Giclee or Inkjet? Or, what do you call your fine art prints off an Epson

I have been asked to display my digital images in a group show. Until

now, I have only displayed traditional silver gelatin prints but have

been amassing a few portfolios of digital images printed on an Epson

9600 through Imageprint 5.6. Printed onto Somerset Photo Enhanced

Velvet. So, what is accepted in terms of do I call the print a Giclee,

fine art injket, pigmented inkjet, etc...What are your feelings? One

image is grayscale using Imageprint gray profiles. The other two are

color images. All using Matte black ink.

Thanks.

If you're actually using pigmented inks that's what you should emphasize. You might also emphasize the quality of the paper used. Artists and art buyers who are fairly knowledgeable about the properties of various media will understand that pigmented inks are generally more archival than dyes. These same folks will probably be a bit skeptical of the term "giclee" since it really doesn't mean anything (altho' the connotations in French are amusing).

 

Ditto attaching the term "fine art" to anything. It's an open invitation to disagreement. I'd rather see the viewer consider something to be fine art than listen to the creator describe something as fine art. It's pretentious and presumptuous and invites others to disagree with one's self assessment.

 

However, many folks won't know or care. And the world is full of successful self promoters, so maybe there's nothing wrong with describing one's process and materials as "fine art."

Gicl饠is the use of the ink-jet printing process for making fine art large format digital images. The term � from the French verb gicler meaning "to squirt, to spray" � first applied to "Iris prints" created in the early 1990s on the Scitex "Iris Model Four" colour drum piezo-head inkjet proofer, a commercial printer designed to preview what a print will look like before mass production begins.

 

The term, sometimes anglicized as giclee, is used to describe any high-resolution, large-format ink-jet printer output with fade-resistant dye- or pigment-based inks. It is common for these printers to use between six and twelve colour inks. The use of dye based inks requires special coating to avoid fading.

 

Though originally intended for proofing, many artists and photographers use ink-jet printers as an alternative to lithography for limited editions or reproductions. The cost of producing limited edition runs is much reduced compared to the alternative.

 

Gicl饠is pronounced zhee-clay.

"Pigmented ink on fine art paper" is accurate and the fine art cognoscenti will know what you mean. It's an unwieldy term, though. It would be nice to have a single word that was understood to mean all that, but there really isn't yet.

 

For my portrait clients, I use the term "giclee" with an explanation of what I mean by it ("pigmented ink on fine art paper") because I have to educate my audience in the difference between their home inkjet printers and what they're getting from me. That's a bit easier if I give them a unique (in their usage) word to attach to the new meaning. My American portrait audience isn't using "giclee" with any other connotation or denotation, so it works for them.

Avoid the term of Giclee' for one thing, or deal with chuckles from audience members who know what the term means in French slang :-) Seriously, it's an outdated term. I also find terms like 'fine art' too pretentious and high nosed.

 

This is really not an exact science, but terms like 'ink-jet', 'digital print', 'Epson 9600 print', etc, will all work. Avoid redundancies like 'digital ink-jet print' because you likely won't be making analog ink-jet prints, ok?

 

I'm seeing more usage of terms like 'Epson 2200 print', 'Epson 9800 print', 'LightJet print', etc., and I'm steering my own display stuff in this direction. But, it's a personal preference.

 

Saw one guy use the term 'digital laser chromogenic' which was creative at least.

One local photographer here who uses wide format Epson in b&w terms his "Carbon prints". Technically correct, yet to me a bit misleading. On the other hand within the realm of truth and relativity, I guess you can call it whatever you want as long as you're not pulling terms out of the air based on nothing.

"Giclee" is (I think) a licensed marketing label that is mostly used by frame shop galleries to sell their own reproductions (eg of paintings), rarely by photographers. Almost a franchise.

 

If you use the term and have not explored its implications, you're inadvertantly attaching yourself to something that is IMO a little deceptive.

** Archival Pigment Print **

If you want to follow the print conventions of conservators and museums, you name the process by which the print was made:

 

Lithograph (self explanatory)

Etching (self explanatory)

Woodblock print (self explanatory)

 

While all of these fall under the intaglio process, the word "intaglio" is not specific enough to identify the exact print process.

