Michael Hurson

Vladimir: Greek column abstract etching and screenprint, handmade paper frame

1989

In this unique Michael Hurson monotype, stylized Greco-Roman pillars flank a plane of crosshatched and dotted texture in black, taupe, and grey ink. The f...

This series of abstract black and white Roth prints is full of movement, wildly diverse mark making, visceral, three-dimensional shapes and dynamic sketched lines. The artist worked on the same stone, erasing and adding elements with each step of the process to create a new print. Working on a lithography stone allowed him to scratch away areas with precision, revealing tightly hatched white lines that complement swaths of smokey gray. A Muse reflects Roth’s interest in permutations, decay, and a mathematical approach to making images. Each week the artist created a new variant: the series was originally planned as a set of 52. Dieter Roth, A Muse 1971-1972 series of 12 prints (this set is an incomplete set of ten prints), lithographs from stone printed in black on white handmade paper image 18.9 × 14.6 in / 48 x 37 cm paper 30.7 × 20.9 in / 78 x 53 cm edition of 30 each, numbered and signed, 6 artists copies this series 1/30 printed by Karl Schulz, Braunschweig and published by Petersburg Press, London weekly variant printed from the same stone, began October 1971 (52 prints were planned, but only 12 were executed) Condition: excellent with some dimples and wear commensurate with age Catalogue Reference: Roth 185-196 Dieter Roth was a printmaker from childhood: his first etching at the age of 16 was scratched into a soda can, and despite the failure of the can to print anything but a shadow of ink, he continued his study and by 20 was a serious apprentice in lithography to a well-known commercial artist, Eugen Jordi. Later he would continue to print and publish much of his own work. From the 1960s onward, his collaborations with Petersburg Press brought him international recognition and produced some of his most celebrated work: Six Piccadillies (1970), and Containers (1972). Interested in chance and spontaneity, Roth was drawn to make prints using unorthodox means: according to mathematical principles, using equations, or by randomly rearranging blocks before they were run through the press. The artist often printed plates repeatedly in different colors, producing many variations from just a few images. He used the printing press and materials to interrogate the creative process rather than just as tools to achieve an edition of identical prints: for example, overprinting or under-inking, or running objects through the press (in 1968, a box of chocolates). Roth was not just interested in the chance of making pictures but the unpredictability of decay: allowing the grease from slices of meat to slowly contaminate paper, immersing a print in vegetable juice, clamping metal to paper to produce rust, and pouring chocolate over a finished work. Roth would make hundreds of print editions and books over his career and blurred the line between genres and mediums, embarking on prodigious collaborations and experimentation with music, poetry...

"Madeleine Dietz (Germany, 1953) 'Kann sein', 2004 etching, aquatint on paper Velin Arches 300 g. 83.3 x 43.2 in. (211.5 x 109.5 cm.) Edition of 12 ID: DIE-301"

CYCLOPS is a hand-tooled aluminum intaglio print on Rives BFK 250g paper with deckle edge. It is a framed monotype in black matte wood with spacers under glass to maintain the deckle edge of paper. The print floats on museum board using archival Hayaku Japanese Hinging Paper. Like Wortsman's sculptures, the abstract components here seem to possess both organic and geometric forms. Note the four corners of black, bracing the center serpentine shape of copper and black speckled white – it is characteristic of Wortsman's practice. Warm, contemporary, uniquely crafted, yet speaks to ancient, tribal traditions of art-making that cross cultures and histories. Highly attuned to the indigenous art of Africa, the Middle East, India and Asia, his forms are organic and geometric abstracts with masculine and feminine attributes that resonate together as a pleasing enigma. They make sense immediately, yet never give up all their secrets. CYCLOPS was exhibited at Harold Wortsman...