Engarving National Award to 24th Biennial of Ljubljana

[epistolaris at freemail.hu]

Press release, October 3, 2001


The jury of the Engraving National Award of Graphic Arts /Premio Nacional de Grabado, organized by Calcografía Nacional from Madrid, Spain, 
has resolved to award the 24TH INTERNATIONAL BIENNIAL OF GRAPHIC ARTS OF LJUBLJANA because of its innovations brought into graphic art.   


The 24th International Biennial of Graphic Arts took place from June 10, 2001 to September 16, 2001 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. It was divided in four sections, each of them represents a particular segment of complex graphic art production: 
·       PRINT WORLD, curator Breda Škrjanec
·       FUNDAMINA: works of Zoran Mušiè (selectors Zoran Kržišnik, Boštjan Sokliè); Andy Warhol (curator Mark Francis) and Mimmo Paladino (selector Enzo Di Martino)
·       IMAGING ULYSSES; Richard Hamilton's illustrations to James Joyce, (curator Stephen Coppel)
·       INFORMATION-MISINFORMATION in the Off-biennial section, in co-operation with the museum in progress  (curators Hans Ulrich Obrist and Gregor Podnar) 


more information on http://www.mgb24.org/


Every year since 1993 the Calcografía Nacional* of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando) from Madrid calls the Engraving National Award. After all these years it has become an essential appointment for contemporary art and one of the most important contest of fine arts organised in Spain. This National Award is a good sample of the actual state of the art of printing, a unique opportunity to appreciate the quality of the works created by well-known graphic artists as well as by emerging values with risky and innovative proposals.
One of the main characteristics of this National Award is its dynamism, its adaptability to the last innovations and changes. Thus, the 2001 Award opened to all the procedures of creating printed images, not only the traditional techniques of engraving all of these, even digital techniques. This circumstance has increased the expectations of the art community.
Besides the Engraving National Award itself, there are other rewards. One of them is international and given to a workshop or institution because of its innovations brought into graphic art. In 2000 this award went to Permaprint in London. Being aware of the work made in the Biennial of Ljubljana in relation to the application of new technologies, the Biennial of Ljubljana was suggested as a candidate for this award.


*Calcografía Nacional was created in 1789 to undertake important engraving projects appeared during the Enlightenment period. Throughout more than two centuries of history, this unique institution has gathered an extraordinary group of plates engraved by the most significant Spanish artists, which constitutes one of the largest and best collections in the world. Calcografía Nacional not only preserves its rich heritage and promotes the knowledge of the historic process of engraving and printing, but the 21st. century Calcografía has incorporated the use of new technologies to the creation of images.



Best regards,
International Centre of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana