Zarina, ‘Beyond the Stars’ at Luhring Augustine Gallery

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Born in Aligarh, India ten years before partition, Zarina Hashmi’s uprooting at an early age prefigured a nomadic life of artmaking in Thailand, Germany, Paris, Japan, New York and beyond.  Luhring Augustine’s survey of several decides of the artist’s print-centered work reflects the artist’s recurring themes of home and displacement through pieces picturing abstracted maps of countries and cities in which she lived, as well as abstract work recalling architecture.  In this thickly textured cast-paper wall-sculpture titled ‘Marrakesh,’ Zarina, who went by her first name, suggests the earthen building tradition of Morrocco and a recurring stepped form in Islamic architecture.  (On view in Tribeca through March 28th).

A cast-paper form like a ziggurat or plant, colored brown.
Zarina, Marrakesh, cast paper, 22 x 19 ½ inches, 1988.

Marie Watt at Print Center New York

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This tower of blankets embodies the memories of individuals, responding to an open call, who donated them to artist Marie Watt during the pandemic.  Now a highlight of Watt’s retrospective, ‘Storywork: The Prints of Marie Watt’ at Print Center New York, the stack is reminiscent of mid-century minimalism but favors warm materials and personal associations over cold, fabricated components.  Watt’s stacks are sometimes accompanied by metal I-beams that reference her fellow Seneca citizens’ work in New York’s steel industry, while her use of textiles refer to Native American practice of gifting blankets at important life events.  Watt’s other signature forms (ladders and looping dream catchers) and nods to cultural figures like Marvin Gaye and Jasper Johns broader her own story, celebrating cultural interconnectedness.

Marie Watt, Blanket Stories: Great Grandmother, Pandemic, Daybreak, reclaimed blankets and cedar, 2021.

 

 

Jacquelyn Strycker in Group Show at Print Center New York

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Jacquelyn Strycker uses the risograph mechanical copying/printing process to create abstractions that look like sewn textiles, a fruitful juxtaposition of the machine made and handmade that makes her work a standout at the opening of Print Center New York’s engaging new group show of work by emerging artists.  This piece’s profusion of pattern came from Strycker’s decision to embrace complexity.  Sometimes printed on handmade and Japanese papers or, in this piece titled ‘Dream House,’ made using cotton stuffed with Poly-fil, the resulting forms resemble a curious mix of quilt, garment and architecture.  (On view in Chelsea through Aug 25th).

Jacquelyn Strycker, Dream House, sewn risograph on cotton stuffed with Poly-fil, 2023.

Nicole Eisenman at Print Center New York

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Known as a painter, Nicole Eisenman’s forays into sculpture over the past few years have earned her accolades in gallery shows and the 2019 Whitney Biennial; now, her decade-long experimentation with printmaking is the subject of an informative and visually gratifying show at the Print Center New York.  Emphasizing process and creativity, a series of eight prints made during stages of the creation of the 2012 etching ‘Watermark’ illustrate her progress.  Here in the final version, Eisenman brings us into the intimacy of her family home, complete with her mother, father and her two children who read books at center.  We see the scene through Eisenman’s eyes as she eats from a bowl and looks out over a room alive with unspoken thoughts.  (On view through May 13th).

Nicole Eisenman, Watermark, etching and aquatint, ed of 25, printed and published by Harlan & Weaver, New York, 2012.

Bethany Collins in ‘Visual Record: The Materiality of Sound in Print’

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Bethany Collins’ artwork is about language, specifically its potential to communicate or to completely fail to do so.  In the Print Center’s engaging fall/winter group exhibition ‘Visual Record,’ Collins presents ‘America:  A Hymnal,’ a book featuring one hundred songs set to the tune of ‘My Country Tis of Thee.’  Since the 18th century, new lyrics have been written for this song in support of such divergent causes as temperance, suffrage, abolition, and the Confederacy.  In Collins’ book, printed lyrics run below notes that have been burnt away by laser cutting, demonstrating that the classic tune has itself become a battleground for various ideologies.  (On view through Jan 21st).

Bethany Collins, America: A Hymnal, book with 100 laser cut leaves, 6 x 9 x 1 in, 2017.
Bethany Collins, America: A Hymnal, book with 100 laser cut leaves, 6 x 9 x 1 in, 2017.

 

 

 

M.C. Escher at Bruce Silverstein Gallery

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Just as a tiny shift in perspective can cause a straightforward transparent cube to morph into an impossible cube, M.C. Escher’s architecture in this 1958 print is believable on first glance, until matching up columns to arches proves otherwise.  The lithograph is one of 75 artworks on view in Bruce Silverstein Gallery’s exhibition of the Dutch printmaker’s work from the ‘30s to late career. Inspired by the impossible cube, a version of which is being held by a seated man on the lower terrace, Escher delights viewers by confounding us.  (On view in Chelsea through Nov 20th).

