The Riso­graph is per­haps the vocoder of the print­ing world. You could pretty much do any­thing on it and it would look good. That said, there are a few peo­ple in Aus­tralia and over­seas that are mak­ing the most of the medium and explor­ing its outer lim­its. This Thursday’s Riso­graph­ica show at Jeremy’s Lam­ing­ton Drive gallery has prompted me to post a few other Riso­graph related links and images.

Rollo Press — Zurich
www.rollo-press.com
Rollo Press was founded in 2008 by Urs Lehni. Print­ing exclu­sively on the Riso­graph GR 3770, Rollo Press has pub­lished books and zines with Ste­fan Marx, Rick Myers, Aki­nori Oishi and Linus Bill among oth­ers. The pub­li­ca­tion Tu M’as Volé Mon Vélo and accom­pa­ny­ing prints by Linus Bill — which are now hang­ing in The Thou­sands Shop — were my first expe­ri­ence of Riso­graph print­ing. The fol­low­ing state­ment from William Mor­ris’ ‘Art and its Pro­duc­ers’ that is quoted on Rollo Press’ web­site is per­haps the best sum­mary of the form: “To own the means of pro­duc­tion is the only way to gain back plea­sure in work, and this, in return, is con­sid­ered as a pre­req­ui­site for the pro­duc­tion of (applied) art and beauty.”

A Small Press — Mel­bourne
www.asmallpress.com
A Small Press is run by Stu­art Ged­des of Mel­bourne design stu­dio Chase & Gal­ley. Pri­mar­ily pub­lish­ing posters and exhi­bi­tion cat­a­logues, as well as the occas­sional birth­day invite, the Riso­graph­ica show was printed using A Small Press.

The Rizze­ria — Syd­ney
www.rizzeria.com
I first came across this after see­ing the Black & Blue (R.I.P) gallery exhi­bi­tion cat­a­logues. Print­ing band posters, fly­ers, cal­en­dars and host­ing print work­shops The Rizze­ria is col­lec­tively owned and oper­ated by a group of self pub­lish­ers and print mak­ers in Syd­ney whose aim is to chal­lenge and develop the aes­thetic pos­si­bil­i­ties of sten­cil press print­ing. They are also in the process of reg­is­ter­ing as a co-operative enabling mem­bers to own, con­trol and use the printer and any other facil­i­ties on hand.

–CB