So, continuing from the earlier post, Original Print, why is it that the more conservative galleries and open exhibitions reject digital art work, especially "giclée" (inkjet) prints? Apart, that is, from an innate mistrust of the new, and especially of computers as a tool for art-making? I have no wish to bash these self-styled gatekeepers simply for being fogeyish sticks-in-the-mud (oh, go on, Mike, why not?), and there are points on both sides of the arguments, as there always are. So here, for your consideration, are what I think are the major factors. Please feel free to share your own views.
1. Techno-Dread
That curious word "giclée" was originally coined back in the 1990s, apparently to avoid any mention of the dread word computer. That there are still people who are repelled by anything to do with computers, automation, digitisation, mobile phones, and so on, is hardly surprising. They are not necessarily tinfoil-hat wearers, but often people who find aspects of the modern technological world uncongenial and deeply suspect, an honourable tradition that goes back to William Morris and William Blake, and with which I can sympathise. I am fairly computer-literate, but reject social media entirely, and I consider entrusting your finances to some half-baked app on your phone idiotic. But to favour the procedures of some inky-fingered 18th-century engraver as somehow more artistically wholesome than the creation of a digital print is like insisting that a meal made from ingredients gathered from your own garden and slow-cooked on a solid-fuel Aga range is the only true way to cook supper; I suppose, to continue the metaphor, that by comparison a digital print must seem the equivalent of a microwaved ready-meal. Well, yes, there is an interesting contrast to be made there, but the aspirational Aga-artisan lifestyle is available only to a certain elite segment of society, and the rest of us have to do what we can within the constraints of modern urban life.
2. The Snobbery of Scarcity
If just anyone can own and enjoy a mass-produced object – a paperback book, for example – then its value as a possession is zero to the sort of person who demands and can afford exclusivity. A one-off painting by a big-name artist is the ideal, but a limited edition print, made by hand, is an acceptable substitute even in the most conservative corners of the art world. Traditional image-printing techniques, despite having been invented originally as a means to produce as many identical copies of a picture as possible, are now used solely to make these limited edition prints [1]. The limitation of the edition is meant to be strict: after the full intended run of an art print has been pulled – perhaps as few as 10 copies – the plate or block is (or is supposed to be) destroyed or scored through, thus guaranteeing that no more prints can be made from it. Also, wear and tear (not to say boredom and exhaustion) put a practical limit on the number of good impressions that can be made, especially from a delicate surface like a mezzotint, and of these the earliest impressions give the most faithful rendering. Hence the custom of numbering the pulls [2] and hence also the relatively higher value of early impressions. Although if you want really exclusive options there are usually also a few "artist's proofs" and hors de commerce prints to be had.
By contrast, the "editioning" of a digital print or a photograph is always a bit of a fraud. Quite apart from the fact that an unlimited number could be produced, the first and the last items in the edition will be (or should be) completely identical. A particularly peculiar practice, but not uncommon, is the escalation of the price upwards in bands as the edition of a digital print or photograph sells out. The psychology of this always seems a bit weird to me, but if scarcity is desirable, then scarcity will be provided, one way or another, although I have my doubts as to whether anyone ever actually destroys their negatives or digital files [3]. The harsh view would be that the numbered editioning of digital prints is redundant and essentially skeuomorphic i.e. an attribute which was functional in an older, original object but which has been retained for essentially ornamental purposes in a newer, derivative object, even though it is no longer either functional or necessary. The less harsh view would be, well, it's what people want, isn't it?
3. Genuine Imitation Leather
I suspect a core cause of the rejection of "giclée" prints in gallery circles is the person who has scanned or photographed their own non-digital artwork, kept the original, and is marketing high-quality digital prints of it as a limited or even unlimited edition. It's very common, and such items fill the print racks of framing shops and small galleries (not to mention eBay and Etsy). After all, if all you want is a nice picture for your wall at a reasonable price, and couldn't care less about its scarcity or authenticity – that would be most of us, I think – what could be better? I have a very attractive Eric Ravilious print made in exactly that way and sold by the Tate Gallery, no less. I suppose you could call it a "reproduction", but it's certainly a big step up from a poster of the same image. You do need to keep an eye out for pirates, of course; eBay, in particular, is awash with amazingly barefaced rip-offs (try searching for, say, "Hockney print").
