Re: reproductions vs originals

Jim Spiri (plyboy@teleport.com)
Wed, 19 Jun 1996 09:57:15 -0700 (PDT)

At 11:27 PM 6/19/96 +1000, you wrote:
>Hello folks,
>A couple of weeks ago I had a chance to see a Paul Strand original
>next to an offset lithography "reproduction" made by Richard Benson
>now from New Haven Conn. The "repro" had a beautiful range of values,
>
>a clarity and light that was not present in the original. Strands
>eyesight was failing in his later years and could account for the
>lack luster printing. Benson makes litho prints that are not only
>duotones but made from 6 -10 plates that control every aspect of
>contrast and value. I saw his prints that were full of detail and
>value from the deep shadows to highlights...so beautiful !! Like a
>Alvin Langdon Coburn photogravure the reproduction can be so skillfully
>and beautifully made that it transends the idea of a reproduction.
>I refuse to call this note physiology vs sensitometry because
>I've grown to dislike that title.
>With respect to other opinions,
>Robert Newcomb
>
>
I'll buy all this too (i'm purty agreeable these last few days- it's a new
wo-man: i'll make some shrines, get heart broke, and be back to my usual
bittersweet "allegory of allegory" stuff soon enough probly).

Did Benson work from that bad print, or from the original neg? If the
latter, maybe it's not fair to call it a repro (or he woulda matched the
weakness of the vintage?)... I didn't think too much of that tres spendy
Penn book (i think Benson did it)- but then i never cared for his (Penn's)
big platinum prints either- definitely the Dmax school...

Camera Work, after all, is all repros, and the best (photgravures) are fine
things indeed.

What i don't like are those bicentennial blockbuster history of photo books
that tried to "reproduce" the old alt proc works (yeah i know, better than
nothing and all that, we wouldn't like the "original" Parthenon in
polychrome, or antique Greek marble with painted eyes and fleshtones...)

photography itself transcends the idea of a reproduction (hence not
protected by California "droite de suite" legislation)

Digital art certainly challenges the idea of a reproduction, and of an
original. Limiting an edition or deleting a file is not at all like
cancelling a plate in printmaking (where the matrix breaks down and loses
quality) but is a purely market-driven act, attempting to drive up prices by
creating an artificial ceiling on the number of originals...

There is, of course, a huge difference between an Iris inkjet printet
printed to watercolor paper by a skilled and sensitive technician and the
same file output on the same printer to plastic "paper" by an indifferent
operator using "defaults" -same with a Benson-created "octo-tone" or
whatever on clay-coated offset stock opposed to a platinum print on proper
matt paper...

If all one has seen of charcoal drawing is offset repros, work printed
offset created digitally using Fractal Painter and a "charcoal brush" will
seem realistic. But it ain't a charcoal drawing.

I hope all this doesn't become pointless and capitalistic "connoisseurship"

Ever see "2001: a space odyssey" on home video? Hear Handel's "water music"
on a walkman?

I know that Sherrie Levine's rephotographs are often "worth more" (money)
than the originals, but that's of no concern to me (one cannot serve two
masters and stuff)

no fishing today: climbing and biking, cheers

-------------------------
Plywood and Rhetoric
graphic design from both sides of the brain
plyboy@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~plyboy
"Momma DID raise a fool"