US $30 The Global Journal of Prints and Ideas November – December 2014 Volume 4, Number 4 Arabic Gospels in Italy • Wangechi Mutu • Lorena Villablanca • Vishnu in the Netherlands • Ukiyo-e Heroes David Hockney • Connecting Seas • Yona Friedman • Ed Ruscha • Gauguin at MoMA • Prix de Print • News November – December 2014 In This Issue Volume 4, Number 4 Editor-in-Chief Susan Tallman 2 Susan Tallman On Globalism Associate Publisher Evelyn Lincoln 4 Julie Bernatz Gospel Lessons: Arabic Printing at the Tipografia Medicea Orientale Managing Editor Dana Johnson Zoe Whitley 11 International Geographic: Wangechi Mutu News Editor on Paper, Print and Printmaking Isabella Kendrick Carlos Navarrete 16 Manuscript Editor Everyday and Popular Imagery Prudence Crowther in the Prints of Lorena Villablanca Online Columnist Robert J. Del Bontà 20 Sarah Kirk Hanley Engraving India in 17th- and 18th-century Europe Design Director Skip Langer Christina Aube 26 Navigating Difference, Connecting Seas Editorial Associate Andrew Saluti 30 Michael Ferut Defenders of the Floating World Editor-at-Large Prix de Print, No. 8 34 Catherine Bindman Faye Hirsch Cartier Window by Stella Ebner Reviews Julia Beaumont-Jones 36 The Rake’s Progress Laurie Hurwitz 40 27 Square Meters, 1001 Nights Faye Hirsch 42 Ruscha’s Course of Empire Calvin Brown 45 Gauguin at MoMA On the Cover: Coenraet Decker, detail of Matsya (1672), copperplate engraving from Jaclyn Jacunski 49 Philippus Baldeaus, Afgoderye der Oost- Past Partisans Indisch heydenen (Pt. III of Naauwkeurige beschryvinge), Amsterdam: J. Janssonius v. John Murphy 50 Collective Brilliance Waasberge & J. v. Someren. Elleree Erdos 52 This Page: Wangechi Mutu, detail of The Proof: Lingen—Melby—Miller Original Nine Daughters (2012), series of nine etching, relief, letterpress, digital printing, News of the Print World 55 collage, pochoir, hand coloring and handmade Contributors 79 carborundum appliques. Printed and published by Pace Editions, New York. Courtesy of the Guide to Back Issues 80 artist and Pace Editions, Inc. Art in Print 3500 N. Lake Shore Drive Suite 10A Chicago, IL 60657-1927 www.artinprint.org Art in Print is published with the [email protected] generous support of the IFPDA 1.844.ARTINPR (1.844.278.4677) Foundation, the Malka Foundation No part of this periodical may be published and individual donors. without the written consent of the publisher. On Globalism By Susan Tallman rt in Print’s purloined motto— raised in Kenya and now lives and works A “without prints you don’t under- in Brooklyn, speaks with Zoe Whitley stand the culture of the world”—was about printed matter as a vehicle of ideas uttered by Leo Steinberg with regard to a and of action. The playful Ukiyo-e Heroes particular print from his vast collection. project, described by Andrew J. Saluti, A Descent From the Cross, the image brings together an American artist based derived from Marcantonio Raimondi’s in Utah, an English printmaker based in engraving after Raphael, which had been Tokyo, three centuries of Japanese tra- rebuilt in Mughal style by the Indian art- dition and four decades of videogame ist who engraved it sometime after Jesuit design. As ever, things are both lost and missionaries introduced the technique to gained in translation. the subcontinent. The recent print retrospectives of Globalization is often discussed as David Hockney (reviewed by Julia Beau- if it were something new, rather than mont-Jones) and Ed Ruscha (reviewed by simply the bulked-up version of age-old Faye Hirsch) are reminders of the power exchanges. The globalization of visual of the outside view: Hockney produced culture began in earnest when Asian images that remain emblematic of a cer- print and paper technologies and Por- tain dream of America, while Ruscha’s Francis Cleyn, Geometria, plate from a suite tuguese navigation techniques came of seven including title plate showing the seven News, Mews, Brews succinctly summa- together in Europe in the 15th and 16th liberal arts entitled Septem Liberales Artes rizes American clichés about Britain. centuries. The depicting and distorting, (1645), etching on paper, 12.5 x 10.4 cm. In Paris, the exhibition of Hungarian- understanding and misunderstanding Published by Thomas Hinde. Victoria & Albert born, Israel-trained, French architect that ensued have been with us ever since. Museum. Gift of Mr. Arthur Laws. Yona Friedman, shows that with the This issue of Art in Print looks at con- right tools, a wide world can be built in a versations between New World and Old, Brown, stands as testament to the dis- tiny room (reviewed by Laurie Hurwitz). East and West, North and South, over the concerting truth that bad anthropology And in New York, Elleree Erdos reviews course of five centuries. can make great art. “Proof” at Planthouse, an exhibition of Religion, then as now, was a primary The 20th century saw a vast increase prints from three master printers, bridg- motivation, though often in unexpected in the global distribution of images and ing a world of artists. ways. The first books printed in Arabic, ideas. The American socialist artists