 

Likewise, in photography, there are numerous photographic print processes which is why you see:

 

Platinum print

Silver gelatin print

Chromogenic print

Dye destruction print

 

Following standard print process naming conventions - a print from an Epson 9600 would be:

 

Pigment inkjet print

 

A print from a Hewlett Packard DJ130 would be:

 

Dye inkjet print

 

This tells the buyer the exact ink material (pigment or dye) and the printing process (inkjet).

 

The word "giclee" was made up by Jack Duganne at Nash Editions for a show they were printing for the artist Diane Bartz. He named it "giclee" to stay away from words like "computer," and "digital" in the show announcements.

 

This is thoroughly documented, and the story can be found in Harald Johnson's book, "Mastering Digital Printing, Second Edition," in a sidebar in Chapter 1, entitled, "What's in a Name: The Story of Giclee."

 

Make it simple, call a print exactly what it is: "pigment inkjet print."

And then on the back of the framed print, I use a 4 x 2 1/4 <a href= "http://

pages.sbcglobal.net/b-evans/Images15/Label.pdf"><b>label </b></a>attached to the

dust cover.

SCOTT EATON says <I>Avoid the term of Giclee' for one thing, or deal with chuckles from audience members who know what the term means in French slang :-) Seriously, it's an outdated term. I also find terms like 'fine art' too pretentious and high nosed. </I><P>

 

This may be true in whatever idealized world Scott inhabits but in the real world of art galleries "Giclee" is still the term of choice. I would say that 80-90% of all the inkjet prints I see framed and on the walls in galleries are called "Giclee".<P>

 

JOHN KELLY says <I>"Giclee" is (I think) a licensed marketing label </I><P>

 

They wish. There is a trademarked term "TruGiclée" that was an attempt by a group of printers to capitalize on the popularity of high-quality inkjet prints. Otherwise it's up for grabs and everybody and his brother uses it however they like. <P>

 

It would certainly be <B>nice</B> if there was a simple term that meant "pigmented-ink print on archival paper" but there isn't so almost everybody uses "giclee" even though no agrees on what it means.

I have seen "Giclee" used a lot at street fairs. And only once in awhile at commercial

galleries. And never at museums, for special exhibits, such as at San Francisco MoMA.

STEVE SWINEART says <I> If you want to follow the print conventions of conservators and museums, you name the process by which the print was made</I><P>

 

Unless you REALLY want to "follow the print conventions of conservators and museums" in which case you call it <B>giclee</B>. The Metropolitan Museum in New York, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts both have "<B>Giclee</B>" prints. The ones the MFA sells in their shop are printed on an Epson 9600 using Ultrachrome inks, a fact which Epson likes to remind of us in their marketing.

To the subject in general:

 

Many of this sevices can be found in any major metro...because of support for trade shows and local advertising displays.

 

But the A&I web site is a good reference source and they say that Giclee is an interpretive creative process ? And then the other options are Lightjet and Lambda...

At least online, the MFA makes no mention of "giclee." They do describe the prints in the terms that Scott references. I haven't seen the term "giclee" in years. The Aperture 50th anniversary traveling exhibition didn't use the term, which is probably an indication.

if you look at tate online, they list Andreas Gursky pieces as "print on paper", which always

amuses me. I would imagine they could also be described as "digital lightjet print on fuji

crystal archive paper reverse mounted on perspex with aluminium backing using the

Diasec© process"

 

I must say I kind of like the aloofness of "print on paper" though.

 

:o)

I'd call it a "Fine Art Print" and let it go at that. "Giclee" doesn't mean anything to people that don't know what it is, doesn't impress those who do.

Further to what Jeff said, if you go to Nash Editions' website, the preeminent large size fine-

arts digital printer (for David Hockney, Sally Mann, Pedro Meyer and a bunch of other artists),

you will not find the word "Giclee" used anywhere. Nash and Holbert have been in this

business for 15 years. I only see Giclee used at craft fairs.

