Excuse Me, Holly Black

In this episode of Excuse Me, Erin-Atlanta Argun is joined by Holly Black, arts journalist, author, and Contributing Arts Editor at The World of Interiors. Specialising in the visual arts, Holly has a particular passion for printmaking, a medium she explores in her new book, The Story of Printmaking: A Global History of Art.

Published by Yale University Press, the book traces printmaking from its early histories in East Asia through Renaissance Europe, revolutionary Mexico, post-Apartheid South Africa and into the present day. Along the way, Holly challenges the idea of the print as simply a means of reproduction, exploring how artists have used techniques from woodblock and etching to lithography and screenprinting to experiment, communicate ideas and circulate images across cultures.

It makes Holly a particularly fitting guest for MyArtBroker. Together, Erin and Holly unpack why prints have so often occupied a complicated position within art history, sitting somewhere between fine art, craft and commercial production, and what gets lost when we treat them as secondary to painting or sculpture. They also explore the physical processes behind printmaking, the importance of collaboration between artists and printers, and the extraordinary reach the medium has had throughout history.

As always, the conversation turns to the Excuse Me question. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Holly’s five dream artworks are all prints, but her choices span very different moments in the medium’s history. Through them, she considers what makes a print worth living with, the artists and techniques that have shaped her own relationship with the medium, and why printmaking continues to offer such a rich way of understanding visual culture.