#unexpected surfaces

Cai Guo-Qiang frequently works with volatile substances, creating “explosion images” by covering paper with gun powder and setting off a controlled blast in order to create a pattern on the sheet. Here he has replicated this technique with an equally unlikely material—printed reproductions of postage stamps depicting peonies, a traditional floral symbol of China. On view in "Unexpected Surfaces" through August 5. 

Though Robert Rauschenberg was inspired by discarded boxes, he did not use these found boxes for this work. Instead, he painstakingly recreated the labels, tears, and creases in the original boxes as screenprints and applied them to fresh cardboard. The illusion created by Rauschenberg is so successful that it is only under careful examination that it becomes apparent that this is a reproduction of mass-produced packaging materials. See this work in "Unexpected Surfaces," now on view. 

Mark Tobey’s work was deeply influenced by Eastern religions and calligraphy. He studied Zen Buddhism and spent time at a monastery in Kyoto. His repetitive, meditative, abstract marks are often referred to as “dense” because they bring the abstract expressionist concept of an all over composition to the extreme, and that is definitely visible in this work on view in "Unexpected Surfaces." 

Using basic drawing materials—ballpoint pen, pencil, pastel, charcoal—in her artistic practice, Ojih Odutola often explores the representation of skin as a surface and as a social marker of identity. Here, she chose a pencil to render the prismatic skin of her subject. Working on black paper, she blended and shaded the graphite to create a silvery patchwork of textures and tones on the figure’s upper torso and face. “I’ve always felt the portrait is an occasion for marks to happen. I’ve never viewed the portrait as about the sitter.” Odutola’s shining compositions reimagine the genre of portraiture.  See this work in “Unexpected Surfaces” now on view through August 5. 

At the end of his life, John Cage created a series of drawings composed from edible plants that were part of his macrobiotic diet. In theory, this assemblage could be cooked and eaten.  In selecting natural materials and processing them into a flat, paper-like sheet, Cage demonstrates how atypical materials can transform a base layer into a work of art itself. On view in "Unexpected Surfaces." 

Born in the Philippines, Alfonso Ossorio immigrated to the United States where he was deeply embedded in the post-war New York art scene, and became closely associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement—counting Jackson Pollock as a friend and influence. In honor of AAPI Heritage Month, we celebrate his contributions to the field of modern art.

See this work in "Unexpected Surfaces" now on view. 

ʺI sometimes think that there is nothing but time, that what you see and what you feel is what time looks like at the moment.ʺ —Paul Thek

For a quarter century Paul Thek's art was concerned with time, dwelling on subjects such as clocks, newspapers, calendars, and astronomical phenomena that symbolized the mysteries of the human condition.

See this work on view in our installation "Unexpected Surfaces."

Listening Post

Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen