User:Sengkang/Sketchpad/Singapore Tyler Print Institute

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[edit] 11 Apr 2000

The Straits Times (Singapore)

Set for world-class print jobs

April 11, 2000

Sian E. Jay

TYLER BOOST

A $ 6.8 million printmaking venture will be launched next year with the aim of establishing a cultural institute to promote appreciation of the art

THE art scene in Singapore is getting another boost soon.

Renowned New York master printmaker Kenneth E. Tyler of Tyler Graphics will be setting up a world-class printmaking institute here in April next year.

The institute, which will be called the Singapore Tyler Print Institute, will be the first of its kind in Asia, and will put Singapore firmly on the printmaking map.

Asked at a press conference at the Singapore Art Museum yesterday why he regarded Singapore as a suitable base, he stated:

"I've been very impressed by the standard of work done by students and artists here.

"I have a strong feeling that what happened in Paris and New York in the past will happen here. The print institute will be small, but important, and it has a wonderful future."

The institute can be described as something of a coup for Singapore's National Heritage Board and the Singapore Tourism Board, which were instrumental in negotiations.

The institute, which will cost about $ 6.8 million to set up, will operate as a company under the Ministry of Information and the Arts, with a board chaired by Mr Lui Thai Ker.

The Singapore Arts Museum will also acquire about 1,600 print works from Tyler's personal collection, which has been built up over 26 years.

The bulk of the collection will not only comprise prints, but also artists' books and portfolios, collages, drawings, paintings, sculptures, monoprints and progressive proofs.

Mr Kwok Kian Chow, the museum's director, says the collection brings the most innovative of 20th-century printmaking to this region. It will include work by some of the greatest names in later 20th-century art, including Joseph Albers, Helen Frankenthaler, David Hockney, Jaspar Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist and Frank Stellar, among others.

Mr Kwok adds that the collection has "great educational value as it illustrates fully the direction of contemporary printmaking and the effect that printmaking had on painting and sculpture as reflected in the artists' works".

In keeping with the Government's vision of creating a Renaissance city, support, space and facilities have all been made available to the institute. It will be housed along the riverfront district of Robertson Quay.

The aim is to develop a unique cultural institution that will promote the appreciation and collection of, as well as education in, print-making here.

Initially, the institute's workshop will be run by Mr John Hutcheson of Tyler Graphics as Workshop Manager, with the assistance of two professional printers.

Five Singaporean apprentices will also be attached to the institute, following an initial training period in the Tyler workshops at the Mount Kisco print facilities in New York State.

For the first year, Tyler will serve as acting director. A full-time director will be appointed eventually.

TRAVEL LEISURE & HOSPITALITY (90%); ENTERTAINMENT & ARTS (89%); ART & ARTISTS (89%);

SINGAPORE TOURISM BOARD (72%);

SECTION: Life; Life! News; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 505 words

LOAD-DATE: April 11, 2000

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

GRAPHIC: Kenneth Tyler moves office from New York and sets up the Singapore Tyler Print Institute here in April next year.

[edit] 15 Apr 2000

Business Times (Singapore)

Taking print art to a higher level

April 15, 2000, Weekend Edition

Parvathi Nayar

Ken Tyler's decision to move his entire facilities here is a coup for the local arts scene

SINGAPORE has persuaded master printer Kenneth Tyler to shift his cutting-edge print studio from New York to Singapore, where the Singapore Tyler Print Institute (STPI) is scheduled to open in April 2001. Its quite a coup and a solid boost to the Renaissance City manifesto -- equivalent, say, in the film world to resurrecting and casting James Dean as the rebellious young Darth Vader in the upcoming Star Wars Episode 2.

Mr Tyler is regarded as one of the really innovative printer-publishers of the 20th century, and is associated with the renaissance of print as an art form in the US. He has pushed the boundaries of printmaking from the time of his first print workshop, Gemini Ltd (Los Angeles, 1965) to the 1986 Tyler Graphics Ltd at Mount Kisco, New York. Now Singapore is poised to be the next phase of innovative printmaking, when Mr Tyler moves his entire workshop -lock, stock and print presses -to the island state, which he first visited in 1994.

"Tell me why do you want to be here?" grins Mr Tyler, who was in Singapore last week to announce this new venture. And proceeds to answer his own question: "I got a very good feeling about the government's interest in supporting the arts and the (art) school situation here. The "crossroads' language is proper -strategically, Singapore is situated at the right place in the Asia Pacific for east-west dialogue."

At one level, this feeling for Singapore is purely intuitive, he admits, but adds: "When the American artists felt it was time to go to Paris they just felt that and went. I think this is the right moment for this area of the world; the elements are in place for Singapore to become another New York or Paris."

Printmaking came to the US in the early 1960s and captured the interest the Pop artists who were fascinated with processes of printmaking. Mr Tyler helped that print-explosion by setting up his own paper mill; creating the technology for doing large-scale print works; finding ways to integrate different printmaking media from intaglio to screen printing. The results were technically complex, one-of-a-kind works of art.

