Chronologie Galerie & Edition Artelier Graz 1985-1998

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Ralph Schilcher's Graz-based silk-screen printing shop occasionally worked in the 70s together with artists to create posters for art and cultural events. Stimulated by this work and screen printing work with designers and architects, the firm set up its own artistic screen printing production department in 1985. Edition Artelier was founded under the slogan "production, publishing & presentation" and opened at Sporgasse 1 on October 1985 under the management of Petra Schilcher and Erika Zangger. The printing workshop was located in Graz-Eggenberg at the time. In view of the fact that an increasing number of artists came to employ the manifold techniques of silk-screen printing, combining them with a wide range of materials and working techniques, the artistic production was widened to encompass wood, metal and plastic. In 1989 the edition had to relocate to new, larger premises in Graz, Eisengasse 3, due to booming business activity. The studio's international commitment led to the opening of a branch in Frankfurt a. Main in 1990. On the occasion of the steirischer herbst '97 festival the company moved into new exhibition premises in the centre of Graz, at Glockenspielplatz 4. The guiding principle has always been - the technique employed must be the logically consistent translation for the specific art work. This approach confirms the original, productive factor of this technique as opposed to the facsimile aspect. In turn, this gives rise to legitimate terms such as "original serigraphy". By repeating the production, what is created is a new "original" and not a copy of the original. From the very beginning, the studio was focused on precisely designated editions with minimised sales editions and a low number of additional copies such as artist's, exhibition and printer's copies. Many artists take advantage of the manifold production facilities offered by the Artelier studio. Examples include Martin Kippenberger's first edition object "35 Mirror Baby's" produced in 1987. His most recent edition published at the Artelier "Biennale di Venezia 96" was produced in 1996. Peter Kogler's first edition "1-12" marked the beginning of a long-term collaboration during which numerous editions, all his wallpapers, canvas prints and other projects were created, e.g. the installations for the Dokumenta and Biennale. Among others, Joseph Kosuth and John Baldessari produced large-scale installations for temporary projects. Günther Förg availed himself of this production facility to create oversized large format silk-screen prints. Heimo Zobernig, Michael Schuster, Jörg Schlick, Hartmut Skerbisch and Gustav Troger and others have worked on a wide range of experiments with materials including paper, Perspex, glass, wood, metal etc. Others like Tobias Rehberger use the in-firm joinery for their wood projects. In collaboration with visual artists and authors, e.g. Hubert Schmalix, Ch. L. Attersee, Heimo Zobernig/Ferdinand Schmatz or Franz Josef Czernin, Artelier has published artist book editions. The latest photo editions and New Media were added to the silk-screen, lacquer, digital printing, relief printing, wood, metal and plastic processing techniques. These new techniques are employed, for example, in Jörg Schlick's video "Wildthing", the record "Avoiddance" and the CD-ROM "My Private Album" by the Chinese artist Feng Mengbo. The editions of Galerie & Edition Artelier have been shown on many occasions at numerous international exhibitions in museums, art associations and galleries in Europe and America and are to be found in many private and public collections, for example the Speck collection, Albertina/Vienna, the Museum of Modern Art/New York, Dresdner Bank, Deutsche Bank, Neue Galerie/Graz, Jewish Museum/Berlin etc. Ursula Krinzinger and Peter Pakesch supported the Artelier at a very early stage with a number of co-operations in the field of production and presentation. The art associations of Graz, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich, the Museum of Modern Art/Vienna, the Neue Galerie/Graz, the MAK/Vienna, Villa Arson/Nice, etc. have worked together with the Artelier on specific projects. The culmination of these co-operations is now the exhibition "Kunst ohne Unikat" and publication of this book by the Neue Galerie, Graz. All this is detailed in greater depth in the following chapters. Numerous comments, texts and excerpts from the press and other publications document and comment the history of the Artelier from 1985 to 1998. Petra and Ralph Schilcher

Petra and Ralph Schilcher