Random Search: Mining the Archives of Tamarind Institute

RANDOM SEARCH

M IN IN G THE ARCHIVES OF TAMARIND IN STITUTE

GUEST-CURATED BY LOWERY STOKES SIMS

LOWERY STOKES SIMS in the workshop during her curatorial residency, 2017.

INTRODUCTION This selection of work from the archives of Tamarind Institute can indeed be described as a free-wheeling exploration of images done over the last four decades of the Institute’s history. It was executed under the aegis of the first curatorial residency at the Institute, and while the choice from such a large body of work would seem daunting, the curator could rely on the digital archives of the Institute to conduct a thorough and compulsive review.

The focus on figural work was merely a matter of personal predilection and the wish to be as unencumbered by theoretical or critical concerns such as style, gender or race, although these issues emerge naturally from the selection process. The idea was to assemble, within the spatial limits available, a selection that featured artists known and lesser known but who from the curator’s point of view had a vision that was compelling.

The human body continues to be a rich mine of opportunity and in terms of process, it was clear as the preliminary selection was followed by an actual viewing of work in the archives, that certain visual relations revealed themselves and enriched the totality of the visual presentation.

It is hoped that this offering is received in the spirit in which it was created: pugnaciously with a gleaning impulse.

—Lowery Stokes Simms

* Denotes prints included in the gallery exhibition at Tamarind Institute (August 24, 2018 - January 4, 2019)

CORPUS DELICTI The title of this section was inspired by that of the Exquisite Corpse suite published by Tamarind Institute, that brought together prints done by artists over a number of years, and indeed several works from that suite are included here.

That the images in this section represent literally crimes against humanity, demonstrating the impulse to deconstruct the human form, evoking animal avatars, hybrids with other species, and extreme expressionism where line and color convulse to create quasi monstrous apparitions. Known for his highly embellished masquerade suits known as Sound Suits, Nick Cave seems to deconstruct and redistribute heads, limbs and the cornucopia of costume in Amalgam. Gendron Jensen’s bear breasted image brings the surrealist paranoid critical approach to this representation of a woman’s torso, painstakingly drawn from elements from reorganized skeletal joints.

The specter of interspecies mating or miscued cell organization is seen in Elena Climent’s Untitled lithograph where a clawed animal limb peeks from under a flounced petticoat and skirt along with a booted human foot. Antonio Frasconi presents a militaristic figure that resembles a superannuated samurai.

George McNeil’s Philadelphia Woman and David Humphrey’s Reverie, executed 20 years later, seem to be distinct from one another, with McNeil’s extreme expression, crude textured and grimacing form, and the more Dali-esque apparition of Humphrey’s more photographic realism with surrealist elements.

The precisely described head of a woman hovers for her transparent linearly defined body that intersects with a figure of a man lying expectantly on the bed, while a nude woman and her suited and hatted companion walk away from this scene.

Alison Saar’s Equinox and Jorge Pineda’s Crucifixion present a body that is pierced through, and another where milk and blood flowing from the breasts of mirror images of a woman symbolize the fertility of the earth. The excruciating character of the Pineda is enacted in extremis by the figure in the Connor Everts, where an essence of fear has materialized and raises up from the body lying prostrate in prayer or avoidance. Mike Nevelson conjures a skeletal figure covered by a veil whose footprints flank it as if they were some incredible fossils found in the desert.

NICK CAVE* Amalgam (brown), 2015 Four-color lithograph 32.5 x 22 inches Collaborating Printer: Bill Lagattuta Edition of 95 Published by Tamarind Institute

GENDRON JENSEN* bear breasted, 2014 Single-color lithograph 8.5 x 11.2 inches Collaborating Printer: Bill Lagattuta Edition of 45 From the Exquisite Corpse suite Published by Tamarind Institute

ANTONIO FRASCONI (Uruguayan-American, born Argentina, 1919 – 2013) Franco II (Oda a Lorca X), 1962 Single-color lithograph 31 x 22.25 inches Collaborating printer: Bohuslav Horak Edition of 20 Published by Tamarind Lithography Workshop (American, founded Los Angeles, 1960-1969) The Tamarind Archive Collection, University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque Image courtesy Geistlight Photography

ELENA CLIMENT* Untitled, 2001 Single-color lithograph 8.5 x 11 inches Collaborating printer: Bill Lagattuta Edition of 45 From the Exquisite Corpse suite Published by Tamarind Institute

GEORGE MCNEIL* Philadelphia Woman, 1976 Four-color lithograph 30 x 22 inches Collaborating printer: William Masi Edition of 70 Published by Tamarind Institute

DAVID HUMPHREY* Reverie, 1996 Six-color lithograph 29.88 x 22.38 inches Collaborating printer: Frank Janzen Edition of 12 Published by Tamarind Institute

