Untitled

This untitled print by Manfred Egger was included in the juried international exhibition at the 2021 International Mokuhanga Conference in Nara. The IMC, held triennially since 2011, gathers practitioners, scholars, and curators around mokuhanga—the Japanese term for water-based woodblock printing distinguished from Western relief printing by its use of nori (rice paste) as a binder, [sumi](/glossary/sumi) or pigment moistened with water on the block, and pressure applied by hand with a [baren](/glossary/baren) rather than a press. The 2021 edition's focus on sumi encouraged exhibitors to engage with black as both material and concept. Contemporary mokuhanga prints often abandon the traditional formats of the Edo period—the oban sheet, the [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) or [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) subject—in favor of compositions that foreground the medium's capacity for nuance: the silvery sheen of carbon ink at high density, the granular dispersal at lower concentrations, and the way [washi](/glossary/washi) receives and holds these variations. Egger's practice, situated in Austria, reflects the diaspora of the technique into European contemporary art.