Santi Giró
Designer and Museographer, Professor of the Escola Massana
The other numbers of the 26th Mini Print
The size of each print is 10 x 10 centimeters on a support that measures 18 x 18. The individual pieces fit almost exactly in two open hands, so that they can be studied horizontally, vertically and at a 45-degree angle using the open palms as a lectern.
In this edition of the Mini Print, there are 658 participants. As you contemplate the works, one after the other, you become aware of an emotional phenomenon: they look into your eyes.
It has always been said that contemporary artists throw themselves into their work to show their most intimate world, and their unrepeatable dose of originality. However, here, specifically in the 26th Mini Print, it is they who have come to look at us, to launch into the air an intelligent and friendly optical gesture and to stir up our emotional point of view. All those who approach ask themselves, flustered, “What do they want?”, and they touch up their hair just in case.
Maybe it is because of the conciseness of the format or the techniques characteristic of printmaking that don’t allow time for the authors to make a long story, but the truth is that the majority of pieces are like a luminous fury, a bare and precise arrow. In sum, a very diverse and close avalanche of gazes, this year, from 59 countries of all the continents.
Perhaps one of the values and the singularity of the exhibition is this: the common will towards a basic and personal expression originating from a vital and interchangeable fact. The works reinforce each other and articulate an uncharted, complex and primordial territory.
Placed in a pile, all the works of this edition would form a volume 32 centimeters high, slightly more than stretched open hand. But spread out, mysteries of bidimensionality, they form a square of 452 centimeters on each side. A fantastic window open to a universe of traces, incisions, hot erosions and tracks that are really the exemplary revelation of the other in full evolution, and finally a demonstration of what lineage can yield.
Now, to finish the visit, I wanted to explore the immense topography in order to penetrate the most interesting out-of-the-way places. I have accordingly made a selection of the best works of this edition of the Mini Print. Surely I have omitted some marvelous pieces, but I can guarantee that all those I indicate are stupendous and almost perfect, and now I advise their immediate acquisition.
First I must indicate some of the criteria of selection that I have used: I have studied the works with no attention to the authors, the nationality, the technique, or their philosophic, dramatic or conceptual dimension. I have only attended to the visual, tactile, olfactory and gustatory values of each piece. Unfortunately, I have not touched them, I have smelled them from a distance and I have not bitten any of them. However, with my sight I have imagined the feel of the surfaces and the savor of the colored liquids, the particle of graphite and the pulp of the paper.
The selection
These are the works that I have selected, following the catalog numeration: 14, 19, 25, 27, 30, 39, 43, 74, 79, 81, 98, 114, 142, 149, 189, 204, 214, 229, 238, 246, 249, 293, 312, 327, 335, 386, 403, 452, 453, 524, 554, 584, 594, 629, 646.
Once the selection has been determined, certain observations can be deduced:
• Of the 35 indicated works I have noted, “a posteriori”, there are six, about 20%, very suggestive, done in the technique here called “digital art”.
• I have also noted now, that my selection does not include any of the prizewinning works selected by the prestigious international jury.
• None of the works selected by the jury was done digitally, when in my list this was practically the preponderant technique.
Conclusion
No doubt, the time has come to disconnect this paper with all speed and wish that the next 27th Mini Print continues to be a great success and a cultural fiesta as attractive and probably electronic, as the one we are celebrating this year.
Mercedes Barberà Rusiñol
Director of the Mini Print International of Cadaques
As in its previous editions, the 26th Mini Print International of Cadaqués reflects a great variety of styles and tendencies open to the various currents of contemporary art. This permits the visitor to realize that art does not die, that it is alive and that there are quantities of printmakers who, with the high quality of their work in this exhibition, offer us a faithful panorama of the graphic art of our times.
During the months of July, August and September, the Taller Galeria Fort houses the Mini Print, forming part of the various cultural activities of this beautiful village and in which a visit to the gallery has become a veritable pilgrimage.
The solo shows of last year’s winning artists are awaited with expectation. The great numbers of visitors are interested not only in seeing the attractive works but also in meeting the artists who are present in their respective openings.
The artists who visited us this year and who, as members of the jury, exercised the difficult task of selecting the six winners of the present show were Caroline Ford of France; Kiyo Wada of Japan; Viviana Moncayo of Italy; Anna David of Sóller, Mallorca; Rais Gaitov of Russia; Jamal A. Rahim of Bahrain. We consider it a great privilege to meet them personally and to interchange opinions and ideas about art and about the life in their own countries.
For the first time the Mini Print in England will be shown in September and October in the Farleys Yard Trust cultural center, located in Chiddingly, Sussex, which Antony Penrose, son of the famous Surrealist photographer Lee Miller and the English Artist Roland Penrose, created. The presence of the Mini Print in this prestigious cultural center is due to the interest of its director Ian Chance, who has always valued highly the artistic and didactic quality of the exhibition. I believe that the participating artists as well as the organization owe him a debt of gratitude. We hope that the presence of the Mini Print in Farleys endures.
During November, December and January the show will be held at the Galerie l’Etangd’Art in Bages, France. As always, the presence of the Mini Print in France is awaited, visited and admired. The gallery director, and faithful collaborator, Sophie Cassard’s power of attraction mobilizes a large quantity of visitors from the south of France, many of them unconditional admirers of the Mini Print.
I want to give notice here that my daughter Mercè Fort is joining the organization. Knowledgeable of the Mini Print’s functioning since the beginning, she has agreed with pleasure to form part of our team. We appreciate her decision to participate in the organization with generosity and altruism.
We are grateful to the “Entitat Autònoma de Difusió Cultural de la Generalitat de Catalunya” for its economic support which has made the edition of this catalog possible. We also thank the Spanish Ministry of Culture, which has contributed to the propagation of the competition and the edition of the conditions of participation. Thanks to these contributions, the Mini Print can continue among us, although without the participation of so many artist printmakers with their beautiful works, the Mini Print would not exist. We again count on your collaboration in the future show that we are now organizing with great enthusiasm.