We believe that FANDSO should exist in unlimited editions.

An
unlimited edition reduces the market value of a work and brings it
closer to its production cost. An unlimited edition facilitates a more
direct aesthetic contact with the object because the hypocritical
respect that presently separates the spectator from the object is
reduced.
FANDSOS concept of unlimited editions is utopian.
Today it costs less to produce a small edition of costly etchings than
an unlimited edition of simple objects merely because the tools
of mass production are prohibitively expensive. Nonetheless, the
direction is indicated, and once these tools have become accessible,
we should be prepared to use them.
By means of industrial design, mass produced objects have
already been created in a way consistent with their mass production processes. For example, the first automobile was a horseless
carriage. Later, the design was more closely integrated with the
actual production process. The design then aimed to express and
serve the function of the object. But such adherence to function
distorted the aesthetic problem (which is why FANDSO wishes to
develop along similar lines without becoming functional). Because
the consumers attachment to an object increases proportionately
with the functional efficiency of that object, and because industrial objects are intended to be profitable and salable, such objects
always fulfill pre-existent public tastes. No unknown images
are revealed.
The credo of functional aesthetics demands of a design the best
possible expression of function. This leads to a kind of totalitarian
image. If a Porsche is dented, its image is diminished because it is
less than perfect. The design cannot be changed in any way; the
consumer is unable to contribute anything to the object. He can
only become increasingly involved in the activity of consuming.

New York Graphic Workshop: Luis

Camnitzer, Jos Guillermo Castillo,
Liliana Porter
I believe that the open work is the way for modern art, that is to
say, the way of fusion of life and art. . . .
. . . from this point of view, future art will be a return to the period
in which art was not an exterior function of society, rather a vital
function!
. . . Contemplation was finished because the aesthetic was dissolved
into social life.
Octavio Paz in a letter to Eduardo Costa, New Delhi,
November 11, 1966
Text
The very act of writing about Printmaking seems anachronistic. And
of course it is, except that in this case it can lead us to many other
things. Any approach to the subject demands a reactionary point of
departure. To think in terms of printmaking would seem to imply
an acceptance of the idea that art can be divided into sub-groups.
And in general those who do accept such a division also believe
that the arts can be divided into a hierarchy of major and minor
arts. . . . And Printmaking is considered a minor or second-rate art.
Historically the criteria for dividing the arts into major and
minor seem to derive from the value of their respective contribution in terms of images or systems of perception. With this reasoning it is clear that none of the benchmarks of the great styles or
isms (Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Cubism, Surrealism, etc.) were

The Bauhaus believed that sculpture and painting would eventually disappear and that all aesthetic activity would be assimilated
into functional objects. We disagree. We believe that all aesthetic
activity will eventually be assimilated into quotidian activity, not
into objects. Traditionally the value of an art object resided in its
final form rather than in its creative process. We believe that the
function of an artist is not to produce objects but to communicate
the artistic process itselfto transform todays consumers into
creative individuals.
Liliana Porter
Jos Guillermo Castillo
Luis Camnitzer
Acknowledgement: Willoughby Sharp (Production Advising)
Joanne Wilson (Editing)
The NYGW published this statement in the brochure for their Towards
Fandso exhibition, held October 631, 1967, at the Pratt Center for
Contemporary Printmaking. The brochure also included the 1964 and
1966 manifestos.
90

91

fig.84 Cover of the exhibition catalogue New York

Graphic Workshop: Luis Camnitzer, Jos Guillermo Castillo,
Liliana Porter, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, 1969

fig.85 A page from the exhibition catalogue New York

Graphic Workshop: Luis Camnitzer, Jos Guillermo Castillo,
Liliana Porter, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, 1969, with
text by Luis Camnitzer

achieved through Printmaking, but rather through Painting, Sculpture, or Architecture.

