Paper: Pressed, Stained, Folded, Slashed at MoMA, Part 2

.

Last Friday Part 1 of this post appeared. I'd thought I was going to get to Part 2 sooner, but time has its own agenda.

.

To recap: Paper: Pressed, Stained, Folded, Slashed contemplates the witty, sumptuous, violent and playful materiality of paper in work by some of the art world's big guns, who were merely pistols when these works were made, mostly in the 1960s and 1970s.

.

Above: Robert Rauschenberg, Cardbird VI, 1971

.

Standing in the anteroom, where Rauschenberg's Cardbird commands the first look, we peek into the large first gallery. I've included this image so that you can imagine entering the gallery and looking to your left. What you'd see is below: a crumpled drawing by Oldenberg--I'm surprised by how much I like it--and another work, in handmade paper (remember when that was the big thing?) by Rauschenberg.

Claes Oldenberg and Robert Rauschenberg, with closeups below

Oldenberg's Flag to Fold in the Pocket, 1961, ink and crayon on paper, 29.5 x 47 inches, above;

Rauschenberg's, Page 4 from the series Pages and Fuses, 1974, two sheets of handmade paper in plexi frames with twine, each 15 x 20 inches

Lucio Fontana, installation view of four of Six Original Etchings, 1964, portfolio of six embossed etchings; one of the works below


.

If you take the time to access the exhibition website, click onto Fontana's Concetto Spaziale (Spatial Concept), a gold accordion book with a visual narrative of negative space. Fontana's work is almost half a century old now, yet it still bristles with enough energy to make you realize just how daring, even transgressive, it was when it was made.

.

While you're at it, click onto the navigable view of Lygia Pape's Book of Creation, a collection of gouache-on-paperboard constructions, each 12 x 12 inches. To be honest, the installation suggests a design project, but there are some appealing elements in it, especially the geometry of the detail below:

.
Lygia Pape, Book of Creation, 1959-60, gouache on paperboard, each 12 x 12 inches

.

It's not all old school. This work by Nancy Rubins, while still 20th Century (1997), is much more contemporary. I hadn't realized how much it has in common with Rauschenberg until now. Good thing I shot the work and its label; it's not on the MoMA website at all. That's an oversite.

.

Nancy Rubins, Untitled, 1997, pencil on paper
Detail below

.

My favorite is the small work in the second gallery by Howardena Pindell. It's shown below. Hung in an installation with other small works, Untitled (#7) is a sculptural pastiche of the dots from hole-punched paper, thread, and other materials. It's a reconstruction of a deconstruction, a small sculptural plot of process and materiality preserved from the early 1970s. I love it.

Howardena Pindell, Untitled (#7), 1973, ink on punched and pasted paper, talcum powder, and thread on paper; 10 1/8 x 8 3/8 inches

.

Wall installation, below, with Pindell's work at the middle right

.

Paper: Pressed, Stained, Slashed, Folded at MoMA, Part 1

.

The works-on-paper gallery on the second floor of the Museum of Modern Art is one of the museum's best-kept secrets. Not that it's hidden or that people don't go into it, but compared to the hordes that visit the higher-profile spaces, this is a quiet oasis in which to contemplate work that is typically quieter and smaller than elsewhere in the building.

Above: Entrance to the exhibition

The exhibitions, often organized by Starr Figura, a curator in the Prints and Drawings department, are always good. (A while back I did a four-part report on Geo/Metric, another impressive exhibition curated by Figura, with Kathleen Curry, and which included the Dorothea Rockburne folded prints that are in this show. ) Because all the work is in the museum's collection, photography is allowed.

.

This time the exhibition looks at the materiality of paper. The title spells out the curatorial parameters: Paper: Pressed, Stained, Slashed, Folded. Well, that's not exactly true; it's also ripped, pinned, crumpled, punched, printed, stitched, embedded and handmade. But you get the picture. There are papier mache cylinders by Eva Hesse, a mid-size graphite assemblage by Nancy Rubins that's pushpinned to the wall, the surprise of a crumpled sheet of ink-stained paper by Claes Oldenburg, and a whole lot more. Much of the work is from the 1960s and 70s, so I suppose it officially qualifies as "art history."

The exhibition is up until June 22, so you have time to see it if you're so inclined. If you can't, an interactive flash site shows you more work than I can show you here, often with closeups but without the installation shots. (By the way, am I the only person who hates MoMA's new website? I find it to have entirely too much Flash--too many bells, whistles, graphics, and boxes, changing images, drop-downs and pop-ups.)

Let's start in the anteroom with Robert Rauschenberg, then peek into the large first gallery. After we've made a tour of the room, we'll return to the anteroom to see wortk by Tapies and LeWitt.

In the anteroom: Robert Rauschenberg, Cardbird Series, 1971, photolithograph and screenprint on corrugated cardboard with tape additions, app. 26 x 27 inches
.

Far wall, from left: Richard Smith, image and info below; Dorothea Rockburne, Locus, 1972, series of six relief etching and aquatints on folded paper, each app. 40 x 30 inches.

On platform, above: Eva Hesse, Repetition Nineteen 1, 1967, paint and papier-mache on aluminum screening, each app. 9 to 10.5 high and 6 to 9 inches diameter

Below: Richard Smith, Diary, 1975, screenprint on seven sheets with punched-hole additions and string, each app. 20 x 21 inches

Another view of Rockburne's Locus and Hesse's Repetition Nineteen 1 . . .


. . . and details of each

Moving around the gallery, to the right of the Rockburnes is Giuseppe Penone, Fingernail Scratches (Unghiate), 1986, plaster on four sheets of torn paper, 55 x 79 inches total, with the work isolated below

As you face this work by Penone, on the wall past your right shoulder is the work below:

Sol LeWitt, Untitled, 1974, folded paper with pencil, 14 x 14 inches plus frame

Back in the anteroom just to the right of the Rauschenberg, is Anular, an illustrated book with 23 etchings, by the Catalan painter Antoni Tapies

Details are below and below that

In Part 2, which I'll post soon, we'll look into the smaller galleries. I have a lot more to show you, including my favorite work in the show--by Howardena Pindell. .