ALISON SAAR* Equinox, 2012 Five-color lithograph 48 x 16 inches Collaborating printer: Kellie Hames Edition of 16 Published by Tamarind Institute

JORGE PINEDA* Crucifixion, 1995 Two-color lithograph 13 x 33 inches Collaborating printer: Paul Croft Edition of 30 Published by Tamarind Institute

MIKE NEVELSON (American, b. 1922)* I Had a Dream, 1970 Single-color lithograph 20 x 30 inches Collaborating printer: John Butke Edition of 8 (Proof H) Published by Tamarind Institute (American, established Albuquerque, 1970) The Tamarind Archive Collection, University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque Image courtesy Geistlight Photography

CONNOR EVERTS Two Faces of Fear, 1960 Lithograph 31 x 23 inches Collaborating printer: Joe Funk Edition of 20 Tamarind Lithography Workshop (American, founded Los Angeles, 1960-1969) The Tamarind Archive Collection, University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque

PERSONIFICATIONS The head is a powerful signifier of humanity. It conveys characteristics that mark an individual, and provides the basic elements that can be extracted to create masks that are as symbolic as they are ritualistic.

The works in this selection allow us to contemplate how the act of portrayal by various artists can find a myriad of solutions. Toyin Ojih Odutola’s Birmingham only allows us to glimpse the identity of her subject by his profile seen from his back. She flecks the surface of his skin with gestures of which exaggerate the light/dark contrast of the surface of the skin. Here also the white undershirt assumes an unusually prominent role as the artist carefully articulates the piping around the neck and armholes and the lines of the texture of the shirt. In contrast, Robert Pruitt’s Untitled portrait also presents profile view in three quarters, and as Odutola’s subject looks downward Pruitt’s looks upward. Her regal aspect is enhanced by the lush velvet peaked hat.

Raphael Ferrer’s The Face That Failed wryly comments on the deliberatly clumsy, even cartoon quality of the depiction. On the other hand, Rufino Tamayo’s Profile of a Man recruits a visual repertoire that is as cubistic as it is mechanistic. The legacy of Meso American masking traditions undoubtedly also lurks behind this apparition.

RAPHAEL FERRER The Face That Failed, 1974 Single-color lithograph 21 x 15 inches Collaborating printer: James Reed Edition of 10 Published by Tamarind Institute

In light of our current preoccupation with preserving identity information, facial, voice and iris recognition have joined fingerprinting as ways to insure that protection. June Wayne would seem to conflate recognition of facial features with fingerprinting in her Visa Monday lithograph. The result is an eerie image of a head emerging from the whirls of a fingerprint.

Nathan Oliveira’s Black Christ II seems to get its color as much from a tight stocking-like disguise as from any racial overtones.

RUFINO TAMAYO (Mexican, 1899 – 1991) Profile of a Man, 1964 Lithograph, Tamarind Impression 22 x 18 inches Edition of 20 Collaborative printer: Joe Zirker Published by Tamarind Lithography Workshop (American, founded Los Angeles, 1960-1969) The Tamarind Archive Collection, University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque Image courtesy Geistlight Photography

TOYIN OJIH ODUTOLA* Birmingham (right), 2014 Four-color lithograph with gold leaf 24 x 16.5 inches Collaborating printer: Justin Andrews Edition of 20 Published by Tamarind Institute

ROBERT PRUITT* Untitled, 2014 Three-color lithograph 5.5 x 12.75 inches Collaborating printer: Bill Lagattuta Edition of 20 Published by Tamarind Institute

JUNE WAYNE* Visa Monday, 1976 Seven-color lithograph 30 x 22 inches Collaborating printer: Edward Hamilton Edition of 70 From Suite Fifteen Published by Tamarind Institute

NATHAN OLIVEIRA (American, 1928 – 2010) Black Christ II, 1963 Two-color lithograph 30 x 23 inches Collaborating printer: Aris Koutroulis Edition of 20, Tamarind Impression Published by Tamarind Institute The Tamarind Archive Collection, University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque Image courtesy Geistlight Photography

ROBERT PRUITT* People’s Party II, 2014 Two-color lithograph 40 x 30.13 inches Collaborating Printer: Maria Erikson Edition of 20 Published by Tamarind Institute

SAINTS AND SINNERS The juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane was a favorite subject of the Italian Renaissance. The famed painting Sacred and Profane Love by the Venetian Master Titian turned the usual associations of purity and profanity on their head: in his painting the Sacred revels in her guilelessness without the trapping of worldly adornments which bind the Profane to the consequences of her need for material goods. We can contemplate this idea as we consider the grouping of images by Ellen Chavez de Leitner, Nick Abdalla and Françoise Gilot. Visually connected by the artists’ common use of red, white and blue, we contemplate the patron saint of musicians who holds a violin and a laurel branch, as the Holy Ghost, in the form of a dove, showers her with sanctity.