In this sense Printmaking was always a reproducer of images
that were first developed in other media, and therefore a secondrate art. Drer, Rembrandt, Goya, and Picassoall considered to
have been brilliant printmakersinitially developed their imagery in their paintings and only later defined them in prints. Even
German Expressionism, although perhaps most successfully manifested in the print, experienced a similar process.
In the early days, artistic printmaking and the printing industry
were on the same level. Furthermore, before the advent of moveable type, the image was even more important than the text. Today,
five hundred years later, the printing industry is one of the strongest
in the power structure. Apart from radically having transformed all
our relationships to our environment, at a merely technical level it
prints with and on any material, at high speeds, and in unlimited
quantities. In the meantime, artistic printmaking has remained
virtually stagnant ever since the introduction of lithographic techniques some two hundred years ago.
Printmaking remained isolated and enclosed in its own kitchen.
Variations only emerged extremely late, and thus silkscreen, in spite
92

of its long existence, was only accepted a few decades ago. Printing cuts and folds, overcoming the prejudice that impressions must
be made with ink, is still considered revolutionary and avant-garde.
Wallpaper is becoming unfashionable, but Printmaking still has not
begun to address the environment format. We live bombarded
by printed cans, boxes, bottles, and a vast array of other printed
containers, but Printmaking has only just recently begun to peek
timidly into the problem of three-dimensionality and continues
thinking in terms of paper, ink, and a printing press. Many years ago
a perforated card ensured the repetition of patterns in the clothing industry. Today that same card puts satellites into orbit, while
the print continues to be limited to the direct relationship between
printing plate and paper.
A machine can use an electrostatic charge to print a page of a
book on a persons face, without touching the face or distorting the
text. Printmaking, meanwhile, is still concerned with paper tears
during printing.
How is it possible that a form of expression can remain so isolated and untouched by the radical changes swirling around it? . . .
How can it be that not only it doesnt attempt to join the dynamic
process that surrounds it, but that it doesnt even try to assimilate
the contributions that are so clearly being flaunted in its presence?
One possible reason is the eminently technical approach that
Printmaking presupposes. The printmakers artisanal frame of reference allows him to think in terms of a quantitative accumulation
of sub-techniques, without concerning himself with the essential
concepts that could transcend that frame of reference and thus
lead to a qualitative revision of the entire process.
Basically Printmaking considers itself to be an accumulation of
the following techniques: woodcut, intaglio, the lithograph, silkscreen, as well as the various hybrid versions that have evolved
from them, excluding monotypes. It also assumes that the process involves leaving an impression in ink on paper that is identical
each and every time that the same sequence of technical steps is
repeated. However, what actually defines all these techniques is a
more general idea: the type and form of the image-producing surface used to create an edition of impressions.
If, instead of working within the notions of these techniques,
we work with this more general idea of an image-producing surface, we can approach a redefinition of Printmaking. We will also
be able to affirm our freedom to use any material, leaving the confines of more or less traditional materials, and freeing ourselves
from the inherent traditional prejudice that a print must be twodimensional.
Traditionally the image-producing surface uses ink to make
impressions. If we consider ink as a particular and accidental form
of the idea of a vehicle, then we free the idea of Printmaking even
more. Under the category vehicle we may include dry pigments,
ceramic pigments, flocking, Electro-static pigments, electrolyte pigments, photosensitive pigments, light itself, and any type of energy
that can help to define a particular image on a surface.
Also traditionally, the impression is made on paper. If we define
paper as a particular and accidental form of the idea of an
image-receptor, then we arrive at a relatively free way of conceiving Printmaking, at least at the technical level. The new concept
of what constitutes a print would then be: the result of a surface
93

