ask a museum or gallery about mounting... brace yourself

[Sirius Glass]

I have not found that to be so. Are you going to museums that know the difference between a silver gelatin print and a giclee?

Photo art galleries don't recognize "giclee" , they recognize inkjet print or similar. "Giclee" is a marketing buzzword that's seen only in tourist galleries.

And the less giclee seen the better.

 

[removed account4]

Photo art galleries don't recognize "giclee" , they recognize inkjet print or similar. "Giclee" is a marketing buzzword that's seen only in tourist galleries.

not sure about that ..
i am sure it is a mixed bag

sorry to ask, but ...
you've been to how many photo galleries to come upon this statistic ?

IMO the dominant way museums and significant galleries (not referring to tourist/scenic galleries) is with archival board and beveled archival mat. Has nothing to do with "west coast" in US.

There's no reason other than cheapness to deliver a print, as anything other than a gift or on a unique mount (e.g. aluminum) without a beveled mat.

people can deliver a print any way they want.
it is up to the person delivering the print to decide how they want it delivered

i've delivered things not in a beveled mat and wood frame ( or gallery clips ) but
in a plak mount, they've been very happy ...
there is no hard and fast rule ( and there shouldn't be ) how anything is delivered ..

YMMV

 

[bdial]

"Archival ink jet" is the term I see used most lately. I haven't seen an ink jet print called a giclee in quite while, FWIW. Probably because everyone figured out the term was BS.

Work should be delivered to the gallery in the way the artist wants it displayed, whatever that is, unless some arrangement has been made for the gallery to mount or frame it.

 

[Jim Jones]

[QUOTE="bdial, post: 2032671, member: 4087. . . Work should be delivered to the gallery in the way the artist wants it displayed, whatever that is, unless some arrangement has been made for the gallery to mount or frame it.[/QUOTE]
Business is business. Artists and galleries should cooperate in how work is presented. The artist's life may center around his work, but the gallery should maintain a certain standard of presentation for diverse artists. This means the artist may have to compromise rigid standards, but the gallery may also have to accept work that doesn't fit their style. If they can't agree, why bother?

 

[Bob Carnie]

Jim is right, if the artist and gallery do not agree then why bother.
Right now a major gallery in my town will only accept. diabond, rag board and sintra as mounting substrates. No face to plexi , no resin coats.. There is absolutely no sense in approaching them unless you
are willing to follow their guidelines.

 

[jtk]

i know my work is worthless and i have no preconceptions that even if i was run over by the speeding locomotive superman couldn't stop in time
my work will be just as worthless tomorrow ..

ps i used to part own a gallery with a bunch of people and we were not presentation snobs we let people do whatever they wanted ...[/QUOTE]

If someone wants to exhibit prints in "galleries" that aren't "presentation snobs" they will of course be happy to do that.

I should have mentioned "fine prints"...that's what I had in mind.

My own Cibachrome transparencies were mounted with spray cement against giant white lucite, internally lit boxes. fyi I never bought the sales pitch that Ciba was more archival than other materials...all color transparency material fades, Ciba included. Ciba prints are not as stable as inkjet or dye transfer.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Ciba prints are not as stable as inkjet or dye transfer.

That statement is just bullshit.

 

[David Luttmann]

That statement is just bullshit.

Ciba prints are proven to not be as archival as the latest pigment inkjet. So no...the statement is not BS. Sorry.

 

[tomkatf]

A.A. mounted his prints I saw some of Bruce Barnbaum's prints all mounted. Bruce's print in a museum A.A. at a show. Dismounting a print with Bienfang's Unstik is easy and safe.

Do you mean dismounting a dry mounted print with Unstik?? Thanks!

T

 

[Lachlan Young]

That statement is just bullshit.

Ciba/ Ilfochromes keep very well in the dark, not so well under display conditions, Dye Transfer, current pigment inkjet & colour carbons are all better by quite a margin. This is not news.

 

[jtk]

Some galleries have print rooms, here you expect un-mounted prints in archival boxes (which they should provide along with cotton gloves). Good photo galleries care about things like mounting and archival permanence.

