SPLITS: PRINTING | PAINTING

Hauser & Wirth is pleased to present Rita Ackermann’s latest series of paintings and prints in simultaneous exhibitions. Heralding a significant leap in her artistic practice, these prints represent a dramatic convergence of the technical processes of printmaking with Ackermann’s sustained exploration of form, movement and erasure.

May 2 - July 26, 2024

In the thick of bringing to canvas the metamorphic forms that would become the ‘Splits,’ Ackermann embarked on a new artistic endeavor, delving into the realm of printmaking. In the resultant seven large-scale silkscreens, which she produced in collaboration with master printer Keigo Takahashi, her concern with making manifest such images became imbued with a related objective: the transformation of paintings into prints, without recourse to the reproduction of a model.

Though these silkscreens diverge from the compositional principles of the ‘Splits,’ like them they probe the boundaries of optical perception. To emphasize this, the exhibition includes two recent paintings. One of these—’The Rule of Nature’ (2023)—which belongs to the ‘Splits,’ even bears the marks of Ackermann’s concern with combining monotype printing with painting.

This visual feat owes just as much to the artist’s decision to approach the making of these silkscreens as though she were working on a canvas, as to any sleight of the hand enabled by their production.

Ackermann began by layering drawings onto paper and then gradually superimposed gestural brush strokes, color stains and delicate droplets of pigment onto the underlying drawings, welcoming the occurrence of accidents through this process. This not only made the contrast between emerging and disappearing forms integral to many of her paintings visible, but also conveyed a sense of the centrifugal motion that frequently ensues in them.

As such, those who contemplate these first silkscreens by the artist may well find themselves questioning whether the alleged split between printmaking and painting is, in fact, purely theoretical.

At 542 West 22nd Street, the artist will debut a suite of new canvases expanding upon the techniques, themes and imagery she has explored over the course of her career since the early 1990s, while at 443 West 18th Street she will unveil a series of complex large-scale silkscreens.