that produces identical images on a receptor under repeatable

technical conditions. With this redefinition we get out of the
pigeonholes in which Printmaking has been confined for the last
six centuries. Suddenly we have at our disposal things like: screws,
photography, music on a record, television, computers, the shadow
cast by a horse out in a field, cinema, the auto industry, tracks in the
sand, Coca-Cola bottles, a glance in the mirror.
We are transported to a realm of almost absolute freedom, with
one limitation: the production of editions; and one responsibility: to develop images. The conceptual essence of Printmaking, its
only ideological constant, seems then to be the ability to produce
editions.
The history of the print is a history of vague solutions to an
ambiguously posed problem: the graphic problem. This problem
was most clearly posed in the early days of the print, although in all
probability unconsciously. The production of editions was an economic rather than aesthetic element, but, due to a certain lack of
sophistication, the solutions (that is to say, the prints that we know
of from this time) were aesthetically related to the problem.
The process of refinement that took place in Painting, from
Giotto to the School of Paris, located the problems of creation
within the canvas. The canvas or work of art was the solution in
and of itself. Today a work of art, to the extent that such a thing
still exists, has become the expression of a previous and more
profound creational problem. Hence the well painted canvas and
the notions of mtier and quality are in crisis, they are mere
unpleasant memories of an obsolete and alien culture.
The School of Paris tried ineffectively to solve the future of its
own art by using partial analysis and purisms in an attempt to
arrive at the core of creative problems. But, conditioned by their
cultural burden, the artists applied mechanistic criteria of the nineteenth century and took them to their logical extremes in the belief
that they were creating a contemporary culture. They battled the
past with instruments of the past, that is, still rooted in the past.
None of that, however, negates the fact that their analytical period
was helpful in raising awareness of the kind of contemporary synthesis that needs to be achieved. The sophistication of Painting had
a grave impact on Printmaking. There was a rapid evolution from
an initially particular and authentic Printmaking imagery to the
reproduction of one generated by Painting. Printmakings technical sophistication developed as a result of the need to reproduce
more faithfully the sophistication of Painting. Innovations such as
soft ground were developed to imitate red chalk drawings, and
perfectionisms such as the prints that came out of the collaboration between Villon and the School of Paris artists came from that
same attitude. Printmakers servile obsession to act as reproducers
and transmitters of other arts caused them to lose sight of the possibility of using the act of editioning as an aesthetic factor.
The most recent aesthetic period in which Printmaking could
recover was Informalism. During that time the image practically
reflected the instant at which the creator declared the free encounter between materials, techniques, and his own energy as an end
in itself. It was at this stage that rupture of materials was accepted
as the defining factor of their individuality, and when the resulting image was most highly respected. It was the clearest opportunity for the artist to become immersed in the technical process, to
94

ignore any strict sequences imposed by preconceived results, and

from this point on to reclaim an open attitude for a broad revaluation of his activity.
Printmaking, as the most technified, and the one most heavily burdened by its own technification, thus seemed the most
suitable medium for encouraging a rebellion and clearing the way
for Informalism. Once again, however, it was Painting and Sculpture that showed the way, and Printmaking joined in later and in a
derivative way. Printmaking was somewhat refreshed by Informalism and it was able to assimilate some new techniques, but the
variations turned out to be quantitative and its image imitative.
The other arts followed Informalism to its logical conclusion; they
used what happened in the development of imagery to develop
Pop art. Printmaking has only recently begun to understand and
assimilate those already made and now dead images. Printmaking continues to function at the level of the pictorial result rather
than at the level of the graphic problem, moving ever further away
from the creative necessities of today. The most outstanding prints
of Rembrandt, Goya, or Picasso are basically images proposed on
canvas and translated by graphic technique. Generally they even
imitate drawing, and their value, apart from the success of the
pictorial image, lies in the exact subordination of graphic techniques to drawing. The appreciation of a Rembrandt print happens
within the printed sheet itself, and even if one acknowledges the
existence of other identical printed images as forming part of an
edition, these do not influence each other. The appreciation is also
pictorial or original. From the moment the print is conceived to
its reception by the viewer, the criterion regarding the design is
always that of uniqueness. The creative concern remains limited
to the appearance of this print-result. However, if the force of the
image created by the print were to be based in what this imageunity implicitly contains, that is, the existence of infinite co-images,
then the problem of editionality would also have to be taken
into account.
The possibility of seeing in one screw the existence of millions
of identical screws is a feature that has nothing to do with technique or with an expressive medium. It is part of the problem of
the development of images that is typical of mass production, and
therefore also of Printmaking. A Volkswagen is aesthetically absurd
if seen as a single unit. Its particular shape could perhaps be justified by rationales concerning its function. But its true formal impact
is based on the multiple existence of the image-unit.
Suddenly we are in the field of production in series with a printmakers attitude. In this new context, a traditional print comes to
occupy a position equivalent to that of the Model T Ford in the field
of industrial design. The Model T is nothing more than a horsedrawn carriage with a motor in the place of horses. Over time, an
awareness of the production process caused that derivative image
to be abandoned in favor of images that were coherent with the
process. A Rembrandt print therefore continues to be an excellent
drawing but can never be considered as an excellent example of
serial production.
In this new context, the character the print needs to assume is
more defined. The work needs to represent a reality that only exists
and makes sense from the moment that it is created. It should not
be an illustrative representation of a pre-existing reality.
95

fig.86 A page from the exhibition catalogue New York

Graphic Workshop: Luis Camnitzer, Jos Guillermo Castillo,
Liliana Porter, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, 1969, with
text by Luis Camnitzer

