Fine Print(er)
Art book impressario Gerhard Steidl's commitment to perfection is legendary.
His workday starts at 5 am. He puts on his shop apron. Switches on his giant (13-meter-long) offset press. And the printshop gets thrumming.
Steidl started with exhibition posters and worked his way up. Now he is one of world's most-revered makers of art and photography books.
A recent profile in Monocle puts him in the context of his one-street empire in Gottingen, Germany. The main building has a library on the top floor, design space below, imaging below that, and the press room below that. There's also a bindery. And plans for some sort of residential education center (Steidl Academy).
Steidl uses offset press made by Manroland. He believes that as the market for printed matter is gets smaller and becomes niche, there will not be enough printers for a manufacturer like Manroland to survive. He worries that they will stop making them and he could be left without a good tool to make books. So he buys new ones regularly, so that he has at least (in his estimation) a 12 year forward horizon.
But nothing compares to the film How To Make A Book With Steidl. IMO, that is the best first way to understand what drives him. And some of the artists he works with as clients are - strange - to put it politely. But he focuses them. Stabilizes them so their work can be packaged into book form and disseminated. One of his noteworthy practices is that when he runs the first print of a new book, he delivers it by hand to the artist. The film shows him packing them into a small roll-aboard suitcase and jetting off to make the handover.
The un-tire-able Herr Steidl is a fine printer.
More here:
https://monocle.com/magazine/issues/167/fine-print/