"It's a technology that doesn't exist anywhere else," says Mr Tyler confidently of his workshop. "And to transport my technology and my life here accomplishes several things." It's happening at a point in his life when he'd like to pass on all his accomplishents to another generation of print artists; there's also the promise that the injection of an Asian sensibility into his primarily Western aesthetic might give birth to something new and exciting.

STPI -a non-profit organisation -will comprise a state-of-the-art print workshop and art gallery at Robertson Quay. Set up at a cost of $ 13 million -$ 6.8 million for equipment and another $ 6 million for renovations -funding comes from the National Heritage Board, Singapore Tourism Board and MITA, which will also bear operational costs. Kwok Kian Chow, director of the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) and a director on STPI's board, says it was Mr Tyler who first broached the idea of moving here. STPI's board of directors also includes chairman Liu Thai Ker, Edmund Cheng and Kwee Liong Keng.

In the first year, six international artists will be invited "to work with the staff of STPI to create and exhibit limited edition original prints", says Mr Tyler. But STPI is conceived as both a cultural and an educational institute. For the first time, the Tyler workshop will have a teaching component; the secrets of his trade will be finally revealed, assures Mr Tyler with a twinkle. Five young local interns have already been chosen for a period of apprenticeship at Tyler Graphics in the US and then at STPI.

Mr Kwok elaborates: "STPI will have educational programmes tied in with local art schools -La Salle-SIA College of the Arts and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts -as well as general programmes for the public on print making and appreciation. The idea is to maximise the facility without sacrificing the core programme." A few new components will be added to STPI, to make it an even more advanced workshop, such as new systems to make paper by spraying pulp. "The plan is for the institute to break even in eight years, principally with the sale -- through a subscription programme -of limited edition art works created there. These print works could range in price from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Previous attempts by various dealers to sell print works have not always met with success in Singapore, but Mr Kwok is confident it will be different this time round. It will be a multi-pronged approach, he explains, which includes educating the public on print as an art form as opposed to a tool used to reproduce illustrations in books. Moreover, the international artists will not just sell their prints but actually create them here.

A point which gains significance when Mr Tyler says he doesn't foresee any branches of his print workshop being set up: "Satellite organisations have never worked as well throughout history -we've never transported the technology or the equipment anywhere before."

Setting up STPI goes hand in hand with SAM acquiring Mr Tyler's art collection for $ 10 million, the acquisition sponsored chiefly by the Singapore Totalisator Board. It's a strong collection that showcases some big names of 20th century art like David Hockney and Willem de Kooning, and offers a historical overview of the developments in print-making in the US. The collection has books, collages, drawings, paintings and one example from every edition printed in the last nine months of production at Tyler Graphics Ltd in 2000.

Of the Tyler prints already seen in Singapore (at the Wetterling Teo Gallery), those by Frank Stella and Helen Frankenthaler stand out. Frankenthaler's Genji prints, actually, are a good example of the east-west fusion that Mr Tyler talks of. The prints were inspired by an Asian art form -the Japanese ukiyo-e -which was then pushed technologically to create flowing stain-like images. Says Mr Tyler: "And so you have invention upon invention. We didn't invent ukiyo-e, we just added to it, but that addition is very important."

Mr Tyler's working philosophy is also rather innovative. He believes in the term "print collaborators", referring to people who have mastery over many different print media. Moving seamlessly from lithography to silk-screen to etching, they are quicker in finding the solutions to translate an artist's image into print.

"It becomes a team effort; the print collaborators are as much the artists as the artists we are working with," he says, and they are increasingly getting more credit for their inputs. Still, Mr Tyler places great importance in working with top artists, who are experts in the creation of the image. Then the only problem is how this image can be translated into print for innovative printmaking is a time-consuming process that needs every moment of available time in the workshop.

Mr Tyler realised how time consuming print-making is a long time ago, giving up his own art to become a printmaker. It's a move he doesn't regret. "You learn from artists; in a very real way, you're kept alive through their talents. In your studio it's lonely when you're all by yourself making paintings but printmaking is not a lonely affair. It suits my personality more."

He laughs, "I like being around people. It's like cooking; you cook a good meal, serve it and if those eating it like it, you get a lot of thrill from that. What we cook up in that studio served a large audience, and when they respond well I am very pleased."

Mr Tyler brings some 37 years of print experience to his role as STPI's acting director for the first year and will spend a good deal of time in Singapore. "I'm tied to this emotionally and intellectually. I have a very personal feeling for these (printing) presses, many of which I've designed myself, or acquired and upgraded...They become like friends, you don't lose them.

"Printmaking changes as society changes, and whenever you move to a different culture with printmaking, it changes." It can't happen immediately, but hopefully, the STPI prints will eventually bear the stamp of Singapore and its fresh vision as an unfolding arts centre.

ENTERTAINMENT & ARTS (90%); ART & ARTISTS (90%); PRINTING INDUSTRY (78%); PAPER & PACKAGING INDUSTRY (50%); PAPER MFG (50%); PAPER MILLS (50%);

SECTION: Executive Lifestyles; The Arts; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 2073 words

LOAD-DATE: April 17, 2000

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

GRAPHIC: (Kenneth Tyler)