There's always exceptions as Bob mentions mural prints need to be mounted to avoid damage.

Ian

Yes. Exactly my experience. The key phrase is "Good photo galleries.

 

[jtk]

Some galleries have print rooms, here you expect un-mounted prints in archival boxes (which they should provide along with cotton gloves). Good photo galleries care about things like mounting and archival permanence.

There's always exceptions as Bob mentions mural prints need to be mounted to avoid damage.

Ian

Yes. Exactly my experience. The key phrase is "Good photo galleries.

 

[jtk]

This thread isn't really about what people did back in the day. When Ansel mounted prints they didn't know a whole lot of squat about archivability. It was just getting going at that point. People mounted their prints on straight cardboard. I believe Weston did this and remarkably many have held up. I just recently saw a Weston print of Tina on the Azotea at Art Basel Miami that had yellowing around the edges, so that one, not so much. Probably was mounted or framed with something non archival. The point is if you mount, you run the risk of later having a problem, or passing the problem on to someone else. Odds are a museum won't want to unmount the print just because it is expensive for them and there is a chance that the print might get damaged. In other words, what people do and what museums want are two different things. As others have suggested though, as the size of the print increases there becomes no real alternative to mounting the print. Photo corners on a large print is possible, but the expansion and contraction of the print doesn't do the display of it any favors.

The times I have tried to unmount a dry mounted print ended up being a pain. The print came off the matt fine, but getting the mounting tissue off the print was practically impossible. That is why I don't mount prints anymore. I don't print big though, so it is an option for me. Not that anyone cares about my prints anyway.....

Yes, un-mounting is the main dry-mounting problem. There's also the issue of mount decay, as with Crescent board.
My favorite Edward Weston print is now rapidly browning because of the mount...the brown is lovely, but it's not what EW intended.

 

[jtk]

Ciba prints are proven to not be as archival as the latest pigment inkjet. So no...the statement is not BS. Sorry.

Not only are Ciba prints less stable than pigment/inkjet (assuming archival paper), Ciba prints are virtually never as color accurate as well-done pigment/inkjet (i.e. Epson or Canon pigment).

 

[Patrick Robert James]

I don't particularly believe the longevity claims of modern inkjet materials. Let's see them in 50 years. Most prints aren't even a decade old at this point. I had a pile of inkjet prints near one of those ionizing air cleaners years ago and after a month or so any surface exposed to the air was roasted. Don't believe all you read about longevity. I don't know all the tests they do these days, but IIRC they used to just do lightfastness testing. Air pollution wasn't factored in. Personally I prefer the look of wet color prints even if they are done through a computer. I'll be dead long before they will be. Who is going to give a crap about prints in 100 years anyway?

 

[David Luttmann]

I don't particularly believe the longevity claims of modern inkjet materials. Let's see them in 50 years. Most prints aren't even a decade old at this point. I had a pile of inkjet prints near one of those ionizing air cleaners years ago and after a month or so any surface exposed to the air was roasted. Don't believe all you read about longevity. I don't know all the tests they do these days, but IIRC they used to just do lightfastness testing. Air pollution wasn't factored in. Personally I prefer the look of wet color prints even if they are done through a computer. I'll be dead long before they will be. Who is going to give a crap about prints in 100 years anyway?

So, if Ciba testing shows a certain longevity, it is true. But if pigment inkjet tests by the same organizations state something about longevity...they are suspect. Gotta love the internet.

 

[MattKing]

So, if Ciba testing shows a certain longevity, it is true. But if pigment inkjet tests by the same organizations state something about longevity...they are suspect. Gotta love the internet.

Might have something to do with real world experience. Cibachrome has been around for 50 years or so (1969), whereas the more modern alternatives have been constantly changing and are much more recent.
Skepticism about accelerated testing and advertising claims is different than unwillingness to accept long term results.

 

[jtk]

So, if Ciba testing shows a certain longevity, it is true. But if pigment inkjet tests by the same organizations state something about longevity...they are suspect. Gotta love the internet.

