• . • ••, •• •• • • V •dp, • • •• • • • -..- •• , • • s • • • .... • • • A • 0, • • - *• •, • • v • • • • • • •• • • 0 •• •• I •• • • I • • • • • • • • 0 • 0 dp • • • • • g, • •• • • Om I • • g • g • •• • • • • • • •. • • • • • • to e •• 40 •, •• • d' • Iv• •• • e •• • •• 0 ••• • w• dP• . .• V • • •• • • • •• .. • • • •. • . • ••, • * • • •• / • • • • •iv • •• • • • •.• •. • • ` • • • ART WITHOUT ARGUMENT

BY DANA JENNINGS

"SILENT NIGHT" SERIGRAPH BY PAULA SCHER

BERIGRAHA

R&D: RISK & DESIGN. SERIGRAFIA LTD. LET PAULA SCHER SCARE HERSELF-EVEN

ENCOURAGED IT. CI SCHER IS JUST ONE OF THE PROMINENT GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

AND ILLUSTRATORS WHOM SERIGRAFIA HAS BEEN PUBLISHING FOR MORE THAN A

YEAR IN SIGNED, NUMBERED, LIMITED -EDITION SERIGRAPHS. ID "I HAVE FOUND IT

MUCH MORE RISKY TO DO MY OWN WORK" SAYS SCHER, WHOSE ELEGANT "SILENT

NIGHT" PRINT LAUNCHED SERIGRAFIA IN DECEMBER 1988. "ALL OF A SUDDEN TO

HAVE THAT ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF FREEDOM IS TERRIFYING. IT'S REALLY GOING

OUT ON A LIMB AND STANDING NAKED." CI LAUGHING, SHE ADDS: "IF YOU FAIL

WITH A PIECE FOR A CLIENT-IT'S THE CLIENT'S FAULT." 171 SERIGRAFIA'S FOUNDERS

THEMSELVES ADMIT THAT THEY ARE STANDING OUT THERE ON THAT SAME LIMB

ALONGSIDE THEIR ARTISTS WHO INCLUDE: DESIGNERS IVAN CHERMAYEFF, SEYMOUR

CHWAST, MILTON GLASER AND MASSIMO VIGNELLI, AND ILLUSTRATORS GUY

BILLOUT, BARRY MOSER AND MAURICE SENDAK. "THIS IS A VERY HIGH-RISK

VENTURE BECAUSE WE'RE TAKING THE WORKS OF SOMEONE WHO IS BEST KNOWN

FOR COMMERCIAL, APPLIED ART AND WE'RE DOING FINE -ART PRINTS," SAYS ALICIA

MESSINA, SERIGRAFIA'S PRESIDENT AND RESIDENT SHAMAN. AND THE ARTISTS

APPRECIATE THE FISCAL RISK SERIGRAFIA IS TAKING. "GRAPHIC DESIGN IS AN

UNSUNG PROFESSION," SAYS SCHER, WHO IS BEST KNOWN FOR HER POSTERS,

CORPORATE DESIGN, AND RECORD JACKETS. "THESE KINDS OF PRINTS ALWAYS HAVE

BEEN DONE BY FINE ARTISTS. BUT I LOVE THE IDEA THAT SERIGRAFIA HAS ASKED

GRAPHIC DESIGNERS TO DO THIS. IT'S AN OBVIOUS NOTION, BUT IT HASN'T BEEN L.

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(ABOVE LEFT) TITLE: SIXTIES DESIGNER: TAKAAKI MATSUMOTO •(ABOVE RIGHT) TITLE: WORLD DESIGNER: TAKAAKI MATSUMOTO done before." Serigrafia, the fine-art subsidiary of New York test and experiment to see what works best. The judgment calls screen printing firm Ambassador Arts Inc., produces and that Alicia makes are sensitive and intelligent. She's proposing publishes its serigraphs, or silk screens. It was born of a desire to and I'm consenting. "There's potential for a bloody mess in this branch away from commercial work, and to give designers their medium. But their work isn't." Adds Seymour Chwast, who has head. Says Serigrafia vice president John Evangelista: "Serigrafia produced the four-part series of "Groucho,""Garbo," "Satchmo" exists to give graphic artists the opportunity to extend their and "Pablo," "They've taken such incredible care to do what I creativity through the fine-print medium of serigraphy. It is a wanted to do. They're responsive and creative. There's no limit to painstaking, non–mechanized process requiring enormous the number of colors we can use. It's a real collaborative effort." patience and technical printmaking ability." Messina is o Even as the artists approve of Messina and Serigrafia, so too Serigrafia's catalyst. Her blue-green eyes flash and her hands does the company appreciate that the artists have stretched its dart when she talks about the company, about printmaking. "No abilities. "The artists have really pushed us toward being even one has ever stuck his or her neck out before and said I'm going to more of a fine-art publisher than we set out to be," Evangelista create a company devoted solely to graphic designers and says. "We had gone just a little ways with Paula [Scher]; she illustrators," she says. "Serigrafia's creation signals this stayed close to home, staying with the poster. "Then we went to crosscurrent that's happening –what we're tagging 'the graphic Takaaki [Matsumoto], who said, let's go a little bit further. Each attitude of the nineties'—which is reflected in the philosophy of of these artists has brought us further and further toward fine Massimo Vignelli. o "Vignelli believes designers should be able to art." o The debate. Duck! Look out! Here it comes! This is the design in any mode. They should be able to design a dimensional part of the article where the reporter is obliged to dredge up that object, they should be able to design flat imagery—because it's ancient, exhausted argument — couldn't we let the poor devil be? taking a certain base of skills and applying them in one way or — about art vs. design, culture vs. commerce, church vs. state. another." o In its brief existence, Serigrafia has touched a nerve This is where we unloose some ossified, dollars-for-cataracts art in the design community. Messina and Evangelista say they have maven and let him or her rail for a predictable paragraph or two been approached by many more designers than they can possibly against Serigrafia's whippersnapper audacity in daring to peddle publish. Designers are drawn both by the freedom Serigrafia as fine art silkscreen prints by those...those, "sniff," graphic offers—"It's a dream come true for them," Evangelista design people. Hmmph! o Let's not, and say we did. o As a nettled says—and, perhaps most important, by the quality of its Evangelista says: "Because it's a print by Milton Glaser, now we prints."Their work has been beyond expectations," says Ivan have to debate it." o Since Evangelista mentioned Mr. Glaser, let's Chermayeff, designer, collagist, painter, whose collage studies allow him to grapple with the question. "It's the quality of the "Innocent Japanese Person" and "Smoker" Serigrafia has work that matters, it doesn't matter who does it," says Glaser, published. "Alicia [Messina] is meticulous and demanding. They who has done a number of projects with Serigrafia, including a

