Gravure. Pavel Shilingovsky
war between China and the US has not just become a question of unfair trade policies but also about resources and tech supremacy (in semiconductors and chips).
By Heghine Aleksanyan
© All rights reserved. “Enlight” Public Research Center NGO(Armenia)
As Deborah Cowen writes in her brilliant book, The Deadly Life Of Logistics,
Today gravure is often perceived as an old, already forgotten type of art. Such associations, to some extent, maybe conditioned by the fact that for a long time-till the invention of the photo, gravure has mostly accomplished the role of photo, TV, and movie. Thanks to that, we have a lot of historical information, and it is because of this “documentary nature” that we associate this type of art with antiquity. However, without intending to refer to gravure as documentary material, we would consider it as a type of graphic art. As such, it includes almost all printing techniques from classic gravure done on paper, wood, and metal to printing and other types developed as a result of information technology such as laser technology application in gravure printing.
“Today, war and trade are both animated by the supply chain [...] Sneakers may still be easier to order online than smart bombs, but the industry that brings us both is making it increasingly difficult to discern the art of war from the science of business” The use of violence and militarization works as the lubricant in what makes supply chains tick and function, there is a huge military apparatus at work securing the flow of goods and making the oceans safe for commerce and transit. Logistics, both military and corporate, are intertwined, entangled and dependent on each other. One can take a look at Iraq and Afghanistan where private military companies are contracted to do much of the feeding and housing of troops. In Iraq for instance,there were more soldiers belonging to private military contractors, such as Blackwater, than there were regular US military personnel.
There is no other way to present richness and achievements of such genre without focusing on an artist that deserves a special mention and gives a general idea of the roots of the gravure traditions. One of such artists worth mention is prominent Soviet painter Pavel Alexandrovich Shilingovsky (1881-1942), whose creative path never fails to attract viewers both due to their distinctive style and originality and consideration of the development of the historical events. The great master of graphics represents the modern and neoclassical direction and has worked with several gravure techniques. He has made a significant contribution to establishing the Faculty of Graphics of the All-Russian Academy of Arts. Referring to Shilingovsky’s creative path, it should be noted that he mainly worked with etching techniques.1 Among his earliest works are two masterpieces on biblical themes(1914) made with this technique: “Flight into Egypt,” “Lot with His Daughters.” The complexity of this technique and, at the same time, its attractiveness lies in unpredictability for the master of the end result.
Today, roughly a year after the pandemic took shape, shortages are still a problem, but this time for different reasons. Demand is rising everywhere and there is not enough supply available to meet the demand. There is a global shortage of shipping containers and of semiconductors, affecting carmakers and smartphone manufacturers. The vaccine rollout is being affected as well by disruptions in the supply chains, creating a bottleneck that could hinder and delay the recovery from Covid-19.
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1 al.
Etching, a method of making prints from met-
