Susana Narotzky
Catalan Association of Art Critics
The Mini Print International has, by now, become a summer institution in Cadaqués. With impeccable organization, several hundred mini prints are exhibited in the Taller Galeria Fort. In addition, every week one of the winners of the previous year’s contest has a carefully selected showing of his work. The formula, this combination of solo show and collective presence, is magistral: it allows us to go deeply into the unity of a printmaker’s work, into the expression of personal techniques, at the same time that each week one is again tempted to reinitiate the fragmentary tour of the exhibited mini prints.
The heart of the Mini Print is undoubtedly the great show of little prints. It has a universal or infinite vocation: it spreads out to encompass artists from all continents and both hemispheres and in each print – tiny sampling of an unknown artist – a multitude of challenges and promises comes to light. The major promise, the one the Mini Print makes and reaffirms year by year, print by print, is indubitable merit of the printmaking technique as an integral artistic expression.
Printmaking, this technique that many confuse with the printed photographic reproduction is still considered a complement, as a secundary appendix of the fine artist’s work. The printmaker, when exclusively dedicated to this art form, continues to be considered a minor artist. This is mainly true because the process of printing is associated with the multiplication of the image, the lack of uniqueness and thus of “originality”. That is a crass error. The print is unique in spite of its limited reproductibility. The copper or zinc plate, the lithographic stone, the woodblock or the surface of the linoleum is the support for the artist who marks the material with his tools, draws, cuts, scratches, corrodes, polishes in a unique creative process. But the act of printing is unique as well. The artist inks and cleans the plate by hand, wets the paper, checks the press pressure, decides how many rounds the ink will put up with: the result is that each copy of the edition of a print shows appreciable and significative differences for the one who knows how to look at. A print is as original and irrepeatable as an oil work and as valuable as well.
And with such aim of spreading this good news, Pascual Fort first and now Mercedes Barberà offers this international festival of prints many of us look foward to with great enthusiasm.
Mercedes Barberà Rusiñol
Director of the Mini Print International of Cadaqués
Once again this year the Mini Print International of Cadaqués has counted on the participation of artists from all the continents.
The thrill and solidarity of the most loyal artists and the emotion and curiosity of those who for the first time have become a part of our association have filled our gallery in Cadaqués with joy and life during the summer of 1993.
The exhibition, in which color and its varied shades predominates over work in black and white, is formally and technically magnificent.
The 13th Mini Print International of Cadaqués has travelled to the Wingfield Festival of Arts and Music (England) during May, June and July, and to Canet de Mar (Barcelona) during September and October, coinciding with the International Architecture Course. The interest shown by both the Director of the Wingfield Festival and the Mayor of Canet de Mar, will assure that this manifestation will be awaited every year in these cities with the same expectation as it is in Cadaqués.
But I do not forget that the continuity of the exhibition is due not only to our members, but also to the support of various institutions. I am very grateful to the Department of Culture of the Government of Catalonia for its collaboration in organizing and hanging the show and to the Ministery of Culture of the Spanish government which has again subsidized the publication of the catalog and its diffusion to the 47 participating countries.
The backing we have received has allowed us to carry on with this versatile exhibition of prints which is recognized all over the world and appreciated by artists, prints collectors and the public from the different latitudes who look forward to the consecutive shows with great interest.