If reasoning at the level of the problem is right, then a great many

traditional elements no longer make sense. Whether a work of art be
large, small, mono or polychrome, pleasant or unpleasant, harmonious, unbalanced, or any other characteristic belonging to traditional
values, becomes a not very relevant sub-product to the solution or
expression of the problem, which is the image. These values are
only important to the extent that they emphasize or negate the
image as representative of the problem. The image can also express
the problem without resolving it, leaving the solution to the observer, or excluding the possibility of a solution as another problem.
Technique also becomes, relatively speaking, an accessory at
this level. An image with a Printmaking problem can be painted,
although this would make as much sense as hand embroidering
a computer pattern. From a serial production standpoint, painting
is a Kafkaesque production instrument. It is a like having a perfect
sketch for a big mass-production that accomplishes its production
cycle in the sketch itself, without ever reaching the intended massproduction.
The printmaker is not just responsible for the design of the object
to be produced. He is also responsible for designing the production
96

and the inter-relationship between the object and production. The

industrial designer, a relatively new specialized profession, came
much closer to the root of these problems than the printmaker,
though bearing the hindrance of Functionalism.
Functionalism, which began as a formal-economic attitude in
reaction to a period of falsely aesthetic design, ended up in fact as
an aesthetic doctrine and a way of seeing.
Thus considered, Functionalism eliminated pictorial proposals
and those based on oneness, and reaffirmed issues concerning
production. Functionalism therefore often arrived at solutions that
comply with the problem of Printmaking.
Comparing a bank note with a roulette chip, the first is the result
of traditional printmaking while the second is a work of industrial
design. Both have value thanks to anecdotally stated conventions.
But the bank note describes these conventions pictorially. It is a
printed picture. In contrast the roulette chips design proclaims the
existence of its co-images, which provides support and aesthetic
coherence to those conventions.
But Functionalism becomes an obstacle the moment we enter
a more pure realm of creation. A creator is a specialist in perceiving environmental changes the moment that they take place
with the mission of creating perceptual systems that help the consumer to assimilate those changes. When they function correctly,
his images therefore are new and disconcerting to the consumer,
since they do not refer to the consumers outdated environmental
memories.
The functionalist industrial designer mixes an ideal of production with one of consumption. The ideal of consumption consists
of functionality and means of attracting the consumer to facilitate
acquisition.
Design, then, comes conditioned by a preexistent public taste; in
it there is no revelation of images, but it rather tends to confirm the
images that the public wants to consume. In isolated cases industrial design arrives at new images, but their sale is conditioned
either by a perceptive elite or by an exceptional functionality. In this
case functionality forces consumers to consume and binds them
to the product through a sense of ownership. When the sense of
ownership is due to functional or financial reasons, the consumers
freedom of detachment is curtailed. In Functionalism, furthermore,
the image is adapted to, identifies with, and represents the function. The problem is function and the solution is to express it as
well as possible within the parameters of the consumers taste.
The result is usually a completely finished product without any
possibilities of evolution. The image is rigid, aspiring to perfection
and therefore tends to be totalitarian. If a Parker pen gets scratched,
it is aesthetically ruined. The consumer is not able to contribute
anything to an industrially designed product that arrives in perfect
condition. His creativity is reduced to choosing it and to relate it to
other products. The consumer sinks ever deeper in his activity of
consuming.
The technical limitations inherent in traditional Printmaking put
pressure on at least some printmakers who attempted to break
limitations or explore possibly new solutions. Many of them return
to being painters and sculptors who, with an image already developed in those media, try to translate it into graphic media.
97

