works of visual art. All disciplines that base their qualitative standards on sophisticated criterion, complex and traditional concepts will find themselves marginalized. Be it figurative painting, printmaking, fiber or ceramics. Artists will find, as critic David Hicky said about printmaking in a recent discussion at the Kansas City Art Institute, "they (the public and the art establishment) dont care, theyre just not interested." The system I describe is not corrupt, it is neither good nor bad. It is the system that has succeeded because it is deeply rooted in the evolution of American cultural and commerce. It is the system that has grown out of our culture and is not imposed on it. The team that loses the super bowl is marginalized and tagged a loser. The system is not void of quality determinations based on complex criterion, aesthetic, historical evolution, and content factors. The mainstream is not ignorant of the criterion of disciplinary evaluation. They understand the factors that are fundamental in evaluating artworks. They also understand these values make a work of art uncommunicative to the vast majority of viewers. Critical criterion creates a language requiring the

viewer to have a knowledge of arts critical dialogue. The quantification of the artwork through the mechanisms of popular culture moves an artwork from the rarefied realm to a popular one. Obscurity, mystery, and content are turned into sound bites of popular culture. To understand abstract expressionism one only has to know the bite "action painting." Commerce and communication is the job of the mainstream, and what does not win in that market place is marginalized. The Marginalization of Printmaking Printmaking is the object of contradiction for being both marginalized and universally accepted in the mainstream. To understand this phenomenon the discipline needs to be divided into three areas. Printmaking has entered the mainstream of contemporary art as both a creative method of production and as a source of mass produced imagery. Print is everything from newspapers to scientific engravings, circus posters to commercial broad sheets. Printmaking is all the printed images by which we communicate who, what, and where we are. The altering of these cultural signs by the artist is fundamental in both the modernist and postmodern creative investigation. Printmakings industrial and collaborative means of production has provided a model for replacing the individual artists hand, gesture, and the creation of the unique object. It opens a new world of collaborative creative investigation. Printmakings industrial/collaborative process allows the artist to move away from the creation of unique and individual objects to create images that communicate in the realm of popular culture and to a world audience. Much of the most dynamic work of the past thirty years has been generated from printmaking as source and process. The dynamic works being created using print sources and processes are seldom referred to as printmaking. Pop art, fluxes and much of dada is a printmaking phenomenon as both source and as method of articulation. Prints second component that is well accepted by mainstream institutions is the publication of blue chip artists by collaborative print studios. The history of the contemporary print is enriched and expanded by the research performed through the collaboration between artists and master printers. It is here that print was reinvented to meet the needs of artists working originally in a variety of non-print processes. Here common ground is discovered between print collaborative, industrial processes of production and the individuality of the blue chip artist. Methods of production were invented that took print out of

its traditional aesthetic confines, creating vibrant and expansive works of art. Richard Field, noted author and print curator of the Yale Museum of Art, felt strongly that the collaborative print was the only meaningful form for the media. Like the commercial print industry the published print is driven by market concerns. The large publication studio can only exist due to the general comodification of the art object. The publication shop could not exist as it does without a large capitol investment, and profitable returns on the products it produces. The publication studio is an outgrowth of the economic vitality of the art market over the past thirty years. The third component that makes up the discipline of printmaking is driven by universities and regional print societies. Printmaking as a creative discipline and as a craft flourishes in the universities of the midwest, the south, and other regions outside the centers of art commerce. Universities create a rich cultural life for their communities and have the resources to sustain archaic forms of knowledge. University art departments base their educational structure on a liberal arts ideal. The visual arts disciplines are divided into departments and each department becomes part of a broader educational infrastructure that supports a particular discipline. The university system is itself marginalized as are the artists who work and create under its structure. The mainstream overlooks the wealth of experiences that the university system provides for the culture. As David Hicky said "they just dont care." Lack of recognition does not change the reality and importance of the university in creating cultural expression and standards of quality for a discipline. The university is the refuge of the artist printmaker, and it is here that printmaking intersects the traditional crafts. The qualitative criterion is not based on quantitative market driven factors but on an aesthetic benchmark that looks backward to the disciplines history and traditions. The university educational system is the repository for the archaic form of the discipline of printmaking. When we speak of printmaking as being marginalized it is the university and regional print societies which exist outside the concerns of the mainstream. This part of the discipline will always have to contend with its outside status and regional base. In spite of the mainstreams marginalization of printmaking and the university system in general this system creates a vibrant cultural contribution for the society. It is important to recognize the reality of this situation and build on the strengths of being outside the mainstream.

June 1996 back to Writing