Martin Puryear: Printmaking | "Exclusive" | Art21

Episode #174: Filmed in 2002, Martin Puryear discusses his interest in printmaking and how the directness of the process contrasts with the accretive approach he takes with sculpture. Shown working at the Paulson Bott Press in Berkeley, California, Puryear employs skills he originally learned while enrolled at the Swedish Royal Academy of Art in Stockholm. Examples of Puryear's sculptures, many of which explore the same ideas reflected in his prints, are shown at the McKee Gallery in New York.

Martin Puryear's sculptures—in wood, stone, tar, wire, and various metals—are a marriage of minimalist logic with traditional ways of making. Puryear's exploration in abstract forms retain vestigial elements of utility from everyday objects found in the world.  A form that reoccurs in Puryear's work is the hollow mass, a solid shape with qualities of uncertainty and emptiness.

Learn more about the artist at:
http://www.art21.org/artists/martin-puryear

CREDITS | Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Bob Elfstrom, Mead Hunt & Ken Kobland. Sound: Doug Dunderdale & Jerry Stein. Editor: Morgan Riles. Artwork Courtesy: Martin Puryear, McKee Gallery & Paulson Bott Press. Theme Music: Peter Foley.

[TAPPING]

I started printmaking for the first time when I was in Europe, when I lived in Sweden.

I was making prints... I was in the graphic department of the academy at Stockholm,

And I did etching for two years.

[TAPPING]

I hadn't picked up etching for many many years

until I started working with the Paulson Press people on these prints.

So, it is a way to revisit some of that memory of learning the techniques.

Of course, I'm a very different person now than I was then, so that's been kind of fun.

I think I try to make work that's about the ideas in the sculpture without making pictures of the sculpture.

It's been a little tricky because I'm suddenly going into two dimensions

After working and thinking in three...

You have to ask yourself, "What is this about?"

I mean, is this about making pictures of ideas that you want to do,

Or is about really the idea of trying to make a drawing that has its own reality.

And that's the challenge.

Prints are direct. It's very freeing to work so directly.

There's an element of immediacy about it, or there should be--

In my hands it often isn't [LAUGHS]

Because I tend to be difficult to satisfy In terms of getting it the way I want it.

[WOMAN #1, OFF CAMERA] Let's hold that up so they can see.

[PURYEAR] It's nice.

[LAUGHS]

[WOMAN #2] Yeah?

[PURYEAR] Ah, it's nice. Yeah.

[WOMAN #1] Subtle shifts. [LAUGHS]
[PURYEAR] Huh?

[WOMAN #1] Subtle shifts!

[PURYEAR] Yeah. They make a big difference, don't they.

[WOMAN #1] Alright, let's put that up.

There is the potential for much more spontaneity with prints than there is with the sculpture,

Which tends to be very very slow, accretive kind of process--labor intensive.

[WOMAN #1] Is that straight?

[PURYEAR] That one's good. [WOMAN #1 AND WOMAN #2] Yeah! Woo hoo! [WHISTLES]

[WOMAN #1] We're happy now!

[PURYEAR] Well, I wouldn't say that.
[WOMAN #1] Aw... [LAUGHS]

[PURYEAR] [LAUGHING] We're getting there.
[WOMAN] Come on, Martin!

[ALL LAUGHING]