Xalubinia International Printmaking Centre

In 1992, while Barcelona was busy with the Olympics, two artists, Pere Pons (Alaior, Minorca, 1949) and Ángel Ramazzi (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1944 - Motril, Spain, 2003) founded the Xalubinia Printmaking Workshop in Granada, and they also developed a new technique that allows producing colour prints from a single iron plate. This is a beautiful example...

 

And in Pere Pons's blog you can see many other.

Later Xalubinia produced two ambitious projects commissioned by UNESCO: the books of prints and texts Tolerancia (Tolerance) in 1995 and III Milenio (Third Millenium) in 1999.

Ángel Ramazzi passed away in 2003 and later Pere Pons met two young artists who had trained at the Ar Students League of New York. They were Colombian Natalia Tamayo and Spanish José Maria Cáceres.

by Jose Caceres

Their collaboration and an incredible amount of work and energy resulted in the creation of the International Printmaking Centre in Alaior in 2007, which has since held an International Printmaking Exhibition every year.

I like the quotation by Francisco de Goya that they use in their exhibition catalogues: "and I cannot find a more effective method to further the Arts, nor believe I there is such, but to reward and protect whoever excels in them, to give great recognition to the professor who is such, and to let the genius of the disciples who want to learn them (the Arts) run free, neither oppressing them nor barring the inclination they manifest to this or that style..."

by Natalia Tamayo

I have only seen a few of their exhibitions and only two of their catalogues, and I have worked with Natalia Tamayo on a comic for Amnesty International which you can see when you scroll down in this page.  I have also recently attended a couple of drawing lessons with José Cáceres, which I recommend if you have the opportunity!

No matter how briefly we have met, I admire their creativity, artwork and energy.