sur- Finally, Stella Ebner’s Cartier Win- examined here by Evelyn Lincoln, were veyed in “The Left Front” at Northwest- dow (2014), selected by Faye Hirsch as Christian gospels produced by the Medici ern University’s Block Museum (reviewed the winner of this issue’s Prix de Print, Oriental Press in 1590-91, replete with 67 by Jaclyn Jacunski) saw themselves as tidily summarizes the concurrent lure of woodblock illustrations of scenes from partisans in an international socio- the homey and the exotic: the New York the New Testament, aimed at converting political movement; a shared aesthetic window of a French company, showing Arabic-speaking infidels to Christianity. language was an instrument in the fight. sapphires and leopards, framed in the Religious images also moved the other In Mexico City, artists working at the Nordic pagan fir boughs we use to mark direction: Robert del Bontà discusses Taller de Gráfica Popular used similar a Christian holiday. three sets of engravings after Indian tools to articulate the legacies of colonial- What Steinberg recognized was that paintings of Shiva, all produced in the ism and the power politics; John Murphy even the most seemingly banal act of imi- Netherlands within a five-year period in reviews the survey of their work at the Art tation is the product of myriad inter- the 17th century (see cover illustration). Institute of Chicago. dependent influences. The printed image, Christina Aube charts the transforma- Today the transfer of information and if you look at it right, reveals the branch- tion of European curiosity into European images (though not of things) is more ing traces of all those cultural exchanges, imperialism through the maps, books unfettered than ever. This has brought the discoveries and the blinders. The and board games included in the Getty unprecedented enrichments of—and prints in this issue are artifacts of intel- Research Institute’s “Connecting Seas” encroachments on—local identities. lectual curiosity, religious evangelism, exhibition. In the 19th century, European The Chilean artist Lorena Villablanca, political agitation, personal desire and romantics saw distant peoples (as well as whose work is discussed here by Car- social critique. They are, to borrow once home-grown peasants) through a differ- los Navarrete, pulls from the regional again from Steinberg, ‘’the circulating ent distorting lens: they were now admi- tradition of woodcut Lira Popular, lifeblood of ideas.’’ rably atavistic creatures, pure of all the from German Expressionism, and from repressions of “civilization.” The recent mass-market magazines, to build a het- Susan Tallman is the Editor-in-Chief of Gauguin exhibition at the Museum of erogenous, dynamic personal world. Art in Print. Modern Art, reviewed here by Calvin Wangechi Mutu, who was born and 2 Art in Print November – December 2014 CHARLINE VON HEYL / TEN COLOR ETCHINGS CROWN POINT PRESS Nightpack (Red, Yellow and Blue), 2014, edition 10. CROWN POINT PRESS 20 Hawthorne San Francisco, CA 94105 415.974.6273 crownpoint.com Gospel Lessons: Arabic Printing at the Tipografia Medicea Orientale By Evelyn Lincoln n 1590 and 1591 the Tipografia Medi- Icea Orientale (Medici Oriental Press) in Rome published its two much-adver- tised illustrated versions of the Gos- pels in Arabic. The Evangelium sanctum Domini nostri Iesu Christi conscriptum a quatuor Evangelistis Sanctis, idest, Mat- thaeo, Marco, Luca, et Iohanne was printed first in Arabic only, then in Arabic with corresponding Latin text between every line (Fig. 1). Sixty-seven woodblock prints of the Gospel scenes appeared in both versions of these luxurious books, illustrating the Life of Christ as told by the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Many of the blocks appear mul- tiple times in each book, illustrating the same story as told by the different evangelists. The registering of identical illustrations to these slightly different narratives reinforced the documentary plausibility of the material.1 The pictures also helped readers who knew the stories, but were unfamiliar with the languages, navigate the Gospels. The Arabic Gospels were designed to carry out the evangelical mission at the heart of the press. The Tipografia Medi- cea Orientale was founded in 1584 at the request of Gregory XIII (1502–1585), who dedicated his papacy (1572–1585) to attempting to restore the Eastern Church to Roman orthodoxy. Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici (1549–1609), soon to become Grand Duke of Tuscany, pro- vided financial support for the venture, and Giovanni Battista Raimondi (ca. 1536–1614), one of the century’s most erudite Arabists, was brought in as direc- tor. Twenty-six years after the press was Fig. 1. Leonardo Parasole (after Antonio Tempesta), Saint John with an Eagle from the interlinear founded, Raimondi wrote a letter to version of the Evangelium sanctum Domini nostri Iesu Christi conscriptum a quatuor Phillip III of Spain about the power of Evangelistis Sanctis, idest, Matthaeo, Marco, Luca, et Iohanne (1591), woodblock print, the printed books and papal ambitions 10.1 x 12.6 cm.