They're Copying!

Another trend I noticed at the fairs in Miami was Xeroxing. There were a few works by Ari Marcopoulos, including one of a machine gun and one of his son, Cairo (shown here). Marcopoulos' use of the Xerox technique creates soft, velvety images that seem like they would stain your fingers if you touched them. He also recently had a show in NYC where he presented large-scale Xeroxed images.

White Columns, NYC's oldest alternative art space, has been producing a benefit print portfolio for the last couple years. This year, it doesn't look like there is a 2008 portfolio. Instead, there are a number of limited edition prints, all printed by Xeroxing. You can view them here. I am not sure yet what I think about Xeroxing as a printing technique. Initially, I thought it was ridiculous- that you could just take a print to your own copy machine and expand the edition size by 10, 50, or even 100. However, Xeroxed prints would still need to be signed and numbered, increasing the importance of that act in identifying the "original" prints from the "copies." Xeroxing does have some visual similarities to silkscreens, though, and could be considered, in some ways, as a technological advancement. Xeroxed copies each have some subtle variations and I can image Warhol creating a suite of Jackies using a copying machine. The use of the Xerox machine also further blurs the line between art and everyday life, elevating a banal clerical task to art production. It makes you think more about pressing that green button...