Re: A last word on giclee

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chrome Dome" <crdome@lycos.com>

> As a curator from the academic environment I cringe whenever I encounter
the word "giclee". Students in printmaking have learned to use and love the
word for it hidden sexual connotation and it's ability to mask the source as
an inkjet printer. I can assure you that most student prints and those of
armature printmakers/photographers are printed in school labs or at home
using the cheapest inks and papers available.
>

This is what your colleagues from the Memorial Art Gallery - U of Rochester
say about IRIS prints (BTW, no one will say that an IRIS print is not a
giclee print):

"Iris prints are also known as Giclee prints. In fact, Iris printing is a
specific form of Giclee printing. Giclee is a term to describe fine art
inkjet printing. So there are other types of Giclee (fine art inkjet) prints
out there made by other printers but when you say Iris prints, it
specifically means prints that are made with an Iris printer. The Iris
printer is considered the highest quality printer for this form of fine art
inkjet printing."

Wikipedia, now confirmed by the journal Nature as being as accurate as the
Enc.Britannica, says:

"Giclée is the use of the ink-jet printing process for making fine art large
format digital images". It also says about giclee: "the term is used to
describe any high-resolution, large-format ink-jet printer output with
fade-resistant dye- or pigment-based inks.

It is then, apparent to me that any giclee print is an inkjet print. What
distinguish giclee inkjet prints from non-giclee inkjet prints is the
material used archival characteristics. I would bet that resolution wise,
the output of "several hundred dollars" inkjet printers of today is superior
to the IRIS prints of years before. You could take a $125,000 IRIS printer,
load it non archival ink and paper and what you get will not be a giclee
print, on the same vein, you could take a high quality output resolution
Epson printer, load it with archival ink and paper and you will get a
giclee print. The location, size or cost of your tool is of no
consequence.

> I view using giclee as a misrepresentation by charlatans. Too often I have
seen cheaply printed, textured, varnished-like prints on canvas produced
using the "special giclee process" trying to be passed off as paintings.
>

That is fraud and crime, with absolutely no relation to our
discourse.......I hope :-)

> Since there are certainly no standards of quality and assurances, I
believe it important to call the process exactly what it is as. If you are
using "permanent pigment prints" (which is not the material in most inkjet
cartridges) call it that along with what ever paper you choose to use (which
I hope is archival too).
>

In a perfect world people would judge by what it is and not what you call it
and or who made it, unfortunately, the people in the Art circles like fancy
names and/or descriptions, that is why you have "Silver gelatin prints"
instead of "black and white paper prints", for instance. So I'd say, that
if people don't want to live in a dead end street, call it "Cul-de-Sac", if
galleries won't take your high quality, archival ink jet prints. call them
"Giclee prints", hopefully once the "inkjet" connotation is removed from
your print, people will judge your work by its own artistic merits.
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Received on Sat Dec 17 10:09:46 2005