Lucio Fontana (Argentina-Italy) systematized the rip in paper in

order to translate the effect of some of his canvases. Lpez Anaya
(Argentina), Angelo Savelli (Italy), and Omar Rayo (Colombia),
reintroduced gauffrage [embossing], the inkless impression or
molding of paper. This technique already had been used in Japanese Printmaking two centuries earlier, but only as an ornamental feature. Now the technique appears at the same level as the
impression with ink, opening up a new avenue. Rolf Nesch (Norway), Michael Ponce de Len (USA), and Antonio Berni (Argentina),
though printing with ink also mold their paper, this time to achieve
a maximum three-dimensionality.
In 1964 Robert Rauschenberg made an object consisting of several superimposed sheets of Plexiglas, with lithographs printed on
them. That same year Joe Tilson (England), using offset, made a key
that was kept in an envelope. Also in 1964 Liliana Porter was cutting
and folding her prints. Jos Guillermo Castillo began to develop a
system of interchangeable units and played with random compositions of his plates. Luis Camnitzer printed on plaster, plaster bandages, and acrylic emulsions instead of paper in order to create
printed objects.
Also in 1964 Liliana Porter, Jose Guillermo Castillo, and Luis
Camnitzer formed a group under the name of New York Graphic
Workshop. That same year they issued their first manifesto, written by Camnitzer:
The printing industry prints on bottles, boxes, electronic circuits,
etc. Printmakers, however, continue making prints with the same
elements that Drer used.
Printing in editions, the act of creating an edition, is more important than the work carried out on a printing plate. This opens the
way to molding, cutting, folding, and the use of space. The quality
of the paper becomes irrelevant. Paper is only one accidental
example of a material existent before the printing process, like
cloth, glass, or plastic. Furthermore, there are materials that are
formed during the printing process, such as plaster, papier-mch,
or plastic emulsions.
From here we arrive at the idea of the object, transcending traditional ideas of painting and sculpture.
Printmaking offers us not only the possibility of the object but
also of an edition of objects. Only Seghers and Piranesi were able to
develop images with their prints. Printmakers situate themselves
only in relation to the other arts and live enclosed in their artisanal
kitchen. The moment has arrived for us to assume the responsibility
of developing our own images, conditioned but not destroyed by
our techniques.
In 1965 the gallery Multiples was established in New York with
the goal of selling objects produced in editions. It acted as an
outlet for multiple works of painters and sculptors. Unfortunately
the majority of the works tended to be only numbered reproductions of existing objects rather than examples of editionable
objects.
In 1966 the group [NYGW] sent out an end-of-the-year card, an
edible cookie molded with the text: Greeting1966New York
Graphic Workshop. The cookie was sent with a second, photocopied manifesto:
98

Historically Printmaking has been a second rate art. The only

valid uninterrupted factor in Printmaking has been the concept of
edition and the possibility of unlimited distribution. To us, today,
Printmaking is the creation of Free-Assemblable-NonfunctionalDisposable-Serial-Objects (F.A.N.D.S.O.). The qualities of these new
serial images revolve around the fact of their multiple existence
and their interchangeability. The mass production of FANDSOs will
bring to everybody the opportunity to develop their own creativity,
helping to remove the difference between artists and consumers.
Towards total art.
In 1968 the NYGW sent exhibitions by mail: three solo shows by
Porter, Castillo, and Camnitzer, with works that were designed to
disappear in the process of appreciation. The FANDSO was not
opposed to the traditional print; rather, the FANDSO included it.
What differentiated the FANDSO from traditional definitions was
that it was a conceptual and not a technical definition. Technique
became an accidental realization of a concept, coherent with creation at the problem level as a primary criterion and the result as a
secondary criterion.
In fact, for FANDSO to become an anachronistic word, its concept would have to lose validity, but the definition includes any
technique that complies with the concept. It is a qualitative not a
quantitative definition, potentially covering all current and future
techniques that comply with the edition requirement that FANDSO
established.
The notion of FANDSO called for a reorganization of the manner in
which images that are produced in editions are classified. This new
classification also has to refer strongly to the techniques of producing functional objects. The recent centuries of technical industrial
creativity, for economic reasons, left an immense untapped wealth
that could be used to make non-functional objects. Technically, and
with no intention of exhausting the category, we can therefore
classify FANDSO as follows:
FANDSO by impression.
This category includes almost all of traditional Printmaking, beginning with woodcut, through industrial and silkscreen printing with
vitrified pigments, all the way to electrostatic printing by Xerox,
and beyond.
FANDSO by molding.
It began with a track in the mud; then came Sumerian clay tablets
molded by small, incised stone rollers; then the gauffrage of Japanese printmaking; arriving at vacuum-molded plastics.
FANDSO by cutting.
Basically the idea of a die cut, from the earliest type of simple guillotine cut or a cut with scissors under predetermined conditions, to
the elaborate cuts of the printing industry.
FANDSO by folding.
Including the folded pages of the earliest books, to the links in a
chain, to the more complicated forms of packaging of the present
period.
99