Abdalla’s brazen version of a beauty queen, representing the United States, seems straight out of a strip club as she confronts us, bare-breasted, hand on hip, wearing a thong with a flag irreverently draped over her shoulder. The Gilot shows a chic apparition at the lower right, while another figure strikes a pose before commencing her act. All this is set against an abstract design of circles, radiant shapes and rectangles.

A second set of images in this section explore African-based religious imagery.

As seen in Sidney Amaral’s The Song for Ogum, the orisha Ogun—associated with metal and war—tends a fire, with a stringed instrument, the berimbau, slung over his shoulder. The rhythm of the berimbau, accompanies the moves of the capoeira, a formalized form of martial combat—again a subterfuge to get around interdictions against fighting. To convey his astral status he seems to be on a planetary body with the earth in the background. José Bedia represents another aspect of Ogun, related to Cuban practice, where he is seen smoking, and holds a knife in one hand, flanked by two gourds marked with plants and a skull, and significantly surmounted by an anvil and horseshoe. The graphic quality of the Bedia alludes to the symbolic diagrams that often accompany ceremonies of the Afro-Cuban religion Lucumí. The untitled image in this grouping by Hung Liu seems non-denominational, but the pointed endings of the folds of the wings often suggest the devil.

ELLEN CHAVEZ DE LEITNER* Santa Cecilia, 1998 Four-color lithograph 24 x 18 inches Collaborating printer: Karen Beckwith Edition of 30 From the Shared Traditions suite Published by Tamarind Institute

FRANÇOISE GILOT At the Circus, 1975 Three-color lithograph 32 x 25 inches Collaborating printer: Stephen Britko and John Sommers Edition of 25 Published by Tamarind Institute

NICK ABDALLA Ms. America, 1973 Four-color lithograph 30 x 22 inches Collaborating printer: Harry Westlund Edition of 22 Published by Tamarind Instutute

SIDNEY AMARAL* The Song for Ogum, 2012 Five-color lithograph 25 x 19 inches Collaborating Printer: Kellie Hames Edition of 16 Published by Tamarind Institute

HUNG LIU* Untitled, 2000 Two-color lithograph 8.5 x 11 inches Collaborating printer: Ernestine White Edition of 45 From the Exquisite Corpse suite Published by Tamarind Institute

JOSÉ BEDIA* Oggun-Sarabanda - Senor del Hierro, 2002 Single-color lithograph 22 x 30.38 inches Collaborating Printer: Bill Lagattuta Edition of 15 Published by Tamarind Institute

INTIMACIES In the way that art has since time immemorial provided us with a glimpse into private lives at private moments, the works in these selections harvest various stylistic approaches to depicting the body and allow us to indulge in a sanctioned voyeurism. A set of images by Robert Colescott, Margo Humphrey and Leon Golub parse the intricacies of relationships: passionate but imprisoning (Lock and Key (State 1 and 2)), inevitable but unresolved (The Lady and the Tiger) and combative (Combat). What these images share is an individual approach to an expressionistic figuration that complements the artist’s intended content and perspective.

Untitled lithographs by Richard Diebenkorn and Charles White, and Jan Stussy’s Boxed Man examine the body from dramatic points of view and in contorted positions. Diebenkorn eschews an opportunity for us to relate to the figure in his head and uses the figure’s arm bent over the head to provide a counterbalance to the line of the leg and bedding. White moves from his characteristically centralized and iconic images to present two nude figures seen from above. Again this focus on anonymity directs our visual attention to the mirror image that the two figures present, and the curvilinear pattern of the rib cages, knob of their knees and the grip of the hands around the heads.

We can reflect on the complementary relationship between realism and abstraction as we consider the figures composed of lozenge-shaped forms in Nick Abdalla’s Mirror Series/ Night Walker and the evocative elements that conjure mechanical and skeletal forms In Richard Hunt’s Untitled assembled in a vaguely humanoid form.

Finally in Shadow Interior, Michael Mazur superimposes images on silhouettes of a figure that mirrors itself on both sides. In the center, one image captures an intimate window scene as if that figure carries that memory within itself.

