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GUM  DICHROMATE

This photo-printing technique originated in the mid 19th century, but its heyday came a few decades later. It is the best known of all artistic processes in the pictorial period. Rubber printing calls for handicraft and imagination; when using this technique you discover the workmanship of old-fashioned photography, in which creativity interlocks with the artist’s painstaking process. Rubber printing can be exceptionally rewarding, since the inherent expressive potential goes well beyond what modern photolab standards will make possible.

the Technique:  
A specially treated and sensitized sheet of watercolor paper is exposed to solar light, in contact with a negative of the desired size (computers can help bring out the right negative). Development (unveiling) takes place in cold water: a unique image obtains, its stability as strong as that of conventional paintings. While the printing is in process, you can intervene with brushes and with other ways of working the image to your liking, to give shape to your aesthetic sense.

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THE  EXHIBITION
June 2 to August 25, 2002

On Sunday June 2, 2002 at 3:00 P.M. the workshop will reach completion by inaugurating the exhibit " Aquatint: Visions from an Ancient Technique in the New Millennium ": featuring dichromate-rubber photoprints selected to bring out the technique’s expressive potential and ability to convey moods and visions. On inauguration day, practical demonstrations will enable visitors to appreciate the technique in operation. And even before inauguration, as part of the training program, the exhibit will be open to all workshop participants. The works will be on public display through August 25, 2002.

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THE  WORKSHOP
May 30 to June 2, 2002
conducted by R.Lagrasta

The workshop takes place at Holy Wood, a center for artistic research based in a restructured farmhouse steeped in the woods, in the quiet of the Tuscan hills that stretch from Volterra to Colle Val D’Elsa: a four-day live-in experience conducted by Roberto Lagrasta, in collaboration with Giorgio Giachello, in the course of which participants get to know and experiment dichromate-rubber printing. The open, soothing woodland environing the estate will make it possible to have some of the training sessions outside. All participants who complete the course will receive an attendance certificate.
Pictures of the center are available at:  Hospitality.
For directions to Holy Wood, visit:  Maps.

Roberto Lagrasta: 
The workshop instructor, Roberto Lagrasta, lives and works in Parma. He took up photography in the late 70s, and from the outset preferred black-and-white to color. In 1989 he found out the beauty of rubber printing, its expressive and creative potential. He is a promoter of the Parma Grandangolo Photo Club (est. 1982) and cofounder of the Gruppo Rodolfo Namias (est. 1991), an association committed to studying and bringing to fruition the ancient procedures of photo printing. He has exhibited in sundry one-man and collective shows in Italy and abroad; also, he conducts theoretical and practical internships and does illustrative demonstrations at schools and artistic circles. In 2001 FIAF presented him with its AFI award for best Artist of Italian Photography.

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HOW  TO  ENROLL

DATES: the workshop is set to begin Thursday May 30 at 11:00 P.M.  and lasts through Sunday  June 2 at 3:00 P.M.

ENROMENT: Everyone is welcome, but no more than 14 participants will be registered. The only course requirement is a working knowledge of the Italian language.

COST: the worhshop will cost € 470,00, which are inclusive of enrollment fee, courseware, and room and board for four days and four nights.

LIVE-IN: two arrangements are possible:
1) from Wednesday night  (May 29) through Saturday night (June 1).
2) from Thursday night (May 30) through Sunday night
(June 2).
You can also choose not to sleep in and so take part in the workshop only, in which case lodging expenses will be deducted from the overall cost..
It is important that in your registration form you inform the organizer (which see bottom of page) of the live-in solution you prefer, or else that you indicate your choice not to stay in: by default, failure to specify this choice will activate Solution One above.

Special needs can be worked out in agreement with the workshop office.

PAYMENT: a € 100 down payment is required by May 15, 2002. 
 
The balance is due upon arrival.
All down money will be returned if a minimum target of five participants is not met. By contrast, there is no refund for last-minute changes of mind (as by deciding to withdraw your registration form or not take part in the workshop)!

info

Silvia Giachello
silvia@holywood.it

To view more images of rubber prints:

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