Grafik i Väst

Gothenburg, Sweden

Grafik i Väst
Storgatan 20
411 38 Göteborg
Gothenburg, Sweden

esaline@gmail.com

Grafik i Väst (GiV) is an artist-run, non-profit printmaking association and gallery with 270 nationally and internationally based members. GiV is also part of an extensive network of European print studios: www.endegra.org GiV came about as a result of a growing need for a complement to the institutional infrastructure of the fine arts and we house an impressive bank of some 4000 edition prints. With our administrator/gallery host in the centre and some co-funding by Region Västra Götaland we organize internal and external exhibitions, artist presentations, collaborative workshops, lectures, regular updated membership catalogues, an annual print scholarship for student printmakers etc. To improve the public's access to the member´s works, we have just presented a new website. Grafik i Väst is also involved in the ongoing discussions concerning art and cultural policies in our contemporary society. We see our cultural heritage in connection to printmaking, not as something to merely preserve but to develop and acknowledge with freedom of speech and expression as irrefutable references.

With a combined member base of over 500 print-makers from around the world, the galleries have selected Maria Erickson, Jakob Leijonheilm and Eric Saline to coordinate the project. The team will “perform” the production of graphic works on site, collaboratively, involving students from the grafik pre-university and university programmes from around Sweden, including Dômen, Göteborgs Konstskola and others GiV and GS member will also participate in the activities (Supermarket visitors are also welcome to participate!). We will not use a traditional printing press, rather, explore a wide range of various other techniques involving our hands/ feet, stamping, and other non-traditional ways of mark-making onto surfaces.
Work produced will be used to create an installation in the Art Fair booth, and additional formats will also be explored and created on site, such as posters, post cards, 'zines and so on.
The priorities of the project are to present how exciting printmaking can be, while helping us to re-think our relationships to our own personal relationships to printmaking in a group, and to inspire the public to reconsider the multiple ways printmaking remains and will continue to be a powerful tool for communication.
In conjunction with our booth, artist and GiV Spokesperson Nina Bondesson would like to offer a presentation, or be integrated into a panel discussion, like she was in 2014.
Here's a bit of info about her theme:
Vad är detta med tryckta bilder?
Vår vardag svämmar över av trycksaker. Det mesta åker direkt i pappersåtervinningen. Deras ärende är oftast ett och detsamma: att få oss att köpa olika varor och tjänster. Vi förväntar oss därför inte några särskilda överraskningar av det pappersburna, tryckta innehållet.
De verkliga kostnaderna för framställningen av trycksaker döljs också för oss i fastställda priser för varor och tjänster. Vi betraktar dem därför som gratis och tillfälliga, utan något speciellt värde i form eller innehåll.
Är konsekvensen av detta att bildkommunikationen, som aldrig varit så omfattande som idag, samtidigt trivialiseras? Drunknar vår förmåga att läsa bilder i den brusande bildfloden? Hur hänger dessa massutskick ihop med den grafiska konsttillverkning som ständigt pågått och pågår vid sidan av kommersiella allfarvägar? Vad har tryckkonstens olika områden för betydelse? Från det kommersiella till konstgrafikens poetiska undantag. Från det hantverkliga till digitala representationer. Hur ser vi på bilder idag?
Nina Bondeson, konstnär med grafiken som en avgörande delmängd i sitt arbete, ger en personlig betraktelse över denna samtida bildflod och dess förgreningar.

Eric printing a maze with his feet, Mirleft, Morocco, 2013
1 hour and 37 minutes... walking the maze
As Jakob shows, you don't really need more than this to make a good print!
Maria walks with vasoline on litho stones
Jakob presses with his own body weight to print linoleum
Jakob inking
Further links: