Mario Derra. Woodcut cycle „Peter Schöffer and the evolvement of the movable lead type. The history of printing from the ancient world to the digital age”

10 March until 30 June 2013

Opening: 8 March 2013, 6 p.m.

Contemporary art meets historical printing technique: The artist and printer Mario Derra, who lives in Gernsheim (Hessen), created between 2003 and 2010 a woodcut cycle, which deals with the history of printing.

 

Derra puts the main focus in his work on the life of Peter Schöffer, who came from Gernsheim and was a printer as well. Peter Schöffer (ca 1425-1502) firstly worked as apprentice and associate of Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the movable lead type and the founder of the professional letterpress printing. Later, Schöffer developed further the letterpress printing in his own workshop and created high quality print works. He was an important person for the distribution of the early letter press printing, beside Gutenberg and many others, he acted as a pioneer of today´s information society. This becomes clear while looking at Mario Derras woodcut-prints, which integrate the life of Peter Schöffer into the history of printing from the ancient world to the digital age, which means from the invention of typography to digital printing.

 

The modern and associative picture language of the 22 large-sized, multicoloured prints reached Derra using an over 500 years old printing technique – woodcut, which leads back to the subject of the work: The history of printing.

 

The woodcut cycle will be shown in this exhibition for the first time in Eastern Germany, on the occasion of the inclusion of the work in the museum´s collection. The permanent exhibition of the museum of the printing arts, which puts its main focus on letterpress printing, offers an adequate frame for the presentation of the art work.

 

An exhibition catalogue with background information is availible at the museum shop (in german language, price: 5 Euro).