Platemark: prints and the printmaking ecosystem

In s2e6, co-hosts Ann Shafer and Tru Ludwig discuss relief printmaking techniques, which include woodcuts and linoleum cuts. They also talk about reduction woodcuts, aka suicide woodcuts.

In s2e5, co-hosts Ann Shafer and Tru Ludwig talk about paper as a support and the ink that is transferred from a matrix. Without these two materials, prints wouldn't exist.

In Platemark s2e4, co-hosts Ann Shafer and Tru Ludwig finish talking about Albrecht Dürer. He had a remarkable career, and changed the perception and reception of prints in Europe at the beginning of the 16th century. Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528). The Fall of Man or Adam and Eve , 1504. Engraving. 25.1 x 20 cm (9 7/8 x 7 7/8 in). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Albrecht Dürer (German,...

In this bonus episode, co-hosts Ann Shafer and Tru Ludwig talk about how they got into art in the first place. From early childhood encounters through college, the hosts reveal why they love art and believe wholeheartedly in its transformative power.

In s2e3, co-hosts Ann Shafer and Tru Ludwig finally start talking about an artist. While there are artists of note before Dürer--say Martin Schongauer--he really changes everything. From his monogram claiming authorship to marketing his works, Dürer is the man. So much so that Ann and Tru only get through half of his story. A second episode will continue Dürer's story.  Albrecht Dürer (German, 147...

In s2e2, co-hosts Ann Shafer and Tru Ludwig talk about Europe in the 15th century and the state of printmaking, the printing press, moveable type, and early woodcuts. This episode sets the stage for the rest of the story of the history of Western printmaking.

Platemark Series Two, History of Prints kicks off with Ann Shafer and co-host Tru Ludwig introducing the series. They talk about teaching the History of Prints (HoP) for the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) using the print collection at the Baltimore Museum of Art over the course of 15 years. They talk about how the class brought them together and about how transformative it was for hundre...

In the final episode in season one, Ann and Ben talk about the print ecosystem: collaborative printmaking, print publishing, galleries, art fairs, and the fabulous cast of characters that inhabit the print world.

Ann and Ben discuss the ballet that occurs in the printshop when the team is editioning a print. Everything is planned. Jigs are made. Everyone has their role. When it's running smoothly, it's sublime. Also, it's hard work.

Ann Shafer has a new podcast called The Curator's Choice in which she talks about one object (or set of set of objects) and why she likes it, how she would pitch it, and other behind-the-thinking stuff.

In s1e7, Ann and Ben finally turn to prints and printmaking, and evangelize about how wonderful prints are, why they are different and special, why it takes work to get over the hump of understanding technique to get to content. They discuss how technique can inform meaning, how the translation of an image from one surface to another only adds interest and conceptual rigor, and the ins and outs of...

Editions are the topic of this bonus episode. Ann and Ben talk about the ins and outs of editions: definitions, numbering, exceptions, the publisher-artist relationship. It's definitely not simple.

In episode 106, Ann and Ben continue their conversation about the Western canon, the state of museums in the 21st century, and discuss breaking down the systems that are the foundation of the modern museum.

In this bonus episode, Ann and Ben talk about how they got into this art thing in the first place. Seems it helped to have artists in the family.

In s1e5, Ann and Ben talk about the Western art-historical canon and recent, important efforts to redefine it, to break it apart, to destroy it. How can/should museums embrace multiple voices and points of view? What happens to museum collections?

After the debut of the podcast Platemark, the most pressing listener question had to do with the positionality statement. That's where Shafer and Levy introduce themselves by clarifying their gender, sexuality, and race (Shafer: cis-het white woman; Levy: cis-het white man). This bonus episode tackles the issue of positionality as well as the land acknowledgments (Shafer: Baltimore is on the land...

In s1e4, Ann and Ben continue their conversation about value but turn toward artistic value rather than monetary value. Both Ann and Ben describe their own systems for evaluating a work of art. Ben's system centers on reverse engineering a work and looking at the decisions made at each step. Ann's system is a long and wide-ranging list of questions that get filed into emotional impact and visual i...

In s1e3, Ann and Ben take a deep dive into value, beginning with market value. How is it established, who decides what the value of a work should be, how value is arrived at, and how it's a totally subjective idea.

In s1e2, Ann is in the hotseat as Ben asks her about her beginnings as a curator from an internship at the Whitney Museum of American Art during college, to graduate school at Williams College, to the prints and drawings department at the National Gallery of Art, and to the prints, drawings, and photographs department at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Ann talks about how it happened, highlights alon...

In series 1 episode 1, Ann and Ben talk about critiques and studio visits, focusing on a program they developed in partnership with the printmaking department at the Maryland Institute College of Art. At the start of the senior year, Ann and Ben held critiques with MICA printmakers as they embarked on their final theses, which culminate with end-of-the-year exhibitions. Following those initial vis...

In the first, short episode, Ann and Ben introduce listeners to Platemark Season One. Over eight episodes they discuss all manner of topics relating to museums and curators, critiques and studio visits, market value and conceptual value, redefining the Western art historical canon and decolonization, and prints and printmaking. The main goal of the podcast is to demystify the role of the curator a...