About Segura Publishing Company

Segura Publishing Company is a Member of the International Fine Print Dealers Association. Segura Publishing Company produces limited edition prints and monotypes by leading contemporary artists. Our commitment to advancing a vital dialogue between art and the larger world has led us to publish works by such diverse talents as Claudia Bernardi, Dominique Blain, Enrique Chagoya, Sue Coe, Ian Van Coller, Roy DeForest, Charles Gaines, Luis Jiménez, Mark Klett, Vik Muniz, Sabina Ott, Luis González Palma, Faith Ringgold, Andres Serrano, Buzz Spector, James Turrell, Carrie Mae Weems, William Wegman and Frances Whitehead. Much of the work by these and the other artists we have collaborated with since our founding, in 1981, address the romantic myths of the American Southwest, often by examining the historical realities of immigration, acculturation and assimilation.

MISSION STATEMENT

Our mission is the manifestation of aesthetic, conceptual and technical integrity of collaborative fine art printmaking. The Publishing Company focuses on three areas of artistic endeavor: print processes which further the creative possibilities for photographers and conceptual artists using photography; work by minority artists exploring issues related to self-identification; and work that dispels outdated and culturally biased beliefs about life in the United States, concentrating on the issues of immigration, acculturation and assimilation.

Our interest in these issues is home grown. Located in Arizona, we see first hand the environmental, historical, cultural and social depth of an increasingly urbanized American Southwest. We know that the life of the region's cities is more closely allied with that of Mexico City than with that of New York or the capitals of Europe; that we have reached a moment in history, as Monique Wittig says in Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Cultures, "when the domination of social groups can no longer appear as a logical necessity to the dominated."

But the misinterpretations and misunderstandings that have arisen through the limited perspective of Eurocentrism cannot be undone by imposing a new and equally parochial form of cultural domination. The globalization of economic and cultural thought requires more than just replacing the old with the new; it means seizing the opportunity to broaden the identity, meaning and value of art, and encouraging works of provocative and transcendent quality.

In her catalogue for Art Under Duress: El Salvador 1980-present, Marilyn Zeitlin wrote: "This is a dangerous world. Some art should serve as a vacation from that danger....But certainly some of it should be dangerous, or make us feel the immanence of that danger." Some of the artists working with us understand this implicitly. The images of Roberto Huezo, who lives in El Salvador, or Claudia Bernardi, who has exhumed the bodies of torture victims there and elsewhere, concern more than danger. They explore the meaning of personal imagination in a world of mass terror.

Charles Gaines's Night/Crimes, Andres Serrano's portraits, Enrique Chagoya's combinations of contemporary culture and pre-Columbian imagery, and the photographs of Dominique Blain help to extend the political viability of art.

Frances Whitehead's explorations of memory's ability to recover and endure, James Turrell's expressions of the timelessness of light and landscape and Buzz Spector's evocations of the fragility of memory share a consistent philosophical edge. As do William Wegman's dispassionate yet self-reflective arrangements of his dogs, Ian van Coller's examinations of colonialism, and Luis Gonzalez Palma's socially conscious photographs of the indigenous peoples of Guatemala.

In an art market that is increasingly driving the prices of unique works beyond the reach of all but the wealthiest collectors, limited edition prints remain the most accessible medium of the finest artistic minds of our era. Working closely with the experienced printers at Segura Publishing, artists can control every aspect of developing their images and achieve a visual clarity that comes only from a thorough mastery of the printing craft. We take special pride in finding new ways and combinations of new and old techniques to transfer our artists' visions accurately to paper. Because we work on a continuing basis with our artists, our collaborations are evolving a new understanding about content and image between artist and printer.