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ROBERT COLESCOTT* Lock and Key (State I), 1989 Nine-color lithograph 42 x 30 inches Collaborating printer: Eric Katter Edition of 20 Published by Tamarind Institute

ROBERT COLESCOTT* Lock and Key (State II), 1989 Ten-color lithograph 42 x 30 inches Collaborating printer: Eric Katter Edition of 15 Published by Tamarind Institute

MARGO HUMPHREY* The Lady and the Tiger, 1985 Four-color lithograph 22 x 30.31 inches Collaborating printer: Brian Haberman Edition of 40 Published by Tamarind Institute

LEON GOLUB (American, 1922 – 2004)* Combat, 1965 Lithograph, Tamarind Impression 41.25 x 29.75 inches The Tamarind Archive Collection, University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque Published by Tamarind Lithography Workshop (American, founded Los Angeles, 1960-1969) Image courtesy Geistlight Photography

RICHARD DIEBENKORN (American, 1922 – 1993) Untitled, 1961 Lithograph, Tamarind Impression 15 x 20 inches Published by Tamarind Lithography Workshop (American, founded Los Angeles, 1960-1969) The Tamarind Archive Collection, University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque Image courtesy Geistlight Photography

JAN STUSSY Boxed Man in a Box, 1970 Single-color lithograph 22 x 28ž inches Collaborating printer: Ed Hamilton Edition of 20 Published by Tamarind Institute

CHARLES WHITE (African-American, 1918 – 1979)* Untitled, 1970 Single-color lithograph 37 x 25 inches Collaborating printer: Gene Sturman Edition of 20 Published by Tamarind Lithography Workshop (American, founded Los Angeles, 1960-1969) The Tamarind Archive Collection, University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque Image courtesy Geistlight Photography

NICK ABDALLA* Mirror Series/Night Walker, 1980 Four-color lithograph 29 x 20 inches Collaborating printer: Catherine Kisch Kuhn Edition of 50 Published by Tamarind Institute Courtesy the artist

RICHARD HUNT Untitled, 1965 Four-color lithograph 17 x 17 inches Collaborating printer: Kenneth Tyler Edition of 20 Published by Tamarind Lithography Workshop

MICHAEL MAZUR Shadow Interior, 1968 Single-color lithograph 23 x 35 inches Collaborating printer: Jean Milant Edition of 20 Published by Tamarind Lithography Workshop

INDIAN/NOT INDIAN Images of Native Americans have been particularly fraught and the dichotomy has always existed between images created by individuals outside Native American context and those created by Native Americans themselves. Over the last few years in particular questions have arisen in many communities about who owns the images of the bodies and the historical narrative of a given community? Can those images be appropriated and used by individuals outside those communities? When are appropriations artistic freedom and when is it censorship to call for removing images that a community finds disturbing?

In this grouping images by H. C. Westermann, Nick Abdalla and Lesley Dill have been paired with those of Chris Pappan (Osage, Kaw, Cheyenne River Lakota Sioux), Fritz Scholder (Luiseùo), and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation) and have been chosen for their divergent and complementary images of Native Americans. Pappan’s Kansas Gold expresses a state of twoness which could reflect cultural experience, ancestral heritage or sexual orientation. Westermann is provocatively satirical and plays into the glib stereotypes of Native Americans that often mark our media landscape in myriad ways. Both the Scholder and the Abdalla draw on 19th-century studio portraits of Native Americans by individuals such as Edward Curtis and Matthew Brady that NICK ABDALLA codified their status as national curiosities.

NT, 1975 Lithograph And lastly, the Dill and Quick-to-See Smith 30 x 22 inches use clothing with bird, insect and animal Collaborating Printer: Stephen Britko avatars to evoke our often forgotten Color Trial Proof/Unpublished Published by Tamarind Institute connection to the natural world.

CHRIS PAPPAN* Kansas Gold, 2013 Five-color lithograph 22.25 x 29 inches Collaborating Printer: David Dominguez Espinal Edition of 15 Published by Tamarind Institute

H. C. WESTERMANN (American, 1922 – 1981) Untitled #14 (Big Red) from the suite See America First, 1968 Two-color lithograph, state II, Tamarind Impression 30 x 21.75 inches Published by Tamarind Lithography Workshop (American, founded Los Angeles, 1960-1969) The Tamarind Archive Collection, University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque Image courtesy Geistlight Photography

FRITZ SCHOLDER* Indian with Beaded Sash, 1975 Multi-color lithograph 22 x 30 inches Edition of 70 Collaborating Printer: Glenn Brill Published by Tamarind Institute

LESLEY DILL* Hummingbird Dress, 2013 Seven color lithograph with collaged three dimensional elements 22.25 x 22.25 inches Collaborating Printer: Bill Lagattuta Edition of 15 Published by Tamarind Institute

JAUNE QUICK-TO-SEE SMITH* Eye Candy, 2006 Seven-color lithograph 30 x 22.50 inches Edition of 15 Collaborating Printers: Aaron Shipps, Brooke Steiger Published by Tamarind Institute

Photo by Robert Reck; courtesy Devendra Contractor.

Tamarind Institute, a division of the College of Fine Arts at The University of New Mexico, is a nonprofit center for fine art lithography that trains master printers and houses a professional collaborative workshop for guest artists.

Since the workshop’s founding in 1960, Tamarind’s printer training and print publishing program has set the standard in the field of collaborative printmaking around the world.

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