Thoughts on Editions and Multiples
At Marian Goodman from Multiples: Andy Warhol. Mao, 1972
10 screenprints on Beckett High White Paper, in portfolio, 36 x 36 in. (91.4 x 91.4 cm) (each). Edition of 250 plus 50 artist's proofs
There’s something liberating about deconstructing the idea of expensive, bourgeois art-object-as-investment, and consider instead the democratic distribution possibilities of the unsigned, unnumbered print. At P+R we haven’t adopted this philosophy to the extreme - at least not yet. We’re offering prints - all the same price and all the same edition size - for everyone we’re working with at the moment.
A recent historical survey, Multiples, curated by Dieter Schwarz, at Marian Goodman Gallery in New York, showcased editions begun in 1965 by a small publishing group (including Marian Goodman) arguably at a time more conducive to the idea of ephemera and experimentation in terms of concepts and materials, but similar in the sense that established notions about what constituted a work of art was being challenged, much as digital art traded as NFTs is forcing us to do once again.
Multiples offered a valuable survey of important, cutting-edge work from a very fertile period in American art, much of which was produced in large or unlimited editions. Multiples from the former category are still available for purchase today. Where else can you buy a work of art by Robert Morris, albeit unsigned and unnumbered, for $100?
As Goodman explains on the gallery website “….the ethos at Multiples, Inc. was very close to the socialist idea that art should be accessible and if art were available to everybody—and the price was not an object—then artists would have a huge audience.”
From an artist’s perspective, this is an attractive, if elusive premise and one that depends on having a high profile in the first place and/or being able to work with an intermediary (maybe an online platform like this) that concurs and is willing to work this way. But there’s also the matter of earning a living - unless you have a gallery that’s able to sell enough of your original art - you’d have to have a huge audience to sell enough $100 prints to keep food on the table.
At this point in time, when we’re witnessing the rise of blockchain and the rather incomprehensible cost of digital artworks traded as NFT’s, it seems that price versus value is diverging at an alarming rate. But then again, who can say what price versus value really means anymore? Is a link to an image (downloadable or not) more or less valuable because it doesn’t exist in a more tangible form?
Technology is presenting us with options that were unavailable in 1965 when Multiples Inc. came into being. Now it’s possible to create work on an iPad for example, and then immediately upload the fruits of your labor for sale online which is one way to access a potentially unlimited audience. But the keyword here is access - how do you tap into this supposedly unlimited audience that the internet offers?
Downloadable digital art could be today’s route to democratic distribution. It’s all in the way we choose to use it.