4. Skeuomorphic Resonance [4]
There is a persistent regard for some kinds of mark-making over others. For reasons I appreciate but lack the insight to explain, the tentative marks made by the unaided human hand seem to resonate more than those made with mechanical help: even something as simple as a line drawn with a ruler seems to carry less artistic weight than one drawn freehand. Moreover, the marks made using an instrument like a brush, pencil, or stick of charcoal directly onto a traditional "support" like canvas or paper carry the most weight of all. Although even those may ultimately be carrying the inherited resonance of an ochre pebble rubbed on a cave wall (archival life: 15,000 years or more, if kept in cool, dark conditions).
It is no surprise, therefore, that all digital image-creation software packages provide a full suite of "brushes" that imitate these instruments and can be adjusted in size, texture, and even response to pressure from the same simple stylus on the surface of a graphical tablet. It's incredibly useful, efficient, mess-free, and a lot of fun but, like the editioning of digital prints, essentially skeuomorphic. If you want, your picture can look just like a pencil sketch on rough paper coloured with transparent watercolour washes, even though it's nothing of the sort, and I can understand why this makes some people unhappy. There's a reason David Hockney's iPad creations look so deliberately, cack-handedly digital; it's a sort of "truth to materials". Much worse than imitative brushes, though, are the built-in filters that can convert an entire photograph into something resembling, say, a watercolour painting or a pastel drawing. You see these abominations everywhere, often printed onto canvas, and offered for sale under the false flag of a sort of "art" which they clearly are not. I hate this stuff, and it gives both digital photography and honest digital art a bad name.
5. Follow the Money
Most exhibitions are intended to sell work. You won't be surprised to learn that I have no experience with straight-up commercial galleries: I presume they are mostly happy to show whatever their roster of name artists are coming up with, in whatever medium they happen to be working in. I have mainly shown in, or at least submitted to, the less commercial "open" shows that are typically held annually by an arts society or organisation. But these people need to pay bills and staff salaries and repair the roof, too, so fund-raising is an important aspect of what they do: that's why they charge their customary 30-40% commission on all exhibition sales. The temptation to show only work that, on past performance, will actually sell must be huge, so – if it is the case that photography and digital art do not sell well – it may be that it is buyers, not galleries, who are the indirect source of prejudice against them. Although my surprising success with a couple of digital prints at the 2017 Royal Academy Summer Show would at least partly argue against that (I think I may have mentioned My Finest Artistic Hour before, oh, maybe just once or possibly twice...). Which brings us to:
6. Taste
It's quite striking how widespread an agreement there is on what constitutes good taste, not so much at the stratospheric levels of art practice, where "good taste" is usually the unspoken enemy, but down here in the middle, at the shows where decorative art predominates, and people are looking for a picture for the living room wall that either makes them feel good (rather than "challenged") or that matches the new sofa; ideally, both. I have to concede that the prejudice against digital photography can be well-founded on grounds of taste: the tendency is for self-styled "fine art" photographers to produce garish, painterly kitsch. There's a certain unreal palette of peach and salmon pink that nearly always appears in sunset landscapes, for example, that makes me feel slightly nauseous whenever I see it. Similarly, it's easy to see why lovers of timid still-lifes of flowers and seed-heads and characterful pots are repelled by the way many purely digital artists converge on the sort of grungy, illustrative conventions that are familiar from album art and the covers of sci-fi and fantasy paperbacks. In fact, those grungy, illustrative conventions are a crime against good taste that I probably commit myself, a lot of the time. However, it would seem more than a little unfair to reject all work in a medium simply because some of its characteristic content is not to your liking.
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