FANDSO by casting.
Comprehending molded ceramics, bronzes created through the
lost-wax method, casts in general, up to the production of objects
by plastic injection molding.
FANDSO by light.
From the shadow of an object, the reflection in a mirror, a photograph, a hologram (a three-dimensional reconstruction of an object
by means of the projection of a laser beam through the information embedded in a special negative), to the activity of a photo
electric cell.
These categories are neither absolute nor do they exhaust the possibilities. Certain items are interchangeable between distinct categories. Gauffrage and die cutting, for example, could both be
considered impressions made without ink, etc.
In addition to technical categories, there are conceptual categories of FANDSO, the consideration of which opens new perspectives
on the approaches that could be taken from the viewpoint of traditional Printmaking.
In a first attempt [to define conceptual categories], there are the
following: FANDSO by slicing, FANDSO of interchangeable components, and FANDSO by chance.
FANDSO by slicing.
FANDSO by slicing comes into being through the consumption
of the matrix or image-producing object, not by the action of the
matrix upon another recipient material. In a certain sense it is an
anti-impression. Whereas a printing matrix expands its field of
influence toward the infinite in its reproductive potential, the sliceable matrix tends toward zero and toward its total annihilation.
The obvious case of FANDSO by slicing is the jelly roll and, to a
certain extent, salami or any kind of sausage.
A case of orthodox Printmaking that normally would be classified in the category FANDSO by impression but is at the same time
a clear example of FANDSO by slicing: the hectograph. The hecto
graph functions by way of the accumulation of ink with a high density of pigment on a gelatin surface. Each sheet of paper that is
printed from the gelatin removes some of the pigment, until after
about fifty copies the ink tends to disappear.
A very sophisticated producer of FANDSO by slicing, and in a certain way derived from the hectograph, is the tube of striped toothpaste. There is a small ink-filled ring at the mouth of the tube that
marks the toothpaste as it is squeezed out, creating a cylinder with
a striped surface.
Technically, any tube of toothpaste, oil paint, etc., produces
FANDSOs by molding and cutting.
Salami, and sausages in general, are producers of FANDSO by
slicing but, as we shall see further on, they also can fit in the category of FANDSO by chance.
FANDSO of interchangeable components.
The key example of this type of FANDSO is the alphabet. That is to
say the possession of a certain number of elements that can be
interchanged in an infinite number of ways, achieving a set or collection of meanings.
100

Whereas the FANDSO by chance accepts all variations, FANDSO

of interchangeable components accepts only those that are within
the established conditions of meaning. These conditions, established by the artist creator, can be within technique, form, conditions of color, etc.
The concept in this case implies that the image-unit is designed
for placement equivalences, that is, that the interchange of places
for the different elements always complies with the intention of
the design.
Jos Guillermo Castillo of The New York Graphic Workshop
explored the problem of 74 interchangeable yellow shapes. The
shapes were different, like the letters of the alphabet. The variations could be regulated by rules of quantity, direction, or accumulation. In this particular case the variations occurred on the
plane, with yellow elements that had a particular type of curve
that guaranteed a certain equivalence among the phrases that
emerged.
Those solutions that lack any meaning within what becomes
the chosen language, remain excluded. But in general, the design
of the elements with the help of the rules, establish the possibility
of only correct solutions, whatever they may be.
101

fig.87 A page from the exhibition catalogue New York

Graphic Workshop: Luis Camnitzer, Jos Guillermo Castillo,
Liliana Porter, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, 1969, with
text by Luis Camnitzer

