Study for Untitled (Google Art Noguchi Table) #3, 2014, 8.5 x 11 in, inkjet and water on archival matte finish paper
I was very happy to donate this study to the benefit auction last week for Franklin Street Works, the Stamford, CT art space where some Destroyed Richter Paintings and Shanzhai Gursky photos were in a show.
FSW had asked for furniture- or design-related works on paper. I have been trying for a couple of years to figure out how to make sense of the real-world, real object anomalies of Google Art Project panos, like the blurred out paintings, and especially the blurred out Noguchi game table [furniture!] at the Art Institute of Chicago. And I thought this would be a good opportunity to experiment, rather than simply print out the GSV image [not that there’s anything wrong with that, as Paul Soulellis’s very nice Webdriver Torso-related print demonstrates].
What mattered to me was getting the blur just right. Years ago, in the early Iris Print era, I’d seen some amazing Gabriel Orozco works–which I can’t find a trace of now–where he’d dripped and brushed water onto inkjets of lush Baroque paintings of the Madonna, dissolving the center into an abstract mess. Very non-archival, but very beautiful.
And all but unreproducible. In terms of inkjet and paper coating technology, we’ve come a long way, baby. I tried several printer & paper setups, but nothing would bleed like I wanted. Finally, in desperation, I emailed my sister, who had a clanky old [2003] desktop printer in her basement, and she printed some images for me. Even this modern paper resists staining and dissolving like the inkjets of old. After several test, though, I found if I let water sit on the paper long enough, it’d give me a blur. Study #3 was the first one to be successful enough to let out of the house. I don’t know where it went yet, but I hope it stays out of the rain.
A Benefit Auction for Franklin Street Works [paddle8]
Opening In Stamford: It Narratives, at Franklin Street Works
Previously: Google Art Institute Project
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the making of, by greg allen