Art on demand
Close your eyes and recall for a moment one of the most fascinating paintings you have ever seen. Now think where you would hang a copy of that painting if you could get one. Getting such prints is now possible thanks to the Global Art on Demand...
Close your eyes and recall for a moment one of the most fascinating paintings you have ever seen. Now think where you would hang a copy of that painting if you could get one.
Getting such prints is now possible thanks to the Global Art on Demand Initiative Group which includes art experts Christian Lahanier, Andrea de Polo, Alain Minodier and Jacques Misselis.
The group have joined forces with the Hewlett-Packard Art & Science Foundation and its core members in Europe, in particular the C2RMF, the research laboratory of the museums of France, the Photographic Database of the Réunion des Musées Nationaux and the Fratelli Alinari group among others.
Andrea de Polo works for Fratelli Alinari, who set up shop in Florence, Italy in 1852 as a photographic studio and is now an internationally acclaimed archive in the field of communication through photography.
Mr de Polo, who was interviewed by The Times during the HP Colour Olympics Imaging and Printing conference in Athens earlier last month, said that Alinari own more than 3.5 million fine art images from around the world.
The HP conference was attended by about 130 journalists and some 40 digital photographers from around the world.
Alinari is also a partner with Corbis in the US, Interphoto in Germany and Courtauld Institute in the UK among other international archives.
It is working hand in hand with Hewlett-Packard in the field of digital imaging because Alinari finds that digital printing and HP fit its aims and business development plans.
"The partnership with HP makes it possible for Alinari to find new business channels to sell its photographic images.
"Since 2000 we have worked together on common projects on the web. In addition we have had Alinari exhibitions and an ongoing project on the HP artXpress kiosk providing prints on demand at a number of museums and art galleries."
A kiosk, equipped with a touch screen, is connected to an HP Designjet 5500 postscript series printer that ensures the quality required of museum pieces.
Such a kiosk has been set up at the British National Gallery in London where clients can navigate through a multi-lingual database and search photographic images and text either by keyword, author, country or by genre.
"Once you select the image you like, you then select the size of the image, the material, including canvas, photographic paper, glossy or matte paper you want the image to be printed on.
"Once you select the quantity of the prints you want for each image, the system will tell you the price, you pay the cashier and within five minutes you get your print order there and then," Mr de Polo said.
The objective of the art on demand service is to create a world wide network of kiosks including the Louvre, Alinari, the National Gallery in London and Disney among other sites.
Would it make sense financially to set up such a kiosk at one of the state museums in Malta?
"My suggestion would be first to see the quality of the prints and the potential of the kiosk. The objective would be to have your own photographic and historical database from Malta and to be in the European network to access other archives from other institutions.
"Usually you do not buy the system but you lease it. Sharing the system between a number of museums or historical sites is a very good concept.
"You would have one kiosk and one main server that shares the content from other archives," Mr de Polo suggested.
Mr de Polo may be contacted by email at andrea@alinari.it