Woodcuts now
Baltimore Museum of Art, US
www.artbma.org
This exhibition highlights a selection of monumental woodcuts that show how contemporary artists are taking the oldest form of printmaking into new directions. Examples include Christiane Baumgartner’s diptych Allee I and Allee II, where film stills are painstakingly recreated as woodcuts by rendering two negative images of trees and a road through a system of irregularly carved horizontal bands. Sculptor Mel Kendrick creates abstract compositions by assembling plywood cutouts—each piece distinguished by its wood grain and tool marks—on the printing press. Alison Saar uses woodcuts to re-evaluate her multi-media sculpture in a two-dimensional form, and Richard Bosman exploits jagged edges, bold forms, and strong contrasts of light and dark for his ambiguous scenarios. Other artists featured are Sanford Biggers, Chuck Close, and Matthias Mansen.
Artist Lecture: March Thursday, 25