Author(s): Patrice Forest

Visual Arts

The workshop of Item Editions is sequestered in a back courtyard off the Rue du Montparnasse in Paris, where artists from all around the world have lithographs made on Solnhofener stones. Here, with the help of the historic presses that have printed masterworks by such artists as Picasso, Matisse and Miro, a durable artistic continues today. Filmmaker, photographer, painter and printmaker David Lynch (born 1946) was captivated by this place and its history, when he first chanced across it in 2007: "I fell in love," he declared. Since his earliest experiments with zinc plates and prints in black and red, Lynch has continued to labor away at Item Editions, recently producing large black-and-white lithographs by drawing directly onto the stone (rather than using the medium to create multiples of pre-existing drawings), experimenting with textures to draw figurative imagery out of abstract patterns, and adding captions to further elucidate their themes. The content of these lithographs clusters around themes familiar to Lynch fans: love, eroticism, dreams and death. "David Lynch: Lithos "collects all of Lynch's work in this genre. A conversation between Dominique Paini, former director of the French Cinematheque and Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the artist, provides further insight into Lynch's process.