Ciba's own testing claimed "archival." That means 100 years without serious change. If you've actually seen Ciba prints from the 80's you know that was silly...

 

[jtk]

not sure about that ..
i am sure it is a mixed bag
there is no hard and fast rule ( and there shouldn't be ) how anything is delivered ..

YMMV

I suggest we ask the galleries to which we plan to submit our work. Some do have "hard and fast" rules, others will peddle anything that's colorful.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Cibachrome has been around for 50 years or so (1969)

Introduced in 1963, with four improvements up until 1971.
My own 'beginner' prints from 1977, both raw unmounted and framed and displayed are still here, and on my gallery wall. Later master printed images are even more spectacular. These are spot-illuminated in the gallery, and on the opposite wall are the hybridised RA-4 colour prints. Hmmm.

Two of the variants of Ilfochrome are not archivally stable. These are Ilfochrome Pearl and Ilfochrome Rapid, because they are RC based papers, not the polyester/black based Ilfochrome Classic high gloss material from which all tests for archival permanence are conducted and affirmed. Dark storage and/or conservation-framed display has been quoted at several hundred years.

Colour variations from digital vs the all-analogue Ilfochrome Classic process are fundamental to the process undertaken. Of IC, the high contrast and saturation of the Ilfochrome Classic gloss material also depends on very well exposed transparencies; too dark and shadows will be large swatches of black nothingness; too light and highlights and midstones will be stoned completely. Unfortunately this is something that too often did not get through to amateurs using Velvia and Provia so we saw a huge number of plainly awful images going through to print, versus the images of Peter Lik, Peter Dobre and Ken Duncan, among many other Australian luminaries.

The digital version of Ilfochrome Classic print production on the medium-contrast grade material got around the irksome problem of 'tidying up' the erroneous rendering of the red channel on Fujifilm transparencies (chiefly Velvia and Provia), with recommendations at the start that Kodachrome be used where a lot of red was involved in the image, very especially for the all-analogue print process.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

So, if Ciba testing shows a certain longevity, it is true. But if pigment inkjet tests by the same organizations state something about longevity...they are suspect. Gotta love the internet.

Archival permanence was not conducted by Ilford, but independent research labs. It's not to say however that master printers are not well versed or knowlegable about the process, and how to bring out the very best of Ilfochrome Classic prints in home, gallery, commercial or professional display environments over the long term, especially as many of these big prints are viewed as an investment and very rarely change hands.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

So, if Ciba testing shows a certain longevity, it is true. But if pigment inkjet tests by the same organizations state something about longevity...they are suspect. Gotta love the internet.

I never mentioned anything about the longevity of Ciba prints, only the experience I've seen in the real world with inkjet prints. Gotta love the internet!

You probably think your response was smart, but it wasn't really. Why don't you go back and read what I wrote. Maybe understand it this time? And don't lump me in with internet folks of which you seem to be one: you just don't realize it. Lol.

 

[David Luttmann]

I never mentioned anything about the longevity of Ciba prints, only the experience I've seen in the real world with inkjet prints. Gotta love the internet!

You probably think your response was smart, but it wasn't really. Why don't you go back and read what I wrote. Maybe understand it this time? And don't lump me in with internet folks of which you seem to be one: you just don't realize it. Lol.

LOL indeed. Maybe go back and read what I wrote. Talk about missing the point Einstein.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

jtk, there's an acceptable archival method of mounting which galleries prefer if they are going to sell prints. It's such a common practice I've never given it a second thought. Dry mounting is not recommended. That's from experience of a lot of galleries around the world.

Ian

+1

The problem with a dry mounted print is that it is almost impossible to remove the print from the backing without damaging it. A bit of thought would reveal this.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

"Archival ink jet" is the term I see used most lately. I haven't seen an ink jet print called a giclee in quite while, FWIW. Probably because everyone figured out the term was BS.

Work should be delivered to the gallery in the way the artist wants it displayed, whatever that is, unless some arrangement has been made for the gallery to mount or frame it.

The term giclee always brings a smile to my face when you know what the slang French means.