NEW YORK, NY.- Bill Hodges Gallery has opened Printed Paper, an exhibition that surveys the bounds of color and composition, explored in exquisite relief. A powerful selection of works that span photographic, fragmentary, engraved, and scorched mediums; this exhibition brings into conversation a group of artists from a variety of genres and perspectives. From prints by Jacob Lawrence and Pablo Picasso to photographs by Lorna Simpson and Zanele Muholi, a vivid range of aesthetic and historic impressions emerge; instantiating the versatility of the printmaking practice. Though these striking editions of artistic expression vary in scale and sensibility, they remain allied in medium. With figural and abstract works brimming with detail and brilliant hue, Printed Paper invites viewers to appreciate the harmony found between portrait and palette in this finely curated exhibition.
An instance of this aesthetic balance can be found in Romare Bearden’s evocative etching and engraving, The Train, pictured to the right. Bearden, a celebrated painter and collagist, wields highly saturated color to accent the density of collaged images cast in shadow. This vivid work captures the brash amalgam of textures, sounds, and silhouettes that characterize the commotion of a crowded train car. Notably, trains constitute a weighty motif in Bearden’s work. In a 1977 interview, the artist remarked: "Trains are so much a part of Negro life. Negroes lived near the tracks, worked on the railroads, and trains carried them North during the migration.” A vignette which reflects on industrial migration and exodus, The Train inventively makes use of collage styles to illustrate the jigsaw medley of origins inherent to city living.
Another work that exemplifies the compositional brilliance presented in Printed Paper is Lorna Simpson’s Corridor (Bulb). Simpson, known for her poetic juxtapositions, utilizes the camera lens to challenge objectivity of perspective in historical memory. A photograph from the artist’s video installation, Corridor, this arresting still is imbued with such brightly poignant energy that it appears to emanate a glow all its own. The film from which Corridor (Bulb) originates is a depiction of familiar domesticity. Black women, mirrored across different historic eras, are presented simultaneously on a dual-screen composition. In this print, pictured to the left, a woman dressed in period attire is framed by a doorway at the far end of a corridor. Muted, shadowy hues are shrouded with incandescent light. The woman’s gaze points toward an unseen source of this light, which brightly illuminates her garments. Perhaps lingering by an entrance or an exit, she stands poised, just beyond the hazy reflections of this horizontal composition.
At its core, Printed Paper is a vibrant tour-de-force of genre, celebrating the remarkable variety embodied by the works on paper in the gallery’s more than forty-year collection. The compelling works in this exhibition not only epitomize the best of their discipline, but are rarely-exhibited, playful, and contemplative
moments of exploration by foundational artists of modern and contemporary art.
Printed Paper also features works by Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973), Eldzier Cortor (1916 – 2015), Jacob Lawrence (1917 – 2000), Reginald Gammon (1921 – 2005), Eikoh Hosoe (1933 –), Richard Hunt (1935–), Chester Higgins Jr. (1946 – ), Stanley Whitney (1946 –), Willie Cole (1955 – ), Glenn Ligon (1960 – ), Leonardo Drew (1961–), Lyle Ashton Harris (1965 – ), Nikki S. Lee (1970 –), and Zanele Muholi (1972–).
