The demise of the art reproduction
So the Turner Prize has been won by a video produced by an artist entirely on her mobile phone. It’s not good news for the concept of ‘the museum without walls’, Malreaux’s phrase which he coined to promote visual art by the publication of illustrated books, in his case of French painters. And it certainly isn’t good news for my scrapbook where I Pritt Stick in reproductions from newspapers and magazines to enjoy and judge. Reproductions have spread ideas in art since the invention of engraving. Even tapestries, which were sometimes multiples, could have that effect. Raphael had a profound influence from the compositions in his superb tapestry cartoons. On a personal note, I remember being given the task at school to design a record cover. I chose to do one for the honky-tonk pianist Winifred Atwell’s number, ‘The Poor People of Paris’, in a style heavily influenced by Picasso’s Blue Period which I had seen in one of the earliest cheap art books from the Fontana series. I had