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Fillip Magazine
Issue 16
Spring 2012: Split Fountain printed. About this issue: "Colour is a major factor in a magazine’s “shelf appeal” and Fillipmagazine, though a publication more aligned with academic journals, has more than a few times been advised to “go colour” in order to facilitate a larger sales volume. Olaf Nicolai’s project for our new issue, 2500 × Fillip 16, subverts this market pressure by causing the magazine to be printed in colour—yet this application of colour is undelineated and flows across the spectrum of the rainbow as well as across the page regardless of the printed content. The printing technique used to achieve this effect is called split fountain printing; with a history that stretches back to the inception of the art of printmaking, it gained renewed currency in the 1960s and ’70s as a method to introduce colour in printed material without having to go through the expensive four-plate colour process. With its evocative, quasi-psychedelic effect, the technique was particularly popular in a countercultural context.

Olaf Nicolai’s project for the Intangible Economies series extends the artist’s existing research interests, previously explored in such works as Warum frauen gerne stoffe kaufen, die sich gut anfuehlen (Why women like to buy fabric that feels good to the touch) (2011), andConsidering a Multiplicity of Appearances in Light of a Particular Aspect of Relevance. Or: Can Art Be Concrete? (ongoing in varying formats since 2006). These works consider the role of colour as an agent to activate affect as a consumer incentive. Nicolai’s project forFillip 16 also represents another instance of the artist’s ongoing infatuation with print media in general through which he consistently mobilizes production techniques in order to articulate conceptual concerns. The printing technique used in 2500 × Fillip 16 causes each single copy of Fillip magazine’s sixteenth issue to become a unique original as no printed copy is exactly like the other. Accordingly, the affective power of colour in relation to consumer behaviour is complicated by questions of value and circulation vis-à-vis the unique art object."

$15