Paper Variables New Work in Paper
Dieu Donné, New York, New York, 06/26/2014 - 08/16/2014
ABOUT
Experimenting with distortion and intentional accidents inherent to papermaking was a natural direction from Rafferty’s traditional practice. Her work frequently features appropriated stills or photographs of comedic performers who are familiar in the public realm but become ambiguously gendered bodies through degradation. Rafferty was interested in the potential of papermaking to create an object, rather than an image on a flat surface. The resulting edition presented an opportunity to work with materials not often used in the Dieu Donné studio and provided a new intersection of digital processes and handmade paper.
Select works from this series will be on view in the Paper Variables exhibition at Dieu Donné in New York through August 16.
Q & A with Sara Greenberger Rafferty
As an artist who often works with digital technologies, what did the element of our handmade process bring to this project?
I work with digital technologies and there is often a tangible representation of the body in my work. In this case, the handmade paper — its body — and how it reacted to the plastic and ink I introduced to the pulp with Lisa's help, became sort of bodily and gross. The paper ended up providing an element of chance or accident by design which is consistent in my work of the last five years.
Is medium important to you? What do you find interesting or think is important about paper and/or paper making?
Medium specificity, integrity, and meaning is important to me, but I'm not a material or technique monogamist, if that is what you're asking. Paper is so easy not to think about — especially before the 21st century digital tools that started usurping paper's ubiquity in day-to-day life. It's a material that everyone can relate to immediately — which makes it ripe for surprising manipulations since viewers will know what you mean when you say "it's paper!" It has special qualities like being ephemeral, light, and fragile as a single sheet and heavy, permanent, and imposing when put in a stack or bound in a volume. It carries the entire histories of reading and drawing in it. It's fast, throwaway, and also archival, for the records. It's 2D and 3D. It's for children; it's adult. It means business; it facilitates a wandering imagination. It accepts information and preserves it. It's cheap and expensive. It's holdable.
With regard to handmade paper and the process, as you know I've just begun to scratch the surface. I like that paper is made from itself and other macerated bits of whatever you try to feed it. It's shape-shifting — starts a wet mess and becomes something that would be damaged if a drop of water fell on it. In fact it seems so different wet and dry that it's almost 2 different substances. It seems highly manipulatable, yet stubborn and unpredictable about what it will and won't do, how it may behave. And I like that it's bodily, a primordial mush that is resistant and malleable.
I've also had a handful of close friends and colleagues go through the residency and so I am aware and in awe of some of the amazing sculptural things artists like Rachel Foullon, Ian Cooper, David Kennedy Cutler, Anna Craycroft, Molly Smith, Jennifer Cohen, and Glen Baldridge, among others have done in the last decade (ok, so more like 2 handfuls) with handmade paper at Dieu Donné. Rachel's 3 editions have been hanging in my dining room for almost a decade, I never get sick of looking at them.
Could you explain the image that was used in creating this edition, and its significance?
I'm not sure I can explain it but I can describe it: it's the cut-out collar of a button-down shirt, unbuttoned at the top.
You spent some time in the studio with Lisa Switalski. What did you think about the collaborative aspect of creating this edition?
I enjoyed working with Lisa tremendously. In addition to being a master paper maker, she's incredibly organized and well-prepared as an administrator. For these reasons, it was a natural studio collaboration, where I didn't have to think about much besides dreaming up weird things to attempt. We tried a few things, and I appreciated that Lisa "let me" try (by which I mean let me basically watch while she executed my idea) everything that seemed worth trying in the context of this project. It was a great first experience for me, very generous.
The gestures and mannerisms of the performer in your work Mono, included in this year's Whitney Biennial, are based on famous late night talk show hosts. Who would you most like to interview if you were the host of The Tonight Show?
My husband Kyle — it would be so funny. We'd probably barb about why I didn't invite someone famous, but it would be so entertaining! My favorite talk show interview of all time is Andy Kaufman interviewing his girlfriend Elayne Boosler. I would copy that.
Do you know any good jokes?
Not a one — jokes are bad!
Sara Greenberger Rafferty signing the edition, Dieu Donné, Spring 2014.
About the Artist: Sara Greenberger Rafferty has exhibited solo projects at Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, The Kitchen, New York, MoMA PS1, New York, Eli Marsh Gallery at Amherst College, Massachusetts and The Suburban, Illinois. She has participated in many group shows at venues such as the Aspen Art Museum, Colorado, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, Gagosian Gallery, New York, Public Art Fund at the Metrotech Center, New York and the Jewish Museum, New York. Her work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She received her MFA from Columbia University in 2005 and lives and works in Brooklyn. She is represented by Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York.
About Paper Variables: Paper Variables is an opportunity to collect art by renowned contemporary artists at an affordable price while making an important contribution to the creation of new work in handmade paper. Paper Variables projects incorporate the unique “wet studio” processes that are available to artists at Dieu Donné. Embracing the egalitarian spirit of the traditional edition, this artist-driven series produces new works in collaboration with our studio staff, featuring unique touches of the artist’s hand. The 2014 Paper Variables artists are Katherine Bradford, Andy Mister, and Sara Greenberger Rafferty.
About Dieu Donné
Dieu Donné is a non-profit organization dedicated to the creation, promotion, and preservation of new contemporary art made using hand papermaking techniques. The Dieu Donné gallery is open to the public Tuesday - Friday, 10 am - 6pm and Saturday 12 - 6pm or by appointment.
Image featured above:
Sarah Greenberger Rafferty, Untitled, 2014, hand-cut archival acetate, abaca paper, and inkjet transfer. 11 x 8 ½ inches. Variable edition of 25.
