Connecting Old and New

I am participating in the Magnum Photography Awards with my photogravure Meeting Point, which is part of my new portfolio sale of six original photogravure photographs: https://www.silaart.com/product/special-edition-portfolio-sixies-photogravure/

If I win the prize on Magnum competition, that portfolio will be worth triple and even more. That is the rule of the market, silly isn’t it?! And if you have “the nose” you can buy it now and earn a lot  later.

“Meeting Point, between past and present, photographic history and photographic present. I use traditional photographic techniques and implement them in a digital world. Meeting point is a photopolymer photogravure photograph. It is Ireland with it’s ageless play between the ocean and the land, meeting point. It is slow, handmade process that leaves deep relief on paper from the heavy printing press, the same way as sea slowly but powerfully makes ridges in the land.”

This morning I want to tell you a few words about owning and desiring original work of art. I have a feeling that people these days don’t know the feeling of supporting something good, something that you believe in to, the pleasure of knowing that you didn’t throw away your money on something that you will discard as trash in a week, maybe month. I am talking about the class, style, the stuff that I was taught in Zagreb in an era where we still had an expression “Vienna school” meaning “de bon ton”, in good taste. The expression would cover among other, the taste for art. Reproductions, kitsch, something that you can buy in a supermarket, meaningless artwork would be considered displeasing and very “no, no”. Looking at artwork only on the Internet, browsing, clicking, and never actually touching, hanging on your wall, admiring from “afar” instead from “up close and personal”. It’s like falling in love with a virtual person, never to touch, never to engage. Constant browsing is not paying attention to anyone in particular. It’s meaningless and empty, very dissatisfying.

Recently, I bought an artwork from the photographer Matthew Marrash. It was one of his photographs that I spotted on the Internet that caught my attention. He works with contact printing from 8×10 negatives. It is a handmade work of art. I wanted to have that piece in my hand so I can actually touch the paper, see the light on the photograph up close and personal and most of all I wanted to support a fellow photographer who believes as I do, that an original, hand made, photograph, taken with film is one of a kind.