We are pleased to announce Mixografia’s participation in the 2017 International Fine Print Dealers Association Print Fair at the Javits Center, 655 W 34th Street (Booth 108), from October 26th – 29th, 2017. Our booth will feature new editions by artists Alex Israel, Abraham Cruzvillegas, and John Baldessari.
We are excited to present the release of Alex Israel’s latest edition, produced in collaboration with Mixografia. Israel, a Southern California native, fully exemplifies the character of Hollywood. In Self-Portrait, Alex Israel takes a visual approach that clearly references Southern California popular culture. He employs a nostalgic color palette that evokes a 1980s Americana sensibility, and emphasizes the notorious Southern California light portrayed in film and television. This suite of six prints depicts the artist’s face in profile, replacing his features with an array of bright gradated color fields, distinguishing each element with sharp contours and simplified forms.
The hollow contour of his profile lies on a plain background of handmade paper, rising nearly one inch from its surface. Each of the six prints differs in its combination of colors, conveying the emblematic tones of California sunsets. The image of Israel’s profile is a distinctive motif seen in much of his work, often rendered at a large scale with airbrushed acrylic on fiberglass. This simplified rendering serves as an allusion to the filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic silhouette profile drawing as seen in the introduction of his films.
Also on view will be a new work by Abraham Cruzvillegas entitled Ichárhuta, in which he takes the object of currency and draws attention to the printed imagery and cultural symbols, rather than to its monetary value. This work depicts two 50 Peso bills as opposing forms. One bill lies flat and is seen in its entirety, while the other is folded into the shape of a boat, an important image depicted on the bill itself. By transfiguring raw materials into something entirely new, Cruzvillegas considers the necessity of reuse and adaptation, as well as the powerful influence of the ecological, cultural, and social environment on one’s sense of self and community.
In John Baldessari’s new series of prints, Eight Colorful Inside Jobs, he simplifies shapes to their most essential elements: line, form, and color. Here he considers the underlying structure of representational imagery, and the abundance of these motifs in the world. He achieves dimensionality and the illusion of perspective through the three-dimensional structure of the paper, and boldly identifies the colors along the bottom edge of each print. This series recalls Baldessari’s short film Six Colorful Inside Jobs from 1977, in which a professional painter covers the entire room with a different color each day, gradually moving through the colors in the visible light spectrum. The venerable artist reflects on the cyclical nature of making work, while also moving forward in a new direction, staying true to his commitment not to “make any more boring art”.