FANDSO by chance.
At this stage we can see that our redefinition of Printmaking still
has its limitations. As with traditional Printmaking we continue to
think in terms of the result, not the problem. Since the problem of
creating editions is not just a technical problem but a creational
one as well, it cannot limit itself to the production of a series of
inert and isolated objects. The lack of a technical definition of the
edition becomes clear upon considering the interrelationship of the
images produced, when seen as opposed to a mere multiplication
of originals. And if we then decide that the edition is an attitude
and not only a mechanism, we find that when faced with an object
we have more than one interpretive distance.
What is a mirror? Normally, it is a piece of glass with certain
reflective qualities. If we make a number of identical mirrors, we
can consider them as serial objects belonging to a more or less traditional edition. But a mirror reflects images. In the particular case
of successively reflecting identical images, we can consider that it
produces serial images as in a traditional edition.
Let us say that we create an edition of mirrors. From one interpretive distance then, what we have is an edition of objects, from
another distance, an edition of producers of objects. But in both
cases, in order to define the problem, we have to use static images.
If the static quality does not apply (for example, with different
reflections in the mirror), we fall outside the traditional edition. Let
us now decide to edit the problem of reflection. We can make an
edition of mirrors that meet the requirement of reflecting, but it
does not matter what they reflect. We are editioning a problem and
not a solution. If we edition a skipping rope, we are not edititiong a
fixed position of the rope but rather all its potential positions.
We are now in the realm of the FANDSO by chance, and that
brings us closer to one of the fundamental issues of creation today:
creation at the level of problems rather than of outcomes, of ideas
rather than of specific instances or static results.
One FANDSO by impression that is acceptable to traditional Printmaking is an assembled jigsaw puzzle, a print with the possibility of
being divided. A single piece of that puzzle would also be acceptable. What is definitely not acceptable to traditional Printmaking is
a disassembled and chaotically piled jigsaw puzzle. From the point
of view of FANDSO by chance, a jigsaw puzzle is a problem: pieces
that can be assembled with infinite possibilities of judgment. Only
one of these infinite possibilities coincides with the original image,
which would be the acceptable one to traditional Printmaking. As
far as FANDSO is concerned, all solutions for the jigsaw puzzle are
valid, accidental in themselves and only representative of the jigsaw puzzle problem, the problem being the only constant element
of the edition. Most sausages fall within the category of producers
of FANDSOs by chance. The particular design of each slice changes
according to the random distribution of the bits of fat and spices.
However, the particular characteristics of salami, mortadella,
etc., are such strong determinants of the image that each slice is
definitive and representative of the entire problem.
Having said all this it must be affirmed that FANDSO is more
of a goal and an attitude than a fact. It is an aesthetic but also an
ethical proposal.
Aesthetically FANDSO has no definitive element in terms of the
image it producesit is imponderable and not absolutely definitive.
102

