Time for a Rethink the Perils of Print PortfoliosAs much as I love a well-crafted print, and as eager as I
am to add various prints to my collection, there is something
deeply disturbing about the ubiquitous portfolios churned
out year after year by various printmakers’ camps. Such
portfolios can be good bargains for a budget collector, but
the more serious a person becomes in his or her approach
to art the more these portfolios reveal their weaknesses. At
the heart of the matter is the way contemporary printmakers
view each other, work with each other, view themselves and
view their practice.
This past October I was invited by Viraj Naik to the
Sunaparanta Art Centre in Goa. There I functioned as “guest
curator” for the 2012 Etching Prints Workshop. My duties
included observing artists incise lines, ink and wipe plates,
burnish unwanted scratches and take initial impressions. I
was also asked to conduct video interviews with venerable
printmakers Anupam Sud and Jyoti Bhatt, inspect and
critique the portfolios of the younger printmakers, make
a visual presentation about my own collection, and, of
course, eventually write a catalogue essay. True to the
modus operandi of such camps, a portfolio and exhibition
were planned as the culmination of the endeavour