34 tr MICEREERRNMaNNNEENNEEN74

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(ABOVE. LEFT TITLE: YELLOW O•olsomita: TAKAAKI UATSLIHOTO •(ABOVE, RIGHT) TurLi: FLAT 13••soelan. 1 MATSUMOTO suite of three Tuscany landscapes. Adds a clearly fed-up Messina: galleries. Especially the galleries. It wants its prints hanging in "At first, we were continually trying to justify what we were doing. galleries nationwide, if not worldwide. o "There are some gallery But the bottom line is that you have the image in front of you. You owners who will say that this isn't a fine-art form," Evangelista either respect it, or you don't. The image speaks for itself." Scher says. "They'll say this isn't what you should collect. There will is blunter: "There are a hell of a lot of bogus painters around." o be people fighting us. But we believe in our work and we will "What matters is the image. And it is at the image that Serigrafia move ahead." o One reason Messina and Evangelista are and its artists excel. The bold, epic heads of Chwast's "0" series: optimistic is because of the strong response Serigrafia received at Groucho, caterpillar eyebrows askew, leering; Garbo—an icy, this past spring's Art Expo in New York City. Dozens of gallery blue mystery—repels and invites; the true Satchmo, not the late executives praised Serigrafia's prints and supported the idea of self-parody, promises fierce, hot licks; while satyr Picasso blows fine-art serigraphs by designers and illustrators. 0 Separately, in Pan's pipes. Vignelli's monumental "Melting Pot," his flag Manhattan, the Reinhold-Brown Gallery, devoted to the range of collage made for the 1976 U.S. Bicentennial; the simple, but 20th century graphic design, is hanging Chwast's "0" series. graceful, line of Scher's "Silent Night"; the ripe, rich textures of "The quality of the printing is really beautiful," says Susan Glaser's Tuscan landscapes. o Yes, the image is what matters. Reinhold."And these people Serigrifia is publishing are the best,

But to Messina and the artists, the journey toward perfecting the really the very best in the graphic design field." 0 Reinhold image matters too. o "It was almost as if we were learning the believes the prints, which range in price from $400 to $800, are meaning of what it is to make an original print," Messina says. marketable, "but not to the highest echelon of collector." Citing "We were learning that the artists' efforts in collaborating with our old friend the art vs. design debate, she fears the pieces may mine to produce the actual prints and plates were critical to the fall into a gray area. "Is it graphic design?" Reinhold asks."Or is success of the whole thing. We kept pushing and going with it it art?" o Whatever it is, it's good. And, if Paula Scher is an until we thought it was done. o "They really were labors of love, indication, the design community is pulling for Serigrafia to taking weeks and weeks, months and months, of doing and succeed. o "I can't emphasize strongly enough how much I redoing. "Every artist had a different way of presenting the admire and support what Serigrafia is doing," Scher says. "It's a original image. Some were done where just tissues were provided, thing done purely out of love, in the hope the business will where colors had to be separated from scratch. And Paula was succeed. It's fantastic for our field if it works. It's an honor for drawing her plates. And Seymour was creating original oil graphic designers that they would publish this work. 2 Paintings. And all of a sudden we had to work on making this a Serigrafia is saying, 'Screw fine art, these graphic design guys print." o Though Serigrafia has had good customer reaction, its are great; they should be allowed to stretch their creative ability customer base is small yet.lt sees its potential customers as as far as it can possibly go." o Any designer I know would want collectors, interior decorators, architects, corporations, and to do a print with Serigrafia. I would love to see this thing fly."•

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TITLE:

METAMORPHIC TITLE: FLOWERS MELTING POT DESIGNER: DESIGNER: MILTON GLASER MASSIMO VIGNELLI

36

TITLE: TITLE:

GROUCHO PABLO

DESIGNER: DESIGNER:

SEYMOUR CHWAST SEYMOUR CHWAST

TITLE

TUSCANY: VIEW

NEAR RADDA

DESIGNER:

MILTON GLASER TITLE: TiTLE.

GARBO SATCHMO

DESIGNER: DESIGNEE,

SEYMOUR CHWAST SEYMOUR CHWAST

TITLE

TUSCANY VIEW

FROM VOLPAIA

DESIGNER,

MILTON GLASER

39