Paula Scher: The Art of Map Design

PAU L A S C H E R

THE ART OF MAP DESIGN

Paula Scher The Art of Map Design Jim Kempner Fine Art is pleased to announce Paula Scher: The Art of Map Design, an exhibition of prints by internationally acclaimed, American-born artist Paula Scher.

The exhibition will showcase a selection of the artist’s earlier work from 2008 up to her newly released prints from this year. The exhibition will be on view from April 11th through May 19th, 2019. An opening reception for the artist will be held Thursday, April 11th, from 6-8pm.

In the early 1990s, Scher began working with maps to create her own narrative about the way she sees the world. Her father, an inventor and civil engineer, introduced her to the subject in her youth. Her interest in and creative method to map-making has become an extension of her approach to graphic design and is the culmination of a lifetime of being surrounded by maps. Scher creates eclectic and unique cartographic fields that blur the relationship between the ostensible character of utilitarian cartography and subjective artistic inventions.

For this exhibition, the maps from the last decade feature different sets of data, such as transportation flows, trade routes, climate, and population demographics. Coupled with her unique use of color, script, and scale, this use of visual data creates what she has described as being “informational and sensory overloads.” Her newly released prints from 2018 reinvigorate her interest in particular cities and allow her to aesthetically translate each city’s unique qualities through these in-depth studies. New prints include Berlin, Tokyo, Rome, and London.

Of particular interest is her newly revived World Trade Routes screenprint created in 2019, nine years after she painted the monumental piece of the same title depicting the different trade routes across the world. As a print, the work is a visual field of constant discovery. The viewer unearths details as s/he follows the routes from continent to continent, country to country, city to city. Further establishing the “informational overload” with her use of color and line, the piece is all at once hectic and serene in its intentional chaos.

Rather than allow them to be exclusively functional and practical, Scher’s maps draw from her own memory and personal experience, along with fleeting impressions from the media to demonstrate her personalized understanding of how she views the world. Scher claims that these are by no means “accurate maps.” They are, above all, “paintings of distortion,” selective information, and ultimately our reality.

Known for her role as the first female principal and partner at Pentagram Design, Paula Scher has also been one of the most influential figures in graphic design for over four decades. She has cultivated a long career in developing identity and branding systems for a broad range of clients throughout the world. Described as the “master conjurer of the instantly familiar,” her graphic identities for Citibank and Tiffany & Co. have become case studies for the contemporary regeneration of American brands while her work for clients such as Bloomberg, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Shake Shack, the Museum of Modern Art, the High Line and the Metropolitan Opera, to name a few, showcase her uncanny ability to fuse high and low and broaden the potential of graphic design to straddle the line of pop culture and fine art. Scher’s highly influential work for The Public Theater in the mid-1990s and her recent episode-length feature on Netflix’s Abstract: The Art of Design series released in 2017 have only further cemented her as a household name and pioneer of the field.

Scher was born in 1948 in Virginia and grew up in Washington D.C.. She studied design at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia before moving to New York City in 1970. She began her career as an art director and has been a principal at the Pentagram design firm at the New York office since 1991. During the course of her career, Scher has been the recipient of hundreds of industry honors and awards including the National Design Award and AIGA Medal. In 2006, she was named to the Public Design Commission of the City of New York and was awarded the Type Director’s Club Medal, the first woman to receive the prize. In addition to an even longer list of positions and honors, Scher’s work has been exhibited all over the world and is represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York; the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Denver Art Museum; the Victoria Albert Museum, London; the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Scher is also featured in episode six of the first season of “Abstract: The Art of Design,” the Netflix documentary series about leading figures in design and architecture.

Manhattan at Night, 2008.

Hand-pulled screenprint.

60 x 33 1/2�. Edition 90.

Rome, 2018.

Silkscreen.

48 x 40”. Edition 150.

The United States (Red), 2007.

Hand-pulled screenprint.

43 1/2 x 60”. Edition 15.

