3D to 2D: A Group Exhibition

3D to 2D: A Group Exhibition includes work by Chris Burden, Tony Cragg, Leonardo Drew, Katsura Funakoshi, Robert Hudson, Bryan Hunt, Joan Jonas, Anish Kapoor, Tom Marioni, David Nash, Gay Outlaw, Judy Pfaff, Markus Raetz, and Richard Tuttle. Each of these artists has worked significantly in sculpture as well as printmaking and the selected prints recall some of the visual and technical aspects of sculpture.

Between 1988 and 1991, sculptor Anish Kapoor completed 23 etchings and two woodcuts at Crown Point Press. His preferred method of etching was spit bite aquatint, which yields soft tonal variations. Similar to his sculptures, Kapoor’s prints contain richly pigmented color and play with negative space. In Untitled 12, two bulbous forms fill the upper left area of the print while the rest of the space is left white, creating an abstract void. Kapoor explained in an interview that he sees the void not as “dead space” but “the space of potential… the space of possibility.”

Since the ‘70s, sculptor Judy Pfaff has been recognized for her pioneering approach to space.Her complicated installations typically take up an entire room and are made of two-and three-dimensional elements including sculptures, paintings, and prints. While at Crown Point in 1991, Pfaff made a series of six etchings inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s musings on the nature of phenomena. The print Half a Dozen of the Other -Ogni Cosa so fa Ogni Cosa contains swirling ovals, concentric circles,and intricate web-likelines, similar to sculptures that Pfaff was making at that time. Each title refers to a da Vinci quote, this one translates to“Everything connects to everything else.”

Tony Cragg’s sculptures are a synthesis of manmade and natural resources. His contortions of wood, metal, and stone are often familiar symbols inspired by the everyday, scaled up to monumental proportions. Having never made etchings before his first visit to Crown Point in 1988, Cragg approached the process with sculptural inventiveness. His print Suburbs I is astill lifeof rubber stamps that are huddled together like a group of people. Around that time, Cragg was making large sculptures of the same subject with steel, wood, and rubber. These satiric sculptures poke fun at the banality of bureaucratic tasks, emphasized by titles like Subcommittee, a 1991steel sculpture of a rack of stamps. Cragg’s print, like his sculpture, is a witty commentary on the materiality and purpose of commonplace objects.

We are welcoming one-party visits to the gallery by appointment. Please phone us at (415) 974-6273 or send an email to Valerie Wade to set up a time. Our summer hours are Monday-Friday, 9AM-5PM.