Printmaking is not the sole result of an action executed by a man on the material. Printmaking is embedded in the man himself: in his handprints, in his skinfolds, in the scars left by wounds on his body and, in a more abstract way, in the states of mind left by happy and unhappy moments in the spirit.”
In the world of art, the techniques confer to us the possibility to recognize the mastery of the artists, to interpret the social and technological realities of a given historical moment; when we have the possibility to be in front of their evolution by virtue of the appreciation of multiple artworks, they unveil patterns or transformations in artistic trends and interests, and infer issues related to the industry, technology, institutional processes, politics and society in a given place.
Therefore, the technique is not just the shape that objectifies an artwork. In printmaking and for this exhibition, the technique is the introspective and narrative line that let us explore nearly 100 years of the history of Antioquia through the expression of more than 80 artists. Those of us who are here today, have the opportunity to retrace their reflections on nature, human experience, social dissatisfaction and the promise of an industrialized modernity that would bring processes of democratization and broad access with them.
Printmaking and its different techniques allow the coexistence of patience and creativity skills with the promise of reproducibility; the possibility of serialization with the excellence of the limited editions; the certainty of authenticity despite the multiple prints that result from a single matrix. Time and replicability. Imprint. What would we like to print today? What are our means of reproduction? How do the messages of introspection circulate in the information age? How much time are we willing to invest in the creation of our images? How many images do we create in one day? What messages do we want to amplify?
The current state of printmaking in Antioquia gives us back a bit of romance with the endurance of well-known techniques, and at the same time encourages us to explore and experiment with formats and materials. This is an invitation to reflect on the means that we have as a society to express what we think and feel, it is a reflection on serialization, the transmission of images and the creative possibilities of a technique that has had a transit through the illustration of printed material and today, is embraced once more in the artistic scope, the same one that opens up to express the unimaginable.
Printmaking to fight oblivion. The outcome are the imprints, the etching stays in the matrix. They are not replicas but originals in themselves.