M.C. Escher, Belvedere, lithograph, printers proof, 18 ¼ x 11 5/8 inches, 1958.

Vija Celmins, Ocean at Matthew Marks

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Vija Celmins’ once described her relationship to the ocean, which she has rendered again and again in paint, graphite and prints, as akin to wrestling something huge into a tiny 2-D space.  This woodcut from 2000, created with one of printmaking’s oldest techniques, captures a particular view of the water’s surface that looks as if it could have been made yesterday or hundreds of years ago.  (On view in Chelsea at Matthew Marks Gallery through Oct 26th).

Vija Celmins, Ocean, wood engraving on Zerkall paper, 20 ¾ x 17 ¼ inches, 2000.

Kathia St Hilaire at Derek Eller Gallery

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Three children forge ahead into the unknown on a boat made of braiding hair packaging in this oil-based relief collage on canvas by Yale MFA candidate Kathia St Hilaire.  A standout in Derek Eller Gallery’s current group show, St Hilaire’s image features kids venturing forth under a blazing sun to navigate their own identities and paths in life.  (On view on the Lower East Side through July 3rd).

Kathia St Hilaire, detail of 100% Kanekalon, oil-based relief collage on canvas, kanekalon braiding hair, 54.5 x 42 inches, 2018.

Morteza Khakshoor at the International Print Center New York

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Male behaviors and rituals occupy Ohio-based printmaker and current International Print Center New York resident artist Morteza Khakshoor’s colorful, dream-like prints.  This piece, ‘Men of High Culture’ is a standout in the IPCNY’s current juried exhibition of new prints.  Including a homogeneously dressed cast of male wall flowers and two figures grappling with eccentric creatures and separated by a vase of flowers, Khakshoor’s setup reinterprets the uber-male cockfight.  (On view through Sept 22nd).

Morteza Khakshoor, Men of High Culture, screenprint on paper mounted on panel, 29 ¼ x 42 ¾ inches, 2018.

Yoonmi Nam in ‘New Prints’ at the International Print Center New York

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It’ll be no problem to ‘Please recycle this bag,’ in this case, as artwork. Yoonmi Nam’s plastic carrier bags are in fact lithographs on gampi paper containing not plastic food containers but glazed slipcast porcelain. They subvert the notion of disposability powerfully. (At the International Print Center’s ‘New Prints 2017/Winter’ exhibition through April 1st).

Yoonmi Nam, Take Out (Thank You for Your Patronage), lithograph on gampi paper and glazed slipcast porcelain. Edition: unique, 2016. And Take Out (Thank You Gracias), 2015.

Jian-Jun Zhang in ‘Contemporary Chinese Prints’ at PacePrints

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Riffing on Mao’s famous injunction to ‘Let the past serve the present,’ Chinese artist Jian-Jun Zhang presents traditional but damaged Chinese vase forms in silicone rubber, selling an updated version of ‘authentic’ national heritage. (At Pace Prints, 57th Street, through April 12th.)

Jian-Jun Zhang, vases from the ‘Vestiges of a Process’ series, silicone rubber, 2007 & 2011, and detail from ‘Flowing Water,’ 40 x 29 inches, set of five, unique monoprints.

Eve Fowler at Feature, Inc.

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By lifting phrases like ‘This is it with it as it is,’ from Gertrude Stein’s 1914 book ‘Tender Buttons,’ LA-based artist Eve Fowler moves Stein’s creative language play into a more public realm, as seen here on the windows of Feature, Inc. on the Lower East Side. (Through June 2nd.)  

Eve Fowler, from ‘A Spectacle and Nothing Strange,’ letterpress posters with texts from Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons (1914), 28 x 22 each, set of 21, 2011-12.

Chuck Close at Pace Prints, 57th Street

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Chuck Close, 'Mark/Felt Hand Stamp,' oil paint on paper, 2012.
Chuck Close, ‘Mark/Felt Hand Stamp,’ oil paint on paper, 2012.

Technique rather than subject matter (he’s painted portraits for over thirty years) drives interest in Chuck Close’s recent artwork.  For this remake of his iconic ‘Mark’ (’78-’79), Close layered gesso on the paper and screenprinted a grid.  Using a dowel with felt on the end, each square is hand stamped three times with different colors. Factor in a week’s drying time for each layer and it’s no wonder that edition of 40 is still being printed.  (At Pace Prints, 57th Street through Nov 21st.)