Aztec and Greek mythology overtones, of dead souls being taken on their last boat trip, of, of, okay so it's not the greatest representation of his work. And here's the crux of this, who picks the images that become prints? Saner has done alot of street work, he's done pieces that although draw from his heritage, can have a broader appeal, just look at the pieces on the Pow homepage
And yet we're left with this rather flacid print, flopping around unloved, like in fact 95% of prints this genre has spawned. So what's another one? Quickly to be forgotten. Not giving the time to an artist who may have something interesting to show us? Or maybe prints just really don't do the work justice (and are just in fact....)?
prints are only really interesting in two ways:
ReplyDelete1. when they are used in abundance ie the same image being printed and pasted in the streets hundreds of times eg Obey 10 to 15 years ago
2. when the artist has some involvement in the actual printing process through either making things themself (cutting wood blocks etc) or by having some knowledge and experience of the print technique to create interesting things (like using translucent colour overlays in screen printing to create extra colours or effects)
without either of those things a print is just another product, mass produced item (even if the "mass" is only 100 copies)
the first couple of times I made prints with companies not in the same country I was living in I had to scan images, make computer files, and the prints were made from them. something gets lost when you involve computers. the human touch, the spirit, something. now if I make a print that I won't be physically printing myself I make the colour seperations by hand, full size, painting with ink and acrylic on sheets of tracing paper, and the screens are made directly from those. the end product is always a bit more "real", a bit more like an original drawing.
A lot of the delight of people's hand skills can get lost when companies get involved in turning that magic into money, and from the things I read on this blog it seems that most people view prints as an investment, a way to make some money.
when something has lost it's magic and becomes a commodity I no longer consider it "art".
People like POW and the flippers are taking the "art" out of "street art", and they are more to blame for the dumbing-down/crapping-up of this scene than the artists that get verbal destroyed on this blog daily.
I doubt Saner sees this print as some great artistic statement, but more as a pleasant way to pay his rent. And you can't blame him for that, not when he creates such good stuff for people to enjoy for free in the street.
err... this Saner print is made with hand-seperations by hand, full size, painting with ink on sheets of acetate on site - every pen and ink mark is there.... it is a "real" piece - not photoshop...
ReplyDeleteit is hard for an artist to capture their work in a print and sometimes they need to do two or three designs to get warmed up to the medium...
that's good to know
ReplyDeletebut what I wrote is still completely relevant as I was talking about prints in general, and not just this print