The United States (Blue), 2007.

Screenprint.

43 1/2 x 60�. Edition 15.

USA Distances, 2019.

Screenprint.

39 3/4 x 56�. Edition 150.

U.S. Airline Routes, 2014.

Acrylic on hand-pulled screenprint.

36 3/4 x 54 1/8�.

China, 2008.

Hand-pulled screenprint.

41 x 49�. Edition 90.

The Dark World, 2006.

Hand-pulled screenprint.

45 1/2 x 60�. Edition 25.

NYC Transit, 2008.

Hand-pulled screenprint.

60 x 33”. Edition 90.

Paris, 2012.

Screenprint.

40 x 41”. Edition 60.

India, 2010.

Screenprint.

44 x 40 1/2”. Edition 60.

Tokyo, 2018.

Screenprint.

42 x 40 3/4”. Edition 150.

Berlin, 2018.

Screenprint.

39 1/4 x 49 3/4�. Edition 150.

London, 2018.

Screenprint.

40 x 48�. Edition 150.

JIM KEMPNER FINE ART Jim Kempner Fine Art specializes in contemporary paintings, sculpture, photography, and works on paper, with a special emphasis on contemporary master prints and outdoor sculpture. Our inventory appeals to the established as well as beginning collector. We work closely with art advisors, designers, corporations and museums to expand and enrich their varied collections.

Located in the heart of Chelsea, the gallery’s three story modernist-inspired structure designed by architects Smith & Thompson boasts one of the few outdoor sculpture gardens in New York City, and is included in a number of books about contemporary architecture.

Our inventory includes work by Donald Baechler, John Baldessari, Louise Bourgeois, Christo, Chuck Close, Richard Diebenkorn, Jim Dine, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Spencer Finch, Jane Hammond, David Hockney, Howard Hodgkin, Jasper Johns, Deborah Kass, Alex Katz, Ellsworth Kelly, William Kentridge, Jeff Koons, Robert Mangold, Robert Motherwell (Jim Kempner Fine Art represents the Dedalus Foundation, Robert Motherwell’s print archive, in New York), Sol Lewitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Longo, Elizabeth Peyton, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Ed Ruscha, Paula Scher, Sean Scully, Frank Stella, Donald Sultan, Wayne Thiebaud, Andy Warhol and others.

Among the contemporary artists whose work we represent are Robert Attanasio, Christopher Beane, Stanley Casselman, Long Bin Chen, Eduardo del Valle and Mirta Gómez, Rinaldo Frattolillo, Gianfranco Gorgoni, John Grande, John Henry, Charlie Hewitt, Jay Kelly, Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese, Jerry Mischak, David Mitchell, Craig Norton, Greg Parker, Robert Petersen, Randy Regier, Tom Slaughter, Pal Svensson and Boaz Vaadia.

Formerly a private dealer, Jim Kempner opened his gallery, Jim Kempner Fine Art, at its present location in the fall of 1997. Dru Arstark has been the gallery director since 1998 and Sarah Bielicky has been the associate director since 2011. Jim Kempner has published prints by Rinaldo Frattolillo, Charlie Hewitt, Robert Indiana, Paula Scher, Bernar Venet, in addition to Gianfranco Gorgoni’s photographs of Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty. Other publications include Ligorano/Reese’s Line Up portfolio, Untitled 2001 silkscreen, and the DEMOCRACY lightbox, made in collaboration with gallery director Dru Arstark, under the name Madness of Art Editions. Additionally, he has published his first editioned print, Apocryphal Now, in 2014.

501 West 23rd Street

On Front: World Trade Routes, 2019.

Screenprint.

35 1/4 x 60”. Edition 150.

New York, NY 10011 212-206-6872 info@jimkempner.com jimkempnerfineart.com Jim Kempner Fine Art

@jimkempnerfineart

@JimKempnerFA

Above: Detail of World Trade Routes, 2019.

Screenprint.

35 1/4 x 60”. Edition 150.