In his continuing quest to do everything but make a new feautre film, David Lynch has served up another curiosity that isn't an oddball product he's selling or something about transcendental meditation. Instead, it's a short film about a lithography company, Idem Paris. And keeping things as simple as the black-and-white photography, the short is also entitled, "Idem Paris."
So why this subject matter? Well, David Lynch has actually issued no small amount of limited edition artwork through the company, using their old school techniques to help create his work. And his nearly eight minute long short lets the heavy, clunky, industrial sounding presses do the storytelling as it gives viewers a direct look at the process the company uses to create the works for the variety of artists they assist. Graphic design and art school heads will probably really love this. But for everyone else? It's a curiosity at best. Anyway, here's Lynch's statement on the company and his time there followed by the short. [Twitch]
Hervé Chandès from the Fondation Cartier brought me over to Idem and introduced me to Patrice Forest. I see this incredible place, and I get the opportunity to work there. And this was like a dream! It just opened up this brand-new world of the lithography and the magic of lithography, the magic of the stones. And it was a great, great thing! This thing of lithography, this channel of lithography opened up and a bunch of ideas came flowing out and it led to about a hundred lithographs. I will say that Idem printing studio has a unique, very special mood, and it is so conducive to creating. Patrice has the greatest attitude for all the artists and he creates this space of freedom and this joy of creating. It's so beautiful! And I think the place is very important—in other wors, the same stone could be moved to another place, and I think that the work that comes out would be different. It's a combination of the stone, the place, the people, this mood, and out comes these certain ideas.