RE: possible answer to archivalness comparison between carbon gum andpt/pd

[Sandy King <sanking@clemson.edu>]

Judy,

I don't know who you consider *real* artists. Lots of folks parading 
around these days calling themselves by that name. We have even seen 
*real* art, as it was, made by monkeys throwing paint from buckets on 
canvas.

However,the real artists from the past did indeed obsess a lot about 
the permanence of their materials, especially painters and their 
pigments. The fact that many contemporary artists do not so obsess 
does not decide the issue for me.

I consider it best practice to work toward maximum image permanence 
with any given process. Why would one do otherwise?


Sandy




At 11:25 PM -0500 2/29/08, Judy Seigel wrote:
> Bob wrote:
> > However, I might mention than when I visited the Societe de 
> > Francais Photographie in Paris I was allowed,as a member, to view 
> > some prints in their collection. There I saw some gum prints in 
> > color by Demachy that were to die for, that showed no evidence of 
> > fading.
> Which could also have been because the Demachy's were stored in the 
> society archive under ideal (or perfect !) conditions.
>
> But I repeat what I've said here before... We obsess about 
> archivality because we're afraid photography isn't "real" art. 
> "Real" artists do no such thing -- they smear house paint, or mud, 
> or finger paint on whatever paper or cardboard or the back of an 
> envelope or a placemat at the local pizzaria & the collectors fight 
> for them.
>
> Has anyone ever heard a question about whether R. Crumb's drawings 
> on placemats, or Rauschenberg's "combines" or stuffed goat or 
> thousands of others I'm not thinking of right now are "archival"? 
> (In fact I read a
> recent admiring review in either Artforum or Art in America of a 
> show in which yellowing and cracking of age had been artfully 
> contrived...)
>
> In these media, patina of age is, as noted, either an added value or 
> simply a fact of life (or time) & not a problem. So what is our 
> problem ? True, you don't want a photograph to fade *noticeably* in 
> your lifetime, but to worry about whether platinum is more 
> "archival" than gum, or vice versa, is ...... unnecessary.
>
> (And IMO caused by brain washing... which may be the "correct" 
> washing mentioned.)
>
> Judy