FIRST ATLAS OF THE UNITED STATES OF ACID BY DIDIER MUTEL
Didier Mutel’s most recent work, the First Atlas of the United States of Acid, was created in the tradition of large format atlases engraved on copper plates. For centuries engraving and etching were the methods used to produce maps and atlases. But what we have here is not a simple map of the real world – instead we have a utopian version of a country characterised by a reality full of hope and humorous fiction. The atlas shows both the physical and geographic reality of the United States and its system of governance by two national chambers: a House of Representatives and a Senate.
The Atlas shows the geographical borders of each American State, precisely rendering the shape, size and scale, along with each State’s members of Congress. However, although the proportions are correct, the members of the legislature have been reassigned by Didier Mutel. Artists, painters and thinkers from periods ranging from the Renaissance to the contemporary world, such as Michaelangelo, Rembrandt, Dürer, Goya and James Turell, are now running the House of Representatives. At the same time, superheroes are in charge of the Senate, with Batman, Superman and the Hulk all present. The Atlas therefore depicts a utopia governed by artists and thinkers with the support of the superheroes in its upper chamber.
It is an ambitious work consisting of 55 intaglio prints. It was hand engraved and printed on the hand presses at the Atelier Mutel studio in the Jura region of France between 2010 and 2015.
The map of each State is printed to scale on a single Jésus size (76 x 56 cm) sheet of Velin d’ARCHES® wove paper, except for California (two plates), Texas (three), Montana (one larger plate) and Alaska, which is printed to a smaller scale.
The obsessional reference to Acid marks a clear assertion of art as a guiding principle. Acid is the material that incises the metal plate and the tool that generates the art. Acid is the symbol and the pictogram that represents Atelier Mutel. This contemporary interpretation seeks to make the connection between the centuries-long history of the workshop and its current creative vigour.
At the beginning of June this year the Atlas produced by Atelier Mutel was featured in an exhibition for the European Artistic Crafts Days, whose theme this year was “Little Fingers, Expert Hands”. This exhibition has been extended into July, but visits are by appointment only.
Didier Mutel, artist-engraver and Maître d’Art
Didier Mutel was born in 1971 and entered the Ecole Estienne at the age of 15, going on to study at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1991 and then the Atelier National de Création Typographique at the French Imprimerie Nationale. In 1995, he joined Atelier Georges Leblanc as a pupil of Pierre Lallier, who had just been awarded the title of Maître d’Art. From 1997 to 1999, Didier Mutel was a Fellow at the Villa Medici, the French Academy in Rome. In 2008, Atelier Georges Leblanc closed and Pierre Lallier gave him some of the historic equipment. In 2009, Didier Mutel purchased some premises in Orchamps in Jura, France where he set up a workshop with the equipment he had received from his master. In 2013, he became a Maître d’Art himself. He now teaches at the Institut Supérieur des Beaux-arts in Besançon.
Atelier Mutel in Orchamps in the Jura region is equipped with historic printing presses dating from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Originally created in Paris in 1793, the printmaking workshop represents a unique historic, cultural and artistic heritage which now combines tradition and modernity in its works, with a focus on creativity, transmission and innovation. This is the workshop which printed the original Description de l’Égypte, also on ARCHES® paper!
This treasure allows the workshop to make combine traditional methods and contemporary creation. Drawing on ancestral know-how, the workshop innovates and mixes practices to redefine the art of printmaking, opening it up and sharing it with a wider audience.
