[caption id="attachment_2049" align="alignnone" width="560" caption="Ghada Amer & Reza Farkhondeh, "Cool Pinks." Courtesy of Pace Editions, Inc."][/caption]
The exhibition of prints by artists Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh, Roses off Limits, is a delightful visual experience, as well as a captivating example of collaborative printmaking. Amer, who was originally born in Egypt, and studied art in France, is known for her work that incorporates elements of sewing, while celebrating the female body and challenging notions of feminine sexuality. Farkhondeh, born in Iran, also studied in France, and is a painter whose floral motifs are influenced by the patterns of Persian carpets and miniatures. The two artists have been collaborating for several years now, but their first series of works for Pace Prints, possibly their most successful collaborative effort yet, is an exquisite example of a partnership between artists and printers.
One of the prints in the show, Cool Pinks, 2008, shows two nude women embracing against a soft, floral background. The thick, crude, blue woodcut lines of the figures, with their stylized hair, heavy breasts, and slanted eyes, are reminiscent of the primitive style of twentieth-century artists such as Modigliani. Contrasting this simplicity is the lush floral imagery, washed in shades of pink and green. This pairing of nude women, some odalisques, others passionately entwined (the pairings are much more successful than the single figures), with blossoming patterned backgrounds is repeated throughout the series. The pulsing eroticism of the flowers in their bright pinks, reds and oranges seems to bring out the bold sexuality of the figures themselves. And the powerful lines against the flowing patterns cannot but help bring to mind the odalisques of Matisse set against his favorite oriental textiles. Yet, what makes this work distinctive is the fact that here the women are seen through the eyes of Amer, a woman, and the patterns emerge organically, literally a part of the print just as they are a part of Farkhondeh’s visual culture. Matisse could only collect the products of a foreign culture and imitate these objects in his work.
But to discuss these prints purely from the point of formal qualities is to ignore one of the major points that make these works so exceptional. The intricate combination of printing processes and different forms of craftsmanship used to make these monoprints is extraordinary. Jacob Lewis, director of Pace Prints Chelsea, has been working to engage the contemporary art world with printmaking as an important medium, saying “I truly believe that printmaking is a medium that has not fully been explored as a mark-making tool because of the negative conception the market has about it.” Pace Prints has three different facilities in New York which have the capabilities to do almost any type of traditional or digital printmaking.
After Lewis proposed that Amer and Farkhondeh do a residency with the gallery, the two artists spent months last summer working together with the master printers and experimenting with various printing techniques. When I asked Jacob what he thought the print shop had done to aid the creation of such remarkable work, he said “The most important thing to produce the quality of work we did with Ghada and Reza is having the shops run by printmakers that are not afraid to explore the rigid processes of printmaking and blur the lines of what we know is possible and what we are going to make possible.”
Cool Pinks for example, combines woodcut and wood matrix painting on a combination of Mulberry and Coventry Rag papers. The blue lines are the result of the print made from the woodcut, one of the oldest and simplest of printing processes. The floral background comes from painting on the wood matrix. By painting onto wood rather than directly onto the paper, the painting gains a unique variation in color which cannot be controlled as the wood is pressed to the paper. It also creates a texture and density which could not be acquired from painting on paper. Reza wanted to use layers, as well as translucent paper through which light could shine through. He experimented with printing on both sides of the paper to create a more washed appearance. In this print the Mulberry paper was used for its transparence, and ability to have this washed-out look. The Coventry Rag was attached by chine collé, in order to make the final piece more sturdy. Other prints incorporate techniques such as linocut, softground etching, aquatint, and steel matrix painting. Materials range from pieces of fabric that look like ripped Pucci scarves (but were actually designed by the artists and made using inkjet printing) to the hanging strings of Amer’s signature hand-sewing. Everything from oil stick and oil paint, to acrylic and watercolor was applied to the prints, and an array of papers (Pace makes their own paper) were used based upon their various qualities.
The pure beauty of these works might cause some to immediately write them off as decorative. But these prints have a depth which cannot be denied. While they are beautiful, they have a quiet, complex sort of beauty which is similar to the abstract geometries of Turkish carpets, or the mosaics of the Alhambra. The interaction and experimentation of the two artists aided by the printmakers has created works which are technically marvelous and could inspire hours of happy contemplation.
Ghada Amer/Reza Farkhondeh, Roses off Limits @ Pace Prints Chelsea, 521 West 26th Street, Third Floor, New York, NY 10001. April 16 - May 23, 2009.
