Organizers: the International Print Triennial Society, the National Museum in Krakow, Le Centre de la Gravure et de l'Image imprimée de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles in La Louvière.

The idea that inspired the organisation of the exhibition, Love Affair with Graphics. From Albers to Vostell, was the curators’ conviction about the versatility and attractiveness of printmaking as a medium of art, together with its richness of techniques and varieties. Equally important was to present the contexts in which this medium was employed by celebrated artists of the second half of the 20th century who were rarely associated directly with this discipline. It was through our reflections on the reasons why particular artists decided to use etching, dry point, lithography or serigraphy that the exhibition title emerged.

Love affair is a condition powerfully marked with infatuation. At the same time, the phrase clearly indicates certain casualness and transience of the relationship. Love affairs happen to be passionate, ardent, secretive, yet rarely long-term. On the other hand, one enters a love affair with someone – in this case: something – attractive, alluring, of magic charm that holds a grip on one for a longer or shorter period of time. Thirdly, a love affair is something one remembers and recalls with affection, saving warm feeling for this part of one’s life. A love affair always leaves a trace, including a material trace such as perfume-scented letter, a dried rose, a blurred snapshot that captured beaming faces. These traces are scarce, yet they are important, precious, and stored with special care. The exhibition presents various traces of contemporary artists’ love affair with graphic arts. It includes singular prints, as well as entire visual series. There are limited editions of portfolios of prints, as well as fragments of larger wholes. The narrative of the exhibition does not follow any superimposed subject matter. The works on display have been grouped neither according to the ideas that stood behind them, nor according to the meanings they suggest. Each artist has his or her separate place, for a love affair is always something individual, intimate, something that emerges between the maker and the medium. The exhibition offers a tour around the history of particular infatuations. It allows the viewers to have a taste of works of each artist individually.

The exhibition features 92 works selected and loaned from the permanent collection of Le Centre de la Gravure et de l'Image imprimée de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles in La Louvière (Belgium).