Niura Legramante Ribeiro Photography as a visual note for printmaking Quote: IBEIRO, Niura Legramante. Photography as a visual note for printmaking. Artists using photography to take notes for their prints include Porto Arte: Revista de Artes Visuais. Porto Alegre: PPGAV-UFRGS, v. 23, n. 38, Alex Flemming, Claudio Mubarac, Lurdi Blauth, Marco Buti, p.113-120, jan.-jun. 2018. ISSN 0103-7269 | e-ISSN 2179-8001. DOI: http:// dx.doi.org/10.22456/2179-8001.80783 Maristela Salvatori, Miriam Tolpolar and Regina Silveira. The apprehension of fragments of the time of light, which Translated by Roberto Cataldo Costa creates lighted zones in contrast with shadow masses, is photog- raphy’s contribution to Marco Buti’s and Maristela Salvatori’s Abstract: Since the emergence of photography in the 19th printmaking works. It is the quantification of light and shadow in century, technical image is known to have provided composi- tional reasons for printmakers’ creation processes. This article the space recorded as mechanical image that allows the artists addresses relations between photography and printmaking in to fulfill their aesthetic intentions. Such exposure time engenders the works of certain contemporary artists. The photograph as a visual memorization process that is transferred to prints. The a record of a light snapshot, spatial landscape structures, body speed with which photography is able to record snapshots creates memories, among others is found in the works of artists such the visual apprehensions that contribute for graphic work. In some as Alex Flemming, Claudio Mubarac, Lurdi Blauth, Marco Buti, of Buti’s prints, although he does not deny using photography as Maristela Salvatori, Miriam Tolpolar, and Regina Silveira. The a source, the final works have no photographic appearance. This study seeks to show how photography-based prints may or may does not happen in the works of Salvatori, whose prints explore not retain evidence of photographic codes. photographic syntax and appearances. Keywords: Photography. Printmaking. Contemporary Art. In a trip to Europe in 1992, Marco Buti (1953) developed an interest in photography. After that, using a Polaroid camera first When photography emerged in the 19th-century, certain and then a Nikon, he began taking photographs while walking printmakers started to produce their graphic work based around town, thus developing an interest in urban spaces, whose on technical image, just as the painters did. Authors such images started entering his work as a printmaker. His long expe- as Aaron Scharf and Van Deren Coke show in their books rience with drawing and printmaking directs his eye when he how artists used photography to take visual notes for their photographs and determines his choices of subjects and fram- works. Coke compares a lithograph by Georges Rouault of ings, since he began his photographic practice in 1992. In a series Portrait of Baudelaire (1927) with Étienne Carjat’s 1861-1862 of photographs of windows of the São Paulo Cultural Center to be photograph of the poet; James Ensor makes his three Self- used as sources for prints, he associated the images with graphic portraits (1889) based on his portrait (1887) by an unknown lines: “I took an interest in those windows because they were dirty photographer; Félix Bracquemond made the print Charles and, as the sunlight struck them, a lot of marks appeared” (inter- Baudelaire (1861) from a photograph of the poet taken by view to the author on February 13, 2011). Nadar; similarly, Manet used Nadar’s photographs of the Reading books about photography helped him in his rela- poet to make etchings as will be seen below; for his print tionship with printmaking. He explains it: “It gave me certain Edgar Allan Poe (1856), Manet used a daguerreotype of direction for discussing things related to printmaking” (interview the poet by S. W. Hartshorn; Picasso made the lithograph to the author, August 8, 2011). His informal conversations with Portrait of Arthur Rimbaud (1960) from Étienne Carjat’s photographer João Luiz Musa also contributed to his approach to photography Rimbaud (1871). In addition to these modern photography. When revisiting his photographic files, he chooses artists, the vast majority of Pop Art artists used photography an image as a reference for printmaking. as a starting point for their graphic compositions. Buti’s series To Go (Ir, 1992) and To Pass (Passar, 1995) Some contemporary printmakers use mechanical image have photographic origins and are images resulting from urban in a clandestine way – that is, not perceptible in the finished displacements. Although he started photographing in 1992, he work; others preserve evidence of photographic codes. started used photography more often as a visual source only 114 Niura Legramante Ribeiro: Photography as a visual note for printmaking after 1994. The To Pass series started from a corrosive