For More Information
MORE EXHIBITIONS
Group exhibition
Public Art Fund, Inc.
Solo exhibition
Museum 52, New York
Solo exhibition
The Kitchen
Solo exhibition
Josee Bienvenu Gallery
Solo exhibition
Anton Kern Gallery
Solo exhibition
Ronald Feldman Fine Arts
Group exhibition
Swiss Institute/Contemporary Art
Solo exhibition
The Studio Museum in Harlem
Solo exhibition
Peter Blum Gallery
Group exhibition
David Zwirner, 525 West 19th Street
Solo exhibition
Art in General
Solo exhibition
Art in General
Solo exhibition
Jack Hanley Gallery, New York
Solo exhibition
Fitzroy Gallery
Solo exhibition
Canada
Group exhibition
Lombard-Freid Projects
Solo exhibition
Walter Wickiser Gallery Inc.
Solo exhibition
El Museo del Barrio
Solo exhibition
Whitney Museum of American Art
Group exhibition
Allegra LaViola Gallery
Experimenting with distortion and intentional accidents inherent to papermaking was a natural direction from Rafferty’s traditional practice. Her work frequently features appropriated stills or photographs of comedic performers who are familiar in the public realm but become ambiguously gendered bodies through degradation. Rafferty was interested in the potential of papermaking to create an object, rather than an image on a flat surface. The resulting edition presented an opportunity to work with materials not often used in the Dieu Donné studio and provided a new intersection of digital processes and handmade paper.
Select works from this series will be on view in the Paper Variables exhibition at Dieu Donné in New York through August 16.
Q & A with Sara Greenberger Rafferty
As an artist who often works with digital technologies, what did the element of our handmade process bring to this project?
I work with digital technologies and there is often a tangible representation of the body in my work. In this case, the handmade paper — its body — and how it reacted to the plastic and ink I introduced to the pulp with Lisa's help, became sort of bodily and gross. The paper ended up providing an element of chance or accident by design which is consistent in my work of the last five years.
Is medium important to you? What do you find interesting or think is important about paper and/or paper making?
Medium specificity, integrity, and meaning is important to me, but I'm not a material or technique monogamist, if that is what you're asking. Paper is so easy not to think about — especially before the 21st century digital tools that started usurping paper's ubiquity in day-to-day life. It's a material that everyone can relate to immediately — which makes it ripe for surprising manipulations since viewers will know what you mean when you say "it's paper!" It has special qualities like being ephemeral, light, and fragile as a single sheet and heavy, permanent, and imposing when put in a stack or bound in a volume. It carries the entire histories of reading and drawing in it. It's fast, throwaway, and also archival, for the records. It's 2D and 3D. It's for children; it's adult. It means business; it facilitates a wandering imagination. It accepts information and preserves it. It's cheap and expensive. It's holdable.
With regard to handmade paper and the process, as you know I've just begun to scratch the surface. I like that paper is made from itself and other macerated bits of whatever you try to feed it. It's shape-shifting — starts a wet mess and becomes something that would be damaged if a drop of water fell on it. In fact it seems so different wet and dry that it's almost 2 different substances. It seems highly manipulatable, yet stubborn and unpredictable about what it will and won't do, how it may behave. And I like that it's bodily, a primordial mush that is resistant and malleable.
I've also had a handful of close friends and colleagues go through the residency and so I am aware and in awe of some of the amazing sculptural things artists like Rachel Foullon, Ian Cooper, David Kennedy Cutler, Anna Craycroft, Molly Smith, Jennifer Cohen, and Glen Baldridge, among others have done in the last decade (ok, so more like 2 handfuls) with handmade paper at Dieu Donné. Rachel's 3 editions have been hanging in my dining room for almost a decade, I never get sick of looking at them.
Could you explain the image that was used in creating this edition, and its significance?
I'm not sure I can explain it but I can describe it: it's the cut-out collar of a button-down shirt, unbuttoned at the top.
You spent some time in the studio with Lisa Switalski. What did you think about the collaborative aspect of creating this edition?
I enjoyed working with Lisa tremendously. In addition to being a master paper maker, she's incredibly organized and well-prepared as an administrator. For these reasons, it was a natural studio collaboration, where I didn't have to think about much besides dreaming up weird things to attempt. We tried a few things, and I appreciated that Lisa "let me" try (by which I mean let me basically watch while she executed my idea) everything that seemed worth trying in the context of this project. It was a great first experience for me, very generous.
The gestures and mannerisms of the performer in your work Mono, included in this year's Whitney Biennial, are based on famous late night talk show hosts. Who would you most like to interview if you were the host of The Tonight Show?
My husband Kyle — it would be so funny. We'd probably barb about why I didn't invite someone famous, but it would be so entertaining! My favorite talk show interview of all time is Andy Kaufman interviewing his girlfriend Elayne Boosler. I would copy that.
Do you know any good jokes?
Not a one — jokes are bad!
About Paper Variables: Paper Variables is an opportunity to collect art by renowned contemporary artists at an affordable price while making an important contribution to the creation of new work in handmade paper. Paper Variables projects incorporate the unique “wet studio” processes that are available to artists at Dieu Donné. Embracing the egalitarian spirit of the traditional edition, this artist-driven series produces new works in collaboration with our studio staff, featuring unique touches of the artist’s hand. The 2014 Paper Variables artists are Katherine Bradford, Andy Mister, and Sara Greenberger Rafferty.
Image featured above:
Sarah Greenberger Rafferty, Untitled, 2014, hand-cut archival acetate, abaca paper, and inkjet transfer. 11 x 8 ½ inches. Variable edition of 25.