Hand Made

Screen-printing and art editions in Marseille that “print all that is liquid on all that is flat”

By Sarah Carrière-Chardon - Photos Workshop Tchikebe and Laure Melone - November 22, 2011

Olivier and Julien Ludwig-Legardez are two brothers hailing from Aix-en-Provence with a common destiny. Julien came from an art school background and had opened a screen-printing workshop in Berlin when Olivier turned towards graphic design and multimedia, taking it as far as Martinique. Two world tours later, they decided to return to Marseille and to open the workshop "Tchikebe!" in 2009. Their space opens onto the Rue de la Bibliothèque and is in a former paint factory. One is immediately confronted by an imposing Kippax 1/4 automatic screen-printing press and a screen-printing table,

multicolored tins of paint are scattered here and there, and all this is crowned by a mezzanine office space. This is the setting. Art printers work manually and in a traditional manner, hand in hand with the artists, galleries, and advertising agencies that commission them, putting their technical expertise at the service of their clients’ projects. All the Art Hotel’s prints, and those by Stephan Muntaner for Orangina’s 75th anniversary, for example, are the product of the workshop. Each year of their three years of existence, they have proposed a carte blanche to five artists for whom they produced

several series of prints, multiples and one-offs. A zone of experimentation in printing quality, color and technique, they work on all flat surfaces: wood, metal, textiles, glass, paper… but also with all liquids: food dyes, agar agar, invisible ink, glue with gravel powder used to print the image of a demolished building… In other words, these artists give a double meaning to technique and vice versa.

“After a 2010 season that brought with it projects by Nico Lachambre, Damien Berthier, Germain Schenkel, Quentin Destieu and Jérôme Fino, in 2011 we collaborated with Monsieur Moo, Anne-Valérie Gasc, Gilles Desplanques,

Mothi Limbu and Didier Blondeau. In 2012, we will publish works by The Wa, Damien Beguet, Virginie Barré and also welcome Clémence Agnez who we ask to curate a group show.” This exhibition will also be the occasion to launch the Editions du Tingre at the Galerie des Bains Douches from next December 15 to January 15.

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Workshop Tchikebe
les éditions du Tingre
4 rue de la Bibliothèque
13001 Marseille
9.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday.
www.tchikebe.com
www.leseditionsdutingre.fr