An edition of 30 got its first red dot
Someone at the group show in Berlin bought the whole first edition of that screenprint I keep saying I'm done with. All thirty. Not one, the lot. The curator asked if I'd consider printing more and I said no, which felt like turning down a favour but I meant it. The whole point of the piece is that it's finite, that the edition closes and the image becomes something only a few people get to hold. If I reprint it, the thing collapses into exactly what it's about.
It's a small sale, really, the money barely covers the month. But the idea held. That's the part I keep turning over. I spent years making multiples and feeling like that made the work lesser, not serious. And now the scarcity is the work. Shouldn't have taken me this long to see my own medium.
Anyway. Thirty prints out in the world with my signature and a number. Feels like releasing birds, honestly.
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The money barely covering the month is almost the point, isn't it. The idea holding is the actual sale. Thirty pieces in one go, though. That's not nothing, even if the euros don't stretch far.
I know the pull to reprint. I've had people ask for another version, an eighth of the series, a study to hang beside it. And I understand the impulse in them, they just want the thing to go on. But you said no and you meant it. That's rare. Most of us fold somewhere between the first flattery and the second bank statement. The edition closing is the integrity of the piece, and you kept it closed. That's worth more than the month.
Curator asking, though. That's the interesting part to me. The people who understand the work best are often the ones who'll quietly suggest you make an exception to it.