Very soon we’ll be celebrating our latest release, a print by a Canadian Artist, Michael James Jones. Everyone is welcome to come along and take a look at the work with us at the Foundry, and this will also be a chance to see some of our previous titles.
Two things happened during the making of ‘the 20th Century’ that seemed appropriate. Firstly the paper we chose was discontinued, we got the last 100 sheets in London, and secondly the original artwork destroyed itself during the printing process; there will only ever be 100 prints in ‘the 20th Century’. Michael’s print attracts this feeling of obsolescence like a magnet; like a prop from a silent movie set.
It is a silkscreen print on what looks like a vinyl record sleeve, under a layer of shrinkwrap that is a constituent part of the work. We weren’t sure whether to call it a print, a multiple, or a sculpture. We don’t know what it means for it if someone unwraps it. This is probably because artists like Michael aren’t here to solve problems, but to create more of them.
Michael was a fellow student of mine at the Slade Master’s programme, graduated in 2006, where he usually worked in film. His superb idiosyncratic style made him the perfect artist to choose to make the first solo work at our Press {i.e. we’d just screw it up if we intervened}. We asked him to come up with an idea for a ‘thing’ that we would facilitate. We are proud to present ‘the 20th Century’.
