Kris Decker, Maschinen unter Druck, Vexer Verlag, St. Gallen, 2022
"They bend over the machine, apply and wipe, move from the table where the colours are mixed to the prints spread out on the floor, consult about the 'Cadillac blue' (Stauch), separate again, modify the composition of the paint, negotiate the products from the next run, which are provisionally hung on a wall, and make pragmatic, aesthetic, conceptual, craft decisions. In the course of a day in the workshop, some things are courant normal, but it can happen that things don't work out, get stuck, are repeated and reconsidered and done all over again. Occasionally the machine sparks in, a tool doesn't do what it's supposed to, or a material insists on its waywardness.
Several sheets of paper passed through the machine that day. What emerges is by no means a product of chance, but neither is it entirely plannable or predictable. The elements that shape this process are interwoven in many ways, including the preliminary work from Stauch's studio, the rollers of the machine, the stone with its special material properties, the etching agent, the artist's ideas, the experiences of the printer, the history of their collaboration, the art history of lithography, the workshop rituals. And, not to be forgotten: the ink pots that Wolfensberger opens and takes from them those substances for whose properties he has developed a special attention in the course of his decades of work - substances that are capable of surprises as soon as they come into contact with the paper inside the machine. Even if there is routine and experience: In principle, Wolfensberger says, no two printing passes are the same."
German
136 pages
Format: 11.4 x 16.8 cm
ISBN 978-3-907112-59-5
CHF 25
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