The elements that seem to comply best with the established context are those that define essence, the realization of inclusive
images or situations, which we will discuss later. An initial assessment seems to indicate that aesthetic and literary elements that
could distract from that essence are to be discarded.
But just as Jungs archetypes are more complex than an advertising image such as a logo, FANDSOs arch-image need not be limited
to the aesthetic of the logo. FANDSOs image will appear through
the production of FANDSOs and will be self-defining.
Economically FANDSO is utopian. It is currently cheaper and
more feasible to make a limited, relatively expensive edition of fine
prints than to produce an unlimited edition of a simple object. This
is because the means of production are not generally available to
artists on the necessary scale. But working in this direction means
having the language ready for the moment when the means
become available, without having to lose time in transitional periods of the Model T Ford or Social Realism kind.
Thus rooted in the idea of FANDSO, much of what is written
above becomes clear. We began by parting with traditional Printmaking, attacking it, redefining it, taking its logical or implicit consequences to their ultimate extremes, and arriving at FANDSO.
Ironically once we arrive at FANDSO, all that is written loses
meaning. Following a straight line we imperceptibly undergo a
radical qualitative change.
Before there were images that, when made in Printmaking, were
considered good even though, when seen in Painting, they would
have been called obvious and derivative. With FANDSO this does
not work anymore.
We are creating our own independent field, and though it originated as a contemporary response to traditional Printmaking, it no
longer needs to apologize for being a minor art.
The image produced by the FANDSO must be of the first order, at
the same level as any unprecedented and revealing image produced
in any other media, with the greater responsibility that comes from
believing itself to be the only one produced by genuinely contemporary means, capable of providing the keys to and helping the
revolutions required by our current times.
A few pages back FANDSO seemed to embrace or include traditional Printmaking. This was an inclusion for technical reasons.
Now we can see that FANDSO reserves the right to use any technical means that permit serial production without losing its own
definition as a FANDSO.
With this frame of reference we can now attempt to better
locate our function as artists.
Right now, our thought process is based more on words than on
images; our imagination resembles a teletype machine more
than a television. The causes of this condition at this time are less
important than the fact that, from one generation to another, the
transformation factor for words is slower than it is for systems of
perception. Therefore, the rationalization of our perceptive process
is held back since it is classed within word systems. Word systems
function as instruments for communication, as one of many social
lubricants, but not as an instrument of translation for our perceptual position within the contemporary environment. In general, we
inherit not only words but also phrases, metaphors, and common
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places in the same way that we inherit the rules of etiquette. Our
generation discovers verbal solutions for the needs posed by one or
two previous generations that are already dead.
This situation inserts a step between the average individual
and his or her immediately present environment. The prophetic
quality attributed to artists only means that, thanks to their specialization, they can overcome the immobility of words and relate
better to the dynamic process of images. Due to the simple fact of
being rooted in their time, they are two generations ahead of their
society from a perceptual point of view.
The role of the artist seems to be, then, to erase the step that
separates individuals from their environment, to help them perceive environmental changes as they happen, and to enable them
to create their own perceptual adjustments to those changes.
It is not possible to say, however, that artists throughout history have consistently complied with this proposal. For now Art
History as it is used by our society functions as a reactionary tool,
as a brake on the creative process. The constant objective is to sell
the products of a given perceptual system, from a particular period,
as valuable objects. Implicit in this action are three premises that
are both doubtful and dangerous: (1) that the products Art History
sells really do represent, or are interchangeable with, the creative
processes that produced them; (2) that the enjoyment and understanding of those products are a pre-requisite for understanding
our own products; (3) that the validity of our art objects depends
on the scale of values attributed to the historical sequence that we
understand as having preceded ours.
It is therefore in the best interests of Art History that we have
slow perceptual evolutions and not radical revolutions. To say that
Michelangelo is as foreign and unintelligible to us as Chinese painting becomes a heresy, now that History is selling us both.
The Academy follows this path most faithfully, giving us symptoms instead of causes, and elevating the copying of models to the
level of an absolute and positive value. It is essentially a totalitarian
system, the cultural consequence of a central powers need to eliminate friction in the social functioning of the governed masses.
This explains why the artist is considered a rebel, and generally is
one, albeit at a very subjective level. Artists feel and resent the perceptual disparity within their society and try to break the rules that create
it. But the solutions they generally offer are new totalitarian objects,
only suitable for passive consumption. Artists liberate themselves to
the extent that they use creative processes to break and renew the
system. But they are not liberating society; they are only providing it
with new chains, assuring the permanence of this disparity.
Perceptual disparity is a consequence of the fact that the artist
is a product of and for the elite. The social function of the artist has
always in fact been closer to the protected court jester than to the
social organizer. That the market more solidly supports the artist
than the circus is no more than a cultural coincidence. But the fact
that an auction of pieces of canvas with pigment can raise more
money than would be necessary to cover the deficit of an under
developed country is an indicator that a very strange game, not
particularly linked to aesthetic essences, is being played.
The artist has an urgent need to exit this level of the superstructure and the luxury object in order to become part of the structure. The ultimate end is to arrive at the point where the consumer
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participates directly in the creative process with no need of the artist as an intermediary or of the accidental cadaver of the art object
with respect to that process. In this sense the artists function is
self destructive. To the extent that the artist functions successfully,
his survival is cut short.
Luis Camnitzer

Liliana Porter [Artist Statement]

The mental distance that exists between the graphic representation of a wrinkle and the real fact of a wrinkle itself.
The relationship between fiction and reality, superposed. Supporting each other, and at the same time contradicting each other.
That redundancy creating the possibility of something else.
The wrinkle is only one possible example for this proposal. The same
idea could be applied to:
shadowshadow
lightlight
stainstain
The drawing of a shadow and a real shadow.
What I make added to what naturally occurs.
Something like this: pretending that I am myself.
The idea is to superpose reality upon the description of that same
reality.
To enter into a creative process, participating in it and shortening
the distance that need not exist between making art and being
alive.
32 Interchangeable Units of Jos Guillermo Castillo
[Artist Statement]
What is most important to me is to wake within the spectator a
greater consciousness not of the work in and of itself but of his or
her surroundings. Art should be a catalyst that allows people to
appreciate nature. Art = Nature.
The Units are themselves interchangeable in two directions
and their interior components are also themselves interchangeable, thus giving greater flexibility to how they may be used and
permitting the spectator a greater participation in the creative
process.
Luis Camnitzer [Artist Statement]
Traditionally art has been exclusive from an information point
of view. In this context exclusivity means giving of a maximum
amount of information in order to prepare the objects in question
to be passively consumed. A landscape tries to provide information
about the real thing (realism), about landscapeness (generalization and abstraction), or about a certain kind of analysis that is
guided and concerns the restructuring of the landscape (impressionism, cubism, etc.). But all of these examples are limited to giving information and go no further. The object is and the observer
(or rather, the consumer) either consumes it or rejects it, without
explicitly being involved in the creative process. The consumer is
only permitted to consume the residue.
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