Continuum (2008

Guild & Greyshkul CONTINUUM (2008)

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SARA VANDERBEEK I had admired Sarah’s work for some time but had not seen it in person until 2007 when we interviewed each other for North Drive Press. At that time, I found an opportunity to see Fear of Nothing, which to this day is my favorite piece. In one part of the work there is a glossy black void. It was like a divination mirror or a portal to the foundations of our collective psyche. The accompanying image was a still life that involved a horror vacuui mask from antiquity with primary geometric forms resting beneath it. Within this work was everything that interests me. I was enthralled and impressed. It was perfectly executed. As I looked more closely I realized—through a fine-cut edge running along the side of one of the objects—that this was a photograph of a photograph. With this succinct gesture my understanding of this work was completely shifted. It became even more remarkable. I was intimidated to meet Sarah. She had made this incredible work that did many of the things I would like my work to do but she had done it twenty years prior… As I’m walking up the stairs of her apartment on Great Jones Street, I’m thinking about this while balancing a notebook and two coffees. I get to the top, Sarah opens the door, and immediately I spill the coffee down the front of my shirt. Sarah had me take my shirt off. She removed the coffee stain—the shirt was perfect. Then we had the interview. There I was—half undressed wearing a tank top, with this graceful, attentive, and formidable woman. From that moment on I was completely in awe, and completely enamored. The project at Guild & Greyshkul came out of this and other conversations over the course of many months. I learned from Sarah’s remarkable attention to detail that making is also defining, editing and focusing. I spin around in my words, taking a lot of words to get to where I want to go. Sarah was willing to listen intently and interpret, to pull out the important points, make them succinct and ground them in theory and structure. One of the things we talked about was the inundation of images in our current visual environment—the taking and sharing hundreds of images. Sarah impressed me with her astute reading of media. We shared the belief that this abundance of imagery was strengthening the impact of contemporary photographic practices.

MATTHEW C. LANGE Guild & Greyshkul was run by Sara VanDerBeek, her brother Johannes, and Anya Kielar. They were organizing a show of six women artists, mostly younger, including Sara Greenberger Rafferty, Dana Hoey, Anya Kielar, Martha Rosler, and May Wilson—and they contacted Sarah and asked her to participate in the show. It wasn’t a Gagosian show or a Zwirner show, but it was an important moment. She was now an older artist being rediscovered by a younger generation.

SARA VANDERBEEK Each image of Figure Drawings depicts an autonomous figure—from ancient to contemporary societies in various states of being. One strength of Figure Drawings is Sarah’s arrangement of these moments together to create a larger network—which, in its movement through time, seems to be striving towards an understanding of human existence.

The day of the opening was amazing. Many of her friends and peers came, all women that I had admired gathering in one place to celebrate her, and to celebrate this continuum of creation and image-making among generations. It was a significant and lasting moment in my life.

installation view: Figure Drawings in the exhibition The Human Face is a Monument, Guild & Greyshkul, New York. Photographed by Brigitte Lacombe for The Glamour Project.

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