Udo Claassen

Delta (River delta in front of mountains in volcanic landscape, Iceland)

1985

German artist Udo Claassen created a dramatic landscape of this Icelandic scene in 1985 in an edition of 40. The New Orleans Museum of Art has an impression of this image in its per...

This image is an artist proof and is annotated VIII / VIII The artist's subject matter was enigmatic: a recurring theme was that of anonymous packages tied with knots of rope; sometimes there are prison bars...

Beth Ganz, 'Lomagnupur, South Iceland', copperplate photogravure etching, edition 10, 2021. Signed, titled, and numbered 6/10 in pencil. A superb, richly-inked impression in warm black ink, on cream, wove, cotton rag paper; the full sheet in excellent condition. Archivally sleeved, unmatted. Image size 10 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches; sheet size 16 x 15 1/2 inches. From the artist's series of 64 photogravure etchings, 'Axis Mundi...

Beth Ganz, 'Mount St. Elias, Yukon, Alaska', copperplate photogravure etching, edition 10, 2021. Signed, titled, and numbered 6/10 in pencil. A superb, richly-inked impression in warm black ink, on cream, wove, cotton rag paper; the full sheet in excellent condition. Archivally sleeved, unmatted. Image size 10 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches; sheet size 16 x 15 1/2 inches. From the artist's series of 64 photogravure etchings 'Axis Mundi'. Additional works from the series are available; please inquire. Exhibited: 'Photography in Ink, A Look at Contemporary Copper-Plate Photogravure,' Curated by Leandro Villaro, Penumbra Exhibition Space Gallery, Nov 30, 2022 - March 15, 2023. ABOUT THE IMAGE Mount Saint Elias, the second-highest mountain in Canada and the United States stands on the Yukon and Alaska border about 26 miles (42 km) southwest of Mount Logan, the highest mountain in Canada. The Canadian side of Mount Saint Elias forms part of Kluane National Park and Reserve, while the U.S. side is within Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Mount Saint Elias is notable for its immense vertical relief. Its summit rises 18,008 feet (5,489 m) vertically in just 10 miles (16 km) horizontal distance from the head of Taan Fjord, off of Icy Bay. The name of the mountain in Tlingit (indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America), Yasʼéitʼaa Shaa, means "mountain behind Icy Bay"; the Yakutat Tlingit occasionally call it Shaa Tlein "Big Mountain". It is one of the most important crests of the Kwaashkʼiḵwáan clan, who used it as a guide during their journey down the Copper River. Mount Fairweather, at the apex of the British Columbia and Alaska borders at the head of the Alaska Panhandle, is known as Tsalx̱aan; legend states that this mountain and Yasʼéitʼaa Shaa (Mt. St. Elias) originally stood next to each other, but had an argument and separated. Their children, the mountains between the two peaks, are called Tsalx̱aan Yátxʼi ("Children of Tsalxaan"). European explorers first sighted the mountain on July 16, 1741, with the arrival of the expedition commanded by Vitus Bering, a Danish explorer in service of Russia. While some historians contend that Bering named the mountain, others believe that eighteenth-century mapmakers named it after Cape Saint Elias when Bering left the peak unnamed. Mt. St. Elias was first climbed on July 31, 1897, by an Italian expedition led by famed explorer Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi (who also reconnoitered the current standard route on K2 in 1909) and included noted mountain photographer Vittorio Sella. In 2007 Gerald Salmina directed an Austrian documentary film, Mount St. Elias, about a team of skiers/mountaineers determined to make "the planet's longest skiing descent" by ascending the mountain and then skiing nearly all 18,000 feet down to the Gulf of Alaska; the movie finished editing and underwent limited release in 2009. The climbers ended up summiting on the second attempt and skiing down to 13,000 ft (3,960 m). ABOUT THE SERIES 'AXIS MUNDI' "This body of work focuses on satellite images of sacred mountains around the world—places where heaven and earth are thought to meet. The phenomenon of revering mountains as holy sites is an archetype found in many cultures. "This shared experience finds a visual echo in the ubiquity of images of the earth that are now available to any person with a computer and an Internet connection. What does the specificity of place mean when we can move across the surface of the earth in seconds and reduce everything to a series of pixels? To me, this process recalls abstract painting, which transforms the specific into gesture and form. Rather than treat digital technology as necessarily destructive to human meaning and experience, my work offers new ways of seeing that are reconcilable with the old. To this end, I combine 19th Century Photogravure technique with 21st Century surveillance captures. "Axis Mundi consists of 64 copperplate photogravures. The work is laid out in a grid, which is an arbitrary conversion of the visual world into a flat space that happens both on the picture plane and in the data processing. The title refers to the belief in a 'world center,' often conceived of as a mountain: a place where communication between higher and lower realms is possible. This project is a search for such a center in a world of decentralization and fragmentation." —Beth Ganz ABOUT THE ARTIST Beth Ganz is a contemporary American multidisciplinary visual artist, who lives and works in New York City. She graduated from Pratt Institute with a BFA (honors) in Painting, Sculpture, and Printmaking. The focus of her work is the intersection of landscape, digital technology, and abstraction. Ganz works in paint, brush, and ink drawing, both independently and alongside digital and analog printing techniques, including photogravure and intaglio printing. Ganz’s work has been the subject of many solo exhibitions, including 'Atlas Project' at Cynthia-Reeves Gallery, 'Up Close and Far Away, Grids and Toiles: Beth Ganz at Wave Hill House,' Wave Hill, and 'Geothermal Topographies' at Reeves Contemporary. She has been shown in numerous group exhibitions, and her work is represented in many public and private collections, including the 9-11 Memorial Museum, the Library of Congress, the New York Historical Society, and the New York Public Library Prints...