Peter Koch: The Book As a Work of Art

Attended a little talk by Peter Koch, a well-known printer of letterpress editions, last night at the Donna Seager Gallery in San Rafael. Mr. Koch, located in Berkeley, began his presentation with a discussion of What is Art . . . always a difficult proposition. One example he adduced via Martin Heidegger was the difference between a Greek temple and a used pair of boots. The Greek temple is Art whereas the boots are not: the Work of Art is not meant to be "used up." Later in his presentation he showed us objects he had designed that would conceivably last longer than a Greek temple. For example, Diogenes: Defictions is a "text transmission object" and consists of "printed letterpress from zinc engravings onto soft lead plates by Koch."

Mr. Koch went on to discuss some of his other works of art, including one of his latest projects entitled Watermark. I will reprint here the description of the making of this work as found as his web site:

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In early September, we imported a printing press, on loan from the Tipoteca Italiana Fondazione printing museum in Cornuda, near Treviso and floated it down the Grand Canal to the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica Venezia in the Cannaregio sestiere, where Peter was artist-in-residence for the Fall of 2006.
The paper is Twinrocker "Da Vinci" handmade, with our own watermark designed by Christopher Stinehour and Susan Filter. Robert Morgan’s photographs were digitally re-configured by Donald Farnsworth and printed at his Magnolia Editions in Oakland, California from photogravure plates made by Unai San Martin. The printed sheets were shipped to Venice, Italy, where we printed the text in Monotype Dante types cast in lead at the Olivieri Typefoundry in Milano. Once the printing at the Scuola Grafica was completed, the sheets were shipped to our studio in Berkeley where the book will be bound in richly pigmented papers made by hand at Cave Papers in Minneapolis, MN.

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Mr. Koch seemed extremely satisfied by the complexity of this endeavor: the imported printing press floated down the Grand Canal, the specially designed watermark, the digitally reconfigured photos, etcetera. He said something to the effect that "if there’s a more complicated way to do things, we found it!"

There were more examples of his work, full of erudition and, to be honest, somewhat convoluted. I was pleased to have attended, however, given my interest in photographic book projects.