What happens when artists at the forefront of contemporary art descend onto one of the world’s best printmaking workshops?
“All Editions” re-ignites the extraordinary stories of the artist/printer collaboration told by artists, Ghada Amer/Reza Farkhondeh, Ashley Bickerton, Lin Tianmiao, Qiu Zhijie and Hema Upadhyay.
Art to have at home, edition prints pull factors such as affordability, manageable size and handling have also found their way into the collections of major museums, such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York and The Tate Modern, London. The edition prints by STPI’s collaborating artists represent a variety of artistic strategies, social and political themes, Pop and consumer-based imagery, feminist issues, documentary and staged photography.
Ghada Amer regarded as “one of the most important contemporary feminist artists today” and Reza Farkhondeh best known for his mood-induced landscapes, incorporated various printing techniques with drawing, painting and embroidery to produce works charged with socio-political critique on contemporary society. This is the first, two artists’ collaboration for STPI, expanding the creative dialogue between the studio and workshop. Since their successful printmaking foray at STPI, Amer and Farkhondeh took up other attractive residency offers at Paceprints Chelsea and Neiman Center for Print Studies, Columbia University.
Beach-boyish artist Ashley Bickerton surfed to fame in the 80’s on the Neo-Geo wave, exploring issues of human existence and the environment in his art. His prints are characterized by collages of intricate cut-outs of green reflective heads with floral antennae amidst beach flotsam such as flip-flops, toothbrushes, old bottles and bones. Bickerton’s recent group exhibition “Pop Life” was held in October 2009 at the Tate Modern, it includes works by Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami. His recent solo exhibitions in 2008 were held at Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York and UK’s White Cube Gallery, founded by influential arts dealer Jay Jopling.
Installation artist Lin Tianmiao used to working in large spaces and huge props, sized down to a more intimate scale creating a series of hauntingly vacant faces over which she superimposed sheets of ribbed and pebbled papers of irresistible textures. In 2008, Lin was included in the group exhibition “Multiplex: Directions in Art, 1970 to Now” at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.
Qiu Zhijie’s Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge project is considered to be the largest sociological and artistic undertaking in the Chinese art world. Starting the project at STPI, Qiu employs ancient Chinese and Cultural Revolution symbols to create a conceptual map that questions the ideas that built a cyclic China. His complex lithographs and etchings reveal his amazing draughtsmanship and artistic versatility. From February to May 2009,Qiu Zhijie had a major solo exhibition at the Ullens Centre of Contemporary Art in Beijing and was one of the representing artists for the Chinese Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale.
One of India's rising stars, Upadhay returns to printmaking after a decade of hiatus and at a time when she 'needed intervention with her comfort zone'. Her intricate etchings of botanical tree forms shrouded in delicate silk-screened patterns and cut-outs of faceless figures, turns our attention to the issues surrounding rapid urbanisation. Upadhay's work has always centred on the dense concrete jungle of Mumbai, her hometown - a 'city of dreams' - where the trade-off between dreams and reality causes immense pressures on the human and environmental condition.
The story of a print renaissance is just beginning at STPI, with leading artists, a dedicated workshop team and state-of-the art facilities, it will continue to add new exciting chapters to ongoing dialogues in contemporary art.