>>** Archival Pigment Print **<<

 

I second this, and I'll start using it. Of course, there isn't an "official" meaning for "archival," either.

To Peter Nelson:

 

There is another usage of the word giclee. It is often applied to denote a COPY of an original piece of art. That is the problem with calling original art (pieces conceived to be inkjet prints) giclee.

 

The mass merchandising "art print" market has swamped galleries (of all kinds, including museum gift shops) with "giclee prints," that are really copies of original works (mostly paintings).

 

This used to be the provence of the word "poster" and reproduced on an offset press. The digital reproduction of the piece on an inkjet printer has, apparently, changed the copy into a form of art (pig's ear / silk purse comes to mind), because the print is no longer "mass produced" by photographing, screening, and the use of a printing press.

 

Today, high end devices like the Cruse Synchron Table Scanner, or Lumiere Technology Jumboscan are used by the Louvre, National Gallery in London, etc. to make very high quality digital copies of the works owned by the museums.

 

The digital files are reproduced by inkjet and called "giclees." They're still copies, not original art - but, the term giclee gives them a cachet that the cheap word "poster" does not have.

 

Having worked in the fine art print industry and having worked with museum conservators, I can tell you that with an original piece of art, they would rather the print be named for the process so there is no mistake as to what it is.

 

For Joe, as stated, the problem with giclee is that it now has a double connotation. It was initially conceived to be a name for an original art work. The term has been co-opted and applied to copies of original art work.

 

I would not call my work "giclee" because of the confusion as to whether it is an original piece of art; or a COPY of an original piece of art.

<I>At least online, the MFA makes no mention of "giclee." </I><P>

 

Sure they do. Go to the link for the MFA's museum store: http://www.mfashop.com

<a href="http://www.keithlaban.co.uk">Keith Laban Photography</a><p><i>"what do you call your fine art prints off an Epson?"</i><p>Prints

I simply call mine "pigment prints". It has a short bite and reminds art buyers of pigments

they know from oil paintings. The addition "archival" only throws up a subject that hasn't

crossed the minds of most buyers and which should not be the main subject when buying

from you. When they ask you can always give a further explanation.

"Sure they do. Go to the link for the MFA's museum store: http://www.mfashop.com"

 

As I've stated, they're SELLING copies of original works in the museum store. However, should you see an original piece of art displayed in a museum gallery (Chuck Close, Robert Rauschenberg, Joel Sternfeld...whomever) - the work will be labeled by the museum's conservators as a "digital print," "inkjet print," or "pigment (or dye) inkjet print."

 

What the museum sells in its store, and what is put on display as original art will not be called the same thing.

<I>There is another usage of the word giclee. It is often applied to denote a COPY of an original piece of art. That is the problem with calling original art (pieces conceived to be inkjet prints) giclee. </I><P>

I've never seen it used that way when the reproduction wasn't made with an inkjet process. For example I've never seen a haftone/screen print reproduction of a painting called a "giclee".<P>

 

But in any case, an inkjet print, regardless of whether we call it a giclee, or "pigmented ink on archival paper" <B>ISN'T</B> an original. It's a hardcopy of something that exists in the computer as a file and so you can make as many copies as you want.<P>

 

<I>For Joe, as stated, the problem with giclee is that it now has a double connotation. It was initially conceived to be a name for an original art work. The term has been co-opted and applied to copies of original art work.</I><P>

 

My understanding was that it was NOT first conceived of as a way to make original art - Graham Nash was looking for a way to reproduce his photography.<P>

 

There is a website for artists not unlike Photo.Net, called WetCanvas.com where this topic comes up all the time, and the consensus in the artist community is that "giclee" is the way to go because there is no good alternative that doesn't sound totally geeky. I've actually seen people post there wondering if, in order to preserve the value of the prints, they should delete the file after they've printed number 50/50 (or whatever). <P>

 

<I>I would not call my work "giclee" because of the confusion as to whether it is an original piece of art; or a COPY of an original piece of art.</I><P>

Just out of curiosity, what would constitute an "original" inkjet print, regardless of what label we use? Do you use some sort of inkjet process that involves some kind of manual manipulation of the print so that each print really is original?