process in the book published by Cosac Naify, which already start from of metal plates. He would pass the photographs onto a silkscreen photographs. After those prints made from 1991 to 1992 in which and print them on iron plates, and the screen printing ink worked he explored circles and lines, the artist began to use photography as an insulator: “The ink was synthetic enamel and I would let the as a source for his print compositions. He says: “I was looking for iron rust in its exposed portion or leave it outside in the weather or something to do after my work with circles, and then photography pour water on it. This produces rust with different aspects; colors gained importance for the works” (interview to the author, April 8, change”. Then, according to him, he “could make a print that 2011). He adds: “My interest in photography has nothing to do would not allow printing” because the result was not good, since with this force it has acquired in the field of Visual Arts; it has to do the rust won’t print on paper; it only leaves a faint mark. He means with personal experiences” (interview to the author, April 8, 2011). he wants to “shuffle the most common notion of printmaking” While Buti uses photography to return to the real after his (interview to the author, February 13, 2011). This technique for period of circles, not all his prints made from photographs are corroding matter is generically called mordant. In the process, the figurative images, for although he uses an urban landscape, his artist seeks to strike the plate’s material with corrosion; in chemical prints become abstract because he is interested in structure and photography, the material of the emulsion is also “corroded” by light: “What fascinates me most about photography is capturing light. The resulting images still show that photography took part in the moment” (interview to the author, February 13, 2011). The the process behind the scenes. difference between using drawing or photography to record a situ- He also digitally treats photographs using Photoshop soft- ation is that the latter can capture a snapshot of a certain light ware to make color photographs into black-and-white and applies that is not possible with the former: “You walk by the same place high contrast to give them more graphic features so that he can five minutes later and it has changed already, and that requires see beforehand the result he is seeking. He stresses light and photography”. Thus, light incidences frozen through photographic shadow contrasts that already exist in photographs when he image are one of the subjects worked on in his prints. It can be captures them: “With exaggerated contrasts there is no subtlety inferred that the great spaces of shadow and light masses in his and that works as a starting point for me to make the print”, the artist works are a result of their photographic origin, since the artist says (interview to the author, February 13, 2011). Thus, spaces frames his subjects very closely. In certain cases, the photo- are configured as a positive/negative relationship by light-dark graph’s composition already evokes abstraction. He ends up turn- zones. Buti uses drawing for transposing images onto printmak- ing an urban figurative landscape into an abstract composition. ing plates. He only looks at the photograph already transformed Most of the artist’s prints include no human figure since he prefers regarding aspects he intends to include in his prints, although the to work with landscapes of urban structures. final result does not have photographic characteristics. He also says he does not worry too much about the quality About the use of photographs in his process, the artist states: of the photographs used as his source because he is interested in “I have been using the camera to take notes for prints, which will the “spatial structure at a certain moment of light” (interview to the start from the photograph’s general structure, but the subject author, February 13, 2011). Sometimes he does not like an image undergoes a process of simplification. I gradually exclude several in a photograph, but he concludes that it works well in printmak- things because photography records too many things” (interview ing. He eliminates formal mechanical reproduction elements he is to the author, February 13, 2011). Photography becomes a struc- not interested in and he might decide which forms he will remove tural source for composition spaces and a record of a certain light. even when he captures the image. The print Untitled (Ir series) Using photography as a premise, his engravings stress the (2003) came from what the artist calls a “failed photograph” of presence of more geometric and planned forms, which were Venice’s Grand Canal: already timidly announced in works such as Untitled (1982). This The photograph shows the river bank; I was on the Rialto Bridge and the sun was low.